SES Chapter 237 Part 1

Chapter 237

Next week would be fine—it gave him plenty of time to prepare.

He dug out the tailcoat he’d been saving at the bottom of his trunk for officiating weddings. Sister Yang washed it and carefully pressed it. Being the domestic type, her attention drifted to practical matters; pinching the fabric between her fingers, she frowned and said, “Did you buy this online? The material’s not great—it lost its shape after just one wash.”

The fortune-teller insisted, “Quality is superficial. The important thing is the meaning—the meaning!”

Once it was ironed, he hung it at the head of his bed and saluted it three times a day—morning, noon, and night.

Then he started drafting a new book, tentatively titled Records of the Mysterious: The Seven-Star Enigma—Decoding the Deadly Slips.

He also solemnly informed Brother Mao that the materials for this trip were extremely important and must remain confidential. He hoped Brother Mao and the others would exercise self-discipline—no peeking at his manuscript, and absolutely no leaks.

Brother Mao replied, “Yeah, right.”

The fortune-teller’s previous book had been called Strange Tales Witnessed Over Twenty Years—an illegal self-published work with no ISBN. He’d printed it himself at a shop down the street, funded by Yue Feng. The first run was fifty copies; Yue Feng bought thirty, and Brother Mao “snapped up” the remaining twenty, which were still piled under the bed.

Still, Brother Mao figured the new book might sell better this time. After all, the fortune-teller had made a few more friends.

Whenever he had free time, the fortune-teller would corner Brother Mao and ramble about those people. Even without meeting them, Brother Mao felt like he already knew them well.

—“Little Pocket is really fun, and she respects me a lot. In my heart, she ranks… third—after our Xiao Tangzi and Ah Hui. She’s amazing at martial arts, properly trained. When she gets here, I’ll have her climb a wall for you—whoosh—up she goes.”

—“She’s busy arranging her master’s funeral. She’ll come in a few days.”

—“Little Radish used to be a mercenary overseas. You know what that means—bloody stuff. So don’t mess with him; be polite. People like that don’t lose their temper easily—I’ve never seen it—but if they do, it’ll be terrifying. He might even burn your inn down.”

Brother Mao was speechless and wanted to ask, “Then why am I letting these people stay at my inn?”

—“Hongsha—everyone calls her Erhuo. Her family has mined treasure for generations; she’s a pro at going down treasure shafts. Too bad the line ends with her—she never developed the ‘treasure-sensing eyes.’ She’s gone to the Four Villages to pick up a batch of rough stones.”

—“Xiao Sansan is great at networking—you’ll definitely like him. He can mix drinks. Any bar he works at does great business—he’s a walking brand.”

—“And there’s Cao Pangpang—Little Fatty Cao. He used to hang around Jiefangbei, then apprenticed under Little Pocket. He keeps a pretty good chicken named Jiefang. Too bad—in the end, Jiefang refused to come with us. Guess chickens prefer hanging out with other chickens…”

Brother Mao asked, “Are they coming separately?”

“Together. They’re all busy right now, but we agreed—they’ll meet up and come as a group.”

Early one morning, the fortune-teller got a call from Luo Ren: everyone had gathered and had already set off from Lijiang.

The ancient town wasn’t far from Lijiang—two or three hours by car. The fortune-teller was overjoyed, running to the door every few minutes to look out. His excuse: all the inns in the old town looked the same; standing at the entrance made him a natural landmark.

Brother Mao got annoyed at him, darting in and out. “Then don’t come back inside.”

So the fortune-teller really didn’t come back in. He loitered at the front gate, eventually joining a few elementary school kids playing cards. He spent two yuan on a deck and happily played along with them.

In the middle of a heated round, he heard brakes screech behind him. Thrilled, he spun around and shouted, “Little Radish—you guys got here already?”

His eyes widened; his jaw dropped.

It was a half-new Toyota Land Cruiser 4500. Behind the windshield sat a familiar figure, removing his sunglasses and tilting his chin at him.

The door opened. Yue Feng stepped out from the driver’s seat.

The fortune-teller froze, unsure how to react. Yue Feng said, “What are you staring at? It’s not your first time seeing me.”

He walked around the front of the car and opened the back door.

The fortune-teller swallowed hard, tossed aside his cards despite the kids tugging at him, and hurried over.

“Xiao Fengfeng! What are you doing here?”

“You can come, but I can’t?”

Then he frowned toward the car interior. “What’s the matter—can’t get out? Are you Yue Xiaofeng or Yue Xiaotang?”

Only then did the fortune-teller notice a two- or three-year-old little guy at the open door. Wearing split-crotch pants, half his little butt showing, the kid was red-faced and struggling to climb down, short legs kicking in midair. He huffed, “Oof… oof…”

This was Yue Feng and Ji Tangtang’s son.

It was said that when the baby was first born, they’d consulted a mystic. After some cryptic calculations, the mystic advised that before age three, the child shouldn’t be given a proper name—only nicknames derived from the parents’ names. Supposedly, by all logic, the child shouldn’t exist—and even if he did, he shouldn’t have been a boy. If he were named and people called him often, certain “things” might hear, and the child wouldn’t be safe.

Anyone else might’ve smashed the mystic with a brick, but Yue Feng and his wife remained calm. “Alright,” they said. “We’ll do that.”

Yue Feng’s parenting philosophy was simple: girls should be pampered; boys should be raised tough. So even though Yue Xiaofeng was barely over two, he did everything himself. If he got lazy, Yue Feng would needle him: “If I call you Yue Xiaotang and you answer, I’ll stop making you do it.”

The boy, already brimming with tiny macho pride, hated being called Yue Xiaotang—it was humiliating. More than once, Yue Feng made him cry, and he’d protest, “My name is Yue Xiaofeng!”

The car door was a bit high; he probably couldn’t get down. A startled cry rang out from the steps—Sister Mao rushed over, scolding, “Fengzi, are you trying to get him killed again? Those new clothes—after this scrape, can he still wear them?”

She scooped Yue Xiaofeng into her arms.

Yue Feng said nothing, smiling as he watched. The boy covered his face with his hands, peeking through his fingers at Yue Feng. Then he buried his head in Sister Mao’s shoulder and said in a babyish voice, “My name’s not Yue Xiaotang.”

Only then did Yue Feng turn to Sister Mao. “Sister-in-law, watch him for a couple of days.”

She leaned into the car. “Where’s your wife? Didn’t she come?”