Playing Poker with a Sow

(A quick note! What follows will be told in the form of a story. To those of you who have found your way here, please don't get caught up in the story's facade. Instead, glean your own Dao from its periphery. Blessings, blessings.)

A while back, a buddy I hadn't spoken to in ages called me up, asking what I was up to and if I wanted to make some money.

I asked him where he was and what he was doing.

He said he'd been abroad for three years. He spent the first year and a half in Singapore and didn't make much, but now he was in Cambodia.

Before he left, he owed over a hundred thousand, and he'd paid it all off now.

He also mentioned that his work there was mainly in online marketing, and he'd already worked his way up to a supervisor level.

He specifically targeted other countries, not domestic ones, and he'd already brought over more than ten people he knew. He said it was incredibly profitable and asked if I was interested.

As you all know, I'm someone who purely cultivates Buddhism and understands the Dao. I'm not greedy for fame or profit.

When someone talks to me, the first thing I do is examine my own thoughts, and the second is to consider what the other person is thinking.

Money and women hold no temptation for me. So, I started to ponder his true motive for telling me all this.

Based on my understanding of human nature, if someone is making a lot of money, they'll usually keep their head down and focus on earning more, not talk about it to others.

So, there could only be two reasons for him telling me: either he wanted to use me to make money, or he saw me as a potential source of money.

Therefore, I directly refused.

As expected, he then told me they were hiring and asked if I had any friends who wanted to make money and could contact him.

Normally, he'd get thirty thousand for bringing someone over. If I could introduce someone, he wouldn't take a cut; he'd give me the full thirty thousand.

So, the question arises: if it were a legitimate marketing job, why would they pay so much for an introduction?

I don't know if money is easy to make in Cambodia, but in my mind, this is no different from selling pigs.

So, after a brief chat, I hung up.

After the call, I thought about it. If it were really that profitable, he would have contacted friends he was closer to.

While we were good friends, it shouldn't have been me he contacted first.

With that thought, I called another friend who was closer to him. That friend told me he hadn't mentioned anything about it.

This made me even more suspicious about the authenticity of the situation. I started to worry if he was being held against his will.

Maybe I was overthinking it, but what if I wasn't thinking enough, and this friend couldn't come back?

If I were to analyze this based on typical movie and novel plots, this friend's current situation would be like a turtle locked in a birdcage – probably unable to get out.

Moreover, what he called "online marketing" seemed like a pyramid scheme to me, where the profit came from recruiting people, then extracting benefits from those recruited, and perhaps even being sold off in the end.

I often see such news online.

As the saying goes, one should not intend to harm others, but one must guard against others. This made me have to think this way.

My main concern was that this person might not be able to return.

Even if I suspected he was trying to trick me, it didn't conflict with my worry for him.

I then contacted this friend's wife to ask if she knew what he was doing. She said she was driving, so I told her to focus on that.

After much deliberation, I decided to cast a hex using Lesser Six Rens. The divination outcome showed Great Peace, Swift Joy, and Void.

Lesser Six Rens has six possible outcomes. Three are auspicious, and three are inauspicious.

They are: Great Peace, Lingering, Swift Joy, Red Mouth, Minor Auspiciousness, and Void.

These represent: Great Auspiciousness, Moderate Inauspiciousness, Moderate Auspiciousness, Minor Inauspiciousness, Minor Auspiciousness, and Great Inauspiciousness.

Judging by this outcome, this person is doing alright there for now and is getting by, but ultimately, there won't be a good result.

In other words, my friend doesn't need my worry right now, but in the end, it's likely his fate is sealed, like a child who can't spit out rust after lifting weights – probably ruined.

Alas, such is fate, and this poor monk can do nothing about it.

Since we're on the topic, let me share some knowledge about Lesser Six Rens with everyone.

Lesser Six Rens, also known as Horse-front divination, was simplified by Zhuge Liang during the Three Kingdoms period based on Qi Men Dun Jia. It's called Lesser Six Rens because its divination method is similar to Six Rens.

When I first began my cultivation, I wanted to learn a method of divination. I looked at many, such as Plum Blossom Numerology, Six Rens, Purple Star Astrology, and so on. Only Lesser Six Rens was the most convenient and simple. It's also known as "calculating with fingers" among the common folk, so I learned it, mainly to show off after achieving some success in my cultivation.

Later, things unfolded as the divination predicted. My friend told me his family knew about his situation and that I didn't need to worry too much.

As for the final outcome, we'll just have to wait and see. If I'm still writing this book then, I'll write about it. If I'm not, I'll reveal the answer in another book.

Just a few days after this incident, a brother from Yangcheng named Gouzi called me again. He said there was a man surnamed Wu in his area who used to be a teacher. He seemed to be possessed or haunted, acting like a mental patient, constantly apologizing to the air and muttering things like:

"Teacher was wrong, teacher was really wrong, I won't dare again, please let me go!"

While saying this, he would bang his head against the air, causing large bumps on his forehead.

He would even run out of his house sometimes in the middle of the night and go to other people's pigpens to "play cards" with the sows.

Just a few days ago, they couldn't keep an eye on him, and Teacher Wu managed to "knock up" the old sow that Auntie Wang from the east end of the village had raised for over ten years.

Hearing this, I couldn't help but feel a sense of confusion.

Normally, this shouldn't be happening, right?

Friends who have studied biology know that there is reproductive isolation between humans and other species, which means it's impossible for humans to have sex with a sow.

But judging by what Gouzi was saying, he didn't seem to be joking, so I was very curious about this matter.

Besides, the common people were also disturbed by this incident. The village chief thought about spending some money to find some capable or extraordinary person to handle it. Gouzi figured that I had been cultivating for a year and a half now, and he always heard me talk about how amazing cultivation was, so he wanted to see if I had any solutions. Then, the two of us could make some money, splitting it three-seven, him three and me seven.

In the meantime, I asked Gouzi why he didn't call the police or send this Teacher Wu directly to a mental hospital.

Gouzi said that neither the police nor the mental hospital could handle this matter. He had checked, and our country has a law called the Mental Health Law. Article 28 of this law stipulates that if a suspected mentally disordered patient, or someone who is a danger to themselves or others, their close relatives, employer, or local public security organ should take measures to stop them and send them to a medical institution for diagnosis of mental disorder. It's a diagnosis, but a diagnosis doesn't equal hospitalization.

Article 30 of the Mental Health Law also stipulates the principle of voluntary admission for mentally disordered patients. Even for severe cases, hospitalization requires the consent of the guardian.

Article 31 of the law clearly states that if the guardian does not agree, the medical institution shall not carry out inpatient treatment for the patient.

Therefore, the law does not stipulate that any other person or organization besides the guardian has the right to decide on inpatient treatment for a mentally disordered patient.

Moreover, Teacher Wu is a loner with no close relatives around, and he hasn't harmed anyone. He's only harmed sows, damn it! Nobody could do anything about it.

After hanging up the phone, I directly booked a flight to Yangcheng.