IWOL Chapter 77: Rider-Waite Tarot

On the day when the Wonton Insurgency team was officially established, everyone had a feast to celebrate.

The chefs were Lin Hangzhi and Cui Zuojing. As a seventeen-year-old high school senior, Wang Que couldn’t cook, so she stayed with Dong Zheng, Allen and Dong Linhai. Only Fu Zhe went into the kitchen for a round tour, then hugged Victor to the living room and waited for dinner.

Without morality and conscience, he couldn’t feel guilty for not helping, so he felt justified.

It was a rare holiday for them to have free time in the evening. Allen slipped out to find his lovely hot spring hotel lady boss. Dong Zheng once again trained his abilities with Fu Zhe’s help, repeatedly tempering his spiritual core’s stability.

In the center of the inner core world, the grass that represented Cui Zuojing grew quietly, with no other abnormalities, but also showing no signs of flowering either.

Dong Zheng didn’t tell Cui Zuojing about the Arabidopsis thaliana. He actually…had a bit of an ulterior motive. It was as if, as long as he was the only one who knew about the grass, everything about it would remain in his possession.

This kind of feeling was very strange. Dong Zheng realized that there’d been something wrong with him recently, but he didn’t want to define nor confirm what it was.

Wang Que joined the training the next day. In the morning’s physical training, Cui Zuojing allowed her some slack since she was a girl and reduced her morning run to only 6,000 meters. But Wang Que ran very slowly and returned after Dong Zheng.

After she’d train with the group, she quickly integrated into the team and soon became more relaxed. Everyone also regarded her as the only girl in the team and took care of her.

Especially Dong Linhai.

The teenager’s cautious thoughts were carefully hidden, but they could still be clearly seen by his older male compatriots, all of whom looked at it as if watching a good show.

Anyway, the two parties involved were still in the dark so even if they all knew about it, it didn’t matter in the slightest.

Part of the training criteria involved developing their abilities. Although Dong Linhai was still unable to deform other metal objects, he took solace in the fact that he wasn’t useless and so he wasn’t too anxious.

One day, Lin Hangzhi brought back a deck of tarot cards he’d bought from outside.

Cui Zuojing sat on a long table and curiously studied the patterns on the cards one by one.

The patterns associated with the prisoners of the Pure White Realm were also related to tarot cards. His card was the Wheel of Fortune. However, he didn’t know much about tarot cards and so the clown had to explain the card’s meaning to him.

“I think my abilities shouldn’t only be limited to those things. Maybe I can use good luck to do some divination work?” Lin Hangzhi checked the book, trying to learn the cards’ meanings. In the real world, he’d once been a tarot enthusiast.

However, he was only a beginner and it’d been a long time ago, so he was very rusty.

“Okay, when you finish your research, do a calculation for me.” Cui Zuojing jumped off the table and didn’t bother him anymore.

Tarot reading requires insight and comprehension. Truth be told, he’d only dabbled in it and so tarot reading was a lot of fun but had very low accuracy.  But now, with the added bonus of his ability, the result may not be too bad.

So Lin Hangzhi plucked up his courage and went to experiment.

Everyone else was training. Victor slept on the stairs, completely without shame. Fu Zhe was the only one who was idle in the castle, so Lin Hangzhi ran over and asked Fu Zhe, “I want to use tarot cards to test my abilities. Do you mind being my guinea pig right now?”

“Of course not.” Fu Zhe gracefully put down the book. He glanced at the tarot cards and the black pentagram tablecloth in Lin Hangzhi’s hands and asked, “What kind of questions do you want me to ask?”

“Try a yes or no question first.”

Lin Hangzhi laid out the tablecloth, spread the 78 tarot cards upside down on the table, and took a deep breath. After focusing and calming himself, he asked Fu Zhe, “What is your question?”

Fu Zhe also knew a little bit about tarot reading. He had already adjusted to a calm state a long time ago, and asked, “Will I be able to find my two missing soul fragments as soon as possible?”

“Now from these 78 cards, use your intuition and pull one out, then put it in this position.”

Fu Zhe randomly picked one and placed it in the place where Lin Hangzhi had pointed to.

Lin Hangzhi stared at the inverted card, repeating the question Fu Zhe had just asked in his heart. After a few seconds, under Fu Zhe’s gaze, he opened the card.

[VI Lovers]

Upright.

The card displayed a naked Adam and Eve standing on opposite sides, looking at each other. An angel stood in the middle, bathed in sunlight. Meanwhile, a snake occupied the apple tree, ready to lure Eve into making a mistake.

Lin Hangzhi looked down at the Tarot book. The analysis read: If it is a Lover, High Priestess, Wheel of Fortune, Magician, Moon, Judgement, it could signify a yes or no. You can choose according to your needs.

Choose according to your need?

Lin Hangzhi scratched his head.

He turned to the beginning of the card explanation and began to skim.

The Lovers card often means that the party will be faced with a major choice and must be extra cautious. Don’t rush for quick success, let alone be obsessed with superficial interests. Although Adam and Eve were blessed by the angel, the snake still hinted at the story of the fall of mankind. If the consciousness isn’t firm and the wrong choice is made, the hatred of the Garden of Eden may be repeated.

The righteous Lovers also represented sex, love, and emotions. The love between the lovers will also be strong and long-lasting.

Because Fu Zhe didn’t ask about feelings, Lin Hangzhi skipped this passage and tried to explain the card, “You will succeed if you focus hard on finding the lost soul fragments and have a very strong will. When you find the soul fragments, it will be a very important turning point in your life. The upright position means that you will have a harmonious and trusting interpersonal relationship, and your friends will sincerely help you in this matter.”

After he finished the reading, Lin Hangzhi grabbed his hair and laughed. “It’s the same whether I said it or not. Of course, we will help you and, of course, you are very determined to find your soul fragments.”

Fu Zhe smiled. “But since your result says yes, there should be no problem. It can be considered as a booster for me.”

Lin Hangzhi chuckled twice. To be honest, he liked the feeling of counting cards again. He packed up his things, got up, and said, “I’ll do calculations for others too. Then, I’ll need feedback to see how accurate they are.”

Fu Zhe reminded him, “Don’t count too much. Be careful of the bad luck.”

Lin Hangzhi made an ok gesture.

After that, he ran to give Dong Zheng a calculation. Dong Zheng thought for a while and asked him, “Can I break my record in training today?”

“Demon, no.”

Allen asked, “I can’t find the sock I lost yesterday. Will it come back?”

Lin Hangzhi finally said, “The world, yes, and you will find it soon.”

“Eh? Really? Then I will go look for it now.”

Five minutes later, Allen ran in with a sock and said excitedly, “I found it! It was under my pillow! I obviously took it off and put it on the ground yesterday! It’s really amazing!”

Cui Zuojing said, “Oh, so accurate? But I can’t think of a problem now, so I’ll calculate it with you later.”

After receiving Allen’s feedback, Lin Hangzhi’s confidence increased, and he asked Wang Que, “Little sister, do you have a problem?”

Wang Que blurted without thinking, “Can I again pick up—”

Suddenly she realized what she was saying, and her voice abruptly stopped.

The girl was silent for a few seconds, then she shook her head, smiled, and said, “Sorry, Brother Hangzhi, I don’t have no problem.”

Everyone looked at her, but Wang Que only lowered her head and continued to look at her study material, trying to appear as if nothing was wrong.

Maybe she had some psychological pain.

Everyone tacitly didn’t ask, pretending that nothing happened. After all, before they came to the Pure White Realm, they were strangers in the real world and each had their own lives.

Now that they came here, they needed to put aside reality completely.

Lin Hangzhi counted the cards three times. Fearing that he would suffer bad luck if he made too many, he stopped calculating. But, an accident still happened while he was cooking at night.

He was boiling soup when the pot suddenly exploded right in front of him, splattering porridge all over the kitchen. Fu Zhe hurried in, but before he had time to mourn his kitchen, he heard Dong Zheng shouted from above, “Hangzhi, you were right. I didn’t break my record today. By the way, what was that sound just now?”

Lin Hangzhi: “…….”

Fu Zhe: “……..”

But it was okay. With Fu Zhe’s spatial ability, the miserable kitchen was quickly cleaned up. Afterward, Fu Zhe couldn’t help sighing.

It would be great if Cui Zuojing could use the power of time, then he could save a lot of trouble by turning back time.

But, at this moment, there was no indication the Cui Zuojing’s power would be unsealed anytime soon. He and Victor clearly came at the same time. Why was there so much difference?

Was there something else restricting his ability?

There were no answers to these questions, and there were too many mysteries. Fu Zhe had the habit of keeping them one by one in his mind. But, even if there seemed to be no solution, he won’t be anxious.

Despite the bad luck, Lin Hangzhi was still obsessed with divination. He was just a beginner, but after a few days of experimentation, the accuracy had already increased to 80%.

The new direction of his ability development made Lin Hangzhi finally feel that he was finally being useful, particularly since his ability of using luck wasn’t really reliable.

Could this be the golden finger given to him by the Gods?!

At this time, their first 20-days training session finally came to an end. In order to test everyone’s training results, Cui Zuojing, Victor and Fu Zhe discussed and decided to put together a formal quiz.

“Fu Zhe will use his space abilities and illusions to simulate a situation in the box. You need to explore it and find the key to leave. Victor and I will be your enemies. We will interfere with your actions throughout the process or directly confront you. I’ll then rank you based on your speed in locating the key and on your performance.”

Cui Zuojing announced the test rules and asked, “Are there any comments?”

Allen raised his hand. “What is the reward?”

“It’s confidential. Why? Do you have anything to say?”

Dong Linhai laughed. “Brother Len wants to know if the reward is enough, so he could decide if he should try his best to complete the test.”

Allen smirked and touched his nose. “Why are you saying it out loud?”

Cui Zuojing tilted his head and thought for a moment. “You just do your best to complete it anyway. The reward will not disappoint anyone.”

Victor said, “During the test, you can work alone or in a team. But be careful. In the end, there can only be one winner, because there is only one reward.”

“Since everyone had no objections, then I’ll announce that the first American-Soviet Competition will be held in half an hour. During this time, you can rest and get ready.”

Lin Hangzhi said, “Huh? The American-Soviet Competition?”

“America.” With a smile, Cui Zuojing pointed to Allen, then to Victor, who was licking his paw. “Russia. The name of these duo.”