Yan Shouyi returned to his room, reflecting on the excellent service in the city. Before long, there was another knock on the door.
“Coming, coming, I’m starving!”
The honest Yan Shouyi hurried to open the door. As he pushed it open, he saw a sister standing outside, dressed sexily and provocatively, holding a small box.
The sister had a beautiful face, heavily made up, and exuded a cheap perfume. Her eyes were full of allure. Seeing how young Yan Shouyi was, she smiled, seemingly much happier.
Yan Shouyi felt shy to make eye contact with such a seductive sister, so he politely lowered his head. What he saw was an even deeper abyss, and Yan Shouyi immediately blushed.
“Oh, little brother, I didn’t realize you were so impatient!”
The sister pushed Yan Shouyi into the room and closed the door behind them.
Yan Shouyi asked in a panic, “What are you doing? Didn’t you say it was fast food?”
The sister took off her top, revealing her slip, and gave Yan Shouyi a glare. “That’s what I am!”
Yan Shouyi was dumbfounded. Why was city fast food so different from what he imagined!
Seeing the sister starting to take off her slip, Yan Shouyi quickly stopped her, “Sister, we’ve misunderstood!”
The sister stopped and looked at Yan Shouyi suspiciously. After a moment’s hesitation, she said, “The full package is a thousand.”
“……”
Yan Shouyi covered his face and said, “Sister, I was just hungry and wanted to eat. The proprietress asked if I wanted fast food, and I didn’t know she meant…”
The sister finally understood Yan Shouyi’s meaning.
However, she didn’t rush to put on her clothes. Instead, she sat on the bed, crossed her legs, lit a cigarette, and said, “But since I’m already here, you have to pay whether you consume or not.”
Yan Shouyi cried out in his heart about his innocence. Indeed, the city folks’ schemes were too deep!
Excluding the breakfast he’d eaten today, and the cost of lodging, Yan Shouyi had less than fifty yuan left on him, which was also for tomorrow’s lodging.
But he still honestly took out all the money he had and laid it out before the sister.
The sister glanced at it and laughed, “This crumpled bit of money, are you trying to send away a beggar!”
Yan Shouyi said meekly, “I only have this much on me…”
The sister took a drag from her cigarette, thought for a moment, then smiled and extended her slender finger, drawing circles on Yan Shouyi’s chest. “Sister gives you two choices. Either you find something valuable to make up for it, or you can serve sister today. Sister serves those greasy old men all day and hasn’t tasted the flavor of fresh young meat!”
“Ah… this…”
Yan Shouyi couldn’t help but take two steps back.
He just wanted to fill his stomach.
How did he end up being a male prostitute??
Even though this sister had some beauty and the charm of a mature woman, Yan Shouyi still held onto his principles.
He decisively said, “I choose the first one!”
“Tch!”
The sister gave Yan Shouyi a displeased look, retracted her hand unhappily, and continued to smoke.
Yan Shouyi’s worn-out bag was placed by the head of the bed, stuffed full. Yan Shouyi rummaged through it for a long time, only to find that there wasn’t a single item he could give the sister.
Just then, the sister noticed a delicate wooden bird on the other side of the bed.
She became interested. “Your wooden bird is quite nice. Give it to me, and I’ll serve you for free once.”
Unexpectedly, Yan Shouyi reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. He quickly pounced on the bed, hugged the wooden bird to his chest, and shook his head vigorously, “No, it’s very meaningful to me, I absolutely cannot give it to you!”
“If you don’t want to give it, fine, why such a big reaction!” The sister pouted, finding Yan Shouyi to be a blockhead.
Right, looking at him, he was clearly a country bumpkin who had just arrived in the city.
However, the sister didn’t discriminate against rural people, as she herself was from the countryside. It was just too difficult to establish herself in the city, otherwise, she wouldn’t be doing this line of work.
Yan Shouyi thought for a moment and said, “Sister, I can read fortunes. How about I read your fortune for you!”
“You’re fooling ghosts!” The sister first mocked Yan Shouyi, then suddenly laughed, “But I’m idle anyway, how do you want to read it? Do you want me to take off my clothes for you to see?”
Yan Shouyi’s complexion, which had just returned to normal, instantly flushed red again.
He lowered his head and said, “There are many types of fortune-telling. The easiest is physiognomy, more accurate is palmistry, but the most accurate is bone feeling.”
“Hmph, you stinky brat, you just want to take advantage of me, don’t you!”
“I-I-I… I didn’t mean that!” Yan Shouyi quickly said, “Let’s stick to palmistry!”
The sister extended her hand, and Yan Shouyi took it. His hands were still trembling slightly from nervousness. Seeing Yan Shouyi like this, the sister chuckled.
Yan Shouyi felt embarrassed, but he soon got into character. His hands stopped shaking, and he carefully observed the sister’s palm lines and veins.
“The hand contains the principles of two poles and three talents, encompassing the secrets of Tai Chi and the five elements,” Yan Shouyi suddenly recited.
The sister was taken aback, her expression becoming serious. She hadn’t expected this little bumpkin to actually know something.
“Do you want me to tell you my birth date and time?” the sister asked.
Yan Shouyi shook his head. “Birth date and time calculations are for marriage, career, and wealth luck, while palmistry reveals the past and present.”
The sister became intrigued and asked, “Then have you seen anything?”
Yan Shouyi answered without hesitation, “The method of reading the palm first involves observing the palm shape, then the eight trigrams. The palm has thickness, the fingers have length, the lines have depth, and the complexion has clarity or dullness. Your palm shape is withered, indicating a life of wandering; the positions of Gen and Qian in the palm’s eight trigrams are thin. These two positions correspond to wealth and mother, indicating your family was poor and you lost your mother at a young age; also…”
The more he spoke, the more surprised the sister became. She didn’t even notice that the cigarette between her fingers had burned down to the filter.
Because, everything Yan Shouyi said was true!
When she was young, her mother died during childbirth with her second child, a foolish younger brother. Her father favored her brother, and treated her, the elder sister, with abuse and beatings. Before she turned eighteen, her father wanted to marry her off in exchange for five piglets, and then raise and sell the pigs to fund her foolish brother’s education.
Unwilling to be controlled, she fled her home and hid in the city. Because she lacked knowledge and skills, she couldn’t find a good job, and lived a life of constant displacement, eventually ending up in her current situation.
Although her current life was still unbearable, she never regretted it. Because even in this life, she was free, which was much better than marrying a man she didn’t like and living a life of dullness.
Unknowingly, the sister’s eyes reddened. Childhood memories were the pain she least wanted to recall, and she hadn’t expected Yan Shouyi to reveal it all.
Seeing the sister cry, Yan Shouyi wanted to offer some words of comfort, but then he suddenly saw something else. He grabbed the sister’s hand and rubbed it several times.
“What are you doing?” The sister was startled by Yan Shouyi’s strange actions.
Yan Shouyi said in a deep voice, “Turn around, I need to feel your bones!”
“There’s a fee for that!”
“You’re running out of time, and you still want money!” Yan Shouyi exclaimed.
The sister froze, “You, what do you mean?”
“Your palm’s earth line doesn’t cross the Venus mount; it’s a sign of a short life. But I’m not sure if you’ll die from an accident, murder, or illness. I must feel your bones to be sure!” Yan Shouyi said very seriously.
He was not joking.
In palmistry, the lines of the palm are very important. The five major lines of the palm are the earth line, human line, heavenly line, fate line, and relationship line, representing a person’s life and health, personality traits, moral character, career prospects, and love relationships.
The earth line, which represents life and health, should normally wrap around the “Venus mount” among the eight mounts in the palm, extending to the base of the thumb.
The longer the earth line, the longer the lifespan; the clearer the earth line, the better the health. If the earth line is short and scattered, it means that this person will inevitably be sickly and prone to disaster throughout their life.
As for this sister, her earth line didn’t even cross the Venus mount, indicating that her life would be very short, unusually short!
Truly, beauty suffers a short life!