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墨書 Inktalez
Zhong Kui's Diary
Bang, bang!
Stage The two are exchanging punches and kicks, fighting fiercely.
This is a gym, and the two fighters are Fatty and Tang Zian. Fatty has the advantage of experience, while Tang Zian excels in technique. For a moment, neither can gain the upper hand.
"If this keeps up, they won't settle it even after three hours," I said, boredly cracking sunflower seeds, turning to Kong Xuan beside me.
"I think so too. If they want to determine a winner, it'll be based on who gets hungry first," Kong Xuan replied with a smile.
After watching for a while and finishing my seeds, I shouted, "No more fighting, let's go eat."
Stage The two immediately separated and walked down laughing.
"Let's go eat hot pot," I suggested.
"I'm not going. Ai made soup at home," Kong Xuan said after a moment of hesitation, chuckling as he turned to leave.
"I'm not going either; I have to meet a client later... I'm off," Tang Zian said as he packed up and took his leave.
"What’s wrong with them?" I exclaimed in surprise. "Are they really not interested in hot pot?"
"Ghost Brother, it's almost June now; who would be interested in hot pot?" Fatty scoffed. "Only I, as your employee, dare to be angry but can't say anything."
"Why don't you give it a try?"
...
As the two of them just walked out of the gym, Fatty exclaimed, pointing at something on the ground, "Ghost Brother, look at that!"
Following Fatty's finger, I saw a can-sized silver-white cylinder. It was made of a material similar to stainless steel, and there was a radar-like antenna on top, looking quite exquisite as it slowly rotated on the ground. I walked over to take a peek, unsure of what it was. Just as I was about to ask Fatty, he suddenly stepped forward and stomped on it with one foot. With a crunching sound, the silver object was flattened under his weight.
"Damn, I thought it was an alien coming to invade Earth," Fatty laughed heartily and casually kicked the flattened object aside.
I chuckled as well, "If aliens have this level of capability, they would starve to death before even reaching Earth."
This might be some child's remote-controlled toy. Sure enough, in the distance, a child holding a remote control approached with a puzzled expression.
Just as we were about to leave the scene of the incident, two men carrying badminton rackets walked towards us. One of them said, "You wouldn't believe it; my luck has been terrible lately. Yesterday I bought a ticket for the Dual Color Ball lottery, a combination ticket with ten numbers in the Red Ball Area, and not a single number matched..."
The other man laughed and replied, "That's not bad luck; that's just poor character. I randomly selected a ticket and won ten bucks... Hey, friend, what do you mean by stopping us like this..."
Fatty and I took off running and didn't stop until we were quite far away. I laughed and said, "Not bad luck; someone else is taking the blame!"
Fatty pulled out a cigarette and offered me one. "Ghost Brother, do you believe in luck?"
I pondered for a moment and replied, "It's hard to say; you can't really quantify it. But some things can only be explained by luck. For example, that guy we just saw—he bought a combination lottery ticket, which should statistically have better odds than those who buy single tickets. Yet he didn't win a single cent while those who bought one or two tickets managed to win five or ten bucks. Hmm... that guy really doesn't have much luck; even on his way to play badminton, he has to take the blame!"
"Haha!" Fatty laughed heartily. "Actually, I don't believe in all that stuff. Even if yesterday I secretly went for health treatment and found out that my service provider was my neighbor Li next door, I wouldn't consider that luck."
"Believers have what non-believers lack," I chuckled lightly and happened to see a lottery station ahead. I nodded towards it and said, "Let's go in and try our luck."
The station wasn't very large, about ten square meters. There was a counter at the entrance, and a woman in her thirties was selling tickets. She looked fairly decent. Inside, there were a few iron long tables and benches painted green, which looked quite comfortable. The walls were adorned with various trend charts, and there was also an LCD TV displaying the numbers for the scheduled lottery draws.
Perhaps it was because it was Saturday night, but there were quite a few people inside. Three lottery players were sitting on chairs, watching the trend charts of the winning numbers, occasionally jotting down notes with pencils on paper. Two others were buying scratch-off tickets, the kind you can scratch off immediately.
I walked in and chose ten dollars' worth of Dual Color Ball tickets. Just as I was about to turn and leave, Fatty said with a smile, "Ghost Brother, aren't you here to try your luck? Buy a few scratch-off tickets; you'll know right away if you're lucky."
The woman behind the counter smiled and said, "This boss has a point. You’ll know if you're lucky as soon as you scratch. Let me tell you a story: once there was a guy who came to my shop and scratched off a ticket, and he became a Rich Handsome Guy... Haha! Look, I have various denominations and types of scratch-off tickets here—like Warrior's Challenge or Exploring the Red Mansion. Different denominations mean different grand prizes."
"How much is a Warrior's Challenge ticket?" I asked with a smile.
"Warrior's Challenge is two dollars per ticket, with a grand prize of fifty thousand," she replied, pulling out a Warrior's Challenge ticket to show me. "See? It's a very simple game, similar to playing Ludo."
"I'll take ten!" I handed her twenty dollars. She took the money and counted out ten tickets for me.
I split five tickets with Fatty, and we scratched them all off while checking against the prize list posted at the counter. In the end, I found that I had won zero dollars and four dollars, while Fatty didn’t win anything.
I laughed heartily and exchanged my four dollars for another ticket, giving Fatty six tickets this time. This time, Fatty won ten dollars while I got four dollars and one dollar.
...
After several exchanges, all we had left were a pile of discarded tickets.
"Well, spent twenty dollars for some fun," I casually tossed the pile of tickets into the trash bin.
"You are quite lucky; you can get a Fun for zero dollars. I've scratched off over four hundred dollars and still can't get any Fun," said a young man with glasses, looking dejected.
"You didn't win anything with four hundred dollars?" Fatty asked in surprise.
"Well, I did win a couple of one-hundred-dollar prizes, but I put it back in," Glasses Man replied with a bitter smile. "It feels like eating something addictive; you just can't stop."
"It's probably a matter of luck. If you had won a hundred on your first ticket, you would have definitely stopped," another middle-aged man, who was focused on scratching his tickets, looked up with a weary expression.
"How much have you scratched?" I asked with a smile.
"I've scratched about six hundred," the middle-aged man shook his head with a bitter smile. "Not very lucky."
An old man nearby, who was studying the numbers, chimed in, "If you're not lucky, take your kids home and let them try. You might get an unexpected surprise. This afternoon, Old Deng brought his son to scratch tickets, and believe it or not, he hit fifty bucks with just two dollars. Old Deng left grinning from ear to ear. So yeah, this really is about luck; Old Deng's son was pretty lucky."
"Tsk tsk, that's really unlucky. A while ago, my neighbor Old Wang..." The middle-aged man had just started when Fatty, the young man with glasses, and I couldn't help but chuckle.
The middle-aged man looked at us in confusion. "What? Do you know Old Wang?"
"No, we don't know him. Please continue!" I pretended to clear my throat and shot a stern look at Fatty. "Be serious."
The middle-aged man continued, "He invited some colleagues over to play Mahjong, but no one had any change. So he ran to the lottery station and bought two dollars' worth of tickets. Just that one ticket won him five hundred bucks."
"Tsk tsk, Old Wang is pretty lucky," both Fatty and I nodded in agreement.
"Pfft, what does that count for? Do you know Zhen Shuai? The Billionaire? His starting capital came from buying lottery tickets; he won tens of millions." Glasses Man scoffed. "Now that's what you call luck."
"But later, he was dismembered by someone. Seems like his luck wasn't that great," Fatty chuckled.
"We still remember this person, Zhen Shuai. During the Script incident, Cui Gu Yi controlled his subordinates with a computer and had him killed in the office. I was quite unhappy with Cui Gu Yi. Even if Zhen Shuai was having an affair, there was no need to kill him," I said.
Glasses Man awkwardly added, "Well... that has nothing to do with luck, right..."
Sitting nearby were two women studying numbers. One had curly hair and was slightly plump, while the other was slender. Seeing our enthusiasm, they couldn't help but come over. The Curly-Haired Woman scoffed, "If you ask me, your luck isn't that great. The luckiest people in the world are a couple from California who bought two lottery tickets at the same time and both won big—one ticket was for 17 million dollars and the other for 160 thousand dollars. Scientists say the probability of winning is simply unbelievable; that's what you call luck."
"Tsk tsk, if that's true, then their luck is indeed impressive," I nodded with a smile.
"You all are quite ignorant; let me share another story. There's an old Polish woman named Barbara who has experienced countless disasters in her life—plane crashes, car accidents, gas explosions, shipwrecks—you name it. Do you think she has bad luck? You're wrong; she's incredibly lucky. Each time, she narrowly escaped death and turned danger into safety," said the slender woman with a laugh. "You might think I'm exaggerating, so let me give you specific examples. The first time she showed her luck was when she somehow crawled out of a fifth-floor window and fell from dozens of meters high. Fortunately, there were many empty cardboard boxes below her, and she landed on them without a scratch."
"That woman has some serious luck!" the old man exclaimed in admiration.
"When she was ten years old, her uncle rode his bicycle and crashed into her. He weighed about 100 kilograms and was speeding. Most people would at least get hurt if not killed in such an accident, but Barbara didn't even get a bruise while her uncle broke two ribs and one arm," the slender woman continued.
"Tsk tsk! That's really lucky," we all expressed our astonishment and nodded.
"When she was twelve, an out-of-control car was about to hit Barbara. However, just before impact, one of the car's wheels suddenly fell off, causing it to skid off the road and roll over several times far away. The driver was seriously injured while Barbara remained unscathed." The slender woman seemed to enjoy our surprise as she spoke with a smile.
"…"
"Besides that, Barbara has encountered various bizarre accidents including gas explosions, criminal attacks, and shipwrecks," the slender woman declared loudly.
"…"
"Despite encountering so much 'misfortune' in her life, Barbara has almost never suffered any serious injuries. The worst damage she sustained was losing a tooth in a plane crash. She was one of the three passengers who survived that crash, and aside from Barbara, the other two survivors were both seriously injured." The thin woman summarized with a hint of color on her face, "You should now understand what luck really means, right? This is what luck looks like."
...
Walking out of the betting station, Fatty laughed and said, "Ghost Brother, do you believe what they said?"
"The earlier ones were somewhat credible; at least we know about Zhen Shuai's situation. But I don't really believe the story from that thin woman; she probably read it online. Things on the internet aren't always true," I replied with a smile.
"Anyway, I completely don't believe in luck. When someone describes a person's bad luck, it's like saying they're possessed by the Cursed God. Hehe, if the Cursed God were really attached to me, I would definitely burst his bubble," Fatty concluded with a laugh.
I chuckled casually and didn't take it to heart; such matters have no answers, so why argue about them?
After that, I didn't see Fatty for three or four days. Occasionally, we would talk on the phone, but Fatty sounded weak when he greeted me. It wasn't until the fifth morning that An Ran called me to say that Fatty had been hit by a car.
I hung up the phone, filled with doubts. How could Fatty, someone who has trained and is quite agile, possibly get hit by an ordinary car? It must have been a deliberate act of murder or something similar. With that thought in mind, I rushed straight to the hospital.
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