A Prophet - Chapter 26 (Part 2)

Chapter 2 - Seventh Bahtou Tells Fortunes to Pray for a Son

At this moment, Wang Jiaxian was desperately anxious to have a son, wringing his hands and scratching his scalp. Time waits for no man; he was already past fifty, and his wife was well into her forties. If they couldn't produce a boy now, they would be forever fated never to have a son in this lifetime.

Later on, Wang Jiaxian called me over again: "Fifth Brother, help me think of a way too. Both you and Fourth Brother have sons; please help out your younger brother."

"Sigh!" I let out a long sigh. "What is so great about sons! I'd much rather have had two daughters instead. My boy is mischievous and making a ruckus all day long; he doesn't hold a candle to a girl!"

"You raise sons to guard against old age!" Wang Jiaxian said anxiously.

"Raise sons to guard against old age? Heh. Have you seen Old Man Zhang Jindou down in our town? Five sons. Back then, Old Man Zhang suffered through endless hardships just to raise that family, working to the bone like a beast of burden his entire life. Now that he's old and the sons have grown up, every single motherfucking one of them has taken a wife. And how are things now? Those five brothers are more of a pain in the ass than the last. By rights, since the old man is getting on in years, the sons should be scrambling to take care of him. But look at the five of them: twelve months a year, each family takes turns for two months and six days. As a result, because February has two fewer days, the youngest son flat-out refused to take the old man in to live with him, while the eldest son claimed his quota of days was already full and blamed the missing two days on the old almanac, kicking the old man out on that very day. Because of this, the old man spent two whole days squatting in the train station waiting room. With no one bringing him food at night, it was kind-hearted Aunt Cui who finally brought him a bowl of noodles to eat. You call that raising a son to guard against old age? This isn't raising a son, motherfucker; this is paying off a debt—paying the debt of these ungrateful wolves!" I said indignantly.

"Well, after all, that kind of situation is a minority," Wang Jiaxian said.

I retorted, "Why don't you look at those people who raise daughters and reap blessings? Take Iron-Skin Zhao's family: three daughters. The eldest daughter married an educated youth who has now returned to the city, and every single holiday they come back to see Zhao Iron-Skin and his wife. The good things they bring back from Beijing are stuff we've never even laid eyes on. The second daughter married a bricklayer; the year before last when they were rebuilding their house, that second son-in-law brought over twenty people in one go, and the house went up in twenty days without spending a single cent. The third daughter is in college now, and I hear she's going to go abroad in the future. If she marries a foreigner, she'll probably end up sending the old man an aircraft carrier someday! What do you call enjoying blessings? This is what you call enjoying blessings. I dare say, when my children grow up in the future, my daughter will definitely cherish me more than my son. Looking at my son right now just makes me angry!"

"Ah, Fifth Brother, you're just speaking from a position of ease because it doesn't hurt you. You already have a son, of course you can talk like that."

"How about I adopt out my son to you? Do you want him?" I said with a smile.

"Stop teasing me."

Neither Fourth Bahtou nor I managed to persuade Wang Jiaxian. He still sneaked off to find the skyrocketing-in-popularity Zhou Yulang.

"Master, please help me look—will I still be able to have a son in this lifetime?" Wang Jiaxian, well past fifty, asked twenty-something Zhou Yulang with utmost piety.

Zhou Yulang squinted and said, "Judging by your birth characters, you should have a son."

"Really?" Wang Jiaxian's eyes lit up.

"However..."

"However what?" Wang Jiaxian grew nervous.

"However... the birth characters of you and your wife clash!"

"Ah?"

"Mhm. You are of fire destiny, and your wife is of water destiny. Water conquers fire; fire is yang and water is yin. With insufficient yang energy, of course you can't give birth to a son."

The once brilliant and sharp "River and Lake Syndicate" A-Bao actually started having doubts at this moment: "Master, please explain in detail."

"Haven't you noticed that whenever a critical moment arrives, the opinions of you and your wife are never quite consistent? For instance, when you say go east, she invariably insists on going west..."

Before Zhou Yulang could even finish, Wang Jiaxian grew agitated: "Yes, yes, yes! What you're saying is so right."

"Mhm. She has blocked your path to wealth and official fortune, and she even delayed you from having a son."

Wang Jiaxian thought about it carefully, and it really was just like that. Whenever he wanted to do something in the past, she was always worrying about this and that, resulting in accomplishing nothing his entire life.

"Master is so right! Then what should I do?"

"Divorce!"

"Divorce?" Cold sweat broke out on Wang Jiaxian. After decades of marriage, divorce was something he had never even imagined.

"Mhm. I'll tell you what kind of wife is most suitable to marry: you should marry a wife born in the Year of the Rat. That way, your two birth characters will harmonize, and you will definitely be able to have a son!"

On his way home, Wang Jiaxian carefully pondered Zhou Yulang's words: This guy really has the guts to speak his mind. In one breath he declares my wife and I are incompatible, and in another he insists we must divorce. Without genuine skills, would he dare speak like this?

After wandering in a daze of contemplation for a full week, Wang Jiaxian finally laid his cards on the table with his wife: "Shall we... how about... let's get a divorce!"

"What?" Wang Jiaxian's wife, Zhang Yingzhi, was stunned deaf. "What did you say?"

"I said... we might as well divorce. I'm doing this for the sake of the family lineage..."

Zhang Yingzhi was struck with fury: "You're divorcing me just because we can't have a son? Do you still want that old face of yours? Back when you came out of the prison, who was willing to marry you? You pestered me relentlessly, saying you'd cherish me for a lifetime. Out of the goodness of my heart for that sorry state of yours, I married you. Now you want to divorce me—are you even human, motherfucker? Our eldest daughter is about to get married right now, and you've thrown away all your shame!"

Wang Jiaxian flew into a rage as well: "That's right! I served time in prison, I'm a criminal! I deserve to die! My living existence is a motherfucking joke! So what if you married me? All these years I've had to grovel, and I've never been able to hold my head up in front of your family. Look at that expression your father pulls every single time we visit your family, as if my marrying you was an act of supreme grace from your whole family, and I have to act like a dog for the rest of my life just to be worthy of them. I have a stain on my record, but it shouldn't oppress me for a lifetime! You control me in everything, you don't let me do anything. Back in 1982, when I said I wanted to go into the sausage business, you vetoed it flat out. The year before last, when I said I wanted to do the clothing business, you vetoed it again. Am I destined to be nothing more than a schoolteacher my entire life?"

Tears welled up in Zhang Yingzhi's eyes: "Do you have any conscience when you say that? Back then, just to restore your teaching qualifications, my dad ran his legs ragged and wrung his hands to the bone, finally managing to get you into the school. We just wanted to live a peaceful, stable life. You're a vice principal now, and an outstanding municipal teacher. Instead of living a leisurely life, you insist on plunging into business. If this isn't courting death, what is it?"

"Who says doing business is courting death? What kind of high winds and great waves hadn't old yours truly seen when I ran around the underworld back in the day?"

"Enough, enough, don't bring up your past. Out of seven brothers, four rebelled, and you were one of them. Rebel if you wanted to, but halfway through you peed your pants and ran off to snitch..."

"I'll beat you, you son of a bitch!" Wang Jiaxian raised his palm.

"Hit me!" Zhang Yingzhi thrust her face forward.

Wang Jiaxian ultimately didn't dare strike her, and finally said dejectedly, "Let's divorce. This life can't go on."

Tears streaming down her face, Zhang Yingzhi tossed her head back: "Whoever doesn't divorce isn't human!"

"You're muddle-headed, Old Seventh, you're completely muddle-headed!" When Fourth Bahtou and I learned the news, we stamped our feet in frustration.

"The two elder brothers don't need to try and persuade me either. My mind is made up!"

"Made up your ass! You're getting a divorce just because of a few words from that blind man? I think you've gone mad!" None of us brothers knew at the time that Zhou Yulang was a fake blind man.

"It's not entirely just that. All these years, I've had enough. Sure, I've done time in prison, but that doesn't mean I have to keep my head down for the rest of my life," Wang Jiaxian said resentfully.

"Don't go looking for excuses. You've simply fallen for that blind man's scam!"

"People speak with logic and reasoning. He's not a swindler; he's different from us!" Wang Jiaxian argued stubbornly.

"Fine. Never mind whether he's a swindler or not. You should at least listen to Grandfather's words, right? You've read Grandfather's Yin and Yang Finger Guidance Record, haven't you? How thoroughly it analyzes things: whether you tell fortunes or not, if you want a son, you must perform more good deeds and accumulate virtue. All of us brothers will help you together; tomorrow we'll go to the temple to burn incense."

"People already said it: we have to divorce. Our birth characters clash."

"Good grief! Are you possessed by an evil spirit or what? Are you still our Old Seventh? We've spent our whole lives hunting birds, only to have our eyes pecked out by a bird today."

"Fourth Brother, Fifth Brother, think about it: if the man didn't have genuine skills, would he dare tell me to divorce straight out? Back then, we never dared say that kind of thing to our marks!"

I furrowed my brow and said, "The reason we didn't say things like that back then was because Grandfather had a prior injunction: 'Better to tear down ten bridges than break up a single marriage.' He felt that was generating bad karma, which is why he didn't let us do it."

"Then why did he dare say it?"

"He dared say it because he's a blind man. Who's going to bicker with a disabled person? Tell me, how much money did he ask you for?"

"To not hide it from you two brothers, he didn't want a single cent. He said he'd ask for money only after the prediction comes true. If he dares say that, he must have a foundation of certainty; otherwise, wouldn't he be afraid that once I get a divorce and remarry, if I still give birth to a daughter, I'd go make trouble for him?"

Fourth Bahtou and I were also shocked. Indeed, this matter was no small deal. This blind man had some serious guts—wasn't he afraid that if things fell through, someone would come looking for him to fight to the death? Even his master, the renowned Dragon-Phoenix, never advised people to divorce; only when two people truly couldn't go on living together and both felt a divorce was necessary would they help find the next partner.

"No, something's wrong." My brain spun rapidly. "Why do I feel like there's something off about Blind Zhou..."

Fourth Bahtou also nodded. "Mhm, I feel something's off too. Other fortunetellers keep a low profile while making their fortunes and never dare to draw attention to themselves. Ever since he set up his practice, he couldn't wait to make a big name for himself. That's different from ordinary fortunetellers."

"Do you know this fellow's background?" I asked Wang Jiaxian.

"How would I know? They said he wandered in from the north!"

"Where specifically?"

"I don't know. Anyway, I want to give it a try."

"For real divorcing?"

"Divorcing! She said it herself: whoever doesn't divorce isn't human!"

"Ah! Here we go again! There's no getting through to you!"

Just like that, Seventh Bahtou inexplicably divorced, walking away with nothing. The brothers pooled some money together for him to rent a place to live. Fortunately, he was still holding down his position as vice principal with a monthly income of 200 yuan, so he could still scrape by.

The next step was to find a woman born in the Year of the Rat. Those born in the Year of the Rat in 1984 were out of the question, as they were still young girls; those born in 1972 were also no good, as they were still minors; those born in 1960 were twenty-eight or twenty-nine, but basically they had all been married for just a few years and wouldn't divorce without special circumstances; those born in 1948 were already past forty, and it was hard to say whether they'd be willing to bear children again. Selecting back and forth, they still had to focus on the post-sixties generation.

A man in his fifties finding a wife in her twenties was still considered quite a novelty in that era. But Seventh Bahtou, having backed himself into a corner, was dead set on doing it.

"Master, look—from which direction should I find this woman? Doesn't fate have directions? Southeast, northwest, I need to have a direction," Wang Jiaxian asked Zhou Yulang.

"Mhm. You have great drive, and you're a man destined for great accomplishments. It's just a pity that you've been tripped up by your wife all these years. If you had met me sooner, you'd have been rich long ago!"

"Sigh, this is also fate."

"Correct. This is fate. I calculate that your second wife should come from the south, with fair skin, a lot of class, and she's even a wealthy woman. Next spring, she will appear."

"Really? A classy wealthy woman?"

"Mhm! This is your destiny! The days of you making it big have arrived!"

"How old is this person?"

"Under thirty. An age-gap match!"

Wang Jiaxian was flushed with excitement: "Master, if this thing actually works out, you'll be my great benefactor! I will support you for the rest of my life!"

"You're too polite! Don't we fortunetellers exist precisely to create blessings for people?"

"Master is truly compassionate."

A month later, the young housewife who had once consulted Zhou Yulang about her marriage returned. Her name was Wan Suxin.

"Master, the talisman you gave me has already been burned," Wan Suxin said.

"Mhm. How has the marital relationship been during this period?"

"Bad. Extremely bad. The two of us have a leather shoe factory in the south, and we made some money these past few years. He changed, became unfaithful, found a female student, and even had a child with her. I always thought he was just messing around; I never expected him to actually produce a kid. I really want to go to court and sue him for bigamy!"

"Don't! Don't! To spare someone else a path is to spare yourself one."

Wan Suxin wore a face full of sorrow: "Sigh, it's my own fault too. I didn't pull my weight..."

Zhou Yulang swiftly captured the implication behind those words and hurriedly interjected, "When I calculated your birth characters that day, I felt your children palace wasn't particularly flourishing—children are slow in coming!"

"What Master says is so true! We've been married for seven years, and the strange thing is I can never get pregnant. He wanted a child, so he strayed! Can Master calculate and see whether I'm actually able to have children? I went to the hospital to get checked out, and the doctor said there's nothing wrong. I don't know what's going on."

Zhou Yulang immediately made a finger-pinching gesture, pondered for a long time, and said, "Your destiny here—the children star in your birth characters is being suppressed. It's called children entering the tomb; you must blast open the tomb before you can have children!"

"Entering the tomb? Blast open?"

"Right. Just like some men who have illnesses and must use a woman to chase away bad luck—you've heard of that kind of thing, haven't you?"

"I've heard of it."

"The logic is the same. Your husband's birth characters and yours simply do not match; he can't blast it open. If this goes on, you'll never have children in your lifetime, and your affection will only grow worse and worse!"

The more Wan Suxin listened, the more nervous she became: "Then... it seems I must get a divorce?"

"Didn't I say so earlier? If you stubbornly cling on, you'll court more misfortune than good fortune. Think about it: your husband already has a child with someone else, and that woman will definitely force him to divorce. If you refuse to let go no matter what and push your husband to his limits, what if he slips some poison into your food? Wouldn't that spell trouble!"

"He... he shouldn't do that..." Wan Suxin said doubtfully.

"The human heart is separated by skin, and human actions are the hardest to fathom. Gambling gives birth to thieves and robbers, and illicit affairs breed murder."

Wan Suxin's heart pounded furiously as she listened.

"Master means I should divorce him as soon as possible?"

"As soon as possible! If you take the initiative to divorce now, he'll be so happy you might even be able to split a larger share of the property. Wealth is the source of life's nourishment; when a woman has wealth, the gentleman comes naturally."

"I understand!" Wan Suxin finished, pulled a hundred-yuan banknote from her pocket, and pushed it into Zhou Yulang's hands: "Many thanks for Master's guidance! This money..."

"Don't! Don't! Don't! You're scolding me by doing this!"

"Master, what is this..."

"As a fortuneteller, I rely on this meager skill to dispel disasters and resolve hardships for people. What use do I have for so much money? You gave me a hundred last time, and my conscience has still felt uneasy about it to this day. When you've completely divorced and found your ideal husband, just invite me to drink a cup of wedding wine, and that'll be enough."

Wan Suxin was moved beyond words: "Master... Master... you truly have the heart of a bodhisattva!"

"I'm not divorcing, motherfucker!" roared Wan Suxin's husband, Jiang Zhigao.

"Why the hell wouldn't you divorce? You've gone and had a child with someone else, so what else are you keeping me around for?" Wan Suxin wailed at the top of her lungs.

"Don't you have a lover too? Weren't you the one who strayed first?" Jiang Zhigao retorted sharply.

"What I did was public relations. When we first went to Shenzhen, we had no one to lean on. If I hadn't hooked up connections with industry, commerce, tax bureaus, and banks, could we have started from scratch?"

"Public relations? Publicly relations-ing right into bed?"

"We didn't do anything! We were just drinking tea in the hotel!"

"Not even an idiot would believe that!" Jiang Zhigao cursed loudly.

"You made your start relying on your wife's looks, and you still have the nerve to talk? Have you forgotten what you looked like as a beggar sleeping on the street back then?" Wan Suxin grew frantic too.

"Damn it! Wasn't that because we dug out all the money in my old man's bankbook to do business? Wasn't it for this family?"

"Family? You still know what a family is? You spend way more time staying in hotels than you do staying at home!"

"Fuck! Wasn't that for the sake of business? I meet clients every day and drink every day until I'm half dead! If I don't hustle, where do you get stacks of cash to spend? Look at this outfit you're wearing: the top cost 800 yuan, the pants cost 400 yuan. Stop being so ungrateful, motherfucker!"

"Cut the crap, let's get a divorce. Once we're divorced, we'll both have peace of mind. I want half the property!"

Jiang Zhigao froze. "After all this time, you're actually after my property!"

"Your property? Your property? Old Lady here earned it with her body, alright!"

"You finally admitted it! I've long suspected you had something going on with Zhang Sanpao from the tax bureau!"

"I want my share. Legally speaking, it's completely justified."

"The law? You want to take me to court?"

Wan Suxin smiled. "Then that depends on you."

"I'll bloody slaughter you!"

A chill ran through the bottom of Wan Suxin's heart, and she said coldly, "It looks like he really didn't say it wrong."

"What didn't he say wrong?"

"Nothing! I'm leaving! You just wait to receive the court summons!" Wan Suxin slammed the door and stormed out.

"You get back here! Back here, motherfucker!" Jiang Zhigao kicked the table over, squatted on the ground, and buried his head to weep bitterly.