Yu Ning wasn’t sure if she had just seen what she thought she saw.

Was that Lin San, the arrogant and playful third young master of the Lin family, wiping away tears?

“Finished eating?” Lin Hai asked, his back still to Yu Ning.

His voice was muffled, making Yu Ning unsure if she had seen correctly.

“Yes.”

“If you can’t give me a satisfactory answer by eight o’clock, I’ll make sure you disappear without a trace!”

With that, Lin Hai quickly left, afraid that the girl would expose his teary moment with his elder brother.

“It seems your two younger brothers like you very much… Such an excellent brother, why must he be a domestic abuser and womanizer?” Yu Ning muttered to Lin Zheng, who was lying on the bed.

The black cat froze while chewing on beef, its little teeth clenching tight.

Great, now he wanted to beat up Old Five again…

Fully rested and fed, Yu Ning returned to the table and stared at the hexagram in deep thought.

While she focused on deciphering the hexagram, Jia Qingqing wasn’t idle.

After finally washing the salad out of her hair, she grew angrier the more she thought about it.

She had come to laugh at the bumpkin but ended up being schooled by her instead.

She wanted to go upstairs to disturb Yu Ning but was stopped by Wu Ma, who had stationed people on the third floor to keep her out.

“Damn bumpkin! I won’t let you get away with this—ah, I have an idea!”

Jia Qingqing smirked maliciously.

How could she forget she had that great tool?

Yu Ning had deciphered most of the hexagram, but the result made her frown.

It felt like something was missing—could she have made a mistake halfway through?

As she pondered, a loud noise came from the direction of the floor-to-ceiling window.

A drone flew in through a small open window, wreaking havoc in the room. Yu Ning walked to the window, seeing Jia Qingqing with a remote control downstairs. Seeing Yu Ning appear, Jia Qingqing laughed triumphantly.

“Yu Ning! Are you scared now?”

“…How childish!”

Seeing Yu Ning ignore her and close the window, Jia Qingqing sneered.

“If you won’t let me watch, I can see through the drone’s camera—Brother Lin is so handsome…”

Jia Qingqing licked her lips, zooming in on Lin Zheng with the drone’s camera.

The drone rampaged around the room, making it impossible for Yu Ning to concentrate. Just as she was about to find something to smash the drone with, the black cat had enough.

It leaped from the table with such speed that even Yu Ning couldn’t catch it, landing directly on the drone.

The drone crashed to the floor in pieces.

Peace was restored in the room.

Yu Ning opened the window, seeing Jia Qingqing standing below with one hand on her hip, looking like a teapot, and cursing.

“You broke my drone! Do you know how expensive that was? Can you afford to pay for it?”

“If my cat was hurt because of your stupid machine, I’d break your legs.”

Yu Ning threw the broken drone down, closed the window, and blocked out Jia Qingqing’s curses.

The black cat, having claimed a drone, sat proudly.

Yu Ning picked it up, meeting its fearless gaze, and patted its butt twice.

“!!!”

The black cat’s pupils narrowed, she touched him there again!

“How can you be so bold, huh?” Yu Ning scolded it while poking its head with her finger.

“This kind of thing should be done by me. How could you jump in? It’s dangerous!”

“Meow!” Not that dangerous, he thought.

“What if you got hurt?!” Yu Ning continued poking.

“Meow!” A man should stand and die; so what?

“You still dare to talk back?!” Yu Ning smacked it again.

“Meow meow!!!” Woman, please respect a man’s dignity and move your hand away from his vital area!

The black cat, now furious from the hit, jumped from her arms to the table.

It knocked off a copper coin from the arranged hexagram.

The coin fell to the floor.

The black cat froze on the table as if it had been immobilized.

It seemed… it had caused trouble.

Each of these ancient copper coins represented a hexagram. Yu Ning had spent so much time deciphering it, only for it to be disturbed by him.

He didn’t understand divination, but he knew that even a slight change could drastically alter the result, nullifying all her efforts.

Guilt filled his eyes as he stiffened, watching her approach.

The girl would be very upset; time was already tight, and he had only made things worse.

Yu Ning bent down, glanced at the coin on the floor, and exclaimed.

“The hexagram has changed…艮 below 兑 above, it’s the 咸 hexagram—this makes sense!”

Yu Ning’s eyes lit up.

She had felt something was off during her interpretation.

The pet had knocked off a coin, changing the hexagram.

This unexpected change clarified her doubts, making the hexagram understandable!

Seeing her stand still, the black cat thought she was upset about the ruined hexagram. Resolutely, he turned around and silently raised his tail.

Come on, keep hitting.

Even hitting his vital area was fine, as long as she was happy; a man’s dignity wasn’t that important.

“Hahaha! You’re my lucky little cat!” Yu Ning happily hugged the cat, pouted, and kissed its head hard.

The black cat’s fur stood on end—it had been kissed!

Feeling great, Yu Ning rushed out with the cat, shouting down the corridor:

“Lin San! Come here!”

Lin Hai walked out of the gym with a peculiar expression.

“What did you call me?!”

“Ahem, a slip of the tongue, don’t mind it! The hexagram is deciphered. Come, I’ll explain it to you!”

Skeptical, Lin Hai followed her into the room. Yu Ning pointed at the coins on the table and the one on the floor:

“This is the thirty-first hexagram of six lines. The lower hexagram is 艮, representing a mountain, and the upper hexagram is 兑, representing a lake—”

“Just tell me the result.” Lin Hai was dizzy from the technical jargon.

“The 咸 hexagram indicates a favorable direction to the north or east, but not the east for residence.” Yu Ning took out her phone, opened the map, and drew a range around the city where the incident occurred.

“These neighborhoods contain the person we’re looking for.”

“…Are you joking?”

Conservatively estimated, these neighborhoods had tens of thousands of people. How long would it take to check each one?

“The hexagram suggests this person is troubled by emotions and is either running away from home or has already been kicked out. Search with this in mind.”

“No, it’s still too vague—why are you looking at me like that?”

“All those web novels are lies. They said a domineering CEO could shake an entire city with a stomp. You can’t even find one person…”

“Hey!!! Don’t apply those brainless plots to reality! I’m in finance, not a detective!”

Lin Hai felt deeply insulted.

“I can only figure out this much.”

Lin Hai was about to mock her when he saw her take out a broken compass, muttering.

“Because the domineering CEO is useless, with limited ability, and I’m also a half-baked talent… I can only keep relying on others.”

“You’re useless! Your whole family is useless—huh?”

Lin Hai stopped mid-sentence, surprised by the strange scene with Yu Ning’s compass.