Chapter 9 - set out again

Zeng Wenxiu stared at the two brothers and said, "You two haven't embezzled any money, have you?" The two of them quickly shook their heads and said they hadn't. Xiaojiu quickly stepped forward and said, "Mom, Big Brother wanted to take the money, but I stopped him." Zeng Wenxiu immediately fixed her gaze on Liu Heping and said, "Are you thinking of taking the money to gamble again? This money was earned by your younger brother through hard work." Liu Heping thought to himself that his younger brother hadn't really worked that hard, but he didn't dare to say it out loud. Xiaojiu watched with a hint of schadenfreude as his mother scolded his elder brother. Liu Heping quickly apologized and said that he would never do it again. Zeng Wenxiu scolded him for a full half an hour before stopping, and then she said she was going to cook. Liu Heping stared at Xiaojiu and said, "So this is how you set up your brother." Xiaojiu said with a nonchalant expression on his face, "How else could I draw Mom's attention? If she finds any clues, all our efforts will be in vain. I'll use the money I earn to pay your salary. If you want to make money, you'll have to take the blame more often in the future. Anyway, you don't care about that. You've been scolded the most since we were little, so you don't care about being scolded one or two more times. I'm too young to bear being scolded. It will affect my mental health and my growth. So, as the elder brother, you have to take the responsibility. Otherwise, do you think my money is that easy to earn?" Liu Heping thought it made sense. It was better than screwing bolts. A few days later, it was time to harvest the rice at home. Liu Heping became the main laborer. Xiaojiu, being young, was only responsible for playing. Zeng Wenxiu was responsible for cutting the rice and going back to cook. The rest of the work was all left to Liu Heping. But Liu Heping wasn't stupid. He found a few of his former good friends to help out. All he had to do was treat them to a meal. In this way, several mu of rice fields were easily harvested. Next, they had to dry the rice. After half a month of busyness, the rice was finally put into the granary. Taking advantage of the free time, Liu Heping drove the ox and plowed the land. He also scattered some lime, waiting for the next rice planting. Zeng Wenxiu felt relieved when she saw her eldest son working so hard. However, what she didn't know was that it was her younger son who paid his elder brother to do the work. Otherwise, with Liu Heping's character of being lazy and slippery, he would never have been so diligent. Before they knew it, a month had passed. Xiaojiu asked his elder brother to find an excuse to take him out to play for a few days. Liu Heping did as he was told. Zeng Wenxiu felt relieved that her eldest son was taking Xiaojiu out to play and agreed without thinking too much. She just told them to come back early and asked Liu Heping to keep an eye on Xiaojiu. She said that if anything happened to Xiaojiu, she would hold him accountable. Xiaojiu also promised his elder brother a travel allowance of 1,000 yuan for this trip, and only then did Liu Heping agree to lie to their mother. When they arrived in the town, the cars of the several bosses had already been waiting. Xiaojiu didn't let them go to his home, fearing that his mother would find out. So, the two brothers got into the car and headed for Shaoguan amidst the dust of the journey. Along the way, the four bosses took turns treating them to meals. The two brothers were very satisfied, with oil running down their mouths from the delicious food. When they arrived at the mine of the first boss, this boss was surnamed Wang and named Wang Defu. He was from Chaoshan, Guangdong, and was quite superstitious. It was said that all five brothers in his family were in business, and their businesses were very large. Wang Defu himself had bought three mines in Shaoguan, and they were all large mines, but the output was not satisfactory. He wouldn't lose money, but he didn't earn much either. That's why he invited Xiaojiu to take a look. Under the leadership of Boss Wang and the mine manager, they visited his three mines and also went down into the mine shafts. Xiaojiu used his yang spirit to check and found that only one of them had a large amount of coal, which could be mined for more than ten years without any problem. The other two had not much coal left and would be mined out in a year or two. After coming up, Xiaojiu offered a price of 100,000 yuan to Boss Wang. Boss Wang didn't say a word and put the 100,000 yuan in front of Xiaojiu. Xiaojiu asked his elder brother to take it. Then he asked everyone else to leave and started to talk to Boss Wang alone. After everyone else had left, Xiaojiu came straight to the point and said to Boss Wang, "The first mine and the last mine don't have much coal left. They will be mined out in at most two or three years. The middle one has a large amount of coal, but you are digging in the wrong direction. You should dig from the abandoned cave on my left." Boss Wang raised an objection and said, "When we dug there, there were a lot of stones, so we stopped." Xiaojiu said, "Boss Wang, clear away the stones. It should be only two or three meters deep, and the rest is a large amount of coal. Trust me, I won't be wrong. If I'm not accurate, I'll return the money to you at that time." Boss Wang smiled and said, "Then thank you, Little Mage. I definitely believe you. After you finish looking at the other bosses' mines, I have something else to trouble you with. I hope you can go to Guangdong with me at that time. My younger brother, Wang Dechang, is a contractor. He's building a bridge, but now when they're driving the piles, they can't get them to go down. So, I hope you can go and take a look for him." Xiaojiu nodded and said, "No problem. I'll go with you after I finish helping the other bosses." For Xiaojiu, as long as there was money to be made, everything was not a problem. The other three bosses, one was from Guangzhou, and the other two were locals. Their coal mines had also been dug in the wrong direction. Xiaojiu charged each of them 50,000 yuan and also pointed out the right direction to them. After all, their coal mines were small, and the coal seams they could dig out were enough for them to mine for seven to eight years, which was also enough for them to make a fortune. After dealing with the matters in Shaoguan, Xiaojiu didn't go to see Boss Li. Instead, he took his elder brother and went to Guangdong with Boss Wang. As people said, Guangdong is a great place for entertainment and delicious food, and it was really true. Along the way, Boss Wang entertained the two brothers to his heart's content. They feasted on delicacies from mountains and seas and seafood banquets, and the two brothers enjoyed it very much. When they arrived in Chaoshan, they met Wang Defu's younger brother, Wang Dechang. Under his younger brother's leadership, they came to the construction site. Xiaojiu saw a bridge spanning a river, and now the construction had stopped. Wang Dechang pointed to the place where the piles were being driven and said, "It's right here. No matter how hard we try, we can't drive the piles down. I've also invited a lot of people to take a look, but no one knows what's going on. Now it has been delayed for half a month. The construction period of this bridge is tight, so I hope the Little Mage can help us a lot." Xiaojiu nodded and said he would do his best. Xiaojiu sat on Liu Heping's shoulders. He closed his eyes, and his yang spirit left his body to check the ground. When he went down six or seven meters, he saw a large mass of white flesh. Xiaojiu was pleasantly surprised. Wasn't this the Ten-thousand-year-old Taisui? People usually said the Thousand-year-old Taisui, but this thing was so big that it was at least ten thousand years old. No wonder they couldn't drive the piles down no matter how hard they tried. With this thing causing trouble, how could they succeed? People always said that one shouldn't stir up trouble on the Taisui. Especially this Ten-thousand-year-old Taisui, which had already gained some spirituality, was even more remarkable. But for a cultivator like Xiaojiu, the water soaked with this Ten-thousand-year-old Taisui was an excellent medicinal material for making pills and practicing cultivation. However, this thing was extremely rare and hard to come by, as it was deeply buried underground and difficult to find. Xiaojiu definitely wanted to take this precious thing back. When he opened his eyes, he asked Wang Dechang to prepare a live rooster, as well as three kinds of sacrificial offerings, three kinds of fruits, three cups of clear tea, three cups of wine, incense, paper money, a writing brush, cinnabar, and talisman paper for drawing talismans. Wang Dechang asked his secretary to write down each item and then told him to go and prepare them. When all the things were ready, Xiaojiu asked them to prepare a table and place all the items on it. After everything was set up, Xiaojiu lit three sticks of incense and chanted incantations. It seemed he was saying, "Above, the gods in the thirty-three heavens are present. Today, Liu Hejiu has come to this precious place. I invite the Earth God to open the door of convenience. As a disciple of the Dharma, I offer three sticks of incense to show my respect." After saying this, he bowed three times to the ground and inserted the incense into the ground. Then he asked someone to bring a bowl, picked up the scissors used for the rooster and cut a notch on the rooster's comb, letting the blood flow into the bowl. Then he poured a little cinnabar and started to draw a sealing talisman. Only by sealing the Ten-thousand-year-old Taisui could it be dug out. Otherwise, such a spiritual Taisui would surely escape, and it couldn't be dug out without being sealed. Xiaojiu had already asked Wang Dechang to get a large glass tank, which was prepared to hold the Taisui. After the talisman was drawn, Xiaojiu chanted the sealing incantation, then burned the talisman, made a gesture, and spat out the word "seal" from his mouth. As soon as the words were spoken, a small tornado appeared on the ground. The tornado came quickly and disappeared just as fast. The people around were amazed. They never expected that Xiaojiu, at such a young age, could be so powerful. After the ritual was completed, Xiaojiu asked people to remove the table and told Wang Dechang to call an excavator to dig seven meters into the ground. When the excavator had dug almost enough, Xiaojiu asked several workers to go down and dig slowly with hoes. He told the workers that there was something down there and they should be careful not to damage it.