Chapter 119: Rekka: You're Destined to Clash with the Surname Yu
"Your turn." Rekka's head swiveled, his gaze landing squarely on Jingliu. He fanned himself with a lazy, deliberate motion. "My, my. This one has an even more overwhelming murderous aura. Such fierce eyes… I predict that one day, you might have a little… 'Mara-struck' fit. Just a small one. Running around, slashing people with your sword, that sort of thing. And you'll lose your memory from time to time afterward, perhaps even be mistaken for a common blind woman on the street."
Jingliu's expression remained a mask of ice, but the hand resting on her sword hilt tightened ever so slightly. A single, perfectly sculpted eyebrow rose in silent, chilling question.
"Ah, and this one," Rekka continued, his fan now pointing toward Yingxing. "You look like you'll live the longest. The most… enduring of them all."
Yingxing simply stared back, his brow furrowed in blatant skepticism.
"Oh, now here's a promising one! Looks like he can shoulder great responsibilities." Rekka's fan dipped in Jing Yuan's direction. "You're definitely a future General."
Finally, his gaze fell upon Bai Heng. He clicked his tongue, a theatrical look of pity crossing his features. "Oh boy… tsk, tsk, tsk. And then there's you. You look… sigh, how should I put this… a life lived with a resounding echo. That's all I can say."
"Finished with the fortunes?" Dan Feng asked, his voice cool and even.
"Finished. I'm leaving." With a final, dramatic flourish, Rekka snapped his fan shut and tucked it into his wide sleeve. He gave his rear a perfunctory pat, dislodging imaginary dust, and pivoted on his heel to depart. Rozaliya and Liliya, who had been standing by silently, fell into step on his left and right. The trio walked away with decisive steps, not once looking back.
"Hey—you're leaving just like that?" Bai Heng called out from behind them. "Fine if you don't want money, but won't you even have a drink of water?"
"No money, no water, no food, and no name left behind!" Rekka's voice floated back, accompanied by a dismissive wave of his hand.
Jing Yuan stood rooted to the spot, watching as the young man in the long robe turned into a narrow alleyway and vanished from sight within a few steps.
Strange. Why did that person feel so familiar?
"Interesting," Dan Feng murmured, his eyes fixed on the empty alley.
"What's so interesting?" Yingxing scoffed, his arms crossed. "That guy was just spouting a bunch of mystical nonsense. 'Mara-struck' fits, blind people, and saying I'll live the longest… I think he's just a charlatan street performer."
"He didn't take any money," Jing Yuan reminded him.
"That makes him even more suspicious," Yingxing retorted.
"Hey, Lord High Elder," Bai Heng said, leaning conspiratorially toward Dan Feng. "What made you suddenly want him to tell your fortune, anyway?"
Dan Feng remained silent for a moment, his gaze still lost in the direction Rekka had disappeared. "It's nothing. I just felt… there was something indescribable about him."
"What thing?"
"I can't quite put my finger on it." Dan Feng finally withdrew his gaze, a flicker of confusion in his eyes.
A sudden gust of wind swept through the street, swirling a few fallen leaves around their feet.
"Even though that person talked like a madman… I can't help but feel something was odd about it all," Jing Yuan mused, turning to the others. "What do you all think?"
"A mouth full of nonsense," Yingxing declared.
The others nodded in agreement, ready to dismiss the encounter as a run-in with a harmless lunatic. They turned to continue on their way.
But just as they took a few steps, they ran into Rekka again, standing further down the street as if he'd been waiting for them.
He stood tall, his voice suddenly booming with the gravitas of an oracle. "One shall rise as a Heavenly General to guard the Xianzhou! One has but little time left and will be reincarnated! One shall leave the Alliance to hunt across the sea of stars! One shall board the Astral Express to travel the four corners! And one shall cycle through samsara endlessly, with life eternal…!"
After loudly reciting the fates he knew so well from a life long past, Rekka vanished in a flash of movement too quick to follow. As he disappeared from their sight, Rozaliya and Liliya also faded away without a sound, as if they were never there at all.
A heavy silence fell over the group.
"He wasn't a fortune teller," Dan Feng said, his voice low and heavy. He had remembered something.
"Oh? What is it?" Jing Yuan asked.
"...Because those clothes belong to me."
Bai Heng blinked. "Are you sleep-deprived? The fabric of that man's clothes looked decent, but the style was nothing like what you usually wear."
"Yeah," Yingxing added. "And even if they were your clothes, how did he steal them? Did he sneak into your residence and swipe them while you were bathing?"
"It's not what I usually wear," Dan Feng clarified, shaking his head. "Those are… ceremonial robes. For special occasions. They're usually kept at the very bottom of a chest."
A new wave of disbelief washed over them.
"So, not only is this guy a charlatan, but he's also a light-fingered thief?" Bai Heng exclaimed. "To be able to sneak into the High Elder's residence unnoticed, swipe a set of clothes, and then have the gall to wear them out in the open to tell our fortunes…"
"I didn't see how he escaped," Jingliu said, her eyes narrowed to slits. Her warrior's senses had been completely fooled.
"Regardless, he's just some fellow acting all mystical. We have official business to attend to; let's not waste any more time here," Yingxing said impatiently. "He's just a thief. We'll deal with him after our business is done."
Dan Feng frowned, taking one last, long look at the alley where Rekka had vanished before finally turning away.
"I actually feel… that person looked a bit familiar," Jing Yuan murmured, lost in thought.
"Captain, are we still doing the fortune-telling?"
Rekka sat under a tree, patiently waiting for someone destined to arrive. This time, he had arrived even earlier. The person he was waiting for was a young Jing Yuan, from a time before he had even become a Cloud Knight.
"How much longer do we have to wait?" Liliya asked, peering down the street.
"He's here," Rekka said, sitting up straight.
At the end of the street, a youth was walking briskly toward them. He wore a sharp, short-sleeved outfit, a long sword hung at his waist, and his white hair was tied back in a high ponytail. He walked with an air of unshakeable confidence.
He looked exactly like the Jing Yuan of eight hundred years later, yet completely different.
Rekka stared at that young, unburdened face for two seconds, then leaned back against the tree roots and casually crossed his legs.
"Ahem." Rekka cleared his throat, adopting a sophisticated, old-fashioned tone, and called out in that direction, "Hey—white-haired young man, please wait a moment!"
The young Jing Yuan stopped in his tracks. He glanced left and right, and after confirming there were no other white-haired people around, he pointed a thumb at himself. "Are you calling me?"
"Yes, you. Come over here."
Jing Yuan hesitated for a moment but walked over anyway. He stood before Rekka, looking down as he sized up the strangely dressed young man lounging by the tree. "What is it?"
"I'll tell your fortune, free of charge," Rekka announced with a grand wave of his hand. "I don't change my name or surname; in the martial world, they call me Clumsy Little Blue. I know the past fifteen hundred years and the future fifteen hundred years. Today, I like the look of you, so I'll give you a free reading. Don't miss this chance; you won't find it elsewhere."
'This name sounds so casual,'Jing Yuan thought, amused.'Whatever, I'll just chat for a bit. If he asks for a lot of money, I just won't give it to him.'
Jing Yuan looked at him with a good-natured smile. "Alright then, why don't you tell me, what kind of fate do I have?"
"In this life," Rekka began, shaking his head with faux solemnity, "you are destined to clash with the surname Yu."
"The surname Yu?" Jing Yuan raised an eyebrow. "While there aren't that many people with that name on the Luofu, there are still plenty. How exactly do I 'clash' with them?"
"As for the specifics…" Rekka stroked his chin thoughtfully. "They will suppress you ruthlessly, perhaps make you wear a 'mask of suffering,' or pull all sorts of fancy tricks on you. But in the end, it's not to harm you. You'll just have to hold your nose and accept it."
"You're saying that in the future, I'll be manipulated by someone named Yu?"
"Not quite manipulated," Rekka corrected. "But you will know him, and you'll be utterly helpless against him."
"Helpless against him?" The young Jing Yuan repeated the phrase, his smile fading slightly. "The way you put it, it sounds like someone's going to be riding on my head in the future."
"I didn't say riding on your head, just that you'll be helpless. There's quite a big difference between those two things."
"You've got quite a fresh set of fortune-telling lines," Jing Yuan noted, intrigued despite himself. "Then tell me, who exactly is this person named Yu? If I see them in the future, can I just take a detour?" He leaned in slightly. "Since you can calculate this, there must be a way to break it, right? Like drawing a talisman or getting a luck-changing bead?"
"It can't be broken," Rekka declared flatly. "You're doomed. Just wait for it to happen."
Jing Yuan stared, his mouth slightly agape. "Wait, is this how you do business?"
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