His life was a joke. He was no good at studying or doing anything useful. But he took to pranks and mischief, doing bad things and squandering the family fortune, as if he had been born knowing how. Not only did he squander a family fortune, he even angered his parents to death.
Everyone thought there was no way he could turn his fortunes around. But thanks to his ability to dive underwater and stay down for half a day or more, he managed to rise from the depths like a carp leaping over the Dragon Gate, rebuilding a family fortune from scratch.
The pattern continued from one generation to the next. His son was a younger version of him: useless at anything worthwhile, but quick to learn every crooked trick in the book. He built up the family business, his son squandered it, and he said that his life was a joke…
