Chapter 31: Crippled Li

At the western end of the village, there was an irrigation canal more than five meters wide, running from south to north. Beyond the canal to the west lay Group Two, a small cluster of homes surrounded by rivers on all sides. The riverbanks were thick with tall, thick reeds, and the only way in or out was a single wooden bridge. Group Two had a unique topography, almost like a small island, covering more than fifty mu of land with fewer than thirty households. Many villagers had gone out to work in cities, and Group Two was no exception. Left with nowhere to go, many elderly people gathered here to gamble, turning this “island” into a gambling den.

The unique terrain of the “island,” combined with dedicated lookouts, meant that gambling there was virtually risk-free from police raids.

Of course, the gamblers were all locals—outsiders were not welcome.

Xiong Ying brought Shui Miao across the small wooden bridge.

Shui Miao had rarely come here before. He knew this was where the elderly gathered to gamble.

Fifty meters past the bridge stood a wooden shed, where a man was fishing.

In fact, this man was Li Quezi, the designated lookout.

Li Quezi was disabled, childless, and had no source of income. The villagers had hired him to act as a lookout, calling to warn if any strangers approached.

“Oh, Brother Xiong, why did you bring an outsider?” Li Quezi, whose eyesight had worsened with age, held his phone ready to dial. Seeing it was Xiong Ying, he relaxed and put the phone down.

Xiong Ying shook his head, thinking to himself that Li Quezi deserved to be stuck in this miserable job if he couldn’t even trust someone he brought. “It’s Shui Miao. Shui Miao, he had nowhere to play, so I brought him to take a walk.”

“Oh… oh, I remember now. Oh my, this kid has grown so big!”

Li Quezi finally recognized him.

In Shui Miao’s memory, Li Quezi had always been warm and friendly, treating the village children with kindness. Unlike some elderly folks who acted superior and ignored the younger generation, always lecturing without ever trying to connect, Li Quezi was approachable. That was why Shui Miao had never been interested in coming here.

Xiong Ying stopped and exchanged a few words with Li Quezi, asking who had come that morning.

Shui Miao crouched by the bucket watching the fish. Although Li Quezi’s eyesight wasn’t sharp, his fishing skills were excellent—there were already over a dozen fish in the bucket, big and small, including a small turtle.

“Lao Liu, Tu Zi, Shan Pao, Gang Tou, Zhao Kui…” Li Quezi counted on his fingers, listing the nicknames of seven or eight people. Then he gave up, waving his hand. “Anyway, they all came—those who’ve beaten you before.”

“Is that so?” Xiong Ying stroked his beard and grinned. “How convenient! I was just going to look for them, and they’ve come knocking on my door.”

“Haha, Brother Xiong, you must have made a lot of money on this trip, right?” Li Quezi stood up, smiling. He meant no harm—he just wanted to chat and also sell some fish.

Because of his disability, Li Quezi couldn’t travel far. He kept the smaller fish for himself and sold the larger ones for money.

Xiong Ying glanced at the bucket. “Don’t ask how much I made. I’ll just buy all these fish from you.”

As Xiong Ying turned to leave, Li Quezi quickly stopped him. “I also have a soft-shelled turtle in my bamboo basket, over five jin. Want it?”

Wild soft-shelled turtles were a delicacy.

Xiong Ying liked steamed fish and occasionally made turtle soup, but he had never eaten one this large.

“Five jin? Really?” Xiong Ying was skeptical.

Li Quezi turned and went to the riverbank to fetch the basket. When he lifted it, there really was a large turtle, as big as a washbasin!

Seeing such a large turtle, Xiong Ying felt a surge of desire and quickly asked, “How much? If it’s too expensive, I can’t afford it.”

“What? Too expensive for you, my good brother?” Li Quezi raised his hand and held up five fingers. “This price isn’t high, right?”

Five hundred?

Shui Miao couldn’t believe it. A wild turtle this big could easily fetch over a thousand yuan in the city market, maybe even three or four thousand if sold in a high-end restaurant. In a big city, it might even sell for ten thousand.

“Fine! Five hundred, I’ll take it.” Xiong Ying agreed immediately.

But Li Quezi quickly waved his hands. “No, not five hundred… five thousand…”

It was clear he was being bold in his pricing.

“Five thousand!”

Xiong Ying was stunned. “Brother, are you trying to rip me off? Five thousand? You can sell it to someone else.”

Without hesitation, Xiong Ying turned and walked away.

Shui Miao hesitated, looking at the turtle in the basket. Suddenly, he got an idea and quietly activated his Yin-Yang eyes.

“Ah!”

He was startled. The turtle was surrounded by a thick layer of gray spiritual energy.

Even in broad daylight, it could summon so much earth energy—its spiritual power must be immense.

“Shui Miao, hurry up!”

Seeing Shui Miao hadn’t followed, Xiong Ying urged him.

“Okay, coming.” Shui Miao scratched his head, then whispered to Li Quezi, “You keep it for now. Let me go convince Grandpa.”

“Shui Miao, if your grandpa really thinks it’s too expensive, how about four thousand… or even three?” Li Quezi lowered his voice. “I know five thousand is a bit steep, but this turtle is huge and has spiritual power. Eating it might even help you become an immortal.”

“…”

Shui Miao was speechless.

“If it can make you immortal, you keep it for yourself.”

Shui Miao shook his head with a smile and walked away.

Li Quezi hurriedly called out, “Hey! You don’t believe me? I used to study Taoism! If it weren’t for the turtle I sold your grandpa back then, how could he have become a feng shui master?”

Li Quezi’s words carried a lot of weight.

Shui Miao ran to catch up with Xiong Ying. “Grandpa, Li Quezi said you became powerful after eating one of his big turtles. Is that true?”

“He’s full of crap!” Xiong Ying rarely swore. “Don’t let his old and honest appearance fool you. When he was young, he was a notorious fraud who claimed to be a disciple of Maoshan. Once, he nearly fell to his death and ended up crippled. He’s been a con artist ever since. I won’t buy his fish again.”

“Wow, he was actually a famous con man!”

Shui Miao murmured, glancing back. For some reason, he couldn’t help but feel that Li Quezi might actually have some real abilities.

Xiong Ying walked on, speaking calmly. “I heard that when he was young, he liked peeping at women bathing. Once, he spied on the wife of a rich man in the city, got caught, and was beaten so badly on the way home that he was left permanently disabled. After that, he became more subdued—maybe because he lost his manhood, he lost interest in women. But not long after, Li Quezi changed completely, becoming a swindler. Once, he stole money meant to save a poor man’s life. When the man found out and chased him, he fell off a bridge and broke his leg.”

“No way! So Li Quezi was actually that kind of person!?”

Shui Miao was shocked, recalling an old saying: “You can’t judge a person by appearance, just like you can’t judge a tiger by its skin.”

“That’s why you can’t judge people by looks alone. Often, face-reading isn’t reliable,” Xiong Ying shook his head. When he was young, he had learned face-reading and fortune-telling from his master, but after many experiences, he realized those arts weren’t truly effective.

This sparked Shui Miao’s curiosity. “Grandpa, I heard you also learned fortune-telling when you were young. Why did you stop and never use it?”

Xiong Ying had always refused to talk about it, and no one ever knew why.

Shui Miao hadn’t expected his grandfather to answer today.

But to his surprise, Xiong Ying spoke slowly. “There’s a song that says it well: ‘Three parts are fate, seven parts are struggle.’ My master told me that destiny is important, but its influence is actually quite small—less than three parts. And fate is constantly changing. Most fortune-tellers just memorize the I Ching, applying fixed principles to fixed birth dates, then improvising based on facial expressions and body language. In short, it’s a scam. Everyone knows fortune-telling can only predict the past. The future can’t be calculated so simply.”

“But Grandpa, why do some fortune-tellers seem so accurate?” Shui Miao asked curiously.

Xiong Ying sneered. “Those might be spirit mediums, not real fortune-tellers.”

“Spirit mediums?”

Shui Miao became even more curious. “Grandpa, tell me what spirit mediums are.”

Xiong Ying nodded patiently. “Spirit mediums are people who have made some kind of pact with spirits. These spirits can be yin spirits—what people commonly call ghosts—or yao spirits, like fox spirits or other animal spirits. These spirits want to cultivate, so they first torment a person, making them suffer so much that they fear the spirits completely, obeying them without question. Then the spirits cooperate with the person, helping them tell fortunes, heal, or even exorcise demons.”