Chapter 19: Some Wait to Repay, Others Collect Their Debts in Person

While the village was still on high alert for the thief and every household was taking precautions against burglary, Jing Xi and Zhang Rui had managed to supply a batch of pickled dihuan (a type of vegetable) to the power plant’s cafeteria. It was about forty catties (approximately 20 kilograms), and they earned a total of twenty yuan.

Zhang Rui gave Jing Xi seven yuan as her share.

The two vats of dihuan would only last about a week. Since the power plant’s cafeteria served many workers, they could supply another batch after this one. The Liu family’s remaining unsold dihuan was quickly used up.

Jing Xi and Zhang Rui sat down to come up with a plan—Zhang Rui would collect dihuan from households she was close with, while Jing Xi would handle the pickling, preparation, and seasoning before selling them.

With their roles decided, Jing Xi stayed home and waited for updates from Zhang Rui.

But she wasn’t idle. She kept an eye on Wu Dazhuang’s movements. However, he hadn’t returned home for days.

While in the village, she ran into Wang Cuihua and Zhang Qiang twice, but given the disaster that had struck their household, neither of them had the energy to pay attention to her. Jing Xi was happy to be left alone.

The police had been making frequent visits to the village, but in an era without surveillance cameras, catching a thief was incredibly difficult. In most cases, if a household was robbed, the stolen goods were unlikely to be recovered.

Gossip spread throughout the village. Most people speculated that the Zhang family must have offended someone, or that they had flaunted their wealth too much. They had strutted around the village for years, acting high and mighty—this was just karma catching up with them.

The person who caught Jing Xi’s attention the most was an old blind man in the village.

His surname was Xia, and he was quite elderly, standing about 1.6 meters tall with a hunched posture. He had a long white beard and always wore a grayish-blue cotton coat with an old man’s cap while sitting outside his home, basking in the sun.

He had a son and a daughter who were very filial and had also planted an acre of dihuan. They took great care of him, keeping him neat and well-fed. It was said that despite his age, his teeth were strong, and he could eat two full bowls of rice per meal.

Jing Xi had seen him a few times, but since they lived far apart, she rarely came to this part of the village and wasn’t familiar with him.

She had only heard that the old man could tell fortunes and made a living from it. His predictions were eerily accurate, and many people came to seek his guidance.

However, he had his own strict rules.

He only told one fortune per month. He wouldn’t do it on the first or fifteenth day of the lunar month, nor when the weather was too cold or too hot. He wouldn’t do it if he was in a bad mood, if he hadn’t eaten enough, or if he simply didn’t feel like it.

But once he did a reading, payment was mandatory, regardless of whether the prediction was good or bad. If someone refused to pay, he wouldn’t chase after them—but those who didn’t pay reportedly always ended up suffering misfortune. He called it karma.

As for how he became blind, rumors had it that he was beaten by someone he had read a bad fortune for.

Over the years, many people who had received ominous readings but refused to pay had come back to blame him, accusing him of tampering with their fates. But the old man would simply shrug, not defending himself. “Do whatever you want,” he would say. “I’m blind anyway. If I die, so be it. I’ve lived long enough.”

Despite his peculiar rules, his reputation for accuracy kept people coming.

He usually didn’t engage in gossip, but this time, regarding the Zhang family’s burglary, he surprisingly spoke up.

“A one-year-old girl, three acres of land—what was taken must be returned.”

“Falsehood is truth, truth is falsehood—a true phoenix sleeps in a sparrow’s nest.”

The old man mumbled these phrases, and soon, the villagers picked up on them. The first phrase, in particular, spread like wildfire.

Rumors began circulating that the Zhang family’s hillside land had been acquired dishonestly. It wasn’t entirely baseless, either.

There’s no smoke without fire—many people had long suspected that the Zhangs had forcefully taken that land.

The rumors became more and more outrageous.

Jing Xi, too curious to ignore it, deliberately passed by the old man’s house one day and overheard him muttering to himself under the sunlight.

That was when she clearly heard his words. But she had no idea what they meant.

Especially the second sentence.

It was a cold winter afternoon. The old man sat at his doorstep, leaning on his cane. Jing Xi glanced at him twice before preparing to leave, but unexpectedly, he called out to her.

“Child, come here.”

His voice was aged but deep, which didn’t match his frail figure at all.

Jing Xi looked around, seeing no one else. “Are you talking to me?”

The old man nodded and gestured for her to come closer. “Who else would I be talking to?”

Jing Xi frowned. Wasn’t he blind?

As if sensing her doubt, the old man said, “I’m blind, but not completely. I can still see some vague shadows.”

“Oh.”

Jing Xi hesitated for a moment before slowly walking toward him.

The old man patted the stool beside him. “Sit down. I have something to tell you.”

Jing Xi sat, curiosity piqued but keeping silent, waiting for him to speak first.

A long moment passed before he suddenly chuckled.

“How does the Zhang family’s rice and flour taste?”

Jing Xi, caught off guard, widened her eyes. What was this old man talking about?

“What do you mean? The Zhang family’s rice and flour?”

The old man saw that she wouldn’t admit anything and didn’t press further. He just smiled.

“Eat it. Eat as much as you like. Eat openly and without guilt—it all belongs to you. Debts must always be repaid. Some people wait to settle their debts, while others come to collect them in person. Either way, it’s all the same.”

Jing Xi frowned again, turning to study the old man’s face.

His murky eyes stared straight ahead. Up close, she noticed the age spots on his skin. He must have been at least seventy or eighty years old.

Then, he spoke again.

“Go on. Do whatever it is you want to do. No one will stand in your way.”

When Jing Xi left, she still didn’t quite understand. However, the old man somehow knew that she had taken the Zhang family’s rice and flour.

She found him a little strange—she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was, but something about him felt off.

Still, his words, “No one is stopping you,” only strengthened her resolve.

She would walk her own path and let others talk all they wanted.

Encountering Wu Dazhuang

On her way back, she ran into Wu Dazhuang.

He was walking down the road, singing, with a bag of cooked food in one hand and a cigarette dangling from his lips. When he saw Jing Xi approaching, he stopped in his tracks.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Comrade Xiao Jing. Where have you been?”

“Oh, well, well, if it isn’t Comrade Wu Dazhuang. Where have you been?”

“Why are you copying me?”

“Why do you care? Looking at you, with your bag of food and your little tune—did you strike it rich?”

Wu Dazhuang wasn’t annoyed. His whole demeanor exuded the smugness of someone who had just won big. “I wouldn’t say rich, but I made a little money.”

“Oh? And how exactly did you make it?”

Wu Dazhuang smirked, glancing at her with disdain. “What do you know about it, woman? Besides, even if I told you, do you even have the money to get in on the game?”

As he spoke, he suddenly remembered the money Jing Xi had taken. An idea popped into his head.

“Wait a minute—you do have money to play. Tell me, where exactly did you stash that cash from last time?”

“Still not over that, huh? If I told you, would you run straight to the Zhang family and team up with them to ransack my house?”

Wu Dazhuang shook his head. “Misunderstanding, total misunderstanding! I didn’t mean for that to happen last time. It was Jianjun’s mother who kept badmouthing you. I just said, ‘If you don’t believe me, go check her house,’ and I didn’t expect her to actually take it seriously. And didn’t I get lectured by the cops for a whole afternoon because of it?”

Jing Xi narrowed her eyes. “So what you’re saying is—it was all Wang Cuihua’s fault?”

Wu Dazhuang looked flustered. “Ugh, forget it. I thought you were smart and wanted to bring you in on a money-making opportunity, but if you’re not interested, then never mind.”

Hmph, acting all mysterious.

Jing Xi pretended to be intrigued and asked curiously, “Wait, what kind of money-making opportunity?”

Seeing her hesitation, Wu Dazhuang deliberately played it up. “If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone else!” Then, he leaned in and whispered a few words in her ear.

Jing Xi listened, and sure enough—Wu Dazhuang wouldn’t be up to anything good.

“Hmm, I’ll have to think about it. Are you sure it’s a guaranteed win? Just teaming up is enough? What if we lose?”

Wu Dazhuang patted his pocket, which looked noticeably stuffed.

“See this? My earnings from the past few days. One good job, and you won’t have to worry about food or drink for months—you could even eat cooked food every day!”

“Alright, let me think it over. I’ve got other things on my plate right now. I’ll find you when I’m done and have made up my mind. Oh, by the way, have you heard? The Zhang family got robbed again. Apparently, all the money they made from selling dihuan is gone. It happened while Zhang Jianjun’s parents were in detention.”

Wu Dazhuang looked surprised. Then, he glanced at Jing Xi suspiciously and lowered his voice.

“Wait… don’t tell me you did it?”

“I was just about to ask if you did it.”