Chapter 24: Senior Brother

Fortunately, his silence this time did not last long—only about ten seconds—before I heard him laughing on the other end. "In that case, you are my little junior brother."

"Huh?" I responded immediately.

"Five years ago, my business failed and I was at the end of my rope. I wanted to jump into the river to end it all. As I passed an overpass, I saw a group of old men sitting on small stools, setting up stalls to tell fortunes. I don't know what possessed me, but I felt a sudden urge to get my fortune told, just to see if any of these old men could predict that I was about to die. I tried four of them, but none of them hit the mark. It wasn't until the fifth one—the moment I opened my mouth to ask him to read my fortune, he took one look at me and actually pulled out ten yuan and handed it to me."

"I asked him what he was doing, asking if he took me for a beggar."

"He looked at me and said he didn't tell fortunes for the dying, fearing their bad luck would rub off on him. He told me to take the ten yuan and get lost."

"I don't know why, but at that moment, I both cried and laughed. Maybe I cried because even a fortune teller thought I was too cursed to be worth his time, and I laughed because... well, because the audacity of the bastard was just so damn funny."

"After I finished crying and laughing, I suddenly realized I had met a true master. Who wants to die if they can live? My parents only had me; my wife had just given me a beautiful daughter. She was only three, with a milky voice, and she was so attached to me. Every day she would wrap her arms around my neck and call me 'Daddy.' When my wife called me 'Honey,' she would get jealous and insist on calling me 'Honey' too. I knelt before the master, begging him to show me a way out, offering him all the money I had on me."

"He told me to extend my hand, and like a traditional Chinese physician, he pressed his fingers to my wrist to take my pulse. I felt his hand was ice-cold, and it seemed as though a current of energy was surging from my wrist into my body. He checked my pulse for five minutes, then let go. He took one yuan from my pile of money and said he only accepted that one yuan because the Tao is not to be taught lightly and the Dharma is not to be sold cheaply—that is the rule of our ancestors."

"But by accepting that one yuan, he was showing me a path worth far more. He told me that I was destined to face this catastrophe because I had achieved success too young, become too arrogant, and failed to restrain myself. I thought I was the cleverest person in the world, obsessed with prestige and face. Now that I was bankrupt, all those things I had bought with money were gone. He helped me because he calculated that there was still someone at home waiting for me, and that I still had five years of 'Dragon Head' fortune ahead of me. He pointed out a path."

"He said: 'Enter the narrow gate, walk the dark path, and plow the barren field.' Then he gave me a book—it was probably identical to the one you have, a hand-copied version. On the very first page, there was a quote from the *Discourses on Salt and Iron*: 'Wealth lies in strategy and calculation, not in physical labor. Profit lies in the manipulation of trends, not in the sweat of the brow.' Little junior brother, am I right?"

He had said all this in one breath.
It was as if he were talking to himself.
It was as if he were pouring his heart out to me.
His words caused a tempest in my heart, a stampede of emotions.
This senior brother of mine.
Our experiences were so similar.
At the darkest moment of our lives, our Master had descended like a god.

I was trembling with excitement.
I unconsciously clamped the phone between my shoulder and ear.
My hands instinctively formed the "suppressing hand" gesture of the *Shentiao* sect.
I thought of Uncle Yong’s words: "The world of the drifter is all artifice; the *Shentiao* produces immortals."

"You are right, it is the same book," I replied, almost in a daze.
To be honest, I had forgotten why I made this call in the first place; my mood was beyond words.
And as for the title "little junior brother," I had no idea how to respond.
Should I call him "Big Senior Brother"?
That didn't feel right, as my connection with the predecessor Liu Qingshan was merely a one-sided wish on my part.
Besides, such titles seemed to exist only in martial arts novels.

After hearing my reply, he asked again, "Junior brother, when did you meet the Master?"

"Calculating it, it’s been over a month," I said.

"The Master... is he well?" he asked, his voice trembling.

"Uh... I feel like he is in good health, his eyes are sharp, and he is in good spirits," I answered.

"Good. I should have expected that; how could someone like the Master ever be unwell? You said my phone number appeared in the hand-copied book the Master gave you. Can you explain specifically how that happened? And what was your state of mind when you made this call to me?" He continued to ask, his emotions now slightly more stable.

"I obtained the Master's book and learned some of the 'underworld' jargon. During this time, I’ve experienced quite a lot and met a benefactor who changed my destiny. To prove myself, I prepared to infiltrate a casino in the hotel where I work. While carefully flipping through the 'Thousand Sects Blue Road' section, I discovered this phone number. By the way, the content of the 'Thousand Sects Blue Road' seemed to have been torn out by Master... by Senior Liu. I made this call assuming the number belonged to him..." I explained truthfully.
First, I had no reason to hide anything from this man.
Second, I also wanted to know why Senior Liu Qingshan had torn out the "Thousand Sects Blue Road" content and left this phone number instead.

After I finished speaking, there was silence on the other end again.
And this time, the silence lasted a long time—a full minute.
A minute later, the "senior brother" on the other end had a breakdown.
He began to cry.
It was the sound of a man’s repressed, heavy sobbing.
I didn't know which part of my words had triggered him, but I could feel that he knew the answer I was looking for.
So, even though I was worried about the phone bill, I listened to him cry for three or four minutes.

Until he finally steadied his emotions, wiped his nose, and said to me: "Junior brother, are you curious why the Master tore out the content of the 'Thousand Sects Blue Road'? Why he wrote that gambling is like opium—that once you touch it, it destroys your very soul? The Master was scolding me!"

I thought to myself, *Brother, that goes without saying.* Of course I was curious; why else would I be waiting here? Was I supposed to enjoy listening to you cry?

But seeing as he was in such a bad state and kept calling me "little junior brother," I steadied my own emotions and said: "Is it convenient to talk about it? If not, don't worry about it."

"There is nothing inconvenient about it. It is because of me. After I got that book from the Master, I read it quickly and mastered the tricks of the underworld. Then, among the Master's so-called 'narrow gate, dark path, and barren field,' I chose the 'Thousand Sects Blue Road.' I learned those few pages of cheating techniques and became a card sharp in a casino—a path the Master had explicitly marked as a guaranteed death sentence."

"The Master said that once you enter the 'Thousand Sects Blue Road,' no matter how brilliant you seem during the process, there is only one final outcome: death. Because in the end, the only opponent you are gambling against is yourself. You are betting against your own human nature," the senior brother said.