Chapter 398 Scientific Fortune Telling
When I got home in the afternoon, Ning Xuehua was cooking in the kitchen. Lu Yiming took a deep breath, and came forward with a look of joy and said, "It smells so good! Mom, what are you cooking tonight?"
Ning Xuehua was busy cooking and had no time to look back, but she smiled happily when she heard her son's voice: "Stir-fried eel slices, wash your hands first, and you'll be able to eat soon. By the way, it's Chinese New Year these few days, why are you running around?"
Hearing his mother's question, Lu Yiming could only sigh and say, "It's still about that piracy thing."
After cooking, Ning Xuehua wiped her hands and began to ask about the matter with concern: "How was it? Was it troublesome?"
Lu Yiming shook his head: "It's not a problem. I, your son, am very smart and I don't see any trouble. It can be dealt with immediately. It's just a small setback."
"As long as you can handle it yourself."
The food was served and the family ate while watching TV.
The news from Guangdong Province is being broadcast on TV.
"Today, our city has just cracked a case of counterfeiting and selling fake electronic products. A total of 100,000 fake and inferior USB flash drives were seized, and the amount involved was as high as 40 million yuan... The criminals Liu and Lin have been arrested..."
Lu Ding was surprised and said, "This matter has been making quite a fuss these days. Counterfeit USB flash drives? They were caught already?"
Lu Yiming smiled and said, "If you don't want people to know, then don't do it. It's normal to be caught."
Lu Ding asked, "Is the Liu mentioned on TV the same Liu Qian you mentioned before?"
"right."
Lu Ding sighed, "Alas, I don't know what this person was thinking. He didn't sell the gold medal properly and had to commit a crime. Now not only has he gotten nothing, but he has also landed himself in jail. He really brought disaster upon himself."
"Greed is insatiable. If he hadn't resigned, his position and salary would have been promoted by one level. In two years, with the company's performance growth, it would have been a piece of cake for him to earn a million dollars a year. It can only be said that he was blinded by greed and had to do something stupid."
Lu Yiming also shook his head and sighed. Liu Qian was a capable man, but he was too ambitious and ended up hurting himself.
On the tenth day of the first lunar month, the cold wind was howling, but the senior year of high school had already officially started.
After all, there is less than half a year left before the college entrance examination, so we must make good use of our time.
Lu Yiming met Shi Qingxue at the school gate. Today she was wearing a light blue woolen hat, which not only wrapped her head tightly but also covered her ears.
But even so, her delicate face was still red from the cold.
"Lu Yiming!"
Shi Qingxue greeted this side from a distance, then trotted over.
Looking at her jumping up and down, Lu Yiming couldn't help laughing: "Run slower, don't fall ."
"Lu Yiming, have you finished your winter vacation homework?"
"What's the winter vacation homework?"
Lu Yiming slapped his forehead and said, "Oops, I forgot about this!"
After entering the classroom, Lu Yiming had just sat down for a while when Li Quanwang also came.
The boy had two dark circles under his eyes, which scared Lu Yiming: "Fuck, how did you become like this?"
Li Quanwang said: "I didn't do my winter vacation homework, so I had to copy it all night. I didn't finish it until the morning."
Then he took out another copy and threw it on the table: "This is yours. I can tell you didn't do your winter vacation homework when I saw you running around all day. I copied it for you."
Lu Yiming was overjoyed and wanted to hug this guy and kiss him: "Wangzai, I love you so much!"
"roll."
Li Quanwang pushed Lu Yiming away with a look of disgust on his face, yawned weakly, and soon fell asleep on the table.
During lunch, Shi Qingxue was still very curious and asked Lu Yiming, "Several students in the class who didn't finish their winter vacation homework were kept after class. Why weren't you kept after class by the head teacher? Didn't you not do your winter vacation homework?"
Lu Yiming raised his eyebrows proudly: "Wangzai helped me copy it."
Shi Qingxue said with a smile: "No wonder he looked listless this morning. It seems he didn't get a good rest the whole day yesterday. It's all your fault."
Lu Yiming said confidently: "Why blame me? If you helped me copy the homework, then Wangzi wouldn't have to help me copy it, right? So you should be blamed."
"Hmph, you lazy bastard, do your own homework."
Cao Jingwen said: "I just heard from our teacher that we have free time in the afternoon. Why don't we go to the temple fair? It's very lively there."
Although people in later generations often say that the flavor of the New Year is gone, in Guangdong Province, some traditional customs are still well preserved, such as the lion dance in Foshi, the flower market in Baiyun... and in the 1990s, temple fairs were the most flavorful memory of the New Year for young people.
The temple fair is held on Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street. There are many Western buildings nearby. Many government residences were previously located here, as well as a cathedral. It is usually very lively and even more crowded during the Chinese New Year.
A cotton candy machine was surrounded by a crowd of onlookers. They watched the man pour the cotton candy into the machine, and then saw the cotton candy float out like silk. They were all very happy, with eyes full of surprise, as if they were watching a magician perform.
"Lu Yiming, it's marshmallow."
Shi Qingxue was like a child who had not grown up. She squeezed into the crowd and watched the cotton candy-making master dancing with great interest.
Lu Yiming said lovingly: "Then let's buy one?"
"Okay, I want the light pink five-pointed star."
"That's called Balala Energy..."
The three of them each bought a marshmallow and ate them while walking around.
"Scientific fortune-telling is not allowed without money..."
As they were walking, Lu Yiming and his friends were attracted by the shouting of a fortune teller.
In comparison, it seems that little girls are more obsessed with these things than boys, such as tarot cards, and they play with them in a very colorful way. After hearing the words "scientific fortune-telling", Shi Qingxue and Cao Jingwen couldn't walk anymore and insisted on dragging Lu Yiming over to see it.
On the side of the road, there is a small table covered with a blue cloth, on which are placed a folding fan, a compass, and a fortune stick.
Next to the table, there was a banner with the three words "Wu Banxian" written on it.
A thin middle-aged man with delicate features, wearing sunglasses, sat upright.
Shi Qingxue and Cao Jingwen sat on the small stools. Cao Jingwen asked, "How is your scientific fortune-telling?"
Lu Yiming stretched out his hand and waved it in front of the man's sunglasses. Shi Qingxue asked, "What are you doing?"
Lu Yiming said calmly: "It's okay, wear sunglasses today, I want to see if he is sick."
Wu Banxian said, "Young man, fortune-telling and interpretation work only if you are sincere. Don't mess with it."
Then he said, "Little girl, how about we play something a little smaller first? How about I guess your last name first? If I guess it right, you give me five dollars. If I don't guess it right, I won't charge you."
Shi Qingxue said excitedly: "Okay."
Lu Yiming couldn't help but complain: "There are only so many surnames in the Hundred Family Names, just say them all, you won't pay if you say them wrong anyway. If you have the guts to say them wrong, give me five dollars."
Wu Banxian ignored Lu Yiming's complaints and rolled up his sleeves. A deck of cards appeared in his palms. There were eight cards in total. Each card had dozens of surnames with numbers next to them. He gave the first card to Shi Qingxue and asked, "Is your surname on this one?"
Shi Qingxue took a closer look and shook her head slightly.
Wu Banxian changed one and asked, "Does this one have your last name on it?"
Shi Qingxue shook her head again after reading it.
Wu Banxian changed the third, fourth, and fifth cards again...
When it came to the seventh one, Shi Qingxue said, "This is it."
"good."
Wu Banxian put all the other cards aside and held the one chosen by Shi Qingxue in his palm.
Afterwards, he muttered something to himself, and then slowly said, "Your last name is Shi, which means time, right?"
Shi Qingxue was so surprised that she blurted out, "How did you know that?"
Other fortune tellers would ask all kinds of questions in a joking manner, but in fact, the information he wanted to know had already been revealed by the fortune teller without him noticing. But just now, this Wu Banxian didn't ask a single decent question.
An unfathomable smile appeared on Wu Banxian's face, and he said calmly, "I told you, I'm a scientific fortune teller."
So, Shi Qingxue obediently paid the five dollars.
Cao Jingwen, who didn't believe it, immediately stepped forward and said that she wanted to try it too.
As a result, after another round of operations, he handed over five dollars with both hands again.
The middle-aged man looked at Lu Yiming with a smile and asked provocatively, "Young man, why don't you come and try? You must pay for it."
Lu Yiming shook his head slightly and said simply: "Don't try."
Shi Qingxue and Cao Jingwen were both eager to learn more and urged Lu Yiming , "Just give it a try. It's amazing. I want to see how he did it."
Lu Yiming smiled and said, "What's so difficult about this? It's just a little street trick. Only you guys like it."
Wu Banxian was immediately displeased when he heard what Lu Yiming said, and retorted: "Young man, I told you that this is scientific fortune-telling, not a scam at all!"
As if to show off his skills, Wu Banxian handed all the cards in his hand to Lu Yiming and said, "Come on, if you think I've tampered with you, you can do it yourself this time."
Lu Yiming immediately took the eight cards.
After taking a few glances, he already saw the clue and couldn't help but slightly raise the corners of his mouth.
Wu Banxian said, "How about it? Are you coming?"
Lu Yiming said leisurely: "You have eight cards with a total of 255 surnames..."
Hearing Lu Yiming say this, Wu Banxian's face changed slightly, and he reached out to grab the card in Lu Yiming's hand.
Lu Yiming shrank back slightly and said with a smile: "Why are you in such a hurry? I haven't even finished what I'm saying. You said you're not blind, are you wearing sunglasses because you're afraid that others will see your eyes?"
Shi Qingxue asked curiously: "Lu Yiming, can you tell fortunes?"
Lu Yiming couldn't help but curl his lips and said, "The secrets of heaven cannot be revealed. How can destiny be so easy to calculate? This is just a very simple permutation and combination problem. When playing the game, he showed you the cards and asked you to answer whether these cards have your surname. In fact, he is investigating the binary code of your surname."
"Once he knows the code, he only needs to translate it back to calculate its decimal number, and then use the 'surname comparison table' to accurately locate your surname. The so-called scientific fortune-telling is actually a math problem."
As a senior programmer, Lu Yiming is extremely familiar with binary systems. The "fortune teller" in front of him actually tried to use this with him. It was simply like he was showing off his skills in front of an expert.
Cao Jingwen was still confused: "Then how did he locate it?"
Lu Yiming had to patiently explain to the two of them: "For example, Shi Qingxue's last name is Shi. When I brought you the B-type card to ask, you said that your last name existed in the B1 card. Then I brought you the A-type card, and you pointed to the A1 card with your last name. At this time, did you realize that I actually already knew your last name, because this was the only solution."
"To put it simply, every surname has a two-digit code. I asked you twice and you told me everything. So the other fortune-telling techniques of counting with fingers and closing eyes are just to deceive people. He actually already knew the answer."
Lu Yiming demonstrated the theory to Shi Qingxue and Cao Jingwen again, then said with a smile: "It's all binary, which is quite scientific, but it has nothing to do with fate. Destiny is always in your own hands. This is at most a puzzle game. So he told you at the beginning that sincerity will work, which means you don't lie. For example, if your last name is on this card, and you say it's not, then the result must be wrong. Then he will pass the blame on you, saying that you are not sincere. They have already prepared a set of excuses, and no matter what, they must have a reason."
Seeing that he had encountered a tough opponent today, Wu Banxian was very unhappy. He cursed, packed up his prayer flags, carried the table and left, not even taking the cards in Lu Yiming's hand.
Cao Jingwen remembered that she and Shi Qingxue were cheated out of ten dollars because of this thing, and she was immediately indignant and wanted to chase after him to ask for the money, but was stopped by Lu Yiming.
"Forget it, just think of it as a game."
Cao Jingwen said with a pained look on her face: "How can we just let it go like this? Five yuan is enough to buy a chicken drumstick rice!"
Lu Yiming couldn't help but laugh after hearing this: "Then I'll treat you guys to chicken drumstick rice later, that's ok, right?"
"This is fine, hehe."
The three people continued to visit the temple fair, and they had a basic understanding of the so-called fortune-telling.
In fact, the development of any discipline begins with divination. Ancient priests invented writing to record divination inscriptions, invented numbers to count, and studied physics and chemistry to make elixirs... The so-called history is the process of "from gods to humans", which is not surprising in itself.
