Chapter 6 - Winning moneyWhen my first deal succeeded, I was especially happy. In an instant, I made 6000. That"s more than two months worth of salary.
I thought to myself, "The tantric amulet business is really ludicrous! Looks like in the future, I"ll have to get a deeper understanding of this stuff."
To express my grat.i.tude, I treated Liu Fu to a meal and conveniently had him answer a few questions I had about tantric amulets. If in the future customers had some questions, I wouldn"t be completely ignorant and would at least seem knowledgeable, allowing me to con them.
Even though I earned quite a bit, I still felt a bit uneasy. After all, this was my first deal and I didn"t dare guarantee that the Red-Eyed Phra Ngang would meet Da Fa"s requirements.
People like Da Fa were extremely anxious for success. So, in a mere three days, he gave me a call.
When he spoke, his tone was extremely aggressive, "w.a.n.g Meng! This thing of yours isn"t working at all! I"ve still been losing whenever I play Mahjong these past few days! What"s going on?! Did you sell me something fake?"
Faced with this guy"s situation, I immediately used the trick Liu Fu taught me. Buying time.
I said, "Big bro Fa, a tantric amulet isn"t like flu medication. You won"t see effects as soon as you put it on. This kind of thing needs sincere, faithful prayer. There"s no way you"ll see huge effects in a just a few days."
"Then how long do I have to wait before I start to win some money?" Da Fa"s tone was still impatient.
I too was unsure, so I forced myself to sound confident as I said, "It varies from person to person, so I can"t give you a specific time. But rest a.s.sured, there will definitely be effects. Let me ask you, before you prayed to this tantric amulet, how was your luck?"
"It was ridiculously bad, I had a 90% chance of losing. Otherwise I wouldn"t buy this thing from you." Da Fa said.
"And after praying?" I asked again.
"I still lost……. But…… it"s like I lost less than I used to." Just like that, Da Fa began comforting and a.s.suring himself.
I immediately gave him a nudge, "Well there you have it! After praying, you lost less. Isn"t this the effect of the tantric amulet? Maybe. after a while, your luck will slowly turn around."
When Da Fa heard that, his mood improved by quite a bit. After throwing out an, "I"ll believe you just this once." he hung up.
I unconsciously wiped off my sweat. In my heart I thought to myself, "Seems like this money isn"t that easy to earn……"
After about a week, Da Fa called me once again.
But this time, he was a lot more courteous than last time.
Also, his tone was excited, "Brother w.a.n.g Meng, your words were right! These past few days, my luck has completely turned around. Forget losing less, I"ve even started earning money. Yesterday alone, I"ve earned three to four hundred from playing Mahjong!"
When I heard that, I felt quite happy too. After all, this was a breath of relief to me. I replied, "Didn"t I tell you? As long as you seriously pray, you will definitely win more. But, you must definitely remember the sacrifice."
"I will, I will. As long as I win money, it"s fine even if it"s less." Da Fa was obviously happy.
After hanging up, I didn"t think too much about this.
For a period of time afterwards, Da Fa would call me every few days to express his joy and report his winnings.
The general content of the call was how much he earned yesterday and that he earned a lot today. His tone was always extremely excited.
In a short amount of time, he went from a gambler that lost practically every game, to being the king of luck that always won.
Every day, he won some money from playing Mahjong and his life became abundant.
But sometimes, human greed can never be satisfied.
After about half a month, Da Fa suddenly told me that he wanted to try gambling outside and earn a lot of money before returning. He asked me if I was interested in partic.i.p.ating.
At the time, I found it a bit odd and asked him what he meant.
Da Fa said, "Right now I"m lacking the starting capital and am currently raising money where I can. If I can reach my target, then I can go to the big casinos and earn some real money. If you lend me some money now, after I"ve won a bunch, I"ll return you twice as much as what you gave me."
When I heard that, I felt that something was wrong, so I advised him, "Slow down a bit. Don"t be so hasty. Even if your luck is good, winning too much in a short amount of time isn"t exactly a good thing either."
But Da Fa obviously didn"t want to listen to me. The luck had obviously gotten to his head.
Seeing that I wasn"t willing to lend him money, he didn"t say anything and just hung up.
Three days later, I received good news from Da Fa. As soon as he opened his mouth, he was laughing and wouldn"t shut up for half a day.
When I asked what happened, Da Fa immediately said with excitement, "Brother w.a.n.g Meng! I really, really, really have to thank you! If it wasn"t for you, I wouldn"t have won this much money in my life. Say no more, today I"ll be the host and treat you to a meal at a five star hotel"s restaurant!"
I felt quite curious, so I asked how much he won.
Da Fa said with a laugh, "Not much, not much. JUST 2,000,000!!!"
When I heard that, I was dumbstruck, dumbfounded, stupefied and speechless. Two million wasn"t much? This guy was really good at acting cool.
At the time, I kind of regretted selling him the Red-Eyed Phra Ngang, thinking, "If I was the one praying to it, wouldn"t I have long since become a millionaire?"
This thought went away as soon as it came. After all, I had already sold it. Even if I wanted to, there was no way to get it back.
By the way, I didn"t go to Da Fa"s banquet. This was because of a piece of advice Liu Fu gave me, "You have to keep a certain distance from customers, otherwise they will bring you trouble later on."
At the time, I didn"t understand what this advice meant. But later, I slowly began to realize the meaning behind his words.
A couple days after he became a millionaire, Da Fa gave me a call.
At first I thought he was going to brag some more. But, his voice sounded strange when he spoke. "w.a.n.g Meng, these past few days, my luck"s even worse than last time. Is there something wrong with the tantric amulet?"
At the time I didn"t think too much about it and just comforted him, "The tantric amulet isn"t omnipotent, there"s no way it"ll guarantee you victory alright? There are times when it"ll need to recuperate and won"t work so well. But as long as you sincerely pray to it, it"ll work fine in the end."
As soon as Da Fa heard that, he didn"t say anything and just hung up with an, "En."
But a couple days later, he called me again. At the time, I was starting to get annoyed and thought, "Keeps calling me so often… This guy is really starting to p.i.s.s me off."
Unlike in the past, when he called this time, his voice contained some panic. "w.a.n.g Meng, I feel like something"s wrong. Recently, whenever I play Mahjong I always lose. I can"t win at all. So far I"ve already lost several tens of thousands of cash. But most importantly, I can"t sleep properly and I constantly have nightmares. In my dreams, I always see a red-eyed demon hitting me. And when I wake up, my waist is sore and my back hurts. Tell me, what"s going on!?"
When I heard this, I suddenly thought of something. A red-eyed demon…… could it be the Red-Eyed Phra Ngang?
Even though I felt like something was wrong, I still comforted him, "For the next few days, you should just rest well and don"t think too much about this. Who knows, maybe you"re just overstressed. As long as you continue to pray on schedule and offer sacrifices, there won"t be any problems."
Da Fa hesitated for a second before saying, "If, and I mean if, I forgot to make my sacrifices, what will happen?"
"How would I know? There"s no way a person could guess what demons would do."
When I thought of this, I received a sudden shock. "You didn"t really forget to offer its sacrifices did you? This Red-Eyed Phra Ngang is a yin amulet with a spirit for G.o.d"s sake! This isn"t something to joke about! If you offend the yin spirit inside……"
"I didn"t! How could I forget?! I"ve been properly carrying out the prayers!" Da Fa fl.u.s.teredly denied my suspicions repeatedly before hanging up.