Chapter 4
From the moment I was born, my birth mother didn’t want me.
The foster parents who took me in raised me until I was five, but after having their own child, they didn’t want me either.
The kidnappers who took me away had their den busted by the police in the second month after abducting me.
I finally managed to convince a kind-hearted couple to take me in.
But a blind fortune teller told them: “This child’s fate is too strong, you won’t be able to handle her.”
They adopted me anyway, but within six months, the couple divorced, and I had nowhere to go again.
I wandered half-dead until I was twelve.
I set my sights on a homeless tarot reader who was very accurate in fortune-telling and seemed to have an even tougher life than me.
To make him adopt me,
I deliberately occupied someone else’s begging spot and was almost beaten to death in a deserted street corner.
I got my wish and was rescued by him, but he refused me again: “Calling me brother, uncle, or even dad won’t work! I won’t adopt you forever, I’m only six years older than you, I can barely take care of myself!”
Despite saying this,
I knew he was kind.
Even his refusal seemed clumsy: “I’m warning you! I’m destined to be alone! Otherwise, I wouldn’t have ended up as a homeless person! If you insist on following me, I’ll teach you tarot, and once you have a skill, you can leave and be independent.”
Zack, who always said he was short-lived and destined to be alone, ended up becoming family with me without any issues.
I inherited his skills and started doing tarot readings for people everywhere.
Because I was accurate, I helped many girls who were about to fall into traps, and even accurately predicted the direction of their true love.
So, I really did fulfill what he said.
I started to have the ability to be independent.
In the year when live streaming became popular, I gradually built a stable client base online by doing tarot readings.
At eighteen,
I bought the pork ribs we used to crave but couldn’t afford, and returned to the house we had bought together with our family savings.
Even ten years later,
I can still clearly remember my pounding heart as I thought about how to confess my feelings to him, facing the sunset that had dyed the horizon red in early summer.
But when I opened the door,
All I saw was a note he left behind:
“Our fate together has come to an end, and there’s no possibility of meeting again in this life.
But I will always protect you.”
At that moment,
I knew I was done for.
My life was like that bag of pork ribs that couldn’t be eaten by my loved one.
In the days to come, it would only slowly rot and stink with time.