A Valiant Life

Translator: Sparrow Translations Editor: Sparrow Translations

The very next day.

The moment Lin Fan got out of his bed, he saw a WeChat text.

“Handsome, quickly set up your stall…”

He recognized the profile picture which belonged to Huo Han, the girl that had added herself using his phone. Lin Fan did not reply as he had planned to stop the scallion pancake business for good.

Lin Fan took a quick rinse and left the house to meet Fraud Tian to look for a place to start up his official fortune-telling career. In order to become a well-respected Master Lin, it seemed rather difficult. It wasn’t as easy as Lin Fan had thought. He had to continue working hard.

“Fraud,” Lin Fan said as he saw Fraud Tian standing there from a distance.

“Why are you so late?” Fraud Tian asked.

“F*ck, how’s this considered late? It’s just 8:30 am.” Lin Fan said. “How was it? Did you see any suitable options?”

“I took a look around before you came and I’ve found three good locations.”

“Let’s go have a look.” Lin Fan was pretty wealthy at that point in time, with three hundred thousand dollars to spend which seemed just enough to rent a proper stall.

Lin Fan followed Fraud Tian to the first potential stall identified by Tian, which was located in the center of the blocks. It was 40 square meters in area and with the special transfer fees and whatnot, it added up to more than three hundred thousand dollars.

Don’t have to look further, we’ll pass on this. This location’s really good but it’s too expensive for Lin Fan.

The second one was decent, although it was located at the end of the block. As the saying went, quality goods needed no advertising. With the fortune-telling skills possessed by Lin Fan, he was surely going to be successful if he was willing to put in the effort.

But after a series of questions, Lin Fan decided to pass on it. The rental for the stall had to be paid monthly and a long-term contract couldn’t be established as the place might be sold at any point in time.

Lin Fan had wanted to venture into fortune-telling as his career and the mission needed him to become a well-respected Master which was not easy to achieve. If the stall closed down in a month, he wouldn’t be able to handle it.

The third one, however, met all of Lin Fan’s criteria. Even Fraud Tian clapped in agreement.

“This storefront originally belonged to a fortune-teller but he had withdrawn from his business due to personal reasons. If we were to take over this place, we just had to change the name of the shop and everything would already be good to go,” Fraud Tian said.

Lin Fan also felt that this particular storefront was decent. Although it wasn’t very big, only measuring less than twenty square meters, for a fortune-telling business, it was more than enough space.

“Alright, I’ll go ahead with this.”

Then, he immediately made a bid for it, along with the yearly rental fees, transfer fees, and property taxes, it added up to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Lin Fan felt quite sad to spend the money he had just like that, even though the money came to him rather easily. In a blink of an eye, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars was gone and he had to be thrifty with the remaining fifty thousand dollars.

He signed the contract, paid the fees and obtained the keys. From then on, that was Lin Fan’s fortune-telling stall.

Finally, it came to the signboard. Initially, Lin Fan had just wanted to do a simple job, just to cover up the old one with another simple signboard. However, he decided to heed Fraud Tian’s advice: the signboard is key to drawing customers to the stall. If it just had a simple design without a mysterious look to it, customers wouldn’t choose to enter the stall. He spent over ten thousand dollars on the signboard to the devastation of Lin Fan.

“Worth it, totally worth it.” Fraud Tian looked at the dark, wooden signboard with satisfaction.

All it had was “Master Lin”, painted in gold. They were upright and well spaced out, somehow there was a charm to it and it stood out in the streets.

The furniture in the shop were all still in good condition and all they hadto do was to tidy up.

“When should I start my business?” Lin Fan asked.

“How about tomorrow?” Fraud Tian said dreamily as he looked at the signboard; as if it was his dream to own a stall for his fortune-telling. Although it did not belong to him, Fraud Tian had already taken on the persona of the owner. After all, he was Lin Fan’s partner.

“Alright, let’s start tomorrow. Let’s go!” Lin Fan stretched out his hands, with a heart full of confidence. Fraud Tian stared at Lin Fan and held his hand before nodding in agreement. “Let’s go!”

With the remaining money of over ten thousand dollars, Lin Fan decided to keep it for his daily expenses and future use.

When everything was done, Lin Fan went to buy a bicycle for himself so that he could use it to travel to work every day which served to improve his physical fitness.

Soon, it was night time.

Lin Fan first opened WeChat and saw that Huo Han had sent tons of messages, threatening him in all sorts of ways. But Lin Fan was cold and firm, he pretended like he didn’t see the messages and went on to look at the WeChat group that he was in. After a while, he felt that there was no point in doing that. So, he switched off the app.

On the other hand on Weibo.

Lin Fan saw that his population of fans had increased by a few people. Under his discussion with Wang Ming Yang, someone was furious. “F*ck your mum, trying to compete with me? But it’s okay, it was quite normal to have to deal with haters on the Internet.”

Then, Wang Ming Yang left a few comments on Lin Fan’s Weibo.

“I admire you.”

“Master Lin, are you there?”

“I promised you a million and I’ll give it to you. What’s your bank account details?” Wang Ming sounded somewhat impatient in his last few comments but Lin Fan had no idea.

In his luxurious villa, Wang Ming Yang paid close attention to his phone and kept scrolling through Weibo. He was indeed full of admiration for Lin Fan. He realized that perhaps Master Lin really had law-defying superpowers.

In the eyes of the outsiders, Wang Ming Yang seemed like a lunatic. He always tried to do seemingly impossible tasks by forcing people to produce results for these extremely difficult tasks.

He poor attitude and an overbearing character was an exact replica of those arrogant CEOs commonly written about in novels.

In the afternoon, Wang Ming Yang had met the people that he had arranged for to play his games with. Although he knew that they had all ganged up against him for his money, he wanted to test Master Lin’s capabilities.

To the people who had ganged up for this, Wang Ming Yang seemed like an ignorant fool.

But what surprised them was that the unstoppable Wang Ming Yang had outplayed every single one of them; as if he was the God of Gambling. Besides recovering the three million that he had lost the previous day, he won two million on top of that.

In the end, the three people said Wang Ming Yang had cheated in the games. But Wang Ming Yang replied firmly, “Don’t even think of appearing in front of me again. If not I’ll make sure I teach all of you a lesson before you leave my sight. Did you really think I’m so stupid to not have known that all of you ganged up against me?”

These three people were all businessman but they weren’t as influential and power as Wang Ming Yang; in fact, their statuses were miles apart. In the end, they all left quickly.

“Why isn’t this Master Lin replying?” Wang Ming Yang said impatiently. He was a man of his words. He had to give Lin Fan the money if not he would feel uncomfortable.

Then, Lin Fan replied, “No need for that, during my free fortune-telling sessions, I don’t charge any fees.”

Wang Ming Yang was stunned when he had seen his reply. Lin Fan really did not give Wang Ming Yang any face.

Wang Ming Yang did not know that Lin Fan was extremely reluctant when he replied. To Lin Fan, wasn’t he a f*cking idiot for not accepting free money? But the Encyclopedia immediately warned Lin Fan.

“You have to honor your words. Since you said it was free then you must not charge him any money. If not, you’ll become paralyzed by a lightning strike.”

How about you go paralyze your own sister instead? There goes my $1,000,000…

“No, I, Wang Ming Yang, am a man of my words. Give me your bank account details.”

Lin Fan was even more devastated at how firm Wang Ming Yang was. Then, he painfully said, “I said it was free, I, Master Lin, am also a man of my words.”

Wang Ming Yang was furious. Only a stupid man would refuse free money. “You’re crazy, right?”

Lin Fan was actually heartbroken but when he saw Wang Ming Yang’s reply, he was infuriated too.

“F*ck you, you’re the crazy one instead. I’m not going to accept your money. What can you do to me?” Lin Fan was furious. He had given Wang Ming Yang a free session and even wished him luck but Wang Ming Yang was still so rude to him.

“You’ve got balls, you’ve really got balls. Report your location to me. I’ll make sure your stall closes down.” Wang Ming Yang had really never faced such a situation. He wanted to give someone money for free and the person actually rejected him?

“I’m not going to accept it. Listen carefully, my address is Shanghai, Cloud street Block 8861. I’d be a b*stard if I were to accept your money.”

“B*stard, right? You’re a b*stard if you don’t accept it? Okay, just wait and watch me.”

…

In a random old and worn out house, someone named ‘Autumn Sword Fish Killer’ looked at their conversation in the comments and was in disbelief. Then, he shouted, “These two people must be f*cking idiots, right?”

…