Chapter 15: Healing

“Scorpion... Scorpion beetle,” I had never heard of such a creature before, and my fear only deepened.

“Grandma, can you treat me? I can pay you; I don’t want to die yet,” I said, trembling with fear.

Old Liu shook her head. “Tell me the truth—what do you do? If you won’t say, then you can leave.”

“I...” I hesitated deeply. If I revealed my identity, I knew it wouldn’t just implicate me; it would also endanger Tou and the Sun brothers.

When I tried to jump off the bridge, Tou stopped me. He was willing to keep a kid like me close, nurture me, and provide me with a meal. Though I never said it outright, I was grateful to him.

I could never betray them behind their backs.

Not only that, if word got out and Li Jing knew who I really was, knowing I was a criminal, she certainly wouldn’t want to be friends anymore.

After much deliberation, I took a deep breath and said, “Grandma, although I want to be healed, there are some things I can’t say.”

Old Liu looked at me in surprise for a long moment, then slowly shook her head and said, “Alright, I understand. Come with me.”

“Grandma, where are we going?” I asked.

“To treat you, of course. What, do you want to die?”

“But you just said...” I began.

Old Liu covered her old husband with a quilt, then turned to me with a smile. “In the underworld, some qualities are precious.”

That night, Old Liu led me to the east room. On the floor were many large black jars, like the kind used for pickling vegetables.

She told me to turn around and not look.

I heard the sound of a jar lid opening behind me, followed by the rhythmic noise of herbs being pounded.

Later, she brought some gauze and applied a thick black medicinal paste to my swollen finger. The paste smelled strongly of fishiness and rot.

To be honest, even now I don’t know what was inside those black jars. I once guessed it might have been scorpions or geckos.

After applying the medicine Old Liu prepared, the pain in my finger vanished that very night. I stayed at Li Jing’s home overnight, and the next morning when I removed the gauze, the swelling was gone—miraculously.

Old Liu saved my life, and Li Jing did too. I wanted to repay them both for their kindness.

I secretly called Li Jing aside and said, “Thank you, Li Jing. I, Xiang Yunfeng, will help you. I’ll help you and your mother pay back that fifty thousand yuan, with my own money.”

Li Jing burst out laughing.

“Xiang Yunfeng, you’re joking, right? Fifty thousand yuan? Even if you worked for ten years, you wouldn’t earn that much.”

I didn’t blame her for doubting me; I quietly stored this promise in my heart. Then I asked about her father’s situation—what kind of business he was in and how he lost so much money.

Upon hearing my questions, Li Jing’s face immediately darkened. After persistent questioning, she finally revealed the truth.

Her father’s name was Li Mingquan. He used to be the manager of a brick factory in Shunde. A couple of years ago, the local government launched a project to build many public toilets and garbage transfer stations around the city's moat, aiming to prevent people from littering or urinating in the water.

Li Mingquan was sharp and saw a business opportunity. Through bribery, he became the supplier of raw materials for this project.

Don’t underestimate a single public toilet; if managed well, the profits could rival those of hollow-core pipe projects, especially with so many toilets and garbage stations involved.

Li Mingquan made a fortune from this operation, roughly earning close to a hundred thousand yuan.

For the Li family, this was initially good news. But Li Mingquan had a hobby: he loved buying antiques. He was the type to pretend to be an expert without knowing much—a real amateur.

At that time, China’s antique market was on the rise, with prices increasing every year.

His success and love for antiques were well known. So three men conspired to scam him.

How did they scam Li Mingquan?

Two words: a setup.

These three were small-time dealers in a nearby antique market. They first dug a large pit on Mount Gou in the north, then created a fake tomb inside it. They purchased a large number of counterfeit antiques from the market—gold pieces, jade, porcelain, stone carvings, wood carvings, and more.

Of course, the gold was copper, the jade was pressed stone powder, and the porcelain and stone carvings were all new fakes.

To make the tomb look authentic, whenever it rained, they dug channels on the mountain to direct a large amount of rainwater into the fake tomb.

The water soaked the tomb, covering everything in mud, burying the fake antiques.

After months of careful planning, they approached Li Mingquan.

Li Mingquan wasn’t very discerning, but he knew one thing: good antiques were worth a lot.

The three led him to the fake tomb. Seeing the gold glinting in the mud, his eyes lit up.

They dared to set a high price, telling Li, “Boss Li, if you want everything in this tomb, it’s 200,000 yuan flat.”

After bargaining, Li Mingquan settled on 160,000 yuan.

To pay for it, he used his family savings and borrowed tens of thousands more.

Once the goods were delivered, the three men vanished without a trace.

Li Mingquan tried to sell a few pieces to test the market, but, as expected, no one wanted his items.

Nearly a hundred burial items from one tomb, all fake, were worth no more than a thousand yuan combined.

With no sales, there was no money, but the borrowed money had to be repaid, with interest. Within six months, the debt and interest had ballooned to fifty thousand yuan.

Debt collectors came every day. Li was desperate and eventually abandoned Li Jing and her mother, running away to an unknown location.

With him gone, Li Jing and her mother became the primary targets of the debt collectors—after all, you can run from the monk, but not the temple.

That’s why I saw the debt collection scene the other day.

After telling me about her father, Li Jing lowered her head and said, “Xiang Yunfeng, I plan to stop studying after high school. I want to work in an electronics factory. I know a girl who says they pay six hundred yuan a month.”

I returned to the inn, heavy-hearted, still thinking about Li Jing and how to help her repay the debt as soon as possible.

Wang Tou and Sun Lao San were at the inn; Sun Lao Er and the one with a mole were nowhere to be seen—no one knew where they had gone.

I saw Wang Tou’s face was grim and asked if they had found the main tomb chamber.

Sun Lao San and Wang Tou were smoking, their faces so dark they looked frightening.

Sun Lao San threw down his cigarette, clenched his fists, and said, “Second brother is missing. He disappeared last night in the pit...”