Chapter 2: The First Copper Coin
Nie Lianfeng stepped out of the damp, clay-walled inn and into the loud, chaotic streets of the Azure Sky City Outer District.
The morning air was heavy with the smells of cheap herbal stew, dust, and unwashed bodies.
People moved about, bargaining over rice and rough cloth, while now and then, a young man in spotless robes with a proud look, an apprentice cultivator walked by, sneering down at the crowd.
He held the rough clay piece with the "One Copper Coin for Divination" sign like it was his lifeline.
He needed real food, not just the hard, stale bread the innkeeper had given him yesterday in exchange for a place to rest.
The money here came in copper, silver, gold, and then spiritual stones, a ladder of wealth and he was stuck at the very bottom.
He started walking, searching for a busy corner to set up. But a dull, constant pressure built behind his eyes. He tried to focus on the dirty street, the wooden stalls, anything normal but he couldn't. His vision felt like a loud, painful lie.
He saw an old woman selling roasted yams, her head wrapped in a thick, glowing Golden Rope, a sign of a good future, likely a busy day and good sales.
Nearby, a merchant argued loudly over silk prices, surrounded by shimmering Silver Strands that twisted with every wordhis fate still undecided, depending on whether he pushed too hard or gave in first.
But then there were the Black Threads.
A child ran past, chasing a wooden hoop, a thin black line stretching from his small ankle to a missing plank on the path.
Moments later, his foot slipped through the gap, and he fell, crying right away.
It was a simple accident but the black line showed something worse: bad luck, or even death, was coming.
A burly guard walked down the narrow street, and from the small bag at his side, a thick, twisting Black thread stretched up to the roof of the tea stall across the street. The guard was about to lose his purse to a quick thief.
The chaos of fate was overwhelming.
Nie Lianfeng felt dizzy trying to take in a thousand futures at once. Seeing everything wasn't helpful, it was just noise.
He realized that to use the Eyes, he had to focus on one thing at a time, like looking into a single drop of water instead of the whole ocean.
He stumbled, still drained from the first use of the Eyes. He needed to find a place to rest quickly.
He picked a corner near a busy tea stall run by an old woman with sharp, suspicious eyes. He spread out his straw mat and leaned the clay sign against a crumbling wall.
The whole setup looked amateurish. He looked barely seventeen, was offering glimpses of fate for the lowest coins, and was shaking from spiritual exhaustion.
He sat there, unnoticed for nearly an hour, quietly regaining his strength while practicing how to keep his Eyes of Providence closed.
Then, a shadow fell over him.
"Well, well," a rough voice sneered. "Look at this little guy. Playing at being a sage? Get that trash off the ground and give me whatever coppers you've stolen, or I'll use that mat to clean the gutters with your teeth."
Nie Lianfeng looked up at the man. He was a skinny thug in dirty leather clothes, with a rusty dagger partly hidden under his shirt. Just the kind of small-time bully Nie Lianfeng had expected to run into in this rough part of the city.
He took a deep, steadying breath, focused hard, and activated the Eyes of Providence. This time, the white pain was brief, a sharp sting instead of a crushing wave.
Black Threads covered the thug's body. A thick, strong line ran from his chest into the street and stopped right under the hooves of a fast-moving carriage.
Doom was less than thirty seconds away. It was certain.
"I only charge one copper coin for a divining," Nie Lianfeng said, his voice flat and tired. He stayed still, calm. "I'll give you this one for free."
The thief froze, surprised by the boy's strange calm. "What did you say, little brat?"
Nie Lianfeng let the vision fade, the world going back to normal but the cold certainty of the Black line stayed.
He spoke calmly, like he was talking about the price of rice.
"You're going to die in less than half a minute. If you take one more step towards me, or look away from the street."
The thief sneered and raised his hand to slap the cheeky boy. "You really think you can curse-"
"It's not a curse, it's what's going to happen to you," Nie Lianfeng said, leaning forward with steady eyes.
"Look, there's a carriage coming down the road. The driver is drunk, one wheel is loose, and the broken awning above the tea stall will fall and scare the horses just as you run into the street. Turn left now, or you'll get crushed under the wheel."
The thief was shocked by how detailed the prediction was. He paused and nervously looked at the carriage rattling down the main road. Then he glanced at the old, loose roof above the tea stall, which was swaying in the wind.
Mostly scared and not really believing him, the thief growled, "You're crazy," and ran, quickly turning left into the narrow alley behind the tea stall.
Nie Lianfeng sighed, leaning back against the wall, utterly spent. He hadn't fought the thief, he had simply directed the current of fate.
A terrible, wet thud and a sickening crunch came from the alleyway, not the main road.
Then a brief, gurgling scream quickly stopped.
A man nearby shouted, "Did you hear that? Someone fell down old Lin's cellar steps! Broke his neck, poor fool!"
The old tea seller watched Nie Lianfeng from her stall, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.
Then her expression shifted to deep fear. Nie Lianfeng had told the thief to go left but the thief died right after going that way.
If the thief had followed his advice, why was he dead? Something didn't add up.
Nie Lianfeng, trembling and starving, was now entirely alone in the sudden silence of the crowd. He had just made his first prediction, proven his power.
Although the thief couldn't change his fate, Nie Lianfeng had made that fate real with his prediction.
'If only the thief hadn't argued with me and had just followed my advice without wasting time, he would still be alive', Nie Lianfeng thought bitterly.
He had also just learned a chilling rule: Black Threads do not fade easily.
A moment later, a nervous young apprentice named Ming, clutching a single copper coin, hesitantly stepped forward.
He had seen what just happened and probably believed Nie Lianfeng was the real deal. His eyes kept darting between Nie Lianfeng and the alley where the thief had died.
"Sir… Fortune-teller," Ming whispered, trembling. "My master sent me to pay the supplier in the Inner District. I have to cross the market street, but I have a bad feeling about today. Is it safe to cross the main road now, or should I wait?"
Nie Lianfeng took the copper coin his first real payment and looked closely at the apprentice. Ming's future wasn't clear it was filled with silver threads and black threads. If he crossed the road now, it would lead to his death.
"You won't make it across the road now," Nie Lianfeng said calmly, ignoring the apprentice's scared look. "Your bad feeling is probably right. There's a deadly danger tied to the movement of the skies, waiting exactly where you'll step. It will strike your head and kill you instantly."
Ming's face went ghastly white. He trembled and whispered, "Is… is there any way to change it? To avoid this fate?"
"Wait," Nie Lianfeng said, leaning in. "Don't move for ten minutes. The danger will pass when the air shifts. Go at the turn of the hour not a second before. If you ignore me, you will probably die."
The apprentice shook with fear and bowed low, almost touching the dusty ground with his head. Then he hurried back to the tea stall, choosing to wait in the safety of the crowd. His fate had changed from certain death to just needing patience.
A copper coin.
My first coin in this strange world... and the first life I've truly affected.
Nie Lianfeng leaned against the wall. He had a copper coin, a bad headache, and a scary reputation. It was a good start.