A Valiant Life

At the hospital.

“My beloved granddaughter, hopefully, nothing bad happens to you, otherwise grandma won’t know what to do…”

Aunt Zhang sat on the floor paralyzed with dread, crying. She believed that everything that had happened was caused by her. She couldn’t bear to live if anything happened to her granddaughter.

“My son, mother has let Pearl down!”

Mao Zhong Xing paced up and down the corridor, deep in thought. His thoughts were muddled. The telephone rang and his heart leaped out of his chest.

His daughter was his world, and he’d never thought something like this would happen to her.

“It’s all my fault! If I had not rushed for my mahjong game, this would never have happened.”

Aunt Zhang kept blaming herself. Even if she forgot to close the gas line then, this wouldn’t have happened so fast. Who would have thought the gas system had a fault, causing a massive gas leak.

“Mum, don’t worry. Everything is going to be alright.”

Mao Zhong Xing originally wanted to blame his own mother, but seeing her so distraught, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

At that very moment, the doctor walked out of the room. Mao Zhong Xing and Aunt Zhang hurriedly went forward. Aunt Zhang grabbed the doctor by his coat as she was anxious to know the outcome.

“Doctor, how is my granddaughter? Is she okay?”

The doctor faced her sternly and said in a serious tone “How do you even take care of your kid? You left her alone at home… don’t you know how dangerous it can be? Especially since she is so small, if anything were to happen to her, it would be too late to even regret!”

“Yes…yes, sir.” Mao Zhong Xing and Aunt Zhang profusely nodded their heads as the doctor berated them.

“Luckily she was sent here on time so nothing really serious happened to her. If she was sent here ten or twenty minutes later, things would have turned out much worse…” the doctor could not fathom the irresponsibility of these two caretakers. Luckily nothing terrible happened that night.

“Thank you, doctor, thank you…” Aunt Zhang said weakly. She leaned on the wall in fatigue after hearing the good news. Mao Zhong Xing looked at the doctor and continued to thank him for his efforts.

“Mum, Pearl is going to be fine! Next time we’ve got to be more careful to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Mao Zhong Xin’s daughter was well and that was all. He was lost for words and this incident taught Mao Zhong Xin a grave lesson. He resolved to go out less at night and instead, stay at home to spend more time with his daughter.

“Aunt Zhang, you should play less mahjong next time,” the neighbors said as they surrounded her.

“I won’t play, I won’t ever play again.” Aunt Zhang was traumatized. How could she ever dare to play it again?

“But if you think about it, this could only be divine providence. You sensed something amiss while you were playing mahjong. It seems that God still has his protective hand over Pearl,” The neighbors said.

Hearing his neighbors, Mao Zhong Xing started to wonder too. His own mother was addicted to mahjong. If nothing serious happened, she wouldn’t even leave her seat. How did she have such a premonition?

Aunt Zhang immediately thought of Lin Fan’s words.

“Son, after this you should follow me to look for Lil’ Fan,” Aunt Zhang said as she grabbed Mao Zhong Xin.

“It is all thanks to Lil’ Fan. If not for what he said, I probably wouldn’t have had that premonition.”

The neighbors were curious since nothing bad happened to Pearl. “Aunt Zhang, what does this have to do with Lil’ Fan?”

“Mother, you should explain this fully to me. What did he tell you today?” Mao Zhong Xing asked.

“When I was sending Pearl home today, Lil’ Fan was sitting at the door, and I greeted him. Lil’ Fan said he was able to fortune-tell so he read Pearl’s fortune and said that she would have an accident tonight, and told us to eat out instead of at home for the day.” Aunt Zhang recounted the day’s events.

“Also, Lil’ Fan said something about the gas. But he briefly mentioned it and never said it again. He just stressed that we should go out to eat tonight.”

After hearing all of these, Mao Zhong Xing was astonished. He couldn’t believe it. The neighbors also had the same reaction. This was all too weird.

“Coming to think about it, it is really scary and too coincidental to be real… I only played one round of mahjong and my brain just kept on repeating Lil’ Fan’s warning. I had a feeling something was amiss and I thought I’d better go home to take a look. Luckily I did, otherwise terrible things would have happened tonight,” Aunt Zhang said.

“How is this even possible? Lil’ Fan is just an ordinary scallion pancake seller, how could he possibly tell the future?”

The neighbors didn’t believe Aunt Zhang’s words. Although they didn’t know Lil’ Fan very well, they still saw Lil’ Fan since he was young, and they never heard of any fortune telling ability from that person before.

“Son, regardless of anything, we still have to thank Lil’ Fan. If not for his words, I can’t imagine how this night would have turned out,” Aunt Zhang said.

Mao Zhong Xing had never believed in fortune-telling, but the turn of today’s events had left his sanity on edge.

“Mum, I know this.” Mao Zhong Xing blamed himself. This afternoon, his facial appearance was a little off.

“Lil’ Fan has indeed done our family a good deed. Tonight we shall look for him. We should also bring a few gifts to thank him.”

Aunt Zhang got even more excited, the thought of kowtowing to Lin Fan seemed acceptable just to express their gratitude.

The neighbors suddenly exclaimed, “What if, when Lil’ Fan talked about the gas supply but didn’t mention it twice, was because the will of heaven cannot be divulged? I’ve read a few of these books, and they say that humans cannot violate such divine laws. Doing such a thing would shorten a person’s lifespan.”

“In the end, Lil’ Fan had his foot injured. That could only be divine retribution for breaking the Heavenly laws. In my opinion, Lil’ Fan had his life shortened.”

All the neighbors agreed unanimously.

The neighbors were all of considerable age. They certainly had experience in dealing with such spiritual matters.

“Old Man Wang does have a point. You’re a mahjong addict, one experience and you’ll always go back for more. It must have been Lin Fan using his tricks to make you feel like going back home to check on things.”

“He has a point, although I can’t really understand how Lil’ Fan had the ability to pull this off. I’ll have to find out tomorrow.”

The neighbors continued their chatter. The more they discussed, the more absurd the theories became.

However, there was still some truth in what they were saying.

Indeed, Lin Fan almost broke the heavenly law by divulging the will of heaven. However, it was done to save a life, so it was not that severe. Otherwise, Lin Fan would have been struck down by lightning.

“Son, you heard them. We all should go and thank Lil’ Fan,” Aunt Zhang said.

“Mum, there really is no hurry. It is getting late already. People need to sleep, and Pearl just survived a crisis. How about we go tomorrow in the morning to thank him?” Mao Zhong Xing said.

Mao Zhong Xing originally had his doubts, but after hearing the lengthy discussion from his neighbors, he began to believe in the supernatural a little more. There was no way this could have happened, especially when his mother is a mahjong addict.

Could it be that what they said about Lil’Fan was real? Listening to his neighbors talk about having one’s life shortened, he began to think back to the words he said this afternoon. Mao Zhong Xin fell silent.

At that very moment, Lin Fan lay on his bed, holding up a mirror to himself.

“It’s so weird, this fortune-telling ability is so powerful, yet I couldn’t foresee that my leg would get injured like that…”

Lin Fan lay there, staring at himself in the mirror. He was still dissatisfied with his current standards of fortune-telling, as he was still unable to foresee his own circumstances.

However, he realized that he had become a little more handsome today.

“Hehe…” he chuckled to himself.

Thereafter, Lin Fan fell asleep. Tomorrow was going to be the start of his fortune-telling journey.

This journey to become a well-known and respected master fortune-teller was not going to be an easy one. However, Lin Fan had a real talent for fortune telling. He couldn’t possibly fail on this journey, could he?