Chapter 8: Unlucky to the Core?

They had also seen Yang Tao and Xu Ruyan in the lobby.

Zhang Zhang only glanced at them before lowering his head and walking on. No matter how much hatred he felt, he didn't dare act recklessly. The regret in his heart was beyond words. He had never imagined that the usually honest-looking guy had actually latched onto the vice president's backing; the man he had bullied so easily had suddenly become a tiger, and it had cost him his job instead.

Manager Hu was the same. With Xu Ruyan here, he could only swallow his harsh words.

The two of them had originally planned to give Yang Tao a good lesson, and for Hu to put on his airs once more, but they never expected the tables to turn so fast. In an instant, Xu Ruyan had crushed them both with overwhelming force.

In the end, Zhang Zhang had even lost his job. It was the classic case of lifting a rock only to drop it on his own foot, and he had nearly smashed his toes off with it.

Yang Tao first looked at Zhang Zhang's fortune and found that all of it was middling to poor. His romantic luck was the only thing rated as average.

Yang Tao focused his mind on Zhang Zhang's good fortune and then activated his ability.

Zhang Zhang's own good fortune had already been low to middling. His life was never smooth sailing, full of bumps and scrapes, but there shouldn't have been any real trouble within the next three months.

But now, Zhang Zhang's good fortune began to change little by little, and a line of tiny text appeared: choke on water, get hit by a car when you go out, unbelievably unlucky.

Good fortune was one of the most important parts of a person's entire fortune. In simple terms, good fortune was a person's luck. If luck was good, everything went smoothly and wealth would follow.

If luck was bad, you might even trip while walking and choke to death while eating.

Yang Tao still didn't have the power to change a person's overall fortune, but he could influence the fortune of the next three months.

After changing Zhang Zhang's good fortune, the sesame-seed-sized energy in Yang Tao's mind immediately dimmed. If it had started out as a hazy little light, now it was flickering on and off, as if it could go out at any moment.

Next, Yang Tao looked at Manager Hu's fortune. His luck was pretty good. Both his financial luck and good fortune were at a middling level, and his romantic luck was even above average.

Yang Tao had originally wanted to affect Manager Hu's financial luck or good fortune, making him lose money or suffer bad luck, but when he saw the romantic luck, his heart stirred.

Manager Hu's wife was the boss's cousin, and he only got to keep his planning manager position because the boss was giving her face. He was terrified of his wife.

When Yang Tao focused on Manager Hu's romantic luck, he immediately saw that in the recent past Hu had been involved with several women and had been flirting with several others. Yang Tao understood it all at once.

With a flick of his mind, a line of tiny text appeared over Manager Hu's romantic luck.

Romantic luck could make a man smug and satisfied, while romantic disaster could be ruinous.

Manager Hu had been sneaking out to find women without ever being caught by his wife, but after Yang Tao interfered with it, his wife would find out very soon. Then there would be a good show to watch.

After changing the fortune of both men, the energy in Yang Tao's mind had completely dimmed. Even Yang Tao himself felt as if he had gone three days and three nights without sleep; he swayed on his feet and was about to collapse.

Xu Ruyan, who had been watching Yang Tao from the side the whole time, hurriedly reached out to steady him and keep him from falling.

Holding Yang Tao up, Xu Ruyan was shaken. Just a moment ago, she had only felt the air beside her shift slightly, and then Yang Tao had gone deathly pale, drenched in sweat. Even with Yang Tao's arm pressed tightly against her chest, she hadn't noticed.

"Yang Tao, what's wrong?" Xu Ruyan held him close and asked anxiously.

"I'm fine, just a little tired." Changing the fortune of two people at once was still difficult. If not for his resolve keeping him going, Yang Tao would have passed out by now.

Manager Hu's fortune was relatively strong, and the more energy it took to affect a good fortune, the more power it consumed. Only now did Yang Tao understand that the stronger a person's fortune was, the greater the price he had to pay. Fortunately, Manager Hu's good fortune was only at a middling level; if it had been any higher, Yang Tao might have lost half his life.

"Look." Manager Hu wouldn't be in trouble for the moment, but Zhang Zhang, whose good fortune had been affected, was about to. Yang Tao motioned for Xu Ruyan to watch them.

At that moment, Zhang Zhang, who was going down the steps, somehow missed his footing. Maybe it was because he was carrying so many things he had taken from the company that he couldn't see the steps. His right foot came down on empty air, and with a thud he went crashing down the stairs.

"Ow!" The things in his hands scattered all over the floor. Zhang Zhang was sprawled on the ground in a splayed-out mess, and Manager Hu hurried over to help him up.

But maybe he had pressed on a wound, because just as he got to his feet, his leg gave way and he dropped to his knees again with a heavy thud, both knees slamming into the floor.

"Ah! That hurts!" Zhang Zhang's face went white in an instant.

"Why are you so careless?" Manager Hu complained. People coming and going nearby were all staring at them, and some of the pretty girls were already close to laughing out loud.

Manager Hu's face turned red. He only felt that Zhang Zhang was truly humiliating him. At his age, he could still trip while walking.

He hurriedly helped him up again and was about to leave, abandoning the things they had dropped.

Zhang Zhang leaned against Manager Hu. His knees were killing him, and he couldn't put any strength into them, so he hobbled along with Hu's support.

But before they had taken even two steps, Zhang Zhang accidentally hooked his left foot behind his right. Losing his balance, he lunged forward.

Since Manager Hu was shorter than Zhang Zhang to begin with, all of Zhang Zhang's weight was already on him. Then Zhang Zhang, in the reflex of falling, grabbed onto the person beside him.

So the two of them, along with Manager Hu, went down together and ate dirt.

"Why the hell are you pulling on me? Fuck." After that hard fall, and three tumbles in a row, the people around them were laughing so hard they could barely stand.

Manager Hu was almost ready to leave that idiot behind and be done with him. It was too damn humiliating. A grown man, and he'd fallen three times in a row.

"I don't know either." Zhang Zhang said with a miserable face. He had no idea what was happening to him.

"Hu, take me to the hospital. I think I may have broken a bone."

"Bullshit. If your bones were broken, you wouldn't be able to get up. Hurry up, I'll take you to the hospital." He helped Zhang Zhang up again. This time the two of them walked slowly, taking each step carefully, and they didn't fall again.

But when they reached a corner, a car parked by the roadside that had been sitting there without moving suddenly rolled backward and bumped into them, knocking the two of them down again with a bang.

"Fuck!"

The two of them were nearly driven mad. How was everything working against them? There was no one in the car, the road was flat, and even if the handbrake hadn't been set, it shouldn't have rolled backward. But it had rolled back anyway, and it had done it right as they were passing by.

Xu Ruyan watched it all. Only after seeing them stumble and lurch their way out of sight did she turn to Yang Tao with shock and fear.

"You did that?" Xu Ruyan couldn't believe someone could pull off something like that without making a sound.

Yang Tao gave a weak smile. He didn't deny it and didn't answer, but that only made Xu Ruyan even more certain.

"Ms. Xu, I don't have any strength left right now. Can you take me home?" Yang Tao really felt like he couldn't walk another step.

"Okay." Xu Ruyan didn't refuse. She helped Yang Tao into her car. After they got in, she was just about to ask for his address when Yang Tao had already fallen asleep.

Looking at Yang Tao asleep in the back seat, Xu Ruyan's expression was complicated. There was fear, there was awe, there was curiosity, and there was gratitude.

After calming herself down a little, Xu Ruyan didn't wake Yang Tao. She just drove straight back to her own home.

Yang Tao didn't know how long he had slept. After affecting Zhang Zhang and Manager Hu's luck, he had basically been completely drained and on the verge of passing out. If he hadn't wanted to see what would happen after Zhang Zhang's good fortune was changed, he might have fainted much earlier.

Once he saw the result, Yang Tao relaxed with satisfaction and let his mind go slack. He held on until he got into the car with Xu Ruyan, then fell fast asleep.

Groggily, he opened his eyes to find the room pitch-black, with the window blocked by the curtains.

Yang Tao checked the energy in his mind. After influencing the two men's fortune, his ability had already gone dim, and he had even overdrawn some of his own energy. Now the sesame-seed-sized power in his mind was glimmering again, but it still wasn't fully recovered.

Thinking about that, Yang Tao felt a little afraid. He still didn't understand enough about a fortune-teller's abilities.

If Manager Hu's good fortune had been any stronger this time, then Yang Tao wouldn't just have been knocked out so simply.

"Next time I still need to be more careful," Yang Tao told himself. "When I have the time, I need to learn more about a fortune-teller's abilities."

A whole profession's memories were enormous beyond measure. Yang Tao had only received the memories so far; fully understanding and mastering them was still a long way off.

Yang Tao sat up in bed, only then noticing that he was wearing nothing but his underwear. His shirt and pants had been taken off.

"I remember asking Xu Ruyan to send me back. I passed out as soon as I got in the car. Could it be that Xu Ruyan took off my clothes? And I never told Xu Ruyan where I lived, so where exactly did she bring me?"

Thinking of Xu Ruyan's pale fingers undressing him piece by piece, Yang Tao suddenly felt a wave of heat rise in him.

"She didn't bring me to a hotel, did she?" Yang Tao wondered. He groped around by the headboard, found a switch, and pressed it.

The lights came on, and the room immediately came into view. It was just a plain room, not a hotel, but it also wasn't his own rental.

It should have been the guest room in Xu Ruyan's home.

His clothes were folded neatly on the bedside cabinet, and Yang Tao's phone was placed on top.

Yang Tao picked up his phone to check the time, but the screen wouldn't light up. He held down the power button before realizing the battery was dead.

"This battery sure doesn't hold a charge well. I fully charged it this morning, and it's already dead after this short a while." Yang Tao frowned. Not knowing the time was irritating.

After getting dressed and turning off the air conditioner, Yang Tao left the guest room.

As soon as he stepped out, he heard several coughs coming from the living room. The voice was Xu Ruyan's.

Xu Ruyan, who was taking cold medicine, saw Yang Tao and immediately lit up with surprise and relief. Her face broke into a smile at once.

"Yang Tao, you're finally awake. If you hadn't woken up, I was going to take you to the hospital." Xu Ruyan said worriedly.

"Ms. Xu, how long was I asleep?" Seeing her like this, Yang Tao's heart skipped. His phone had even shut itself down; could he really have slept for two or three days?

"It's 8 p.m. now. From yesterday until now, it's been thirty hours." Xu Ruyan looked at the clock on the wall.

Yang Tao hadn't told Xu Ruyan his home address, so there was no way she could have taken him to a hotel. A beautiful married woman bringing an unconscious man to a hotel would have been reported the moment someone saw them, and they'd still end up being checked for a room.

So she could only bring him back to her own home. Supporting Yang Tao all the way back inside had been exhausting enough to kill her, especially for someone as pampered as she was.

After helping Yang Tao into bed and taking off his clothes, Xu Ruyan used to have some nursing knowledge. At a glance she could tell that Yang Tao had simply collapsed from exhaustion, so she didn't send him to the hospital. But that night Yang Tao kept sleeping without waking, and no matter how Xu Ruyan called him, he wouldn't open his eyes.

Xu Ruyan started to panic. She had stayed up all night yesterday without sleeping, and she hadn't gone to work today either. She had stayed home the entire time to watch over Yang Tao. Going a whole night without sleep, plus the huge shock Yang Tao's actions had given her, left her nerves stretched tight and excited all at once. During the day, when the sleepiness became too much to bear, she napped for a while, but after waking up she came down with a cold.

While waiting for Yang Tao to wake up, Xu Ruyan would probably have called 120 long ago if she hadn't seen that his breathing was steady and his temperature was normal.

And she had already made up her mind that if Yang Tao still hadn't woken up by tomorrow morning, she would call 120 then too.

"So long!" Yang Tao was startled. No wonder his stomach felt so empty, and his phone had died too.

Fortunately, he had only slept thirty hours. If he had slept straight through for three days, Yang Tao would have truly been speechless.

"Thank you for the trouble, Ms. Xu." Yang Tao said gratefully.

"It's nothing. You helped me recover a loss; I should do this much." Xu Ruyan waved a hand in a hurry. "You've slept for so long, you must be hungry. I'll make you some noodles."

"Let me do it, Ms. Xu. You're already coming down with a cold, I can handle it myself." Yang Tao blocked Xu Ruyan as she was about to go cook the noodles.

"It's fine, I'll do it. You sit on the sofa." Xu Ruyan wouldn't let Yang Tao help. She pushed him over to the sofa and quickly headed to the kitchen.

Xu Ruyan couldn't quite tell what she felt about Yang Tao now. Fear was definitely there. A person who could see what would happen to others in the future, and who could make other people keep running into bad luck like that, could hardly fail to be frightening in a society like this.

There was also gratitude, after all Yang Tao had helped her recover her loss.

Then there was the curiosity unique to women, plus a bit of the thought that she wanted to cling to his support. Who wouldn't want to build a good relationship with someone like that? Everyone's life was bound to run into all kinds of things, and if someone could foresee them in advance, it would prevent a lot of problems.

Xu Ruyan cooked a big bowl of noodles and even fried two eggs.

"Yang Tao, the noodles are ready. Come eat." Xu Ruyan put the bowl on the dining table.

Yang Tao came over and sat down, saying sincerely, "Thank you, Ms. Xu. I'm sorry to trouble you with making noodles for me."

"No trouble at all. Eat up. I'll take my medicine first." Xu Ruyan said politely.

Yang Tao was genuinely hungry, so he didn't stand on ceremony. He picked up his chopsticks and started eating. "Ms. Xu, don't take your medicine yet. Let me take a look at you in a bit."

Xu Ruyan paused just as she was about to take her medicine. "You can treat illnesses too?"

"Let's try it." Yang Tao said while eating. The energy in his mind could help people treat some minor illnesses.

"Okay." Xu Ruyan set the medicine down and sat nearby, watching Yang Tao eat noodles.

A bowl of noodles quickly disappeared into Yang Tao's stomach. He let out a satisfied belch. After being hungry for so long, eating a steaming bowl of noodles with a stunning beauty sitting opposite him made his appetite exceptionally good.

Seeing Yang Tao finish the noodles and belch without a care for his image, Xu Ruyan smiled faintly. "Full now? Want me to make you some more?"

"No need." Yang Tao waved a hand. "I'm very full. Ms. Xu, your cooking is excellent. It's been a long time since I had noodles this good."

"Ms. Xu, give me your hand. Let me take a look." Yang Tao said.