That one hundred yuan almost killed both of us.
My name is Yu Xin, an ordinary kid who grew up in an alley in the Second Ring Road of Beijing.
The year I failed in the high school entrance examination, Zhang Peng and I went to a Taoist temple on the outskirts of Beijing to work as volunteers. I thought I could learn some skills in flying and escaping, but it ended up taking me a month to move bricks.
Just when we were about to run away, an old man in his sixties—Li Jianhua—came into the Taoist temple. Wearing dusty workers' clothes, he squatted against the wall and smoked, chatting about Feng Shui talismans when he had nothing to do.
He said: "Spells are the last card. Don't use spells if they can be solved physically."
I thought he was bragging.
Until we met the hundred dollar bill tied with a red string.
——Borrow money.
Whoever takes it will be unlucky. Whoever spends it will lose his life.
I thought this was the most evil thing. Later I learned that what is more evil than borrowing money is the human heart.
A gangster brother who has been killing people and hiding corpses for more than ten years, a traveling master who goes around borrowing people's lives, a female ghost who was sold by her biological parents, and my brother Zhang Peng, who finally made a deal for me and ended up in a juvenile detention center...
Master said: "The mortal world is the Taoist place. Once people cultivate, the Tao will come."
This book is not about gods fighting, nor about defying nature and changing one's fate. It tells the story of a kid in Beijing who slowly ponders what "Tao" is at the gates of alleys, Taoist temples, police stations, and juvenile detention centers.
Adapted from real experiences. Don't brag or be arrogant, don't pretend to be godless. If you believe it, come in and sit down. If you don't believe it, just listen to it for fun.
Only later did I understand the meaning of Master's words——
Some things are scarier than ghosts. Some things are more valuable than life.
