A Turn for the Better

After returning from the Heavenly Court, Wen Ning felt that his luck really had improved quite a bit.

Maybe his godfather had put in a word for him up there.

In any case, starting that very morning, his barely surviving agency suddenly began getting business. Things were looking up.

His first client was a woman in her fifties surnamed Zhou, with a head of tightly permed curls. She was very fashionable, but her eyes were red when she walked in.

She plopped down on the folding chair with peeling paint opposite Wen Ning, pulled a photograph from her handbag, and slapped it onto the desk.

The photograph showed a man in his fifties with a comb-over covering his bald crown and a belly that made him look six months pregnant.

"Mr. Wen, find out whether this bastard's got another woman."

Sister Zhou's voice shook with anger.

"For the past two weeks, he's been running out every day right after dinner. When I ask him, he says he's playing chess with Old Zhang. I called Old Zhang, and he said they haven't played chess in three months! What else could it be if he isn't seeing someone?"

Wen Ning took the photograph and looked at it. The man didn't look like he had another woman.

In the picture, the man wore a white undershirt and baggy shorts, sitting on a couch eating watermelon.

With those natural assets, he hardly looked equipped to have an affair.

But Wen Ning didn't say that aloud. Over his years of scraping by in the real world,

the most important business lesson he had learned was this: making clients feel good was worth more than the truth.

"Sister Zhou, don't worry. Leave this to me. I'll have an answer for you within two days."

Sweet talk really worked. Calling this fifty-something auntie "sister" hadn't been wasted effort.

Sister Zhou transferred three thousand yuan to Wen Ning's WeChat on the spot. As he looked at the payment notification,

he silently said, Godfather, you're fucking awesome.

The whole investigation proved much easier than Wen Ning had expected.

The following evening, he staked out the area downstairs from Sister Zhou's home for less than twenty minutes

before spotting his target—Old Zhou, with his bald crown and beer belly—

riding a battered electric bike out of the residential complex.

Wen Ning unlocked a shared bicycle and followed him. He watched Old Zhou turn at three intersections before finally parking his electric bike outside an internet café.

An internet café? Wen Ning thought he must have seen wrong.

He followed him inside and found Old Zhou among the rows of young people playing games.

Old Zhou, a retired teacher in his fifties, wore headphones and stared intently at the screen, his left hand on the keyboard and his right on the mouse, muttering away.

"Pick me up, pick me up! I'm down! Save me!"

Wen Ning stood behind Old Zhou and watched for a full three minutes, finally confirming three things.

First, Old Zhou was playing a shooter called Game for Peace.

Second, Old Zhou was atrociously bad at it. In the three minutes Wen Ning watched, he went down at least five times, his level-three helmet getting shot down to a level-one helmet.

Third, Old Zhou was extremely happy—so happy that he hadn't noticed someone standing behind him watching for three whole minutes.

Wen Ning took a photo with his phone, left the internet café, and called Sister Zhou from outside.

"Sister Zhou, I've figured it out. Your husband isn't cheating."

"Then what has he been running out to do every day?"

Wen Ning considered his wording.

"He's playing games at an internet café. A game called Game for Peace. I suppose he's found a second lease on life in it."

There was a long silence on the other end.

Then Sister Zhou spoke, her voice carrying a complicated mix of emotions.

"Playing games? A fifty-three-year-old man going to an internet café to play games? He could've told me! It's not like I wouldn't let him! I even forgave him when he lost eight thousand yuan playing mahjong back then. What's so hard about telling me he's playing a game?"

Hearing how loudly Sister Zhou spoke, Wen Ning thought, With a voice like yours, who would dare tell you?

But he still had to remain perfectly polite aloud.

"Maybe he was afraid you'd laugh at him. It's normal for a man to have a little hobby. He probably didn't tell you because he was worried about losing face."

Sister Zhou huffed on the other end, then said something that nearly made Wen Ning laugh out loud.

"All right, got it. Thanks for your hard work, Mr. Wen. Keep the change. Oh, what was that game called again?"

"Game for Peace."

"I'll download it when I get home. He likes playing, does he? I'll make sure I drag him down."

After hanging up, Wen Ning stood outside the internet café laughing for ages, almost laughing himself to tears. This old couple is something else.

His second job was helping some college students rent a place. They were all younger students from his old school.

There was one guy and one girl, both juniors, looking for a cheap one-bedroom apartment near the urban village.

Wen Ning showed them three apartments, and they finally settled on one that cost eight hundred yuan a month.

He collected four hundred yuan in agency fees. It wasn't much, but with Sister Zhou's three thousand, he had considerably more breathing room. At least his rent was covered for the time being.

While they were signing the contract, the young man pulled him aside and asked in a low voice,

"Wen, how come your company does everything? Marriage investigations, apartment rentals... What kind of agency is this, exactly?"

Wen Ning thought for a moment, then replied with a perfectly straight face,

"Comprehensive cross-industry services. Whatever you need, I can help you get it done."

The young man nodded, only half understanding.

The young woman beside him had sharper eyes. She pointed at the gleaming statue of a deity on Wen Ning's desk.

"Wen, what god are you worshipping here? How come it isn't the God of Wealth?"

Wen Ning glanced back at the statue of his godfather and chuckled.

"He isn't the God of Wealth, but he works just as well."

He certainly does. That's my godfather, after all, Wen Ning added inwardly.

After finishing those two jobs, Wen Ning sat on the folding chair and tallied his earnings over the past few days: three thousand from Sister Zhou, four hundred in agency fees, plus the smaller jobs he'd accumulated earlier. After deducting his food and utility expenses over the past few days, his available funds had finally broken the four-thousand-yuan mark.

Three months of rent and utilities came to a little over three thousand. At least he'd gotten past having only two hundred-odd yuan in his pocket.

Wen Ning leaned back in his chair, looking at the bills and payment records on his phone, and couldn't help chuckling.

"I'm a Heavenly Court civil servant, after all."

He muttered to himself.

"And this is what I've come to."

As he spoke, the incense stick on the offering table suddenly flickered with a spark.

Wen Ning instinctively looked over.

He couldn't shake the feeling that the statue's half-closed eyes held a trace of disdain, exactly like the disdain in Wen Zhong's eyes back in the interview room.

"All right, all right, I'll stop complaining."

Wen Ning hurriedly raised his hands toward the statue.

"I'm working on it, Godfather."

The statue didn't answer, but the incense smoke tilted slightly to one side.

Wen Ning had just put down his phone and was about to make do with a bowl of instant noodles

when the screen lit up again, a name appearing on it.

Gong Kai.

His college roommate, the buddy who had slept in the bunk above him, and one of the only two unlucky bastards from their marketing major who hadn't switched careers.

After graduation, Wen Ning had opened his agency, while Gong Kai had taken an operations job at an e-commerce company.

That was how friendships between men worked. Six months without contact didn't change a thing.

Wen Ning answered the phone.

"Hey, Gong, what's up? Struck it rich? Daddy's coming to live off you."

"Wen, rich my ass."

Though nothing obvious stood out in the voice on the other end, Wen Ning could still sense something off in Gong Kai's tone.

"Where are you? Still in that shitty storefront on the street behind campus?"

"Yeah. What's wrong?"

"I'll be right there!"

Gong Kai hung up as soon as he said it.

Wen Ning was still a little confused. Well, that takes care of dinner tonight.

Less than fifteen minutes later, a taxi stopped outside the shop. The door opened, and a young man in a wrinkled plaid shirt, carrying a backpack, climbed out. He looked even heavier than before, at least two hundred pounds.

"Wen!"

The moment Gong Kai walked in, he gave Wen Ning a bear hug.

"This crappy shop of yours is still alive! The sign outside is peeling. Why haven't you replaced it?"

"Because replacing it costs money."

Wen Ning pushed him away and looked Gong Kai up and down.

"What's going on with you? Struck it rich?"

"No."

Gong Kai put his backpack on the desk and dropped onto the peeling Folding Chair. It gave an agonized creak under his weight, almost falling apart.

"Lately, I've had this feeling that something's happened to me."