Chapter 23 - 23 Chapter 20 Zhang Banzui_1 (1/2)

23 Chapter 20 Zhang Banzui_1

Translator: 549690339

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Not long after, he heard a faint noise outside the house.

A chill ran through his heart—it seemed someone was spying on his every move!

Wang Haikun was a cunning and suspicious man, and indeed not so easily fooled.

But on second thought, it didn’t seem right. If it were Wang Haikun outside, he would never sneak around like a thief. He would simply break in.

That was something Wang Haikun had done many times before.

While eating the ‘poor man’s meal’, Qin Niu silently pondered the identity of the peeper outside.

Since it wasn’t Wang Haikun, then who was spying outside his house?

The timing of this surveillance at his home was absolutely no coincidence.

It was likely another one of Wang Haikun’s ‘informants’.

Such is the baseness of human nature.

Even though everyone despised Wang Haikun, every ordinary villager had been bullied and exploited by him. Yet some, with a deep-seated servility, were willing to serve the devil, ingratiating themselves with Wang Haikun by acting as his ‘informants’—a low-cost method to please him.

Their goal was simply to avoid being bullied by Wang Haikun.

Or at least not to be bullied too harshly.

Qin Niu continued to eat the hard-to-swallow food as if oblivious to the watcher outside.

After an hour or so, that prickling sense of being surreptitiously watched disappeared.

He guessed that the person had probably left.

He immediately got up, moved behind the door, and peeked through the crack to check outside.

The man had a liquor gourd tied to his waist, a slightly hunched back, and a skinny figure. He staggered along the road, gradually moving away.

It turned out to be the village’s old drunk, Zhang Banzui.

Unexpectedly, this man was secretly acting as an informant for Wang Haikun.

It just goes to show that you can know someone’s face, but not their heart!

Zhang Banzui, like Xie Laizi, was a bachelor.

The only difference was that Zhang Banzui had been married. It was said he had fled to this village from another place, where he had then settled.

Xie Laizi wasn’t skilled at anything and only worked odd jobs for the wealthy families like Wang Furen and Xu Zhenchang.

As for working for the Yan Family, he couldn’t even get in.

The Yan Family was akin to a modern corporation, and even if you wanted to work their fields, you couldn’t just join as you pleased. You had to go through rigorous screenings and be the best among candidates.

Only when you met the Yan Family’s hiring standards could you enter.

The Yan Family rarely recruited temporary workers, mostly permanent ones.

They provided food and accommodation, bonuses during festivals, and pork during the New Year.

Their wages were also secure, never delayed.

So, to many peasants, landing a job as a long-term laborer for the Yan Family was considered a highly desirable position.

Xie Laizi was ugly, and in the summer, he would get boils on his head, which would scab over in the winter, but the hair would never grow back. Thus, he became known as Laizi.

It was the same year after year.

No one could say exactly what strange illness Xie Laizi had.

Whenever Xie Laizi ran out of money, he would do odd jobs for the wealthy to earn a living. In the winter, when there was less work, he would go into the mountains to chop wood to sell.

In any case, he managed to make sure he was fed, even if no one else was.

Zhang Banzui, on the other hand, never did such rough work, as he was addicted to alcohol. He did have a skill, though, such as telling fortunes.

However, his predictions were not accurate, and often, you could see his face bruised and beaten.

He never admitted to being beaten up.

Whenever someone asked him about it, he would say he “fell” or “tripped.”

Moreover, he developed the habit of only speaking in half sentences after learning Buddhist chants for fortune telling, earning him the nickname Zhang Banzui.

Apart from telling fortunes, Zhang Banzui had a unique skill: treating diseases in livestock and poultry.

If someone’s animal fell ill, he could almost certainly cure it.

This skill was much better than his fortune telling.

However, the instances of sick livestock and poultry were not many, and even when cured, the payment was similarly meager.

When Zhang Banzui needed money for his drinking, he would return to his old trade, risking being beaten to tell fortunes. Eventually, everyone knew he was inaccurate, and people from nearby villages stopped seeking his services.

Then he introduced two new services: divination for auspicious or ominous outcomes, and selecting auspicious dates for weddings and funerals, along with a bit of feng shui consultation on the side.

In fact, these two new services seemed to have a much lower risk of failure, and he got beaten less often.

Qin Niu thought Zhang Banzui was a clever man, but it was truly disheartening that he had become an informant for Wang Haikun.