A Prophet - Chapter 6 (Part 5)

Chapter 5 - Qin Bailian’s Impending Doom

The moment I heard it was Jiang Feiyan’s voice, I couldn't help wondering: how did she get here? Looking closer, I saw someone following right behind her—a man in military uniform who looked to be around forty years old.

Commander Liu was taken aback. "Who are you?"

Jiang Feiyan smiled. "This humble person is Grandpa’s disciple, Jiang Feiyan." Then, gesturing toward the man behind her, she added, "This is Major General Feng of the Bureau of Military Statistics!"

Commander Liu was stunned once more, and then said with furious indignation, "No matter who comes today, it's useless! This man must die!"

Jiang Feiyan still maintained her smile as she replied, "Commander Liu is renowned as a paragon of filial piety; everyone within a radius of several dozen miles knows it. Relocating your parents' tombs was also an expression of filial devotion. Now that the graves have been blown up, the gold, silver, and treasures looted, and the remains of the two elders blasted to nothingness, no one on earth could stomach such an outrage. Therefore, this man deserves to die! He must die!"

Commander Liu was completely bewildered, failing to grasp what Jiang Feiyan was driving at.

Jiang Feiyan continued, "However, doesn't Commander Liu want to know who blew up your ancestral tombs?"

Commander Liu was lost in a fog. "Who? Wasn't it grave robbers?"

Jiang Feiyan let out a cold laugh and shouted toward the courtyard entrance, "Bring them in!"

Two footmen escorted two battered, blood-soaked individuals into the center of the courtyard. The moment they reached the middle, their legs went weak, and they collapsed onto the ground, hanging their heads in defeat.

Jiang Feiyan turned her head to look at Qin Bailian. "Master Qin, you should recognize these two men, shouldn't you?"

Qin Bailian yanked his pistol from his waist in a flash, aiming it directly at the two men with the intent to fire. Major General Feng of the Military Statistics Bureau was quick-witted and blindingly fast, pulling his trigger first. With a sharp bang, a bullet punched straight through Qin Bailian's hand, sending his pistol clattering to the floor.

Clutching his bleeding hand, Qin Bailian flew into a rage and roared, "You!"

Jiang Feiyan said to Commander Liu, "May the Commander examine the facts clearly! This entire affair was a sinister plot orchestrated by Qin Bailian alone. He is nothing more than a fraudster who has been trying to swindle you out of your money all along. Because he himself understands nothing of Feng Shui, he invited Grandpa over, intending to use Grandpa's name and hands to fleece you of your wealth. Grandpa was kept completely in the dark the entire time; Grandpa is a genuine master of the I Ching, with a sterling reputation well-known to the common folk throughout the Jianghuai region. After Grandpa completed the Feng Shui adjustments and you handed over a sum of silver, Qin Bailian deliberately arranged for these two men to blow up your ancestral tombs under cover of night, creating the illusion of a grave robbery to make you vent your wrath upon Grandpa! During this entire ordeal, he deliberately dragged Grandpa around on wanderings to fabricate the impression that he had nothing to do with the matter. Once you killed Grandpa, he would simply claim that the silver had already been spirited away by Grandpa! As for himself—in your eyes, he was your sworn blood brother, so at worst he would only be guilty of a lapse in supervision. With him putting in a few good words for himself, you wouldn't kill him. In the end, you would lose your silver and the remains of your parents, Grandpa would lose his life, and only he, Qin Bailian, would walk away stuffed to the brim with profits! Commander, open your eyes and take a good look—this is your sworn brother!"

Qin Bailian flew into a fury. "You're spitting blood and framing me!"

At that moment, Major General Feng deliberately cupped his fists in salute to Grandpa. "Grandpa, trust you have been well since we last met. The Feng Shui adjustments you made for my late father's burial site the year before last have already shown miraculous results! Many thanks, Grandpa!"

Pointing her gun at the two tomb-blasting footmen on the ground, Jiang Feiyan demanded, "Tell everyone here—who ordered you to do it?"

Weeping bitterly, the two footmen blurted out, "It was Master Qin! It was Master Qin! Spare our lives, Milady!"

Hearing this, Commander Liu raised his firearm, aimed it straight at Qin Bailian, and bellowed at the top of his lungs, "Is this what happened?! Speak! Speak!"

Qin Bailian was already panicked out of his mind. Holding his breath, he stammered, "Big Brother, don't listen to this woman's nonsense! You know me; I'm the real deal! I, Qin Bailian, am a genuine practitioner of the studies of change. This Grandpa person is ruthless and venomous, burning with jealousy over my skills for years and always plotting to destroy me! I invited him here simply to set up a trap and eradicate this fraudster from the world of study of changes!"

Pushed into a dead end by Grandpa and Jiang Feiyan, Qin Bailian lost his mind entirely. Clutching his wounded, bleeding hand, he shrieked hysterically, "It's all fucking fake! Since things have come to this, I'll spill everything! If we're going to die, we all die together!"

Pointing his finger at Jiang Feiyan, he yelled at Commander Liu, "Her—this woman is a fraud! A scammer from southern Guangdong!" Then, whirling around to point at Grandpa, he shrieked, "And him, he's a fraud too! Every last one of them is a fraud! We're all in this together! In it together, do you hear me?! You fucking idiot!"

Grandpa burst out laughing heartily. "Commander, you see for yourself—if we were all in this together, would he be trying to kill me? Do you believe that?"

At this point, no matter what Qin Bailian said, nobody would believe a single word! He had completely gone mad!

Commander Liu shouted in a booming voice, "Tie this fucking idiot up for me!" Swarming forward in a pack, the bandits hogtied Qin Bailian on the spot.

"Aim the cannon at this bastard!" At Commander Liu's command, two bandits spun the artillery piece around, training its gaping barrel directly at Qin Bailian's chest.

Grandpa cast a glance at Qin Bailian. "Master Qin, be on your way. Go have a nice, long chat with Master Qian."

"You motherfuc—" Before Qin Bailian could finish his sentence, Commander Liu gave the order: "Fire!"

Grandpa walked over to Commander Liu, his face a mask of profound guilt. "Commander Liu, for such an unexpected tragedy to occur, I feel deeply responsible. As the saying goes, 'Man plans, but heaven executes.' I never imagined Qin Bailian was such a despicable wretch. Every single cent of the money you paid will be returned to you in full! If you still cannot purge the hatred burning in your heart, this humble person places himself entirely at your mercy!" With those words, he grabbed Commander Liu's hand and pressed the barrel of a gun directly against his own head.

Commander Liu was dumbfounded. He stood frozen in a daze for a long while before finally speaking: "What kind of talk is this from Grandpa? This matter has nothing to do with you; it was simply my failure in choosing friends that brought me to such a pass!"

Jiang Feiyan leaned in close and whispered softly to Grandpa, "Grandpa, let's leave."

Commander Liu interjected, "You cannot leave!"

Jiang Feiyan was startled. "What is it?"

Commander Liu smiled and said, "My ancestral residence of the dead has been blown to pieces, but my residential dwelling of the living still stands. Back when Grandpa examined the burial grounds for me, everything he said about my past major calamities was spot on. Grandpa is a man of genuine, extraordinary abilities, so... I must ask Grandpa to overlook past grievances and help this old man examine the Feng Shui of my living residence."

Grandpa glanced at Jiang Feiyan and smiled. "I thank the Commander for your trust."

After putting on a theatrical display of performing Feng Shui adjustments for Commander Liu's residential property, Grandpa refused to charge him a single coin. Grandpa told Jiang Feiyan, "His ancestral tombs were blown up after all; we won't take this money."

Later on, Grandpa successively incorporated Qin Bailian's forces into his own ranks. This nested scheme had been so intertwined with truth and falsehood that it was indistinguishable, leaving the footmen of the guild hall completely in the dark about what had actually transpired. However, their impression of Grandpa was exceptionally favorable; the years Grandpa had spent scattering vast sums of silver to win over people's hearts finally bore fruit at last. They were more than willing to follow Grandpa and work under his banner.

A month later, Grandpa and I returned to southern Guangdong. Grandpa had already dissolved Qin Bailian's guild hall designation, establishing a branch guild in Sichuan instead. He promoted one of Qin Bailian's subordinates to serve as the branch leader—with a rank equivalent to a chieftain—and upon returning to southern Guangdong, he dispatched the Second Chieftain to Sichuan to serve as the branch supervisor to assist that leader in managing operations. In truth, this was merely planting one of our own people to guard against any resurgence of mutiny.

By this point, of the four major guild halls of East, South, West, and North, all except the Southern Faction's "Yuehaitang" had been brought entirely under Grandpa's command.

Less than a week after that, the "Yuehaitang" guild hall was also brought under Grandpa's command—by Jiang Feiyan's own free will.

Jiang Feiyan had decided to leave. Following our return from Sichuan, Jiang Feiyan and Grandpa engaged in an all-night heart-to-heart conversation. In 1952, shortly before his death, Grandpa recounted this entire matter to me.

From the very first moment Jiang Feiyan laid eyes on Grandpa, she had fallen hopelessly in love with him. Yet, helplessly, fate had assigned them both the roles of fraudsters—and what is more, leaders of fraudsters. Having already stepped foot into the jianghu, they were no longer masters of their own destinies; there were simply too many heavy considerations weighing upon them: considerations of identity, considerations of the guild hall's future, and considerations for their sworn brothers...

In her earlier years, Jiang Feiyan had once proposed eloping with Grandpa to far-off lands, handing the guild hall over to others so the two of them could escape abroad. Grandpa refused. At that time, Grandpa's mind was completely consumed by his so-called "Dao." Having inherited the guild hall from Zhang Dancheng, he bore the sacred mission of carrying on the legacy of the "Jiangxiang Faction." His grand ideal was to steer the "Jiangxiang Faction" onto the righteous path, and simply walking away and abandoning it was something he could never bring himself to do.

Even when Jiang Feiyan offered herself to Grandpa for a single night of intimacy, Grandpa refused.

Jiang Feiyan had once asked Grandpa: "Is it because my body is no longer pure that Grandpa refuses to show me favor?"

Lowering his head, Grandpa replied, "Sister Yan has sacrificed everything for the 'Jiangxiang Faction,' and I should treat you with the utmost respect. How could I ever harbor disdain?" Grandpa knew that such a line could not be crossed; once crossed, there would be no pulling back.

Later on, Jiang Feiyan's agreement to help Grandpa eliminate Qin Bailian was, in truth, her final, eternal farewell to Grandpa.

Grandpa would not marry Jiang Feiyan, but there was someone else who desperately wanted to. That, too, was a deeply etched, bone-deep romance. Matters of the heart are beyond simple explanation, which is why the ancients wrote: "Ah, what is love in this world, that it makes life and death pledges for one another!"

That Major General Feng of the Military Statistics Bureau had fallen hopelessly in love with Jiang Feiyan ever since she captured his heart at the age of twenty-five. At the time, Jiang Feiyan was thirty-one; to secure greater networks of influence and resources, she had deployed the honey trap to snare Major General Feng. Although he wasn't yet a major general back then, Jiang Feiyan had already recognized his potential when she inherited Qiao Wumei's network. Jiang Feiyan's judgment had not failed her; for over twenty years, he smoothed over troubles and ran interference for Jiang Feiyan at every turn. Love is truly a strange thing: even when knowing full well that the other person is a fraud, one still loves them all the same. Perhaps loving someone means loving every single facet of who they are.

In the beginning, Jiang Feiyan merely regarded him as a chess piece, but as time went on, she realized a problem had arisen: this man had genuinely fallen in love with her, and his emotional attachment ran with terrifying depth.

Jiang Feiyan had once confessed candidly to him: "Feiyan is nothing more than a fraudster who strayed into the mortal dust of the red-light world; she is not worthy of the General's devotion."

Major General Feng replied, "In my eyes, you are simply Jiang Feiyan, and the person I love is Jiang Feiyan—regardless of whether she is a fraudster or not."

And thus, caught in a web of utilization, entanglement, and true love, Jiang Feiyan muddled through day after agonizing day amidst internal conflict.

Jiang Feiyan once told Grandpa: "The most agonizing thing in a person's life is when the person you love does not love you, while the person who loves you is someone you cannot love in return."

The Nationalist forces' successive defeats filled Major General Feng with growing anxiety. Since the arrival of spring in 1949, he had repeatedly pleaded with Jiang Feiyan to flee away with him, saying, "We are both people who have committed wrongs—you have defrauded countless souls, and I have taken countless lives. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we left all these rights and wrongs behind together?"

It was precisely at this critical juncture that a massive internal crisis erupted within Grandpa's guild hall, leading Grandpa to formulate his scheme of playing along to eliminate Qin Bailian. Taking down Qin Bailian was no easy task, and Grandpa needed Jiang Feiyan to cooperate by setting up a scam, which in reality meant mobilizing the Military Statistics resources she commanded behind the scenes. Grandpa knew that this time, he wasn't just dealing with Qin Bailian; he was also facing bandits gripping loaded firearms in their hands, and should any mistake occur, he would be powerless to handle it.

Consequently, he consulted with Jiang Feiyan to bring in regular military forces. On one hand, they would lie in ambush on the outer perimeter of the bandit stronghold so that if any leaks occurred in the scheme, the troops could charge in and save him from losing his life; on the other hand, they would deploy near Qin Bailian's guild hall to wipe out anyone attempting a rebellion during or immediately after the scam's execution when reorganizing Qin Bailian's forces.

Grandpa had analyzed the situation thoroughly: when Qin Bailian executed a Feng Shui scam, the only possibility for such a scam to backfire fatally was if something went terribly wrong with the physical Feng Shui site itself. For instance, if you had just adjusted the Yin Feng Shui for a family's ancestral graves only for the burial grounds to be washed away by a flood, or if you had just adjusted the Yang Feng Shui for a family's residence only for their home to catch fire—these were fatal, uncontainable breaches of the scheme. As for those flowery falsehoods about accumulating blessings, prosperity, and a flourishing lineage of descendants, those required time to be verified—perhaps years, perhaps decades—and the parties involved would never demand an immediate payout.

Therefore, Grandpa had Jiang Feiyan secretly follow him undercover into Sichuan. Simultaneously, that major general coordinated with Jiang Feiyan, bringing in several hundred men to serve as backup in the surrounding area.

On the day Commander Liu's parents' remains were buried, Jiang Feiyan had kept her people hiding deep within the mountain hollows, keeping a secret watch over the burial site. Sure enough, on the night three days later, two shadowy figures appeared, set off a thunder-charge explosive, and blasted the graves wide open. Jiang Feiyan deliberately watched and let them blow it up, because only by blowing it up could Qin Bailian be driven to his absolute doom!

The moment the explosion finished and those two individuals grabbed the gold and silver to make their escape, Jiang Feiyan's people pounced and captured them. That was what led to the heart-pounding scene that subsequently unfolded inside Qin Bailian's guild hall.

Grandpa never knew that Jiang Feiyan's agreement to help him execute the scam was her final, ultimate promise born out of love.

When Jiang Feiyan went to see Major General Feng beforehand, he wept as he said to her, "I have waited for you for nearly twenty years, from the time I was twenty-five until forty-two. I will help you with this scam, and I beg you to come away with me."

Jiang Feiyan had anticipated this scene—she had foreseen it before she even went. She knew she owed Major General Feng far too much. Over all these years, she had dragged things out again and again, hoping to delay until she reached the twilight of her years and her beauty completely faded, thinking perhaps then he would stop loving her. What she had never expected was that Major General Feng was far too infatuated; the passage of time failed to dilute his feelings for Jiang Feiyan in the slightest—instead, his affection grew deeper day by day. As long as Jiang Feiyan remained unmarried, he would keep waiting forever.

Jiang Feiyan told Grandpa: "Just like me—all these years, my heart has remained devoted to Grandpa. I tried my hardest to change myself, but I simply couldn't do it. But this time, I finally managed it. After twenty years, I suppose I've finally found my release. After I'm gone, with Feiyan no longer by your side, Grandpa, you must take good care of yourself."

Grandpa wept. A woman had spent her entire life pouring out her devotion for him, and even when she ultimately agreed to marry another man, she did so entirely for his sake. Grandpa's heart was flooded with agonizing guilt.

"Sister Yan, since we shared a fate in this life, let us reunite in the next," Grandpa said, wiping away his tears.

Sharing a fate in this life and reuniting in the next—perhaps that is the ultimate release for lovers who can never truly be together in the present.

When Jiang Feiyan left, she handed down the "Yuehaitang Feng Shui and Physiognomy Notes," a text passed down within the guild hall for three hundred years, leaving it in Grandpa's keeping. This book enjoyed immense prestige within the circles of fraudsters and was widely rumored throughout the jianghu, but it had always been strictly transmitted to women and never to men. Legend had it that it was compiled by Tang Yonghe, the founding matriarch of "Yuehaitang" and a chivalrous heroine. Tang Yonghe was accomplished in both literary and martial arts, possessed peerless martial prowess, and served as the leader of the Heaven and Earth Society's branch guild. When Fang Zhaoyu founded the "Jiangxiang Faction," he established four primary gates: Qian, Kun, Kan, and Li. The master of the Li Gate was none other than Tang Yonghe, and the Li Gate eventually evolved into "Yuehaitang."

The "Yuehaitang Feng Shui and Physiognomy Notes" was, in essence, a manual on the psychology of deception. Much like the universal textbook of the Aobao known as the Yingyao Pian, the difference was that the Yuehaitang Feng Shui and Physiognomy Notes focused specifically on fraud through Feng Shui scams, highly integrating Feng Shui arts with psychological manipulation to reach an unfathomable, miraculous peak.

Among the four major guild halls of East, South, West, and North, every single hall possessed its own specialized strengths and its own prized guardian treasures. The reason the Southern Faction's "Yuehaitang" was able to elevate the psychology of swindling to its absolute pinnacle was inseparable from the unique characteristics of the guild hall itself. The members of "Yuehaitang" were exclusively female; women lacked the brute physical strength of men and were less suited for violent brawls, so they generally avoided hard head-on clashes. Instead, they excelled at winning through intellect, probing the psychology of their targets and fusing Feng Shui with psychological warfare to forge the unique discipline of Feng Shui deception psychology found in the Yuehaitang Feng Shui and Physiognomy Notes.

Before his death, Grandpa told me that the person in this entire lifetime whom he felt the most deeply apologetic toward was Jiang Feiyan. This debt of emotional devotion was something he could never repay in this life; he only hoped that an afterlife existed, and that in the next life he might somehow cross paths with a woman named Jiang Feiyan, so that perhaps they might live out their days together as an ordinary, simple couple.

Hearing Grandpa recount these events filled my heart with a profound sense of desolation. Many years later, after I married and had a father-in-law, a favorite saying of his was: "In this life, a person shouldn't chase after wealth and glory; as long as you live in peace and safety, that is enough. Peace and safety are true blessings." Grandpa spent his entire life amidst the galloping horses of the jianghu, yet in the end, all he truly desired was the ordinary life of an ordinary person. Was it Grandpa who was wrong, or was it the arrangements of fate that had gone awry?