The Fortune Teller

Chapter 56

A madman, a complete madman.

Before this, no one had taken this silent middle-aged man seriously.

He had almost no presence at all. Wu Jie had been firmly in control of the situation.

At least, that was what Wu Jie thought.

The family of three lay in a pool of blood, still unable to understand how all of this had happened.

Their lives had come to a sudden end just like that.

They seemed dead, yet their ears could still hear the murderous madman answering Wu Jie’s question.

“Are you crazy? Why did you kill them?”

The madman said, “You want money, but I want lives.”

“The first is Ming Wen. These two had to be killed together as well, otherwise they would have caused a scene.”

Ming Wen… Ming Wen…

He killed them because they truly believed his daughter was Ming Wen, who was also Yun Song.

This was the person they thought they could live off for the rest of their lives.

The first time they learned about Yun Song was at a funeral, when Yun Song’s grandfather had passed away from illness.

At the time, the Fortune Teller was playing the suona¹ at the funeral and heard people saying how miserable that old lady’s life was.

“Her daughter and son-in-law are dead, and now her own man is dead too. Only she and a granddaughter are left.”

“Yeah, how is she going to live from now on?”

“She’ll manage just the same. Her daughter and son-in-law might be gone, but the compensation was huge. Between the pension and insurance, it’s probably reached this amount.” The person gestured a number.

“Ten thousand?”

“One hundred thousand. It was even in the newspapers.”

As the Fortune Teller listened, he began to scheme. This was his line of work, after all.

After returning home, he immediately discussed it with his wife and child. Their initial plan was—

“Find a way to kill that granddaughter. Wouldn’t it be easy to scam an old lady then?”

“No, if we kill someone and the old lady gets another shock, what if she dies too?”

Hide the body?

Where would they hide a body?

They quickly thought of a gang of human traffickers they had encountered before, feeling they were incredibly clever. Now that the girl was taken away, they didn’t have to worry about the body, and after selling her off, given the conditions in those deep mountains, she would never get out for the rest of her life.

The traffickers planned several times, but none of the traps they set managed to catch Yun Song.

It wasn’t until the Fortune Teller looked at the newspapers again and saw that in the case from years ago, little Yun Song had watched her parents bleed to death with her own eyes, that he immediately had a new plan.

Sure enough, everything went smoothly. Yun Song went missing, and after the old lady endured two months of agonizing pain, she finally fell into their trap.

They got one hundred and fifty thousand yuan from the old lady.

At that time, the family of three felt this money would be enough to last them a lifetime.

No one expected money to be so easy to spend. In less than ten years, they had spent every cent, and the world was no longer what it used to be.

They opened a Scrap Recycling Station and occasionally read birth charts² or told fortunes to collect a bit of pocket change.

But what did that pittance matter? The family of three looked down on such small sums.

In their hearts, they still missed the good old days, the kind of days where they did nothing and could get tens of thousands in a single day.

But such good opportunities were hard to find now.

Until Ming Qingfu appeared. This woman was clearly easy to deceive. Her heart’s knot was the daughter who had died shortly after birth.

Initially, their plan was to perform another soul-summoning ritual and claim that her eldest daughter’s soul was possessed within their own “idiot” daughter. They hadn’t expected that on that day, their “idiot” daughter would be taken out by the woman’s younger daughter.

He couldn’t easily speak up to stop it then for fear of revealing a flaw, so he could only bite the bullet and continue.

Such a great opportunity was missed, but Ming Qingfu still gave them quite a bit of money. A single ritual cost five thousand.

Holding this “small” amount of money, they became even more fixated on Ming Qingfu’s big money.

But they truly couldn’t find an opportunity. Every time he brought his “idiot” daughter over, the other woman’s younger daughter would take his “idiot” daughter out to play.

Since his “idiot” daughter was a person without a soul, she naturally couldn’t resist or refuse.

And so, time after time, they missed the chance to make the big money.

Until one day, the woman began telling him about an Immortal Lady.

The more he listened, the more familiar it sounded. He could hardly believe it. They could actually use the same person to make money three times.

Selling her earned them a sum.

Her grandmother had supported them for ten years.

And this time, this fool named Ming Qingfu would have to support them for the rest of their lives.

The Fortune Teller didn’t actually believe in gods, fate, or retribution. If there were retribution, they would have been caught long ago.

But at this moment, he felt that this person named Yun Song was destined to bring prosperity to his family of three.

When Ming Qingfu’s husband came to their door, they initially prepared to help Ming Qingfu, but her husband promised even more money, so they decided to help the couple reconcile.

No one expected this to happen—that the man with almost no presence would suddenly start killing, leaving them almost no time to fight back.

Lying in a pool of blood, they clearly heard who the madman truly wanted to kill. They desperately wanted to speak, to say it wasn’t Ming Wen…

They opened their mouths, but their voices were too faint; no one heard them.

The three of them died too quickly. In just a minute or two, they had collapsed on the ground and begun to twitch.

Wu Jie had originally wanted to stop the Village Chief’s younger son who had suddenly gone mad, but at that moment, Ming Qingfu was pulling her two daughters to run.

Wu Jie couldn’t care about the dead people here. He looked around, grabbed an iron rod, and swung… he didn’t have the courage to hit her in the head.

Li Hao’s strike just now had been too terrifying. Any normal person would be unable to stomach the sight of a head being split open.

Instead, he struck Ming Qingfu across the back.

Ming Qingfu cried out in pain and tried to push her two daughters out, but the scrap cardboard boxes the Village Chief’s younger son had piled up were blocking the exit. They were trapped.

At that moment, the Village Chief’s younger son arrived, dragging his iron rod. With one swing, he knocked her unconscious.

This madman was too terrifying. Once he approached, Wu Jie could only stand aside.

“Kill her.” The Village Chief’s younger son handed the iron bar to Wu Jie and spoke.

He certainly couldn’t be the only one to commit murder.

He had a plan.

Wu Jie would kill Ming Qingfu.

Li Dongcai would kill Ming Donglai.

That way, everyone would have blood on their hands, and he wouldn’t have to worry about these two betraying him.

Wu Jie had never even considered killing anyone. In his view, there was absolutely no need for murder.

He was Li Qingqing’s husband, and he had their eldest daughter in his grasp. With a little manipulation, getting the money would have been easy.

Now that three people were already dead, his mind was numb with shock.

He even began to worry if the other man would turn on him next.

At that moment, the Village Chief’s younger son repeated himself: “Kill the two of them. We take the money.”

“Is… is this really necessary?”

The Village Chief’s younger son said, “Kill them, destroy her face and fingerprints, and then we’ll use a DNA test to inherit the estate.”

Wu Jie swallowed hard. He felt that if he didn’t listen, the other man might very well kill him next.

He took the iron bar.

Fortunately, at this moment, Dongcai, who had remained silent until now, spoke up: “I won’t endure that kind of suffering.”

Dongcai seemed oblivious to the fact that this man had already killed three people. She spoke bluntly.

“You’ve already killed three people. Just disguise that middle-aged woman as Ming Qingfu…”

“That definitely won’t work. The DNA test between you and her wouldn’t pass then,” the Village Chief’s younger son immediately countered.

Dongcai pointed to Ming Donglai, who was shivering in the corner, and said, “She can go instead. No one will make her do a DNA test.”

“No. That’s too much trouble. If something goes wrong, it’ll be hard for us to control.”

Wu Jie listened to the conversation between the two, constantly on guard in case the Village Chief’s younger son was provoked into killing again. He signaled to his eldest daughter, trying to get her to say less.

His eldest daughter simply wore an expression that suggested she didn’t care whether she lived or died. She said, “As long as you’ve thought it through. I can’t guarantee that if you actually disfigure me, I won’t go mad once I get the money. You don’t have anything left to threaten me with.”

Wu Jie watched the Village Chief’s younger son nervously, only to see that the man actually agreed to this plan.

And so, a new plan began.

In the past, Wu Jie had always been the leader of the three. He made the plans and then delegated the tasks.

But now, he stood there, completely at a loss for what to do.

The Village Chief’s younger son shoveled down two mouthfuls of rice³, then stood up and began skillfully destroying the evidence of the corpses, as if he had rehearsed it in his mind a thousand times.

Only now did Wu Jie’s brain have the space to think, realizing that the Village Chief’s younger son was different from them.

Wu Jie didn’t harbor much hatred for Ming Wen, but the Village Chief’s younger son surely hated Ming Wen to the bone.

From that moment on, Wu Jie never dared to act like the boss in front of the Village Chief’s younger son again.

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Translator’s Notes

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1. suona: A traditional Chinese woodwind instrument with a high-pitched, piercing sound. It is a staple of rural life, played prominently at both weddings and funerals to mark significant life transitions. ↩
2. birth charts: Refers to ‘Bazi’ (八字), or the ‘Eight Characters,’ a Chinese astrological concept that determines a person’s destiny based on the year, month, day, and hour of their birth. ↩
3. shoveled down two mouthfuls of rice: The phrase 刨了两口饭 (páole liǎng kǒu fàn) literally means ‘to shovel’ or ‘to rake’ rice into the mouth. It is a common way to describe eating quickly and roughly, often associated with rural labor or a cold, pragmatic demeanor. ↩