It was eerie how such a large man attached to his thigh went unnoticed by Wu Ming, who experienced no hinderance in his walk at all.
Stranger still, the person disappeared in the blink of an eye, and Wu Ming vanished in front of my tattoo shop.
I asked Xing if he had seen a man hanging off Wu Ming's thigh just now.
Xing asked if I was hallucinating from tattooing too much. It was just the three of us men in the shop; where did this upside-down man on Wu Ming's leg come from, was he performing acrobatics?
It was odd; was I seeing things? That didn't seem likely. Maybe it was the eerie powers of the Underworld Tattoo.
Never mind that, as long as the Underworld Tattoo worked and I made money, it was a win-win situation. I couldn't control anything else.
I earned another hundred thousand today, stepping closer to seeing my grandfather again.
Between Xu Meng, Su Qing, Su Yu, Wang Xin, and Wu Ming, after spending thirty thousand on ghostly ink, I made a profit of two hundred and thirty thousand in about a week.
Frankly, Underworld Tattoos bring in money fast. If I stuck to regular tattoos alone, it might be tough to reach that billion. It seemed I needed to continue taking on Underworld Tattoo jobs, one being worth ten regular ones.
Around noon the next day, Wu Ming brought good news to Xing. Without going into detail, he asked Xing if he had heard of the legend of 'One Night Thirteen Rounds.' His wife had been moaning all night, a pleasure she had never experienced before.
I told him not to brag and to still practice restraint—don't overdo it and end up back where he started. After all, Underworld Tattoos weren't all-powerful.
For some reason, Xing suddenly felt envious and asked if he could get a Jinlin Anaconda tattoo for free.
I scoffed, telling him my cost for Underworld Tattoos was ten thousand, and he wanted one for free? Besides, he didn't need it, and I worried that if he got one, his hand would become tired.
"Get lost!" Xing cursed at me, never bringing it up again.
I thought that was the end of Wu Ming's story, that the couple would live happily ever after. However, events took an unexpected turn, resulting in tragedy.
Wu Ming's tragedy unfolded six months later. Xing took me to visit him in the hospital because Wu Ming was castrated!
As it turned out, Wu Ming didn't stay on the straight and narrow. His relationship with his wife Jingjing perhaps wasn't true love. Would he have chosen Jingjing as his wife if he weren't flawed?
Initially, they were indeed happy, and their affection grew. But a handsome man's heart often wanders. Tired of his fat and unattractive wife, Wu Ming grew weary.
Wu Ming had an affair, and with time, not only one. At first, he was secretive, but then he became brazen, not caring about Jingjing, even flirting with other women in front of her.
With his attractive appearance and skills that left women longing, his list of lovers grew, with several wealthy women even offering to support him. Why would he care about Jingjing, his wife of convenience?
Jingjing, chosen for her willingness to overlook his flaw, became an obstacle once Wu Ming recovered.
Eventually, Wu Ming sought a divorce, indifferent to Jingjing's tears or protests. He had been wanting to abandon his ugly and dark wife for a long time.
In the end, Jingjing burst into tears and then began to laugh with a look of despair. She stopped pleading, but she wanted one last meal with Wu Ming. Without much thought, he agreed.
That meal turned Wu Ming into a eunuch. The deeper the love, the deeper the hatred; Wu Ming's infidelity and callousness pushed Jingjing to the brink of madness.
Jingjing drugged the soup, and by the time Wu Ming woke up, he was tied to a chair.
Completely lucid, Jingjing methodically ensured Wu Ming would become a eunuch, incapacitated to ever stray again.
To be honest, just hearing about it probably makes all of us men feel a phantom pain, let alone Wu Ming, who experienced it firsthand.
Jingjing exacted her vengeance upon the man who wronged her, transferring all her suffering back to him with every cut.
Afterwards, Jingjing tore their marriage certificate to pieces and then leapt from the building.
Jingjing had said, Wu Ming would never cheat again, nor would she ever divorce him.
Perhaps she still loved this worthless man, but she hated him too!
Jingjing jumped to her death, and by the time Wu Ming was taken to the hospital, it was too late. The doctors shook their heads; it was too late, and what Jingjing had cut could not be pieced back together.
We were Wu Ming's last hope. When Xing and I arrived at the hospital, Wu Ming kneeled before me despite his pain, begging me to save him.
I laughed; did he think Underworld Tattoos were magic? Could I just conjure what was lost?
He had brought this on himself, and despite my warnings, he hadn't appreciated the second chance I gave him with the tattoo.
But no matter what I said, Wu Ming wouldn't listen. What man could calmly accept becoming a eunuch? He persisted in his pleas, kneeling and bowing until his pants were soaked in blood, probably from reopened wounds.
I told him that even if I were to give him another Underworld Tattoo, he would need a tremendous amount of money. If such a powerful tattoo existed, it would cost way more than a mere hundred thousand—a tenfold increase wouldn't cover it.
Wu Ming said he had no money, but his girlfriends did. He claimed he would pay any sum if only he could be restored. Frantically, he called his various girlfriends, including a few wealthy ones, but without exception, hardly any would answer his calls, and those few who did quickly hung up.
Now that Wu Ming looked ghostly and had become an eunuch, who would want him? Did he really think these women cared about him? If they truly cared, they wouldn't have been involved with a married man in the first place.
I patted Wu Ming on the shoulder and said, "Brother, stop. The woman willing to give you money unconditionally has already been harmed beyond repair. She's no longer in your phonebook."
Wu Ming froze, his phone dropping to the floor with a clatter. Then he began to weep, his body collapsing in grief.
I didn't know why he had crumbled. Xing, concerned for him, quickly called for the doctor and nurses. After that, I left, but Xing, being the loyal friend he was, stayed with Wu Ming for a while. Later we heard Wu Ming had gone off to a remote village and was never heard from again.
These events occurred six months after the events with Jingjing. But bringing our focus back to the present, business was slow the two days following Wu Ming's tattoo session. Xu Meng's Morning Dew was not yet due, and Su Qing had yet to appear.
During a lull, I pulled out Zhao Donglai's address. It seemed like the perfect time to find my pair of twin brides!