Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Going Down the Mountain to Pick Up a Dad “Xiaohong, do you think I’ll really be able to pick up a dad on this trip down the mountain?” On a steep, treacherous mountain path, a little dumpling dressed in a dark blue Daoist robe^[1] rolled along while wiping away tears. Hua Yu had been taken away and raised by her master from the moment she was born. She had also watched with her own eyes as Xuanzhen Daoist Temple went from thriving with worshippers and incense offerings to being bankrupted by her appetite. Now, only half its front gate remained. Half an hour ago, she had been kicked out. Her master had said there was no longer enough money to raise her and told her to go down the mountain and find herself some ready-made dad who would support her. A tiny green snake, as thick as a finger, crawled out through the wide sleeve of her Daoist robe. It slithered up Hua Yu’s little chubby hand to her neck, its pair of shiny black eyes no bigger than mung beans. “Of course you can! Didn’t your master divine that you’d find your blood relatives on this trip down the mountain?” Little Hua Yu pouted and rolled her eyes. As if! With those third-rate skills, her master couldn’t even predict whether it would rain. Hua Yu wasn’t actually counting on finding her blood relatives. As long as some sucker was willing to be her dad and support her, that would be enough. And even if he wasn’t willing, she could beat him until he was. She was strong, after all! When she reached halfway down the mountain, a dark, indistinct lump blocked the middle of the path. Little Hua Yu’s large, black eyes suddenly lit up. Could that figure lying on the path be the dad heaven had sent her? But once she got a good look at the man lying there, her fine, arched eyebrows drew together in a deep frown. This… didn’t seem to be her rich dad. The man lying on the ground was covered from head to toe in foul-smelling mud. His face was so caked in mud that she couldn’t make out his features, and his clothes were torn to tatters. Calling him a filthy rag would have been more accurate. Little Hua Yu’s face, which had just been beaming with delight, tightened. She turned around and walked away. “This person is so poor and shabby. He’s not my dad. Xiaohong, let’s skedaddle before he latches on to us!” Hua Yu was quick to take an interest in money, and even quicker to run from a filthy rag. But before she could take a single step with her short legs, a dirty hand seized her trouser leg tightly. “Save me…” “I have money…” Xie Changheng’s eyes were sealed shut by foul-smelling mud, and he could only vaguely hear someone’s voice. After losing his footing and falling off a cliff, he had lain there for three days and three nights without anyone coming to check on him. He wasn’t poor and shabby—he was a prince! He was willing to reward whoever saved him with ten thousand taels^[2] of gold. Wait, ten thousand taels wouldn’t do. The prince’s estate was struggling financially, and he still needed to conserve his money to pay for medical treatment for his wife and son. But he could still afford a hundred taels. “Eek! Don’t touch me, filthy thing!” When little Hua Yu saw the glaring black handprint on her trouser leg, she shrieked in her high-pitched, childish voice, jumped up, and darted away. She frowned as she patted the mud off her trouser leg, then crouched down some distance away and began carefully examining the filthy rag. The longer she looked, the more she noticed. This person… No, this rag didn’t seem quite right. Xie Changheng’s entire body was so black with mud that Hua Yu hadn’t been able to see the black aura surrounding him at first. Black aura of this color and texture was fairly ordinary. Hua Yu often saw it on the villagers at the foot of the mountain. Most of them had run into misfortune that left bad luck clinging to them. But even when someone was carrying bad luck, the black aura would only gather in a mass between their eyebrows. The filthy rag in front of her, however, was absurdly black from head to toe. This was no longer a simple case of being plagued by bad luck. This filthy rag was a jinx reincarnated^[3]! The little green snake coiled around Hua Yu’s neck. Through layers of black aura, its glass-bead-like black eyes saw straight through to what lay within. “Hua Yu, this person has purple aura. Do you want to take a gamble?” Little Hua Yu’s mouth fell open, and her large, black eyes quivered. Xiaohong was a spirit snake overflowing with spiritual energy, capable of seeing things ordinary people could not perceive. Purple aura surrounding a person was a sign of great wealth and high status. The black aura around this rag had overwhelmed the purple aura, which was why Hua Yu hadn’t seen it right away. But since Xiaohong had said so… Could it be that this reincarnated jinx really had money? “Take a gamble—turn meat buns into abalone^[4]!” After a brief moment of thought, little Hua Yu pursed her lips and made up her mind. Avoiding breathing through her nose, she leaned toward the filthy rag. She opened her little mouth as wide as she could to breathe, afraid of inhaling a lungful of stench. Once she had grabbed both of the filthy rag’s arms, she gave a mighty tug. “Off we go—!” Along the mountain path, Hua Yu dragged Xie Changheng by the arms as though pulling a handcart, all the way to a stream. The mountain was covered in pebbles and fine sand. After being dragged along the entire way, the unconscious Xie Changheng woke and fainted repeatedly, his backside stinging as if it had been scraped raw. Hua Yu dragged him to the stream and scooped up several handfuls of water, then splashed it directly onto Xie Changheng’s face with a series of wet splats. His backside burned with unbearable pain, while water repeatedly flooded his mouth and nose, making him cough miserably. He woke, then fainted. He fainted, then was choked awake again. Should he have asked someone else for help? Why did it feel as if this person was deliberately trying to kill him? Xie Changheng’s neck went slack as he completely gave up struggling. Forget it. He had been unlucky for more than twenty years. The fact that he hadn’t been left to become a corpse in the wilderness already counted as a blessing from Heaven. It took little Hua Yu half an hour to barely wash the filthy rag’s face clean. “Oh, you’re actually pretty handsome.” Hua Yu stared at Xie Changheng’s face, sucking her teeth in admiration. Although he was a little pale, his sword-shaped brows, bright eyes, and handsome features made him the best-looking man she had ever seen in her entire life—four years and nine months. A man this handsome was barely qualified to be her dad. But even after his face had been washed clean, the black aura around Xie Changheng continued to linger. Little Hua Yu stretched out her chubby hand and slapped Xie Changheng’s face several times in quick succession. She had been born with a huge appetite, and she was strong too. The temple had only half a gate left because she had once gotten desperately hungry in the middle of the night, torn off half the gate, and gone down the mountain to sell it for money to buy meat buns. After those slaps, Xie Changheng’s handsome face swelled up into a little mound, and his cheeks and jaw burned with pain. Xie Changheng’s nose stung, and his eyes grew wet. His arm had been broken, his backside scraped raw, his mouth and nose choked with water—and now he had to endure being slapped. What prince in all the world had ever ended up in a state like his? He might as well wash his hands of it and go become someone else’s eunuch^[5]! “Stop hitting me… I’ll give you money…” Dizzy and light-headed, Xie Changheng shakily grabbed Hua Yu’s wrist. If she kept hitting him, he was afraid that once he returned to the capital, even his wife wouldn’t recognize him. But the little chubby hand twisted free with astonishing strength, and another slap landed across his face. “You ought to give me money. I’m saving you, you know.” Little Hua Yu pursed her lips, her chubby cheeks trembling with effort. When the villagers at the foot of the mountain were afflicted by bad-luck aura, she could resolve it with a wave of her hand. But it wasn’t that simple here. The bad-luck aura covering this filthy rag had clumped together like phlegm and couldn’t simply be waved away. You can either keep being unlucky or keep getting slapped. You choose.