Chapter 88: Chapter 88: Magicians Have No Descendants

After reading his fortune, Chen Xu said with certainty, “You have great career fortune coming within the next three years. You must seize the opportunity.”

“And after those three years?” Jin Huai Zhong immediately asked.

“Your career fortune was meant to last a lifetime, but it’s a pity…” He sighed and looked toward Jin Fan. “Your eldest son is a heavenly cursed lone star, a detriment to your career. It should have lasted your entire life, but because you are too close to him, your career fortune now only has three years left. During these three years, whenever you get close to him, you’ll suffer minor accidents that will damage your health.”

At the time, Jin Fan wasn’t even three years old, just a soft and adorable toddler.

When he heard Jin Huai Zhong was back, he immediately threw himself into his father’s arms, calling out sweetly, “Daddy!”

Jin Huai Zhong couldn’t understand how Jin Fan—chubby, fair-skinned, and so likable—could possibly affect his career fortune.

But later, every time he came home and held his son, he would run into some minor misfortune: seeing ghosts, encountering thieves on the street, falling into an open manhole, constantly being caught by the press for negative headlines…

This series of incidents forced the skeptical Jin Huai Zhong to believe that Jin Fan was indeed affecting him.

He went to find Chen Xu to ask for a solution.

The solution Chen Xu offered was, “Since he’s a heavenly cursed lone star, you might as well send him away. Just don’t keep him by your side.”

Jin Huai Zhong thought of his first wife’s pale face after she died, and the message she’d had a nurse deliver to him: “Take good care of our child.”

The thought of sending his child away now was more painful than death.

Seeing his reluctance, Chen Xu added, “If you don’t want to send him away, you can also try to avoid seeing him. It would be best if you lived and ate separately. That will eliminate his influence on you.”

Just as Jin Huai Zhong was mulling this over, he suddenly heard Jin Muyang burst out crying. “WAAAH!”

He rushed out to find Jin Muyang’s head bleeding, and a rock just so happened to be in Jin Fan’s hand.

Jin Huai Zhong asked Jin Fan why he’d hit his brother. Not yet three years old, Jin Fan couldn’t explain why. He just pouted and looked up at his father with a wronged expression, not understanding why the man who was usually so gentle was suddenly so furious.

Jin Huai Zhong lost his temper and shouted at Jin Fan, who could no longer hold back his hurt and burst into loud sobs.

Kang Lin said to Jin Huai Zhong, “Oh, what’s the big deal! Kids don’t have any malicious intentions. Don’t scare him. Look at our cute little Xiao Fan!”

With that, she tossed her own biological son aside to comfort Jin Fan, adding, “If you won’t raise this child, then I will. Stop shouting at him here. You’re scaring him, you know?”

Chen Xu sighed. “See? The boy is already starting to harm his younger brother. If you keep him here, it’s hard to say if his brother will even make it to adulthood!”

Jin Huai Zhong’s heart clenched at his words.

He loved Jin Fan, but he also doted on his newborn younger son.

If Jin Fan’s presence affected the whole family, that would be a classic case of being penny-wise and pound-foolish.

And so, that day, Jin Huai Zhong gritted his teeth and sent Jin Fan away, hiring several nannies to care for him.

At first, Kang Lin would visit Jin Fan every few days, fulfilling her motherly duties.

Seeing how much she doted on Jin Fan, Jin Huai Zhong was relieved and entrusted the boy’s education and upbringing entirely to Kang Lin. As for himself, he avoided Jin Fan whenever possible, terrified of being tainted by his “bad luck.”

「Twenty years passed just like that.」

Just as Chen Xu had predicted, Jin Huai Zhong’s career flourished, and his family rose to become one of the top elites.

As for his son, Jin Fan, he initially felt some guilt and would often watch him from afar.

But the bond between father and son was greatly eroded by the long estrangement. Gradually, he watched from afar less and less, showed less concern, and they barely even spoke to each other.

More importantly, Jin Fan grew up to be a total wastrel, a master of wining, dining, womanizing, and gambling. This made Jin Huai Zhong all the more disappointed, and he came to see his eldest son as an embarrassment who couldn’t be presented in high society.

Meanwhile, his second son, whom he had raised personally, far surpassed Jin Fan in both academics and ability.

Thus, all his attention and expectations were placed on his second son.

He arranged a job for Jin Muyang right after graduation to prepare him for taking over the family business, and he even planned to leave half of the empire he had built to Jin Muyang.

But now, he was being told that Jin Muyang wasn’t his biological son.

And his own biological son had had his fate swapped and been raised to be a complete waste!

“Where is Chen Xu now?” Shen Zhiyao asked.

At that moment, she recalled the man she had seen in Li Kerun’s room, the one dressed in a Wudang Mountain Daoist robe and holding a talisman.

—He was none other than Master Chen, the personal disciple of the Wudang Mountain Master.

’What is the relationship between Master Chen and Chen Xu?’

’And who was that young assistant with Master Chen?’

Jin Huai Zhong said, “Over the years, Chen Xu’s movements have been mysterious. He rarely appears in public, and I haven’t seen him often. The last time I saw him was when Longfeng Villa was being haunted. After taking a look, he said the feng shui there was bad and it wasn’t a suitable place to live. As for why the ghosts there were never dispelled, I have no idea.”

Jin Fan scoffed, “Pfft, Master Chen? More like Master Charlatan! He told you to move out because the ghosts in that villa have been cultivating for a thousand years and he couldn’t beat them, right? What a phony master!”

He immediately realized he’d let that slip.

’Shen Zhiyao had previously told him not to speak to outsiders about the ghosts in the villa.’

Hearing this, Jin Huai Zhong was stunned. “Ghosts can cultivate these days?”

Shen Zhiyao didn’t blame Jin Fan. She explained, “There are two ghosts living in that villa who have been cultivating for over a thousand years. Chen Xu was powerless against them, so he used feng shui as an excuse. As for Jin Fan’s fate being swapped, he was definitely the one behind it.”

Even just knowing how to exorcise common ghosts was considered a significant skill in this day and age, which was why a powerful figure like Jin Huai Zhong had placed so much trust in him.

In Shen Zhiyao’s eyes, however, Chen Xu’s meager abilities were nothing to write home about.

’If this is all a disciple from Wudang Mountain is capable of, then their reputation is completely undeserved.’

It dawned on Jin Huai Zhong. “If Chen Xu was involved in swapping their fates, does that mean he and Kang Lin knew each other from the very beginning?”

Shen Zhiyao replied, “They didn’t just know each other. That so-called son of yours is probably his flesh and blood.”

Jin Huai Zhong stammered, “That… That’s impossible!”

Shen Zhiyao said to Jin Huai Zhong, “Jin Fan’s original destiny was of the highest order—it could only be better than yours, not worse. Yet his current destiny is that of a heavenly cursed lone star. This type of fate typically only appears in Magicians or their descendants.”

“Metaphysics can be a good thing, but not everyone is qualified to meddle with it. If your own destiny isn’t strong enough, or if you reveal too many of heaven’s secrets, or if you commit too many sins, you will suffer a backlash, and your fate will be twisted.”

“This is why so many fortune-tellers have no descendants. Their children are born with flawed destinies.”

“Jin Fan’s destiny was originally first-rate, yet Chen Xu claimed he was a heavenly cursed lone star, fated from birth to bring you misfortune.”

“After you distanced yourself from Jin Fan, the biggest beneficiaries were Kang Lin and Jin Muyang.”

“All the signs point to one thing: Jin Muyang is Chen Xu’s biological son!”

After hearing all this, Jin Huai Zhong collapsed weakly onto the sofa, at a complete loss for words.

He had always considered himself a shrewd man. He never, ever imagined that he could be manipulated to this extent…

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep