Chapter 99: Ma Wu and His Seventeenth Sister-in-law

That night, Ma Wu slept on the first floor.

He assumed Li Qi was resting upstairs. So when morning came, he went up to look for him, thinking about taking him on a stroll around Blue Poplar Village. But to his surprise, Li Qi was nowhere to be found.

Where could he have gone?

It was dangerous for an outsider to wander around Blue Poplar Village, so Ma Wu searched the whole place several times. But no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find Li Qi.

It would be impossible for him to find Li Qi, as Li Qi was currently sleeping inside the Pocket Dwelling.

The night before, Li Banfeng had walked through the village from one end to the other. He took in every path, every turn, every shadow under the moonlight. By the time dawn arrived, he had not only completed his basic daily practice of Wanderlust Cultivation, but he also knew the layout of Blue Poplar Village.

At the southernmost end of the village, Li Banfeng found the entrance to the new land. He climbed a tree and looked out from the top. In the distance, a few faint glimmers of light flickered in the dark, soft and steady like stars that had fallen to earth. They were proof that someone had already activated the land.

On his way back, Li Banfeng ran into two bandits. He took more than three thousand yuan from them, then brought them home and left them in his wife's care for some proper education and discipline.

After giving them a good scolding, his wife let out a satisfied burp and promised that those two would never offend again.

By dusk, after searching the entire day, Ma Wu finally found Li Qi beneath the wooden lodge.

Li Banfeng was standing nearby, calmly watching a commotion.

Two groups of villagers were brawling below. Their fighting was clumsy and untrained, full of wild swings and reckless shouting.

They fought without strategy, charging straight at one another until some fell and others fled.

Their weapons were no better. A few held kitchen knives, while others fought bare-handed. Even the noodle shop owner joined in. He began with a knife, then, worried he might damage it, switched to a rolling pin instead.

Ma Wu walked over to Li Banfeng's side and whispered, "Brother Li, where have you been all day?"

"Just wandering around," Li Banfeng said, not looking away from the fight. He seemed far more interested in watching than in answering.

Ma Wu leaned closer and reminded, "Brother Li, it's best not to watch this mess."

Li Banfeng's face turned serious. "We have to watch," he said. "Our landlord's in there."

Ma Wu followed his gaze and, sure enough, saw Landlord Wei right in the middle of the fight.

Landlord Wei was badly hurt. His face was smeared with blood, yet he kept swinging his axe with all the strength he had left.

In the chaos, five or six men pressed in around him. It was clear they were all after him alone.

Ma Wu leaned closer and said quietly, "Brother Li, I think it's safe to say your rent for the next two months is gone."

As Ma Wu spoke, the landlord took another slash across his back. His body wavered, nearly collapsing, and the axe in his hand almost slipped from his grasp.

The men around him kept hacking away with their knives. The landlord's thoughts grew muddled, and with each cut, he seemed closer to giving up the fight altogether.

Ma Wu watched him for a while, and the landlord seemed to feel his gaze.

It was like a dying man suddenly given a second wind. Under Ma Wu's watchful eyes, the landlord straightened his back, raised his axe again, and threw himself once more into the fray.

After about three minutes, someone shouted from the alley, "People are coming! Run!"

The group attacking the landlord scattered at once. Landlord Wei rallied his men and charged after them, shouting, "Brothers, don't let them get away! Ten silver dollars for every one you cut down!"

He had barely gone a few steps when another group burst out of the alley. They looked like reinforcements on his side.

Seeing the situation grow even messier, Ma Wu turned to Li Banfeng and said, "Brother Li, we should go. If someone recognizes you, we'll be in trouble."

Li Banfeng froze for a moment, then followed Ma Wu back to the wooden lodge.

The night before, Li Banfeng had paid Ma Wu his wage from the first day, which was one hundred and fifty yuan.

Ma Wu spent it on braised beef, pig ears, and a bottle of white liquor. The two now sat together, eating and chatting.

"Brother Ma," Li Banfeng said, "You used an ability on that landlord just now, right?"

Ma Wu nodded. "He was on the verge of death, so I gave him a little strength. At the very least, it might save your two months of rent."

Li Banfeng looked surprised. "I had no idea that a Hedonism Cultivator's ability can boost strength! The ones I have met only make people shaky and weak in the knees."

Ma Wu explained, "It's the same ability, only used in different ways. Think of it like water. When it's gentle, like the morning dew, it becomes enchantment. When it falls as a light rain, it gives a person strength and spirit. But when it pours down as a heavy storm, it brings only confusion.

"I haven't reached that level yet. All I can manage is the light rain, the kind that lifts the heart. The storm is still beyond me."

Ma Wu's analogy made perfect sense, and Li Banfeng understood at once.

After a short silence, Ma Wu said, "Brother Li, aren't you curious how I ended up like this?"

Li Banfeng nodded. "A little," he said. "When we met at the Peddler's stall, you spoke openly. Now you sound as if you're holding something back."

Ma Wu blinked. Whether he felt at ease or not didn't really matter.

He thought to himself,

Shouldn't he be asking why I ended up living like a beggar?

Ma Wu took a slow sip of wine.

"You might have noticed it back at the peddler's stall," he said. "Strictly speaking, I shouldn't have been buying activation powder from a peddler at all."

Li Banfeng chewed on a piece of pig ear and asked, "Then where else would you buy it? Don't all beginners get their activation powder from peddlers?"

Ma Wu shook his head. "The Ma family still has some standing in Puluo Province," he said. "If someone from my family wanted to start cultivating, they wouldn't need a Peddler. We have activation powders at home."

The Ma family?

Li Banfeng thought for a moment, then asked, "The Ma family? As in one of the four great families?"

Ma Wu nodded. "My real name is Ma Junyang, the fifth son of the Ma family. The reason I went to the peddler for activation powder was because I wanted to become a Hedonism Cultivator."

Li Banfeng thought for a moment before speaking. "So your family didn't have any activation powder for Hedonism Cultivation, and you had to buy it from a peddler?"

Ma Wu shook his head and said, "It's not that we lacked the activation powder for Hedonism Cultivation. It's that no one in my family is allowed to practice it. The Ma family is a prestigious one, and every member is expected to follow a proper Daoist path.

"In Puluo Province, only Literary and Martial Cultivation are seen as proper. The Ma family values that belief more than anything, and they mock and look down on all other paths.

"As for Hedonism Cultivation, my father despises it most of all. When I chose to practice it, I brought shame to my family. I became their disgrace."

Li Banfeng thought,

So Literary and Martial Cultivation are the proper Daoist paths. No wonder they're the most common ones.

For a wealthy and prestigious family, Hedonism Cultivation certainly carried a bad reputation. Even so, Li Banfeng found it hard to believe that this was the cause of why Ma Wu ended up falling into such a state.

He asked, "The Ma Family kicked you out of the house because of this?"

Ma Wu shook his head. "Not quite. My father has many children. I have two older brothers and two older sisters, and all of them followed proper Daoist paths. I was the only black sheep, so it wasn't much of a scandal.

"Besides, I was never meant to inherit anything. My father gave me two dance halls to manage, and business was good. I had enough money and resources to keep cultivating."

Li Banfeng raised an eyebrow. "Not worried, huh? Ten times a day doesn't sound easy to me."

Ma Wu gave a wry smile. "Back then, I could afford all the tonics and medicines I needed. I managed to keep up."

Li Banfeng shook his head. "I wasn't worried about you. I was worried your dao partner couldn't handle it."

Ma Wu laughed. "One Dao partner alone couldn't handle it, of course. But ten Dao partners taking turns was no problem at all. Greenwater Bay was full of girls, and plenty were happy to tumble straight into my arms. I never had to worry about that sort of thing.

"My steward, Chen Yuming, made sure of it. He brought me a new girl every day, as regular as the sunrise. Then one morning my third brother burst into the house, threw open the door, yanked me out of bed, and beat me half to death."

"And that," Ma Wu said with a rueful grin, "was the moment when everything began to go wrong."

"What happened?" Li Banfeng asked, taking a slow sip of wine.

Ma Wu lifted his cup and drained it in one go. Then he said, quite calmly, "The woman in my bed turned out to be my brother's fiance."

Li Banfeng let out a short laugh and asked, "What was it then? A childhood romance gone wrong?"

Li Banfeng had expected a melodramatic and crazy story. Instead, Ma Wu gave a short, bitter laugh. "Brother Li, you really know how to joke. My third brother has sixteen wives. I can't even tell all the married ones apart, let alone the one who wasn't."

Li Banfeng frowned. "You didn't even know who she was?"

Ma Wu's face was filled with bitterness as he said, "No, I don't."

Li Banfeng thought for a while and finally said, "You were set up."

"Yes," Ma Wu said with a slow nod. "I was set up by my third brother and my steward. The two of them worked together to send that seventeenth sister-in-law to my bed. It was all a trap."

Li Banfeng set down his cup. "Why would your third brother go to such lengths to set you up? What kind of grudge could he possibly have?"

Ma Wu took a slow sip of wine before answering. "Third Brother did it for money. He's the son of my father's first wife, not a concubine's child. One day, all the Ma family's inheritance will go to him."

"My father already gave him two casinos, two restaurants, and a department store. In Greenwater Bay, half the street belongs to him. He controls more than thirty percent of the family's assets, all gifts from my father."

Li Banfeng frowned. "Then he's not short on money. Why would he still want yours?"

Ma Wu shook his head. "He was short on money, desperately short, because he was a fool. He looked capable on the outside but was empty inside, like a bag stuffed with straw. Not a single business he ran ever made a profit. Autumn was coming, and by our family's rules, every account had to be settled on the first day of the season. His books were a disaster, and he had nothing to show.

"So he came to me. He wanted me to use the money from my dance halls to cover his losses. I refused. I only had two halls, and compared to the Ma family's wealth, they were worth less than a strand of hair. But I knew how to make money. With just those two halls, I could earn twenty percent of the family's total income.

"My third brother could not stand it. He wanted to force me to pay, so he set a trap. He sent his fiance to my bed and played the victim, hoping to ruin me and squeeze money out of me."

Li Banfeng frowned. "Even if he blackmailed you, you could have just paid him. And even if the story got out, your family would have found a way to smooth things over. Your father wouldn't have kicked you out for something like that."

Ma Wu gave a bitter laugh. "There were ways, yes, but it all depended on the timing. My third brother had just arrived when the reporters arrived too. They took their pictures, naked ones, and the next day the story was everywhere. The headline

'Fifth Brother Sleeps with Third Brother's Wife'

was printed on every paper. It brought shame to the name of the Ma family, and our humiliation was soon known across all of Puluo Province.

Li Banfeng looked puzzled. "Who brought the reporters? Your third brother couldn't be that stupid, could he? Why would he want the whole world to know he'd been made a cuckold?"

"Definitely not him," Ma Wu sighed and said with a tired smile. "It was probably my fourth brother, or maybe my eldest sister. Third Brother schemed against me, and someone else schemed against him. I was kicked out, and he was locked up by our father. It won't be long before whoever did it takes his place as the Ma family heir."

"Who's going to be the heir then?" Li Banfeng asked.

"No idea," Ma Wu said, shaking his head. "Whoever it is, they're hiding deep. I don't even know if I'll live long enough to find out who it is."

Li Banfeng could tell at a glance that Ma Wu's health was failing.

Li Banfeng asked, "So because the story made the papers, the Ma family threw you out with nothing?"

At this point in the story, Ma Wu let out a long sigh. "Not entirely with nothing. When I left home, they gave me three hundred silver dollars. Brother Li, I'm not boasting, but with that three hundred, I could have rebuilt the kind of wealth my family once had.

"Unfortunately, less than two hours after leaving, I was robbed. All three hundred were taken, and they even stripped the coat off my back. I did manage to hide a jade pendant, though, and I pawned it for five silver dollars.

"I came to Blue Poplar Village to find work, and in half a month, I'd earned a hundred and twenty silver dollars. Guess what happened next?"

Li Banfeng took a sip of wine. "You got robbed again?"

Ma Wu nodded. "Exactly. Ten days ago, the whole hundred and twenty were taken. I couldn't pay my rent and was thrown out, so I slept in a shack.

"Near the new land, I picked through junk and sold whatever I could find. Little by little, I scraped together about a hundred Huan bills. Just when I thought I could finally afford a proper room, I was robbed again the day before yesterday. They did not even leave me enough for food, so I started eating from the trash."

Li Banfeng frowned. "Who did this to you? Who's been pushing you to the point of no return?"

"Who else could it be?" Ma Wu said with a bitter smile. "It must still be my family."

Li Banfeng frowned. It did not make sense to him. Ma Wu had already been kicked out of the family and no longer posed any threat. What good would it do them to crush him so completely?

Something about this seemed off. But Ma Wu had been through too much; he probably couldn't think straight anymore.

Ma Wu took a long drink of wine and looked at Li Banfeng. "Brother Li, if you hadn't given me food last night, I might have starved to death. I truly don't know how I can ever repay you."

Li Banfeng nodded. "You'll repay me somehow. For now, eat. When you're done, write down how much you owe me, and we'll talk about how you'll pay it back."

Ma Wu gave a faint, bitter smile. "This isn't something a meal can fix. I haven't cultivated for ten days, and that means I don't have long to live.

He paused for a moment and said, "Brother Li, my time is running out. Before I die, I want to do a little more for you. There's something I've been meaning to ask, something that's been on my mind for a while. It's about a man named Li Banfeng. Do you know him?"