Chapter 77: A Mind That Slices Through the Heavens (Part I)

"What should I do now? Do I just stare at the crystal ball?" Chen Fan gazed at the snowflake-filled crystal ball, momentarily at a loss.

The elder deliberately slowed his speech, saying, "Place both hands over the crystal ball. Remember, make sure to cover it tightly. In your mind, focus on the person you wish to think of. After half a minute, release your hands."

Chen Fan asked skeptically, "Is it really that simple?"

The elder raised an eyebrow. "That's all there is to it. Of course, if you could cover it with a red cloth, it would feel more ceremonial."

"Oh, come on. It's not like we're performing magic tricks. What's the point of these theatrics?" Chen Fan grumbled, yet in his mind he already pictured himself as the grand magician David Copperfield.

Rubbing his hands together, Chen Fan was eager. "Let's begin now."

To add a sense of solemnity, he gently closed his eyes and joined his hands, feeling the cold sensation spread throughout his body. Not only did he focus his thoughts, he even whispered his own name softly under his breath.

"Are you done yet? I've finished all my sunflower seeds." The elder had spat shells all over the floor and impatiently urged him.

"Huh? Is it already time?" Chen Fan opened his eyes and withdrew his hands.

"Now comes the moment to witness a miracle." With a snap of his fingers, nothing happened to the crystal ball.

The elder casually tore open another bag of sunflower seeds. "Such a drama queen. Wait a bit longer. It's your first time using this power, so it takes longer to work."

All of Chen Fan's attention was fixed on the crystal ball. He leaned in, afraid to miss any detail.

Ten seconds passed...

Half a minute passed...

A full minute passed...

Still, the crystal ball remained unchanged.

"This... This thing must be fake." Chen Fan pointed at it, challenging the elder. "Stop eating seeds and think of something, man!"

Now the elder was troubled too, scratching the back of his head. "Strange. Maybe it only works if you have tarot cards?"

If the elder weren't stuck inside the cards, Chen Fan would have jumped up and grabbed him by the neck. "Don’t you have any sense of responsibility for your own words? Do you realize I spent fifty bucks on this crystal ball? Fifty dollars!"

The elder packed away his seeds and began to analyze seriously. "I do have a sense of things, but accidents happen, don’t they? I suppose that's what's happening now. Ah, such bad luck."

Chen Fan quietly lit up his phone, looking disgusted. "Forget it. I'll just treat it as a souvenir. I might as well just play with my phone."

Just as he lay down, the crystal ball suddenly emitted a dim white glow, reminiscent of the old-fashioned chandeliers of the eighties and nineties: flickering, unsteady, and making the room feel unsettling.

"Holy crap, it's reacting!" Chen Fan's heart jumped as he sat upright, bringing the crystal ball close.

The elder kindly suggested, "Um... I think you'd better hold it farther away. No need to get so close."

Chen Fan dismissed him, pressing the ball almost to his nose, his eyes crossed in concentration. "You don’t understand. The closer you are, the more details you can see."

"No, what I mean is—"

"Holy hell, what is this bizarre light?"

The faint glow grew ever brighter, until it seemed to explode like a supernova. A dazzling white flash lit up the entire dormitory, spilling out to illuminate half the darkness outside. Poor Chen Fan felt as if dozens of flashbangs had gone off before him, blinding even titanium alloy dog eyes.

The elder was prepared: he had set a basin of water on the floor and donned five pairs of sunglasses to witness the spectacle.

"I told you to hold it farther away, but you wouldn't listen. Fortunately, the light is just blinding and won't actually damage your vision." The elder stacked the sunglasses on his forehead like a tower, grinning.

Chen Fan rubbed his eyes, blinking furiously. The moment he met the intense light up close, his entire world had turned white.

"Damn it, can't you say the most important thing first? With light this strong, you'd get blinded even with your eyes shut." After several minutes, Chen Fan managed to recover a little.

The elder urged, "Hurry up, the first image is about to appear."

"What do you mean by that? There are going to be several images?" Chen Fan tensed, not daring to relax, squinting as he stared.

The crystal ball's core slowly projected a holographic image into the air above it, the outlines gradually forming into a scene before Chen Fan's eyes.

"What in the world is this? A knight? A castle? Is there a princess too?"

Thankfully, it wasn't an abstract painting; Chen Fan didn't have to worry about hidden meanings. The artwork depicted what seemed to be a medieval setting: a knight clad in armor, fully armed, stood upright beneath a castle. There was no princess atop the walls, only fallow fields below and distant, rolling mountains.

"My god, what does this mean? A knight and a castle—am I destined to live alone?" At first glance, there wasn't much in the image, and Chen Fan couldn't make sense of it.

"Finished looking? This image is fading," the elder warned, noticing the colors growing paler.

"Well, you could say I'm done, but then again, maybe not. Some details might reveal themselves later," Chen Fan muttered, his eyes scanning for overlooked elements.

The elder snorted, jumped onto Chen Fan's head, and knocked him. "Are you an idiot? Use your phone and take a picture while you can still see it!"

"Damn, I didn't know you could do that! Why didn't you say so sooner?"

Chen Fan hurriedly pulled out his phone to snap photos, but at first he had the wrong camera on, resulting in a few accidental selfies. By the time he got it right, most of the image had already faded.

"It'll have to do. At least I can still see most of it," he said to console himself.

"Idiot, stop waxing sentimental. The second image is about to appear," the elder grumbled, baffled by Chen Fan's constant melodrama.

"Oh, I know this one—the legend of the golden apple." Chen Fan's knowledge of history finally came in handy; he instantly recognized the scene from ancient Greek mythology.

Three beautiful women of distinct styles surrounded a man, arguing over the ownership of the golden apple. The difference was that the protagonist wasn’t the shepherd Paris, but rather a shabby scholar, an armful of ancient bamboo scrolls tucked under his arm.

The bizarre East-West fusion left Chen Fan with a strong sense of dissonance.

"What does this mean? Do I have to go abroad to find a wife? Or maybe I need to plant apple trees if I ever hope to get married?" Chen Fan's train of thought lagged behind; his brain cells seemed insufficient.

He didn’t rush, snapping a picture to record the scene, planning to review it later and piece together the story bit by bit.

"To know one's fate is no easy matter, let alone to master it," Chen Fan sighed.