Foreigner Of Time [Book II]

14

"Judging from your scar, you must have had a perilous experience on your journey back. Do you blame this humble monk for omitting this knowledge?"

I was still thinking about the sinister variable that eluded her predictions. 

Hearing her question, I answered without much thought, "How could I? This junior still understands that heaven's designs can't be revealed."  

She sighed, "You could say with such ease a principle that took this humble monk thirty years to understand. You are blessed with kind fates, and an insight for the ways of life. If you could enter this practice, you will be able to surpass my level in less than twenty years. This humble monk's practice does not require abstinence from meat or wine, and marriage is fine. You just have to take note that a few meats which are considered sacred should not be eaten, and the first and fifteenth day of the month requires abstinence and incense offerings. Other than that, you are free to do as you wish, you..."

My brows were tightly knit as I worked my mind quickly.

The poisoning was all that I could think about, so her later words had only entered my ears but not my heart.

"Cultivator." I called.

She became alert at once, and she straightened her back, "Please say it."

"Do you think it's possible that your reading was only half right, and the other half was wrong?"

She was slightly taken aback, then she explained patiently, "I can't guarantee other people's readings, but as long as it's a reading that I derived, this situation would absolutely not happen. The only other situation is an empty reading, where nothing could be seen. But for ones that I can see, it is definitely accurate. The reading for you is too unique, I can only classify it as an empty reading. This humble monk has not made an empty reading for over ten years. It would be fine if it's purely an empty reading, but it just had to be half right... This has never happened before."

I took in a cold breath when I heard her explanation.

I had thought of a possibility just now, but when I considered it with my own situation, I felt that it didn't actually fit.

She could predict my dangerous encounter on the way back because everything that happened on the road of no return was supposed to happen in this world, and I had missed the poisoning because it was not supposed to happen in this world.

The annual silver from the city was destined to get stolen. 

I had just gotten involved in it by accident.  

As a visitor from another world, the poisoning was directed at me. 

It was not something that would naturally occur in this world, so that should be why master couldn't predict it.  

I understood the explanation that she gave about the reading just now.

Since it was a reading derived from putting me as the 'centre of the circle', why did the signs only show my dangerous encounter on the road of no return but not my poisoning?

I fell into deep thought...

"Is there still some of the poison left?" After a long while, she suddenly said.

"What does the cultivator want to do with it?"

"This humble monk would like to study it and find out exactly what poison it is. This humble monk has some knowledge of medicine; such an uncommon poison would be an eye-opener for me."

"I think Nini has said before that the two physicians in the estate took some poison from my wound."

"Where is it right now?"