novelones Chapter 68 The Taoist Priest Makes His Appearance
Chapter 68 The Taoist Priest Makes His Appearance
Now, let's get back to the Li family.
Niu Guihua slumped to the ground, her hands desperately clutching at the empty pocket of her clothes, the sounds coming from her throat like a broken bellows, wheezing and panting.
The three hundred yuan was still warm in her pocket when it was gone in the blink of an eye. It hurt like her heart had been ripped out.
"Damn it... that's my Da Bao's fate..."
She pounded the ground, the dust kicking up making her cough.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Li Xianglian drinking water from a vat with a gourd ladle, her expression one of complete indifference. This sight made Niu Guihua's anger surge to the top of her head.
Just as he was about to curse, two coughs suddenly came from the courtyard gate.
"Cough cough... Why is there a dark aura hanging over this place?"
The sound carried a chilling, eerie quality that sent shivers down one's spine even on this sweltering day.
Niu Guihua stopped cursing and abruptly turned her head away.
There, at the dilapidated gate of the courtyard, stood an old Taoist priest.
The man looked to be over sixty years old, wearing a faded blue cloth Taoist robe, patched upon patched, yet clean.
He held a dirty whisk in his hand, carried a peach wood sword on his back, and wore black cloth shoes with exposed toes.
What was most unsettling was that his left eye was covered by a black cloth, leaving only a cloudy right eye, which was wandering around the yard. Finally, his gaze, like a nail, was fixed firmly on Niu Guihua.
Niu Guihua was already furious and had nowhere to vent her anger. When she saw that the Taoist priest looked like a beggar, she immediately jumped up from the ground, put her hands on her hips, and started spitting.
"Where did this beggar come from? Don't you even open your eyes and see where you are?! I'm in a bad mood today, I'm about to kill someone! Get lost! Don't loiter around my doorstep, you're bad luck!"
As she spoke, she grabbed a broken broom standing in the corner and was about to hit the Taoist priest.
The Taoist priest, however, remained calm and unhurried. As if his feet were greased, he slightly shifted his body and lightly dodged the broom.
He wasn't annoyed at all; instead, he chuckled, revealing a mouth missing two front teeth. His smile was so wide that the wrinkles on his face could trap flies.
"Lady, please don't be so angry. I'm not here to beg for food. I was just passing by when I saw the ominous aura emanating from this place, and out of compassion, I came in to try and calm things down."
"Resolve my ass!"
Niu Guihua slammed the broom on the ground, spitting everywhere, "Stop trying to fool me with those supernatural nonsense! I have no money, no leftovers! Get out of here!"
"No money?" The old Taoist priest stroked the few sparse goatees on his chin, his single eye narrowed into a slit, and his voice was extremely low, yet it seemed to penetrate Niu Guihua's ears. "The money is indeed gone. However... if we don't break this deadlock soon, I'm afraid we won't be able to keep that iron box under the red brick in the kang (heated brick bed) either."
Upon hearing this, Niu Guihua was as if struck by lightning; her whole body stiffened abruptly, and the hand holding the broom remained frozen in mid-air, unable to fall.
Her face turned deathly pale instantly, and her lips trembled as she stammered, "What...what did you say?"
Under the red bricks!
That was her biggest secret in her life! She secretly hid a small iron box under the loose red brick at the very back of her kang (heated brick bed). Inside was her life savings and two silver bracelets that she had managed to pry from her mother-in-law years ago.
Even Li Laogen and Li Dabao didn't know about this, so how did this old Taoist priest find out?
Seeing that he had subdued her, the Taoist priest's smile deepened, exuding an air of profound mystery. He slowly took two steps forward, flicked his whisk, and draped it over his arm, looking utterly enigmatic.
Actually, this trick isn't difficult. Rural old ladies only hide money in a few places: either in the roof beam, in the kang (heated brick bed) hole, or in the cracks of the pigsty wall.
When he came in, he glanced around the room and noticed that the opening of the kang (heated brick bed) showed signs of frequent movement, and there was less black ash than in other places. He could probably guess the truth pretty well.
"I've done some calculations, and you have a dark aura around your forehead, and your left eyelid has been twitching since last night and hasn't stopped yet, is that right?"
Niu Guihua subconsciously touched her left eyelid; indeed, it was twitching like a drum.
"What... what does this prove? Everyone has their eyelids twitching sometimes!" Niu Guihua was still being stubborn, but her confidence was clearly waning. Her triangular eyes darted around the Taoist priest with suspicion, and she had lost her previous arrogance.
The Taoist priest shook his head, sighed deeply, and looked on with a sorrowful expression.
"An eyelid twitch is a minor matter, but losing money is a very bad omen. You just lost a windfall, am I right? But this is just the beginning. I just used my third eye at the door and saw a dark aura clinging to your only son. If it's not resolved in time, within three days, your precious son might..."
Li Dabao was hiding under the table secretly eating peanuts when he heard this. He was so startled that his hand trembled, and the peanuts scattered all over the floor.
"What happened to my son? Explain yourself!"
Mentioning Li Dabao is like stabbing Niu Guihua in the back.
She threw down the broom, rushed to the Taoist priest, wanted to grab his sleeve but didn't dare, and stamped her feet anxiously.
The Taoist priest closed his eyes, appearing unwilling to discuss further: "Heavenly secrets cannot be revealed; revealing too many will shorten my lifespan."
After saying that, he made a move to turn around and leave.
Niu Guihua is a shrewd person; how could she not understand the implied meaning?
She cursed him in her heart, calling him a "money-grubbing vampire," but looking at her son's dazed expression and remembering the three hundred yuan she had just lost, the string of fear in her heart finally snapped.
It's better to believe it exists than to believe it doesn't!
She gritted her teeth and her hand trembled as she reached into the pocket of her underwear, which was still warm from her body—there lay her last ten-yuan note.
"Master...please have mercy and show me the way." Niu Guihua's heart ached, and she stuffed the crumpled ten-yuan note into the Taoist's hand.
The Taoist priest opened his eyelids a crack, glanced at the money, and with astonishing speed, the money disappeared in the blink of an eye, as if by magic.
After receiving the money, the Taoist priest's attitude immediately changed.
He cleared his throat, a glint of light flashing in his single eye, and pulled Niu Guihua to the stone mill in the middle of the courtyard, lowering his voice mysteriously.
"Layman, please don't blame me for being greedy. It's just that I need to bribe all sorts of gods to defy fate. I'll make an exception and tell you my story. The reason your family's fortune is so bad is because the foundation is unstable. There's a problem below."
As he spoke, he pointed to the ground with his whisk.
"Down there?" Niu Guihua shuddered, her face turning green. "You mean...the ancestral graves?"