Yanfu: Starting with the Six-Eared Macaque

"You don't know this, do you?" Chen Xing deliberately kept them in suspense, pretending to be profound, "Beijing is the most bustling place in the world. Countless artists dream of performing here their whole lives. We've come all this way, so we should make the most of it. After we finish our business, who knows when we'll be able to come back to Beijing again?"

Upon hearing this, Mo Mingxuan's mind stirred.

He had originally wanted to take this opportunity to learn more about his business partner, so he nodded in agreement: "Since Brother Chen is in the mood, my sister and I are also free today, so let's take a stroll around the capital together and see the sights of the capital city."

"Let's go then!" Mo Chou stopped hesitating when she heard her brother agree. She swallowed the last bite of the fried dough stick in a few bites, picked up the bowl of soy milk and drank it all in one gulp. She wiped her mouth and got up to leave.

Looking at her energetic demeanor, Chen Xing smiled and said to Mo Mingxuan, "Brother Mo, your sister is truly a woman of character."

He then followed after them.

Mo Mingxuan looked at the two people in front of him, shook his head helplessly, took out a few copper coins from his pocket to pay the bill, and then quickly followed the two.

"Take a look, have a look! Take a stroll around!"

A series of rapid gong sounds rang out from not far away. Looking in the direction of the sound, one could see a burly man with a dark face wielding an iron-handled red-tasseled spear, twirling it with great skill in the center of the crowd.

A child of about eight or nine years old stood to the side, banging a gong to attract customers. His clear, bright voice rang out, "Come on in, come and take a look! This is a rare sight—the legendary 'golden spear piercing the throat' skill!"

When Mo Chou heard the child shouting about his rare skill, her eyes lit up. She pulled Mo Mingxuan and Chen Xing a few steps closer and squeezed to the front of the crowd to watch with great interest.

As the crowd grew larger and larger, forming a tight circle, the boy stopped playing the gong, slightly turned his body, and moved the burly, dark-faced man to the center.

The burly man propped the spear at an angle, one end against the ground, took a deep breath, and suddenly let out a loud shout. Veins bulged on his forehead, and he pressed his throat firmly against the spear tip. He slowly moved forward step by step, bending the iron spear shaft under the force.

"good!"

Mo Chou watched with great excitement, clapping enthusiastically until her hands were red. The surrounding crowd was also stunned by the thrilling performance, and immediately erupted in thunderous cheers!

Seeing the crowd's high spirits, the child immediately seized the opportunity, raising his voice to shout, "Ladies and gentlemen! This hard qigong is not easy to learn; it has been passed down for nine generations of single-lineage practitioners to this day! In these perilous times, my son and I have reluctantly decided to sell our ancestral secret recipe for a powerful qigong pill!"

"Sir, you've asked? I don't practice martial arts or boxing, so why would I buy your 'powerful pill'?" The boy, holding a gong in one hand and a gong mallet in the other, began his conversation with great seriousness. Then, slapping his thigh, he said with an air of authority, "Sir, you ask a good question! This 'powerful pill' is a treasure; it can cure even bruises and sprains! If anyone in your family has backaches, leg pains, or other ailments, take three or five of these pills, and I guarantee you'll be able to run around in no time!"

"You make it sound so easy, but if you take three or five pills and it doesn't work, where am I supposed to find you?" someone suddenly shouted from the crowd.

"Don't worry, don't panic, I understand your concerns!" The child seemed to have anticipated this, and immediately chimed in, "Earning money isn't easy for anyone, I can't let you go through all that trouble! Just buy one now, try it, and once you've swallowed one of these secret formula pills, I guarantee you'll feel refreshed immediately!"

As he spoke, he took out a black pill the size of a date pit from his cloth bag and handed it to an elderly man with white hair in front of him: "Sir, would you like to try one?"

"I'm not paying!" The old man stared at the pills, making a move to shrink back.

"Don't worry, I won't accept a penny! This pill is a gift for you!" The child grabbed the old man and insisted on stuffing the pill into his hand. "Every family has elderly members and young children. The old man has worked hard all his life, so it's inevitable that he has aches and pains. Young man, I see that you have a kind face, so consider this pill my way of showing my respect to my elderly fellow villagers and elders."

Seeing that he couldn't break free, the old man simply threw the meatball into his mouth and swallowed it with a gulp.

"Wow, amazing!" After a moment, the old man suddenly slapped his thigh, a look of surprise on his face. "My arms and legs are so much more agile now! My waist is flexible too!"

To prove his point, he even jumped around a couple of times, his movements surprisingly nimble for someone his age.

"Old man, I'm not lying! If it weren't for this chaotic world, my son and I would never sell this ancestral secret recipe!" The child pressed his advantage, his voice trembling slightly. He then looked at the surrounding crowd and raised his voice, "One dose of the recipe costs five coins. Buy it to protect yourself, cure illnesses, and keep you safe! My son and I live in a small village outside the capital. If this recipe doesn't work, you can come and smash up my house if you want!"

"Give me three!"

"Give me five!"

The onlookers watched as the seventy- or eighty-year-old man's complexion indeed improved after taking the medicine. Upon hearing the child's words, they immediately took out their money and rushed to buy it.

Mo Chou's eyes lit up. She grabbed Mo Mingxuan's arm and shook it vigorously, her voice urgent, "Brother, let's buy two too, just in case we need them later!"

As he spoke, he reached for the money pouch at Mo Mingxuan's waist.

"Let's go, let's not get involved." Chen Xing grabbed Mo Chou's wrist, his tone both helpless and firm. "We're perfectly healthy, we don't need this stuff at all."

Chen Xing was naturally familiar with this trick of swindling and selling fake medicine. The three men, grandfather and grandson, who seemed to be strangers to each other, were actually in cahoots.

That old man wasn't a patient at all; he was just a shill, putting on a show for the onlookers to trick them into buying medicine.

This kind of swindling and deception trickery, not to mention in the late Qing Dynasty, even a hundred years later in the modern era with highly developed information technology, still fools people.

"Don't worry, Brother Chen is right." Mo Mingxuan also took the opportunity to hold his sister's hand and gently advised, "Besides, our sect already has medicine for treating sprains and bruises, which is much more reliable than this medicine of unknown origin. Why waste money on this?"

Mo Mingxuan naturally saw through the trick, but he thought that his younger sister had a fiery temper. If he directly pointed out that it was a scam, she might rush up and expose them on the spot.

The two of them have important matters to attend to right now, and it is really not advisable to create unnecessary trouble.

After walking two more streets, Chen Xing and his two companions saw a large group of people gathered at the entrance of the alley ahead. Some were standing, some were squatting, some were young, and some were a little older. They were all gathered in a circle, intently watching a small wooden board in the middle.

Upon closer inspection, a pitch-black dice cup was placed on the wooden board. Two large red circles were drawn on either side of the board, with the words "Big" and "Small" written inside each circle. Some coins had already been placed inside the circles.

"Alright, alright, place your bets now! Everyone hurry up and place your bets, I'm about to open!"

The person who set up the gambling den was a middle-aged man with a long scar on his face, running from his cheek to the back of his nose. At that moment, the scarred man was squatting behind the board, shouting as he lifted the dice cup: "Three, five, six! Big!"