Wu Yin, a cultivator from Wufang Valley, wakes up in a modern city with no memory of her past and no spiritual power. Penniless and hungry, she resorts to fortune-telling in exchange for meals, using a cardboard sign that reads "One reading, one thousand yuan." At a small restaurant, she catches the attention of Tan Ci, the CEO of Tan Corporation, who is confined to a wheelchair. After Wu Yin reads his palm and face, she warns him that he is destined for four great calamities, having already survived two. The third calamity, she claims, is that very day, and it will occur if he goes north. Instead of money, Wu Yin offers a trade: a truthful answer for her meal. When Tan Ci asks if they have met before, Wu Yin admits her memory is incomplete and cannot confirm.Tan Ci initially dismisses her, but after Wu Yin insists he go south and avoid going out before midnight, he unexpectedly cancels his afternoon schedule and returns home. On the way, his assistant Yan Ming learns of a horrific accident on Hongyang Road—the very route they would have taken—where a crane dropped a massive metal plate, crushing a car and killing its occupant. Realizing they narrowly escaped death, Yan Ming is stunned by Wu Yin's accuracy. Tan Ci keeps a file on a woman named Cheng Yining, who looks identical to Wu Yin. Cheng Yining had previously testified against Wei Xin's younger brother Wei Shen, sending him to prison. Tan Ci suspects a connection and investigates further.Separately, Wu Yin encounters Wang Dali, a migrant construction worker who mistakes her for a beggar. Wu Yin proposes a fortune-telling for two hundred yuan. Dali initially humors her, but when she accurately reveals his family background—that he is the fourth child, estranged from his parents, divorced, with a neglected daughter left in the countryside—and then urgently warns him to search for his daughter near water in the east, Dali's panic escalates. His uncle, following the instructions, finds the little girl trapped in a well, nearly drowned. The child is rescued in time, and Dali is overwhelmed with gratitude. Wu Yin refuses additional payment, insisting the two hundred yuan covers the reading. She advises Dali to bring his daughter to live with him in the southern city for a better future.After the rescue, Wu Yin discovers that the merit power from saving a life can be converted into spiritual power—an unexpected breakthrough. She continues to live rough under a bridge in the developing district, sleeping on cardboard, still unable to access her Spirit Mansion fully. That night, two criminals—a tall fat man and a short thin man—drive a van to the same riverbank area, intending to bury a kidnapped boy alive in a sand pile. They discuss the murder contract and dig a hole, unaware that Wu Yin is resting nearby. The story builds toward an imminent confrontation between the cultivator and the would-be killers.
