Techniques and Dao

Chapter 82 The Mystery of Brother Xu
Hua Sheng remained suspended in the void. For some reason, after the Golden Cudgel pierced through the Jupiter Veil, he saw these scenes before his eyes.

The Ruyi Jingu Bang (the magic staff) became a medium for some kind of time and space, transmitting some information into its mind.

The details of these images seem to come from memories from many years later.

The instant after sensing the memories of the Netherworld, Hanamori suddenly felt a locked memory being unlocked.

This story begins with a man he calls "Brother Xu".

At that time, Hua Sheng was still alive. To him, there was nothing supernatural in the world.

That night he was being beaten, and his head was being forced into a water-filled bucket.

All I could hear was the gurgling sound of water filling my ears. I'd been underwater for about two minutes when Hanamori started seeing stars and began choking on water.

Cough cough cough! At this rate, they'll all drown!

He flailed his arms, struggling to break free, but the hand that had held his head underwater lifted him up. The thick arm was covered in tattoos, and a gold chain hung around his neck, making him look like a thug from an old county town in the last century.

"Say!"

"Shut up!" Hua Sheng spat.

The man with the gold chain glared at him: "Such a tough little thing for someone so young. It's your boss who ran away, is it worth you risking your life for him?"

Hana kept coughing. "This water must be rotten! It's so smelly and filthy!" The choking made her lungs ache terribly, and her stomach churned violently.

The man with the gold chain followed up with a punch to Hua Sheng’s face.

Hua Sheng instantly felt her face become multicolored, and something warm flowed down her nose.

It's blood, isn't it?

The man with the gold chain said, "What are you doing, trying to be a hero? The boss and employees have all run away, leaving you all alone here! I'm looking for your boss; tell me where he is and I'll let you go!"

Hua Sheng gritted her teeth: "I don't know! I haven't seen him in a long time!"

The man with the gold chain punched Hua Sheng in the stomach again.

The henchman standing behind the gold chain stepped forward and said, "Boss, it seems he really doesn't know that you've been beating him for half an hour. It would be a real problem if you accidentally killed him."

The man with the gold chain glared at his lackey, then looked at Hua Sheng, whose face was covered in blood: "He won't die."

As he spoke, he released his grip on Hua Sheng's hair, and Hua Sheng immediately knelt on the ground.

"If you like playing the hero, then you'll be a martyr!" The man with the gold chain spat on Hua Sheng and strode away with his henchmen.

Hua Sheng gasped for breath. After an unknown amount of time, he slowly moved his hands to the ground above him and used them to push himself up. He found the nearest wall to lean against and began to wipe the blood from his face by lifting his clothes.

Having been an orphan since childhood, being beaten was nothing new to him. As long as the external injuries weren't too serious, he could just endure them and they would pass. After a few days, he would be back to his energetic self.

He leaned against the wall to rest, and soon drifted off to sleep.

Lost in a daze, Hua Sheng heard someone calling his name.

"Hua Sheng! Hua Sheng! How did you get beaten up like this?" It was the voice of a middle-aged man.

Hua Sheng opened his eyes, only to find that his eyelids were so swollen that he could barely open them, and he could only make out the other person's outline.

"Brother Xu? Why are you back?" Hua Sheng spoke slowly and laboriously. "Didn't I tell you to run away?"

The man called Brother Xu said anxiously, "These guys are too ruthless! Who beats someone up like this when collecting debts these days? There are security cameras in the company, which are evidence of the assault!"

As he spoke, he turned on his computer, and a scene of Hua Sheng being beaten up by several people appeared on the screen: "I'm going to call the police!"

"Forget it, call the police and have those people arrested. When everyone gets together, you'll still have to pay them back."

Xu Ge rummaged through the drawer of the table and found a clean towel, then used it to wipe the blood from Hua Sheng's head.

"I'm tough, I can take a beating." Hua Sheng took the towel and pressed it against his wound.

"You need to get stitches; the cut is quite big, and the bleeding probably won't stop." Brother Xu helped Hua Sheng up by the shoulder.

The hospital is just two streets away, not far from here.

Two hours had passed since I left the hospital. A light drizzle was falling outside. Early spring is a time of fluctuating temperatures; just when you think you're about to feel warm, the temperature can suddenly drop unexpectedly. In this big city, there's almost no distinction between day and night; people come and go everywhere. It's not just young people out at night; people of all ages can be found on the streets late at night. Many who seem like "wandering ghosts" are actually just poor office workers who have just finished overtime.

The more prosperous and developed a city is, the more closely people seem to be connected, but in reality, it is like the early spring days, occasionally giving people a chill to the bone.

After more than twenty stitches, Hua Sheng's head was wrapped in thick gauze, making him look like a mummy. Hua Sheng said, "Brother Xu, it seems like you can't make much money doing online trolling. You've already lost all your savings in six months and are now heavily in debt. You might as well find something else to do."

Brother Xu took a cigarette and put it in his mouth. He rummaged around for a while and pulled out a disposable lighter he bought from a convenience store. He slowly lit it and took two deep drags: "It should get better in a while."

Hua Sheng asked, "It's been about half a year since your sister-in-law passed away, hasn't it? These past six months have really been tough for you. How are her family members doing?"

“My family couldn’t accept it at first. They’re all human, and my parents only have one daughter. She got married to me, who came from the countryside, not long after we started dating, so they already had some reservations. Business was going well at first, but then it all fell apart. I was planning to go to Jeju Island to relax, but who knew this would happen?”

Hua Sheng said, "I shouldn't have gone to the cliff in the first place. I just wanted to take a few photos, and I ended up losing my life."

Xu Ge stared blankly at the orange streetlights, where the raindrops, though small, were extremely fine. Outside the light, it was too dark to discern anything, as if the rain itself was brought by the light.

Taxis occasionally drove by on the street, their tires scraping the pavement, the sound of rain tearing through the silence of the night. A car slowly pulled up a short distance across the street, as if a man was taking his girlfriend home, chatting intimately through the car window with a reluctant farewell. In the distance, the occasional sound of drunken people loudly singing pop songs drifted over, as if venting their complaints about life through the fumes of alcohol.

Xu Ge looked at the cigarette held between his middle and ring fingers, a way he liked to hold it. He said calmly, "Life is a one-way street; you never know which fork in the road is the best one. That's the way of living, the way of going with the flow."

Hua Sheng squatted on the ground, looking at the ground under the dim streetlight. She could vaguely see a few ants crawling past her feet.

Brother Xu took two deep drags on his cigarette: "Later, I sent my two younger sisters to night school, hoping they could get back on track while they were still young. But you know how it costs money, so I became the breadwinner of the family. Later, I came here to work odd jobs. Now everyone talks about the internet, so I'm learning as I go. I bought a few computers and do some subcontracted work for big companies. These past two years, my parents have gotten older and have a lot of illnesses. I want to bring them to the city where the medical care is better."

"Brother Xu, I think you really need the money..."

"These past few years, money has been more important to me than my life."

How much debt do they owe outside?

"With compound interest, it's reached six or seven hundred thousand."

"So much? But you're a strong person, you can get through even the toughest times."

“There’s no other way. In the end, you can only rely on yourself in this world. I can’t afford to lose.” Brother Xu coughed twice and patted his waist. “I guessed those debt collectors would come over in the next couple of days. They might take their anger out on you if you’re in the office. I even brought a knife. If things get too tough, I’ll fight them to the death!”

"Brother Xu, there's something I've been wanting to ask you for a long time," Hua Sheng said, his brows furrowed. "About Sister-in-law falling off the cliff, was she... pushed by you?"

The damp air seemed to freeze suddenly, and the surroundings became eerily silent. The rain under the lamplight had stopped sometime earlier, and one of the streetlights suddenly began to flicker.

Brother Xu turned around with wide eyes and a distorted expression, asking, "How could you say such a thing!"

The atmosphere was so tense that it made it impossible to utter a sound, as if each word required immense effort.

“Because you said that once her insurance payout came in, you could pay off your debts.” Hua Sheng’s voice became a little hoarse. “Now, this money can not only pay off your debts, but also solve many other problems for you.”

Bloodstains were still slowly seeping from the bandage on Hanamori's head. Was it because the stitches weren't tight enough, or because his muscles were too tense, causing the wound to reopen?
Xu Ge looked at Hua Sheng, threw the cigarette butt he had finished smoking on the ground, and stomped out the faint sparks: "Isn't being pushed the same result in death? Whether you slip and fall, get pushed, or slip due to a push, what difference does it make the outcome?"

"Despite the meager income, your sister-in-law still chose to be with you. How could you treat her like this?"

Xu Ge stared blankly at the sky: "I miss her too. I had no choice. We both bought insurance, thinking that if one of us had an accident, the other might be able to make ends meet. She said she was too busy usually, and although she didn't earn much money, she wanted to go out and relax since we hadn't even had a honeymoon. There was a discount on online travel, so we signed up for two spots and bought travel insurance."

Xu recalled, "She walked to the edge of the cliff and stood there. I don't know why she went to such a dangerous place to take pictures..."

"Did you really push it?"

Xu didn't answer, but continued to speak to himself: "She walked to the edge, then handed me her phone and asked me to take a picture of her. When I touched her hand, she suddenly, as if by magic, pushed me."

Xu Ge's tears spilled from his eyes: "I don't know what happened, and then she suddenly slid down!"

Hua Sheng lowered his head in thought, the silence around him so profound you could hear your own heartbeat: "What do you plan to do?"

"After I get the money in a while, I'll pay off my debts, settle my family, and then leave."

“Brother Xu, you didn’t have to take this path. If you had just persevered, things would have gotten better little by little.”

"It's no use regretting it now. She married me, and my life became a failure. We're both doomed; it's all fate."

Hua Sheng wiped the raindrops from her forehead and said calmly, "That's enough, it's all over."

Xu didn't respond. He only saw the door of the car across the street open, and the couple who seemed to be saying goodbye got out of the front seat. Then, two men got out of the back door. He became alert; there were four people in that car, not just a couple?
(End of this chapter)