Chapter 0029 Fated Couple Bird
Bai Mei was extremely happy. She gritted her teeth and said, "Don't blame me for being too cruel. If he hadn't cheated on me and cast a Gong Tau on me, why would I treat him like this? We could have just separated amicably, but did he really have to go straight for a fatal spell?"
I offered a few words of advice. After dinner, we found a hotel and rented a room. After our passionate encounter, we went to the bank. Bai Mei transferred 200,000 RMB to my card, which was the final balance plus travel expenses. Logically, the remaining 150,000 RMB plus travel expenses meant 180,000 RMB would have been enough, but Bai Mei gave me an extra 20,000 RMB as a token of my efforts.
I wired 110,000 RMB to Frank Fang. Subtracting the 60,000 RMB final payment for Arjan Tam, the remaining 50,000 RMB was his share. I made a net profit of 110,000 RMB on this deal—60,000 RMB for me and 50,000 RMB for him. I hadn't made such a large profit in a long time. I called Frank Fang, telling him he had to treat me to a big dinner and take me out for fun once he returned to Thailand. Frank Fang said on the phone, "You make money, and I have to treat you to a meal? You should be treating me, shouldn't you? Not everyone can hire an Arjan master to travel abroad to break a Gong Tau!" I thought, Well, it's really hard to get him to pay for a meal now.
This was one of the longer periods I had stayed in Shenyang since renovating the amulet shop. I had wanted to return to Thailand for a while, but I was genuinely worried about Sun Xicai managing the shop. It certainly wasn't the first time he had padded the bill, but without catching him red-handed, it was hard to confront him. Although Wang Jiao wasn't as greedy as Sun Xicai, they were a couple, and there was no way they would be completely aligned with me—that was a major problem.
That afternoon, I arrived at the amulet shop. Sun Xicai was sitting in a chair, talking animatedly to Wang Jiao, who was standing and eating an ice cream while listening. The girl was wearing an almost sheer black gauze jacket, making everything inside clearly visible. I thought Sun Xicai was a real oddity—he wanted his girlfriend to dress sexily but didn't like other people staring at her. How contradictory his feelings must be.
Seeing me enter, Sun Xicai looked surprised and immediately stopped talking. Wang Jiao greeted me happily, "Brother, when did you get back from Guangzhou? How was your trip?"
I tried to shift my gaze from her bouncing chest and said, "I've been back for several days. I wasn't there for fun; I was there for business. How has sales been in the shop these past few days?"
Sun Xicai started gritting his teeth again. "Day after day, it's not—" I immediately interrupted, "—not making money, right? Show me the sales ledger." I took the ledger and saw that they had sold over ten amulets in the past week, with a net profit of less than 3,000 RMB. I said that was decent performance. The two of them could earn nearly 4,000 RMB a month. Sun Xicai pouted. "Only 4,000 RMB for the two of us a month. That's not much."
I said, "Then why don't you go back to your old job and let Jiaojiao watch the shop?"
Sun Xicai replied, "No way, I don't trust her! Besides, I was the one who wanted to open the shop, not her."
Wang Jiao snorted, "He doesn't trust anything, as if he can do everything right. What, are you unhappy because you can't get kickbacks?" Her remark sparked an idea in my mind. I said to Sun Xicai, "How about this? I'll set a minimum selling price for every product. Anything you sell above that price is yours, and I won't interfere. How does that sound?"
Sun Xicai's eyes lit up. "Really?"
I smiled. "I'm not in the mood to joke with you. Just tell me if you're willing."
Sun Xicai nodded repeatedly. "I'm willing, I'm willing. Since Brother Tian said so, we'll do as you say. After all, you're the big boss who funded the shop. We're just the second bosses, right, Jiaojiao!" I was speechless. This guy gained an advantage but still had to act like he was forced into it. Wang Jiao said to me, "Brother, that's not fair to you. We didn't invest any capital and don't pay rent. How can we let you lose money?"
Sun Xicai reprimanded her, "Brother Tian is the boss. Whatever he says, we do. Who are we to complain when we're living in his house and watching his shop? Why are you always interfering? Stay put!"
Wang Jiao paused, then became furious. "You dare shout at me?" She rushed over to hit him. Sun Xicai scrambled into the bathroom. I smiled, opened the inventory ledger, and used a pen to mark the minimum selling price for each amulet and Guman Thong.
Before returning to Thailand, I warned Wang Jiao and Sun Xicai that selling amulets was fine, but they shouldn't take on all kinds of work. Except through me, they were not to accept requests for Negative-energy Amulets or Guman without my explicit approval. Sun Xicai nodded repeatedly. A week later, I flew back to Thailand.
A few days later, Bai Mei texted me, saying her husband had been hospitalized. He suddenly started coughing up black blood that morning. He was terrified. His parents were at the hospital nursing him, and he had thrown up blood twice more. I told her not to let her in-laws become suspicious. Bai Mei replied, assuring me she wasn't stupid and that no one would figure it out. Finally, she asked a very surprising question: If her husband died, would I want to marry her?
I was genuinely tempted. Although Bai Mei was a few years older than me, she was young, beautiful, well-maintained, and had a sensual, curvy figure—a gorgeous older woman. No man disliked that kind of woman. But then I thought, What if I did something to wrong her one day, or if she had an affair? Would she also try to find a way to kill me?
About two months later, one evening, I was chatting with my cousin in the yard when I suddenly thought of Bai Mei in Shenyang. I wondered how her husband was doing now, so I sent her a text message using my Chinese phone card.
I sent several messages from evening until the next morning, but she didn't reply. So, I took the plunge and called her. The call went through, but no one answered. I found this very strange. My cousin also asked, "Tian Qi, who are you calling?" I said it was a customer. I was calling to follow up and see how the product was working. My cousin nodded. "You take your business very seriously. You follow up on the effect after selling an amulet. That's having a conscience."
I smiled, but felt uneasy, faintly sensing that something was wrong with Bai Mei.
That evening, I received a call from Bai Mei's mobile number. A man answered, and the first thing he said was, "May I ask who called during the day?"
I asked, "I'm a friend of Bai Mei's. Who are you?"
"I am Bai Mei's older brother. What is your name, and what kind of friend are you to my sister? Is it convenient for you to tell me?" the man asked.
My mind raced. I said, "Oh, I run an online shop selling Buddha statues and necklaces. She bought two Guanyin statues from my online shop, saying she suspected she had encountered evil and wanted to place them at home for protection. That's how we met. I wanted to ask if she needed anything recently."
Bai Mei's brother said, "You don't need to call anymore. My sister has... passed away."
I was shocked. "You said Bai Mei... died? When?"
Bai Mei's brother said, "Yes, last week."
I quickly asked for the reason. Bai Mei's brother was initially reluctant to say and hung up the phone. I desperately wanted to know the reason, so I called him continuously. Bai Mei's brother finally picked up, asking angrily what I wanted. I said, "Bai Mei and I were friends. I treated her like a sister, and I hope you can tell me the truth."
Perhaps seeing that I sounded sincere, Bai Mei's brother told me. "She was strangled to death by my brother-in-law. He contracted a strange illness, constantly spitting up blood and coughing up blood. The hospital couldn't cure him. Later, he suspected that my sister had poisoned him with something. He often went mad and physically abused my sister. I visited him a few times. He was fine when he wasn't having an episode. Then one day, he went into a frenzy and actually... actually strangled my sister to death."
I was so stunned I couldn't speak. Bai Mei's brother continued, "When I found them, he had also vomited excessive blood and was passed out at home. He's currently out on bail and hospitalized, barely hanging on. The doctor says he won't live for more than two months. When I asked him the reason, he said that during the argument that night, Bai Mei told him she had known that his illness was caused by a black magic spell he had hired a sorcerer in Thailand to cast on her. She said she had paid to cure it, and now his vomiting blood was also caused by a spell she paid to cast on him, telling him he brought it upon himself."
My heart skipped a beat. I didn't know if Bai Mei had exposed me. Bai Mei's brother said, "When my brother-in-law heard that, he went crazy. He rushed over and strangled my sister to death... sigh!"
From his tone, I could guess that Bai Mei hadn't said much more. In that situation, her husband probably didn't intend to ask for details but went straight to killing her.