On the wedding day, my wife was abnormal

The official road south of the city was raising clouds of dust. Four tall horses were carrying strong men in black, with the limp Fugui sandwiched in the middle.

The early spring wind blew willow catkins onto his face, which stung the tear marks at the corners of his eyes and caused him pain.

Looking at the soaring eaves of his three-story house in the distance, Fugui suddenly remembered the night he won the title of Gambling King in the Hero Casino a year ago. It was also a night with willow catkins, and his father personally put the ancestral jade ring on his hand.

"Gee!" The leading strong man whipped his horse hard, and the sound of horse hooves startled the sparrows in the treetops.

Fugui's family lives in the south of the city and has a house with three courtyards.

This is the property passed down from his ancestors.

Fugui's ancestors were big landlords, and later they went into business. Unfortunately, by the time of Fugui's father's generation, the family had fallen on hard times, and the whole family had to rely on their savings to make a living.

Unfortunately, Fugui was a bad boy and didn't learn his lesson. He pawned everything he could in the house. Later, he said he wanted to quit gambling, but who would have thought that he would become the "King of Gambling".

From then on, Fugui's family no longer cared about his gambling, and they just lived their lives one by one.

But today, disaster struck.

Fugui was carried by a strong man and forced to open the vermilion lacquered door. The bronze lion on the door knocker hit his shoulder, making him groan in pain.

The wife, who was sweeping the yard, loosened her grip on the broom, which hit the blue bricks with a clang. The collar of her patched moon-blue shirt was slightly open.

She stared at Fugui's torn mink coat - it was bought last year with the money he earned from gambling. Now the fur was covered with dust and no longer looked luxurious.

She stopped everyone and said, "Boss, you...what's wrong with you?"

"Stop talking nonsense!" The leading strong man carried Fugui into the room and slammed the yellowed contract on the paint-chipped Eight Immortals Table, shaking the vegetable oil lamp in front of the ancestral tablet from side to side, and the lamp oil spilled onto the cracked altar.

He stared at his wealthy father, who sat on the imperial chair, with his eyes wide open. He said, "Master Wang, your son signed a death deed at the Hero Casino last month and mortgaged this house for three thousand taels."

"What!?"

The ceramic bowl in the old man's hand fell to the ground with a bang, and the porridge seeped into the cracks between the bricks.

He stood up shakily, leaning on his shiny jujube wood cane, and shouted angrily, "Bullshit! This house is my ancestral inheritance. It's mine! What right does he have to mortgage it?"

boom--

The strong man threw Fugui to the ground without saying a word.

Fugui howled in pain: "Dad!"

He crawled over and tugged at the old man's patched trouser legs, his voice filled with tears: "Dad! They set me up! That old bastard Long Er cheated, and I didn't even win the big one after betting on 18 times!!"

"Setting up?" The burly man sneered, unfolding the contract and pushing it in front of the old man. The bloody handprint at the end was still dark red. "When he pressed the handprint, your son shouted that he would be a dog if he lost. All the gamblers heard it."

The old lady was so frightened that her whole body was shaking. She stood up and said, "My dear, my son is also the gambling king appointed by the court. Can you give us a chance? We will find a way to pay the money back! This house is our ancestral property, we can't give it to you!"

"Madam." The sturdy man's boot sole crushed the copper thimble his wife had dropped. "It's clearly written in the contract: the house, wives, concubines, and servants all belong to the casino. Do you know how much this is worth? Can you really afford it?"

"I can, just tell me the amount, if not I'll borrow it!"

"Looking at the accounts, it would cost at least four to five hundred taels of silver, not counting the interest."

"What? So many!?"

The burly man turned around with a sinister grin and looked at Yu Niang who was hiding behind the corridor pillar, his eyes lingering on the wooden hairpin in her hair.

"Young Master Fugui got so carried away with gambling that he even mortgaged his two sisters-in-law. It just so happens that we're in need of help in the laundry room at Hero Casino."

"No! I won't go!" The concubine Yu Niang suddenly screamed and ran into the room.

The sturdy man gave her a look, and immediately his younger brothers rushed over and carried her up.

"Ah!! Let me go!! I don't want to go to that kind of place!! Wuuuuuuu, Daddy! Mommy! Save me!!"

The old lady staggered two steps and knelt down in front of the burly man with a thud. Her patched apron was covered in dust. "Uncle, please, she's only eighteen, please let her go! Otherwise, I'll go and farm for you and wash your clothes!"

"Beg me? Haha, casinos have their own rules. If everyone relies on us, we don't have to pay back our debts. How can we keep our casino open? Either sign and move out, or make your son kneel in front of the casino for three days, chop off his hands and feet, and gouge out his eyes. This is the rule, and the rules cannot be broken."

When Fugui heard about cutting off hands and feet, he was terrified.

"Dad!" He suddenly stood up and hugged the old man's legs, digging his nails into the patched trouser legs. "My son really knows he's wrong! Please don't hand me over to them!!"

The old man slammed Fugui's back with his cane: "You bastard! You even mortgaged your wife! How could I have given birth to a son like you!!"

"Dad...you can hit me, you can scold me! As long as you don't hand me over to them, you can do whatever you want!!"

"You...you..." The old man was so angry that he was dizzy.

But what else could he do? He couldn't really beat his son to death, could he?

He looked at the strong man and his voice suddenly lowered: "I'll give you the house, but can you leave a woodshed for us old couple? We can sleep in the woodshed..."

"Woodshed? Ha." The sturdy man picked up the rough porcelain bowl on the table and played with it. "There are plenty of places to stay in the dilapidated temple outside the city. Don't waste time, sign and seal quickly. After we take yours, we have to go to the next one."

The old man dipped his hand in the ink, trembling and unwilling to press it.

Fugui's forehead hit the bluestone slab, making a dull sound. "Dad, I was wrong... Long Er said that he could make a comeback in the last round, so I thought of buying you a new pair of crutches..."

"Make a comeback? Hahahaha!" His wife suddenly laughed heart-wrenchingly, grabbed the coarse cloth embroidery frame on the ground and threw it at Fugui.

"The first time you lost all the two acres of land you came with as a dowry, you said you were making a comeback; the second time you pawned the family ox, you said you were making a comeback... Now you've even lost the family inheritance! Did I marry you just to go to a casino and wash diapers?"

At this point, there's no point saying anything.

The old man finally pressed his fingerprint.

“I sign…”

"Wouldn't it have been nice to have done this earlier?" The burly man snatched the contract and stuffed it into his arms. He stood up and said, "Empty the place before sunset, or I'll do it for you! Come on, take the two sisters-in-law away."

“Ah!! No, let me go!!”

"Mother! Mother!"

"father!!"

"Sister-in-law, I urge you to cooperate. The Hero Casino isn't a shady place. We'll find a suitable price to sell you off when the time comes."

"What!?" Thinking of her future fate, the rich wife fainted and was carried away.

The burly man grinned, looking like a complete gangster, and kicked Fugui when he was about to leave.

"Young Master Gambling King, the gambling house has just received a batch of beef bone dice, waiting for you to try them. Don't forget to bring money, hahahaha."

The door slammed shut, and Fugui curled up on the ground with a devastated look on his face.

"Dad..." Fugui crawled over and grabbed the corner of the old man's clothes, "I'm sorry... Your son is sorry..."

The old man suddenly slapped him.

Snapped--

"Get lost! From now on, even if you die in a gambling den, don't call me dad! The Wang family doesn't have a descendant like you!"

Fugui stood up, but he didn't leave. Instead, he turned around to move things.

He knew exactly how the people in the Hero Casino did things. If they said before sunset, it meant before sunset, no earlier and no later.

If you haven't moved out by night, they will come back by force.

From this point of view, Hero Casino generally abides by the rules.

At the gate, Fugui looked at the eaves of his house, where the "Supreme Gambling King" banner he won used to hang, but now only a few bare rafters were left.

He touched his chest, and the gambling king's jade pendant was long gone, just like everything he had lost - dignity, family, and future, all of which stopped at the wrong point forever with the rolling of the dice.

The whimpering of an old yellow dog came from the end of the alley. Fugui closed his eyes and the image of his mother kneeling and praying in the land temple and his wife wearing a patched red jacket at her wedding appeared in front of him.

But all these images were swallowed up by the velvet carpet of the casino, just like his life. From the day he stepped into the Hero Casino, there was no turning back.

"The boss!"

"Rich!! Rich!!"

It seemed to be my wife's voice.

Fugui, with his eyes closed, thought he was hallucinating. He cried out and knelt down softly.

“Ah!!! Wuuwuwu…”

"Fugui, stop crying!"

"what?"

Not an auditory hallucination!

What a wife!

Fugui raised his tear-stained face and looked at his wife and Yu Niang standing in front of him.

"You...how are you..."

The wife wiped the tears from her eyes and said, "The strong man said that the prince has ordered that the house deeds be taken away and the people be taken away..."

"Really? Where did you see the prince?" Fugui was a little unbelievable.

The wife replied, "It wasn't the prince, it was his henchman, a general named Hou, who told the strong man."

"Oh my God, thank God, thank God!!" Fugui hugged his wife and concubine in his arms.

This time, he shed tears of gratitude.

His wife pinched him hard on the waist and said, "You bastard! If you dare to gamble again, I'll be dead!"

"Wuwuwu." The younger Yu Niang also started crying.

Fugui laughed heartily: "Hahaha, no more gambling, never again. Let's find a place to settle down and live a good life!"

"Let's go, pack up your things and take your parents with you." The wife turned and walked towards the door of her former home, muttering to herself, "Marrying you is such bad luck."