The brief mealtime quickly came to an end.
Before heading out to meet the demon hunter lady, Bai Tang still needed to have the Witch teacher divine the fortune for tonight.
Thud thud thud——!
“Come in.”
After receiving the Witch teacher’s reply, Bai Tang slowly pushed the door open and entered.
Roughly two and a half hours remained until Long Night fully descended. The sky had gradually darkened. No oil lamp was lit inside the Witch teacher’s room. The light was dim, only allowing vague outlines of the furniture to be seen.
In the next moment, Bai Tang’s attention was quickly drawn to the only source of light in the room.
The Witch teacher was dressed in a light-purple witch-like outfit and wore the pointed purple wide-brimmed hat she only put on when going out. She was currently kneeling properly in the center of the bed in a duck-sitting pose.
The one-piece matte black pantyhose tightly wrapped her legs, looking like two tempting, delicious black chocolates.
Not far in front of her on the bedding lay a transparent crystal ball roughly the size of two fists pressed together, continuously emitting a faint glow, along with a stack of vintage tarot cards printed with moon symbols on their backs.
“Get on the bed. Remember to take off your shoes,” the Witch teacher instructed.
Bai Tang obeyed. She took off her small leather boots and, with her feet in white socks, climbed onto the soft, cotton-candy-like bedding.
She copied the Witch teacher’s posture and sat properly across from her in the same duck-sitting position. Her clenched hands rested on her fair, pink knees, looking somewhat uneasy.
Why does the Witch teacher’s divination have to be done on the bed?!
“Have you heard of tarot divination?” the Witch teacher asked.
“Mm… I’ve heard of it…”
Bai Tang blinked her big eyes, somewhat hesitant. Back on Earth, whenever she heard about tarot readings she would scoff at them. They were nothing more than ambiguous statements that even a dog could hit two of, or predictions about a future that could not be verified in the short term.
She had concluded they were all scams.
But she definitely did not dare say the same thing to the Witch teacher.
Tarot divination — even if it used to be a scam on Earth, in the Witch teacher’s hands it had real skill!
“Since you already have some understanding of tarot divination, to save time we’ll skip the introduction and start directly.”
Hearing this, Bai Tang nodded.
Start directly? Like those tarot readers on Earth who just tell you to pick cards?
While she was still puzzled, the Witch teacher moved.
Without any warning, she suddenly reached out and touched Bai Tang’s right hand resting on her knee. In the next brief instant, her fingers were pried open and the Witch teacher’s fingers forcefully invaded without the slightest resistance.
Bai Tang’s hand was completely filled by the Witch teacher’s slightly cool fingers, leaving no gap, as if they were tightly sucked together and could not be separated.
“Mm…”
So tarot divination requires interlocking fingers?!
“Your other hand.”
The Witch teacher paid no mind to her student’s gradually reddening cheeks and evasive gaze. She extended her right hand and pressed down on Bai Tang’s remaining left hand.
She guided Bai Tang to shuffle the stack of tarot cards in front of them in a counterclockwise direction until it was impossible to tell which way was up or down.
“Now, imagine in your mind what you will be doing tonight, and rely on your subconscious to select three cards from the deck. Remember not to let any card flip over during the process.”
Bai Tang held her breath and, following the Witch teacher’s instructions, picked out the three cards that looked most pleasing to her. Because her right hand remained interlocked with the Witch teacher’s left hand, pulling out the three chosen cards was not easy.
Especially the last card Bai Tang selected — nearly six-eighths of it was firmly pressed down by the deck. When she tried to draw it out, the cards on top suddenly seemed to come alive and became extremely heavy. The rose vine patterns winding around the edges of the card backs melted and twisted.
It made one subconsciously wonder whether they had fallen into an illusion.
At this critical moment—
“Don’t get distracted. Focus and pull that card out!”
At the same time, a surge of force came from her right hand — precisely the hand interlocked with the Witch teacher’s fingers. The Witch teacher increased the pressure.
Bai Tang shook her head. Thoughts that should not have appeared in her mind receded like a tide. She came back to her senses belatedly, cold sweat seeping down her back.
Just now, she had really felt the urge to use all her strength to yank the card out.
But now, looking again, how could a single thin tarot card possibly have any weight? She easily pulled out the chosen card without flipping the ones above it.
She had almost committed the taboo the Witch teacher had mentioned!
Although the Witch teacher had not explicitly said what the consequences would be, no matter how she thought about it, it could not be anything good.
After arranging the three cards she had drawn in the order she picked them, Bai Tang took a deep breath.
“Teacher, I’ve chosen.”
“Good.”
The Witch teacher’s gaze paused briefly on the left hand still interlocked with Bai Tang’s right hand. Actually, from this point onward the rest of the process no longer required holding hands.
But the sudden incident just now seemed to have really frightened Bai Tang quite a bit. Even now she was still tightly holding on, with no intention of letting go.
Forget it. Just keep holding then. Consider it this teacher providing a sense of security to her student.
“Now I’ll interpret the cards for you.”
With that, the Witch teacher flipped over the three tarot cards Bai Tang had selected one by one in order.
What Bai Tang did not expect was that the revealed faces were all blank.
All three cards were completely blank.
At that moment, except for the three cards Bai Tang had chosen, all the remaining unselected and unflipped cards in the deck suddenly burst into flame with a whoosh at the same time. There was clearly no wind, yet the deep blue flames flickered gently.
Without any heat whatsoever.
Under the illumination of that cluster of flames, the originally blank faces of the three tarot cards Bai Tang had chosen quietly began to change. Patterns slowly emerged one by one in sequence.
The first card: A blond man with a resolute and confident expression, driving a chariot pulled by black-and-white sphinx-like creatures.
Seeing this, the corners of the Witch teacher’s mouth curled upward slightly.
“Upright The Chariot. Victory, will, control, and conquest. It seems your luck is quite good, Bai Tang.”
Bai Tang blinked. Did this mean she would win tonight’s battle?
Before the girl could break free from her joy, the second card face gradually became clear: A skeleton knight clad in pitch-black iron armor riding a white horse, holding high a flag that symbolized the will of death.
However, this card was upside down.
The Witch teacher’s brows clearly furrowed together.
“Reversed Death. Ending, transformation, non-physical death…”
Bai Tang was stunned. What did this mean? Did it mean she would die tonight?
But why?
The previous second it had still been The Chariot upright, representing breaking through obstacles and ultimately achieving victory.
The Witch teacher remained silent with furrowed brows and did not explain anything to Bai Tang. Her gaze was fixed tightly on the last card that was slowly emerging, not knowing what she was thinking inside.
The last card face appeared.
A river, grassland, a dog, and a moon with a human face emerging from it.
Upon clearly seeing the last card face, the Witch teacher’s expression completely sank.
“Upright The Moon. Anxiety, confusion, hidden things, and deception!”
Noticing Bai Tang’s pair of big eyes blinking in confusion, the Witch teacher quickly realized that Bai Tang had not understood her previous interpretations. She pressed her lips together and organized her words.
“From back to front: The upright Moon representing deception, the reversed Death representing death, and finally the upright Chariot representing victory. Put together, it means…”
She took a deep breath.
“It possibly means that you, Bai Tang, will be deceived, will die because of it, and in the end your victory will be stolen.”
In a short time Bai Tang received too much information that was difficult to understand. Her mind felt like it had been stirred into paste. No matter how hard she tried, she could not sort it out.
Will she really die tonight?
And who will deceive her?
Her gaze fixed tightly on the card representing deception — the upright Moon. As if possessed, Bai Tang picked it up, not even having time to hear the Witch teacher’s warning.
“Wait, Bai—”
Buzz——
Spiritual power was rapidly drained. A scene appeared before her eyes that made Bai Tang’s eyes widen in shock.
The Barrel Butcher’s corpse knelt on the tavern floor, completely devoid of life. The already betrayed demon hunter lady was holding a long-barreled flintlock gun, its muzzle pressed against Bai Tang’s forehead. Her face was ice-cold as she pulled the trigger without the slightest hesitation.
The demon hunter lady deceives and kills her?
Before she could think further about the scene she had seen, her spiritual power was rapidly exhausted. Bai Tang’s vision spun. Her body uncontrollably fell forward, and in the end her entire face buried itself into the center of the Witch teacher’s legs wrapped in black pantyhose.
“Teacher, I’m dizzy…”
Now she understood why the divination had to be done on the bed.
The Witch teacher gently patted the girl’s head.
“It’s too dangerous after Long Night. You shouldn’t go out. Tonight, Bai Tang, you’ll sleep in my room.”