Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 57 Credit Card Man

It was a kind of underworld gossip that Ran Qing had heard the old men in the village talk about when they were chatting when he was a child.

I've also seen it in martial arts novels.

This is a special term that originated from some special trades in the old times. It was invented by these marginal professions when they communicated with each other in order to conceal their identities and prevent ordinary people from understanding.

Bandits have their own jargon, and tomb robbers have their own jargon.

But this was the first time that Ran Qing had seen the real underworld intrigues.

He didn't understand any of the underworld jargon that Aunt Liu was using.

What I probably understood was that the figure in front of me was not a dead object?
But someone from outside?
Ran Qing was confused and waited for the response from the visitor in the fog.

But in the fog, the blurry figure took two steps forward, finally allowing Ran Qing and Aunt Liu to see his face clearly.

He was thin, about 1.7 meters tall, and wore a black gown embroidered with intricate patterns. He looked solemn and noble, yet somewhat eerie. The gown resembled a shroud...

A thin, long mustache stuck coldly to his face. His skin, tanned and loose from years of wind and sun, looked to be in his fifties.

His left hand hung casually at his side, while on his right shoulder was a saddlebag from an ancient era, heavy with something unknown.

Hearing Sixth Aunt's cold, underworld slang, this uninvited guest of unknown origin looked expressionlessly at Ran Qing, then at Sixth Aunt.

Finally, he took out an unsharpened kitchen knife from the bag on his shoulder.

"A knife on credit."

The thin middle-aged man's response was concise and to the point, with a strong foreign accent.

Aunt Liu's expression changed slightly.

"On credit for a knife..." She frowned at the figure in the mist and asked, "Who do you want to sell it on credit? How do you want to sell it on credit?"

The middle-aged man looked at Ran Qing, then at Aunt Liu, as if he was making a choice.

Finally, he handed the knife to Aunt Liu.

"The sword of life and death, come and get it within ten days," the middle-aged man said in a concise manner.

But Sixth Aunt's expression suddenly changed.

She looked at the middle-aged man in front of her, then at the unsharpened kitchen knife that was handed to her. Her expression fluctuated for a long time. Finally, Aunt Six took a deep breath and nodded, saying, "Okay! I'll buy it on credit!"

Aunt Liu took the unsharpened kitchen knife and seemed to have made some huge decision.

The middle-aged man with a sack on his shoulder walked away and soon disappeared into the fog.

Everything happened so suddenly and ended so abruptly.

From Aunt Liu's slanging of underworld tactics to the mysterious visitor taking out a kitchen knife, after a few simple exchanges, they seemed to have reached some kind of consensus.

But Ran Qing, who was watching from the sidelines, was completely confused and had no idea what was going on.

"Sixth Aunt, what does this mean?"

A stranger from another place who she didn't even know came to Aunt Liu and bought her a knife on credit?

Aunt Liu asked for it directly?

Ran Qing was confused.

Aunt Liu took the knife and snorted coldly.

She walked into the main room carrying the unsharpened kitchen knife and said to Ran Qing.

"It seems that I am not prepared enough for your female classmate."

"You don't need to come tomorrow at noon. Come back in the evening."

"I need to prepare some more powerful things to give her a good beating!"

In the shadow of the main room, at this moment, Sixth Aunt's profile looked extremely hideous.

Ran Qing's heart skipped a beat, and he quickly asked, "Who is this person who bought the knife on credit?" Aunt Liu carefully placed the unsharpened kitchen knife in front of the tablets of Heaven, Earth, Emperor, Parents and Teacher, then turned around and glanced at Ran Qing.

After turning around, Sixth Aunt returned to her usual appearance, and the ferocious and vicious aura on her body faded away.

She puffed on the leaf cigarette in her mouth and sneered.

"Knife seller on credit."

"A bunch of guys who make money from death and disasters."

"These guys roam around, and whenever there's a disaster or someone's going to die, these guys buzz in like flies in a toilet."

"They lend knives for free on credit. They don't charge money when you borrow the knives, they just agree on the terms of the credit. But when they come to collect the knives, it's hard to say what the price is."

"If the knife they lent you on credit doesn't help you or doesn't work, that's fine."

"If the knife they lent you on credit helps you or has any effect, you can expect to bleed profusely!"

"These knife sellers are very good at making money and cheating people."

"Using their knives, even if it's a piece of pig skin, you have to scrape off two layers of fat."

As Aunt Liu spoke, her expression darkened again.

Ran Qing also roughly understood, his expression changed slightly: "Then he said he would give you the Life and Death Sword on credit..."

"Yes, he meant that I was going to die," Aunt Six snorted coldly, her face grim. "That's pure nonsense! Even if I were to die, I wouldn't die at the hands of that female classmate of yours."

"There's no graveyard left, and the bodies were burned. Even if her burial method was brutal, could it still cause trouble?"

"By selling the knife on credit, I'm just giving the guy a face and also buying some insurance for myself. When he comes back to pick it up in a few days, I'll just return it to him in good condition."

"If you don't use his knife, you don't have to pay."

Aunt Six snorted coldly as she spoke: "But this man came to buy a knife on credit, which reminded me."

"I still have some good stuff that I can use to treat you, my female classmate. I originally thought it was unnecessary, but now it seems that I'll need some real skills."

At this point, Aunt Six glanced at Ran Qing and said, "Why are you still standing here like an idiot? Go cook!"

"Do you really think I'm going to die? You look so miserable... I'm not dead yet! Even if I were dead, it wouldn't be your turn to come here and mourn!"

Aunt Six scolded Ran Qing without any hesitation and said disdainfully, "You kid, don't think these people who sell knives on credit are idiots and like to do business at a loss, do you?"

"When they come to buy knives on credit, it's basically a sure win. They won't go looking for someone who's doomed to die."

"It's just that my previous preparations might not have been enough, which is why I attracted the knife seller."

"Even if something does happen, I can just use this knife to ward off disaster and get rich quick... Damn it!"

As Aunt Six spoke, her mood soured again: "We were already poor, and now we're even poorer and more troubled."

"If I really use this broken knife, I wonder how much it will cost..."

Aunt Liu was in a bad mood and her tone became fierce.

However, what Sixth Aunt said and her strong self-confidence made Ran Qing feel much more at ease.

It is crucial that people who sell knives on credit do not do business at a loss.

But this mysterious man who sold knives on credit made Ran Qing feel very uncomfortable.

By dinner time, Aunt Liu's mood had recovered a lot and she was no longer as fierce.

But she was still very upset.

After cooking, Ran Qing was about to go to the main room next door to call her to eat when she saw that Aunt Six in the main room had stopped smoking leaf tobacco. She sat in a rocking chair, flipping through her bankbook, then quietly cursing the knife seller and sighing.

The fact that the knife seller was targeting her for money seemed to make Aunt Liu more depressed than the death prediction brought by the knife seller.

(End of this chapter)