Chapter 1: No Degree

It was a particularly hot summer day. The green plants lining both sides of the road stood weakly. The chirping of insects was anxiety inducing.

When a grand car collided with a motorcycle under the glittering, sunlit road, the people who usually enjoyed watching lively scenes hid underneath the shade of the trees. For once, they didn’t budge. On such a hot day, even if their husbands or wives ran off, they wouldn’t be willing to step out of the door and chase after them.

The person riding the motorcycle had rammed into the headlights of the grand car and had also fallen off from the motorcycle. The zipper of the duffel bag that had been placed at the back of the motorcycle broke and the items inside spilled out, rolling all over the ground messily.

“Hey!” A delicate, rowdy-looking youth alighted from the car and crossed his arms, looking down at the young man who was picking up the things from the ground. “Bro, you’re here to swindle me?” He had been driving perfectly fine, yet this motorcycle had rushed out from the corner for no reason and knocked against his car directly. How could he not feel wronged?

Fortunately, he had been driving normally and had even installed a recording device. Otherwise, he would be swindled again.

“Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention while driving,” The young man didn’t have the time to pick up the scattered items and stood up, apologizing to the youth. “I will definitely take responsibility for what I did.”

The youth looked askance at the young man as he sized him up. He had rather delicate features, but who in this age still wore t-shirts with holes in them? There was also that mess of twigs and plants on the ground. He even saw a lump of pink mud.

Someone who could even treat this junk as treasure probably wasn’t right in the head.

“Do you know how much the headlights on my car costs?” He kicked at a small stone beside his foot. It seemed to have also dropped out of the duffel bag.

“I don’t, don’t know,” The young man stared fixedly at the headlight for a few seconds before opening his mouth hesitantly. “How, how much?”

The youth inhaled deeply and told himself not to haggle with a poor ghost. He waved a hand impatiently. “Scram, scram, scram. You know you don’t have the money to compensate yet still don’t want to quickly run off?!”

“You don’t want me to compensate?” The young man scratched his head. He stooped and picked up the collapsed motorcycle with one hand before forcefully pounding the top with his bare hands twice. The originally bent motorcycle head… straightened.

The youth glanced at his own thin arms and legs and then looked at the other party’s arms which didn’t seem very well-built yet contained a lot of strength. Swallowing, he stealthily took a few steps back and placed a hand on the car handle.

F*ck. This, this was considered threatening him with violence, right?

“No, no need for compensation. Go, go,” A wise man knew better than to fight when the odds were against him. There was absolutely no need for him to be too firm when the moment came for him to be terrified.

“How would that be proper?” The young man shook the motorcycle. With a bang, quite a few motorcycle parts fell out. He pushed the motorcycle to the side, stooped and rummaged in the duffel bag for a while, and then presented a black thing to the youth. “Compensation should be given after breaking something. Consume this Ranyi meat and evil spirits will be warded off, allowing one to sleep peacefully. Take it as compensation.”

The youth burned with rage internally yet didn’t dare to express it out loud. He took the thing that had a fishy smell and squeezed out a wisp of a smile. “Thank you.”

So, not only did this bastard threaten him with violence, he also wanted to dupe him with fake medicine. Was he even human?

No, those who sold fake medicine never had any humanity to begin with. Anyone with the slightest bit of conscience and morality wouldn’t do this sort of thing.

The young man selling fake medication was about to leave on his motorcycle when the youth summoned his courage and asked, “Can that motorcycle of yours be ridden?”

Don’t ride halfway, run into some issue, and deceive yourself and others.

He didn’t dare to voice this statement.

“That won’t happen again. I wasn’t familiar with motorcycles just now, so I didn’t control my strength well,” The young man moved his long legs and straddled the ragged motorcycle before wobbling off. He hadn’t made it very far when another piece of metal dropped from the motorcycle.

The youth watched dumbstruck as the young man rode the motorcycle into the distance. He sat back in his car, regaining his wits only after a long while.

It was his first time coming into contact with a motorcycle and he dared to ride it on the main road. Which one of them was more like an undisciplined rich second generation?!

Fu Li rode the raggedy motorcycle all the way into a tiny alley. Motorcycles and bicycles were parked in the alley, causing the originally not large alley to become even more narrow. He carefully avoided a motorcycle that had been lain down flat and crossed over an overturned motorcycle, stopping in front of a wooden door with the sign ‘Nurturing and Relaxation Club for Elderly’ hanging on it.

There was mottled red paint on the dilapidated wooden door. The dull grey doorstep hadn’t been swept in who knew how long; a thick layer of dust had accumulated on it.

Fu Li parked the motorcycle at the side, patted the dust off himself, hoisted the duffel bag on his back, and then stepped forward, knocking on the half-open wooden door.

He rapped on the door thrice, paused for a while, and then continued to knock another three times. The cycle continued in this way.

Only after a long while did a short and plump old man open the door. He was dressed in a white vest that had turned yellow from being washed too many times and was holding onto a large palm leaf fan. He looked Fu Li up and down very slowly. “Name?”

“Hello senior, this younger generation is called Fu Li.”

“Fu Li?” The old man stared at the palm leaf fan for a while before nodding. “Your name’s on it. Come in and register.”

He entered the small courtyard house. Two mahjong tables had been set up inside. Several elderly men and women were playing mahjong at that moment. Not a single person looked up upon seeing Fu Li enter. As Fu Li followed the plump elderly man into the house, two elderly women started quarreling. In a fit of anger, one of the elderly women dressed in a cheongsam smashed the table into pieces with a slap of her palm.

“Wang Cuihua!” The old man whose movements had been exceedingly slow since opening the door suddenly turned around swiftly and roared at the elderly woman wearing a cheongsam, “You smashed the table again. Remember to pay for the damage.”

Fu Li saw the elderly woman who had still been swearing with her hands on her hips a moment ago deflate in an instant.

“Let’s go,” The plump elderly man saw that Fu Li was still in a daze and shook his head. “Young people just haven’t seen the world.”

Fu Li, “…”

The inside of the house was a little dark. Fu Li nearly tripped as he walked in.

“Doesn’t your fox clan have night vision?” The plump old man shook his head even harder. “The generations nowadays get progressively worse; even this sort of clan instinct can be forgotten. You’re really losing face for your clan. Several thousand years ago, all of you could still run amuck around the world, but look at you now, not even able to see the road clearly.”

“But senior, I’m not from the fox clan,” Innocence was written all over Fu Li’s face.

“Why are you called Fu Li if you’re not from the fox fox clan?” The plump old man wasn’t at all embarrassed about his mistake. He calmly switched on the lights in the room and sat down in front of a shabby computer. He pointed at a stool opposite. “Sit there, straighten your back. I need to take your picture first.”

The old man filled in every registration segment before pointing to the last blank and asking Fu Li, “What is your ideal job?”

“Civil servant. Serving the people,” Longing filled Fu Li’s face. “It’ll be even better if I can leave my name in historical records.”

Hearing this, the elderly man nearly plucked clean the buttons on the keyboard. He shook the large palm leaf fan and looked at Fu Li as if he was a weirdo. “Do you have a university degree?”

Fu Li shook his head.

“How are you going to be a civil servant without a degree?” The plump old man stared blankly for a long time and then asked helplessly, “Who told you to enter the city?”

“Seventh Uncle Sun,” Fu Li answered. “I don’t know where Seventh Uncle Sun went either. I couldn’t find him today.”

“Doggie Sun?” The old man took his time answering Fu Li’s question. “He was arrested a few days ago for making and selling fake identification.”

“Ah?” Fu Li hadn’t expected Seventh Uncle Sun, who had just returned to the mountain in a very dazzling manner before the year ended, to have actually broken the law. He stared blankly for a long while before lamenting, “When I came out, everyone told me that living in the big city isn’t easy. It looks like that’s true.”

“You don’t have a university degree. What about a high school certificate?”

Fu Li continued shaking his head.

The plump man took out a small book from a drawer and scribbled a few words on it. He told Fu Li, “It’s better for you to do physical labor at this construction site. The chief labor contractor is one of us. Whether good or bad, you can still make ends meet.”

Fu Li took the slip of paper from the elderly man’s hand. An address not too far from this location was written on it in crooked letters. After thanking the old man, Fu Li turned and left the house.

The plump man shook the large palm leaf fan. Only after Fu Li left did he take out Fu Li’s information and look at it for a very, very long time.

The damaged motorcycle that had been parked at the entrance to the club had already disappeared without a trace. All that was left lying on the ground was a rotten leaf.

Zhou Chang had stayed at home for a full two days ever since sending the headlight of his beloved car for repair; he wasn’t in the mood to go out. As usual, he slept till nearly ten o’clock in the morning before getting up. He went downstairs and was then given a shock by his father, who was accompanying his mother to watch television in glowing spirits.

His father’s sleep had been poor lately and would scold Zhou Chang every time he saw him. Usually at this time, his dad would have already left for the company. Why was he accompanying his mother to watch television today? It wasn’t like it was their birthday or wedding anniversary.

“Son, come sit here,” Father Zhou smiled, urging his son to take a seat. “The smell of that medicine you bought for me may not be very good, but its effects are not bad. I’ve been sleeping very well the past two days and haven’t dreamed even once.”

Zhou Chang stared blankly for a long while before recalling the supplements he had bought at the pharmacy two days ago to curry favor with his dad. Did those things actually have a soothing effect on sleep?

“I’m just not sure what that fishy-smelling, black-colored medicine is called. Buy a bit more of that back and send some of it to your grandparents too.”

Fishy smelling? Black?

Hadn’t he bought ginseng and lingzhi? At that time, he had even specially told the housekeeper auntie that the medicine was good for his father and that she had to make sure to boil soup with it for his father to drink. How did a perfectly good ginseng turn black and have a fishy smell?

No. This wasn’t right.

Could that fishy smelling thing be the fake medicine that the person who had knocked into his car given him? He wasn’t selling fake medicine, but authentic medicine?

Zhou Chang looked at his father’s rosy face and high spirits. He didn’t dare to tell him that the medicine was a product of dubious origin that had accidentally mixed into the bunch of medication. As for him buying more of it, where was he supposed to go to buy it?

Fortunately, he still remembered the name of this medicine.

It seemed to be called…

Ranyi meat?

Yup, that was the name.

T/N: This is one of my favorite novels, so I hope I can do it justice╭( ･ㅂ･)و

Despite the modern setting, it has strong elements of Chinese folklore, so be prepared for many, many translator notes~