"Good luck, honey!" A beautiful young woman holding a child gave Xiao Chengzhou a gentle kiss on the cheek.
The only thing Xiao Chengzhou had ever been proud of was finding himself a beautiful wife. He grinned and said, "Just wait for my good news!"
After leaving home, he went straight to the underground parking garage, floored it, and hit the highway.
His wife was four years younger than him. They'd met by chance at a dinner gathering. At the time, Xiao Chengzhou's career was just getting started, but he was already somewhat well-known among people his age.
When their friends heard he'd married such a beautiful, capable woman—someone who could hold her own at a formal gathering and run a household—they were all green with envy, telling him how lucky he was.
But married life hadn't been as wonderful as Xiao Chengzhou had imagined. His wife was vain—or, to put it another way, she was expensive.
She insisted on imported skincare and cosmetics, and she had to replace her luxury bags every two or three months. What Xiao Chengzhou couldn't stand most was her constant comparisons with other people. If someone else had something, she had to have it too—and hers had to be better.
More than once, Xiao Chengzhou had sworn he'd stop spoiling her. But when she whispered sweet nothings to him at night, he'd always soften.
Lately, his business had hit a bottleneck, and they'd just had a child. Money was getting tight, so he'd considered taking the risk of buying this batch of smuggled goods.
"Hope everything goes smoothly today!" Xiao Chengzhou murmured as he drove along the highway.
He glanced at the text message on his phone and remembered how enthusiastically his old schoolmate Junming had talked up Shen Qiong. He decided to stop by and have Shen Qiong tell his fortune first. He'd already made an appointment, so he might as well go.
A subway line was under construction east of Shili Street, and housing prices were shooting up. The locals headed out each day in high spirits.
Xiao Chengzhou drove his Audi A4 through the narrow lanes of Shili Street. Suddenly, a child darted out from around a corner, making him slam on the brakes.
The child had nearly been hit and was so frightened that his face turned ashen. He stood frozen, his legs trembling uncontrollably.
In a fit of anger, Xiao Chengzhou got out and yelled, "Watch where you're going!"
The child immediately burst into tears.
"Quit crying! What are you crying for? You're not even hurt..." Xiao Chengzhou checked the time, shook his head, and got back in the car. He still had fifteen minutes before his appointment, so he turned and drove around the child.
At the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion, Shen Qiong was engrossed in a book, as if it contained something irresistibly fascinating.
Xiao Chengzhou parked by the roadside, glanced up at the sign for the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion, and went inside.
Hearing footsteps, Shen Qiong looked up and saw a man stride in angrily. His brows drew together slightly.
Things had gone badly for Xiao Chengzhou all day, and he was in a terrible mood. He didn't wait for Shen Qiong to speak, just picked a seat and sat down.
Shen Qiong recognized him as the client who'd made an appointment. He took out his phone and checked the man's details.
Xiao Chengzhou (within 100 meters) Age: 33 Height: 174 Health Value: 75
Luck Value: 2 (imprisonment)
After looking over his details, Shen Qiong studied Xiao Chengzhou with a puzzled expression. The man didn't look like a criminal at all. Why was he facing a prison sentence?
Xiao Chengzhou was already in a bad mood. He turned to Shen Qiong and demanded irritably, "What're you staring at? I made an appointment with Master Shen for this time. Where is he?"
Shen Qiong coughed twice. "I'm Master Shen."
"You are?" Xiao Chengzhou frowned and sized up the younger man in front of him. "How's that possible? You're so young."
"Do I have to be an old man with a head of white hair?" Shen Qiong said with a smile.
Xiao Chengzhou's expression hardened. "Listen, kid. Do I look like someone you can scam? Hurry up and tell me whether Master Shen is here. If he isn't, I'm leaving."
He crossed one leg over the other and grumbled, "How come your shop doesn't even have a cup of tea?"
Seeing the disgusted look on the man's face, Shen Qiong bristled. What was this? He wanted a reading, and Shen Qiong was supposed to wait on him hand and foot?
Shen Qiong couldn't be bothered with someone like him. He waved a hand. "All right, then. Sit if you want, or leave. You can go."
Xiao Chengzhou was stunned. What kind of nonsense was this? He'd gone out of his way to come here, and nearly gotten into an accident so he wouldn't be late. Now he hadn't gotten his fortune told, and Shen Qiong was telling him to leave?
No way!
"You think I'll leave just because you tell me to?" Xiao Chengzhou said, looking as if he had no intention of budging.
Shen Qiong sneered. "This is my shop. If you won't leave, am I supposed to? What a joke!"
"You really are Master Shen?" Xiao Chengzhou still couldn't believe that someone so young could be a master.
"The genuine article," Shen Qiong replied calmly.
Xiao Chengzhou gritted his teeth. "Fine, then. Tell my fortune."
Shen Qiong laughed. Every other client who came to him for a reading was polite. He wondered if this guy had something wrong with his head.
"I have a business deal to discuss this afternoon," Xiao Chengzhou said. "Just tell my fortune and let me know how my luck is today."
Shen Qiong asked in surprise, "When did I say I'd tell your fortune?"
"You..." Xiao Chengzhou stared at Shen Qiong, eyes wide.
"What about me? At first, I was going to read your fortune, but I've changed my mind. Leave. You're not welcome in my shop." Shen Qiong took a sip of tea.
"Oh? You really think you're some kind of master? You should take a look at yourself first." Xiao Chengzhou mocked him.
Shen Qiong knitted his brows and said coldly, "Please leave."
Xiao Chengzhou jumped to his feet and cursed, "What a lousy shop, in the middle of nowhere. Some kid barely out of his teens, putting on airs and calling himself a master..."
He kept cursing as he left. Once outside, he continued shouting, "Get lost! Master Shen, my foot. You can tell at a glance he's a Jianghu swindler. This place is a joke too!"
The locals passing by immediately stopped to watch. One person laughed. "Look, someone else has come to the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion to cause trouble."
"Ah, it's hard to even catch a glimpse of Master Shen these days. You have to make an appointment."
Remembering that the photo he'd casually posted on Weibo last time had gotten five or six thousand reposts and comments, Chen Yuxiang had made a special trip to the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion to see if anything new was happening.
When Chen Yuxiang saw someone shouting in front of the old shop, he hurriedly pulled out his phone and started taking pictures. He grinned. "Hey! This'll make for a great Weibo post tonight."
Xiao Chengzhou saw that quite a few people had stopped to watch, and his spirits lifted. They'd actually dared to kick him out? He'd make sure to ruin Shen Qiong's reputation this time...
"I'm telling you, this so-called Master Shen is a complete fraud. He doesn't know a thing! My friend got scammed, so I came here today to expose him!" he told the onlookers.
Xiao Chengzhou had thought the crowd would join him in denouncing the "master," but their reaction left him dumbfounded.
One bystander said, "He looks so respectable, but who'd have thought he'd be such a horrible person?"
"Ah, there's nothing people won't do for money. Poor Master Shen—I wonder who he upset this time. They've hired someone to stir up trouble again."
"I remember that guy who ranted that Master Shen was a fraud last time ended up in prison, didn't he?" one person in the know said with a laugh.
Chen Yuxiang kept taking photos while jotting down the crowd's comments in a notebook. He was thrilled. "This is too interesting!"
Xiao Chengzhou was dumbstruck. He hurriedly tried to explain, "You think I was paid to come here and cause trouble? Give me a break! This place is obviously a scam, and that Master Shen is so young. What could he possibly know..."
The onlookers seemed not to have heard the point he was making at all. Instead, they kept remarking, "That's true! Master Shen is pretty young..."
"So young, yet so accomplished! No wonder people are jealous of Master Shen!" praised one of Shen Qiong's longtime neighbors.
Someone called out to Xiao Chengzhou, "Hey, how much did they pay you? You're acting so convincingly. You're not a hired actor, are you?"
Most of these bystanders were locals from Shili Street or Gudao West Road. They had no doubts about Shen Qiong's fortune-telling abilities. The only thing they questioned was how much the troublemaker in front of them had been paid to lie through his teeth.
Good heavens! Xiao Chengzhou wondered if these onlookers had gone crazy. He ran over to his car and shouted, "I'm not a hired actor! I'm a businessman. This is my car—take a good look! This thing wasn't cheap. I swear on my character, I'm not a hired actor. That so-called Master Shen is definitely a fraud, a complete and utter fraud!"
Chen Yuxiang silently gave himself full marks for being so clever. He'd decided that taking photos wasn't enough, so he'd filmed a short video too—and it had caught this whole scene.
Shen Qiong had come outside by then. Hearing how much the crowd trusted him made him feel great. He hadn't expected the locals to support him so wholeheartedly.
The owner of the internet café on the third floor came down to join the crowd and laughed. "Not bad! A few days ago, I heard there were people doing business outside hospitals, hired by patients' families to wail at funerals. Apparently they could make tens of thousands a month doing that! I bet you're making good money too!"
Someone recognized Xiao Chengzhou's car and exclaimed, "Isn't that an Audi? Even a cheap one costs two or three hundred thousand!"
Someone else laughed. "Beggars drive cars and own houses these days. What's so strange about that?"
Xiao Chengzhou was completely baffled. No matter how he explained, it was useless. In the eyes of the crowd, he was nothing but a clown.
Even after he drove away in his beloved car, the crowd stayed behind, pointing and whispering.
"Crazy. Every last one of them is crazy. Everyone on this street is nuts..." Xiao Chengzhou cursed from inside the car.
Someone spotted Shen Qiong standing outside the shop and teased him. "Master Shen has some serious patience. If someone slandered me like that, I'd have gone over and beaten him up already."
"Hahaha! You're a roughneck. How can you compare yourself to Master Shen?"
Shen Qiong smiled. "Don't worry, everyone. I read that man's fortune. He's doomed to misfortune today, and bad luck will cling to him. He won't have an easy time."
"Hahaha! So Master Shen had everything figured out from the start."
Before you continue