The King of Cheating

Chapter 1: Step Outside, and the World is All Jianghu

The day my uncle kicked me out of the house, I first bowed my head to my aunt, thanking her for the years she took me in. Then I told my uncle that if he dared hit her again, I would kill him.

My name is Chu Liu. From the day I was born, my parents left me in my aunt's care.

At first, my uncle treated me very well. But it wasn't because he particularly liked me. It was because my parents would regularly send him money, thanking him and my aunt for taking care of me. The money was substantial, enough that every time he got drunk, he would slur with a glazed expression that I was his cash cow.

At that time, I was too young to understand what my parents did for a living. Until one summer day when I was six, my father returned home. But not walking. He was carried back.

On the stretcher, my father's arms and legs were gone. The white bandages wrapped around his body were already soaked with blood—bright red, painfully glaring.

He was barely alive. In his dying moments, he left me with one sentence: 'Be an ordinary person, live a simple life, and never gamble.'

That day, I cried every tear I had. And since that day, I don't think I've smiled again.

After my father's death, my mother disappeared, never to return.

With no more money coming in from my parents, my uncle's treatment of me grew worse. It started with insults, then escalated to beatings. My cousin, Li Dabiao, five years older than me, joined in as well.

I remember clearly over the years that they together slapped me 2,436 times, kicked me 3,487 times, and punched me 2,329 times. The number of times they hit me with whips or sticks totals 336.

If it weren't for my aunt protecting me, I think I would have been beaten to death long ago.

I hated them. I held grudges. Otherwise, I wouldn't remember these numbers so vividly.

Back then, I didn't know how to fight and didn't dare fight back. But I learned how to take a beating.

When I was kicked out, I didn't end up homeless. Instead, I followed Liu Ye.

Liu Ye isn't his real name. He never told me his real name. He asked me to call him that when he learned I was called Chu Liu.

He came to our small town the year after my father died. When I met him, he told me he was the greatest magician in the world and that he was willing to teach me all his magic.

Indeed, his magic was impressive. Cards, mahjong, dice, and Pai Gow flew in his hands, appearing and disappearing, sometimes plentiful and sometimes scarce, elusive and mysterious.

Thus, I began learning what he called "magic" from Liu Ye when I was seven. Liu Ye was an extremely carefree person. Besides supervising my practice of "magic," he spent his days drinking and enjoying life, as well as chasing women.

He seemed to have an unusual obsession with women. Even at over sixty, he partied almost every night. The most impressive time, he actually spent the night with three women.

Liu Ye also found women for me. They were quite young, around eighteen or nineteen, with chubby faces covered in thick makeup. When one of them, with a professional fake smile, started to undress in front of me, I told her one word: "Get lost."

It wasn't that I didn't like women; I just didn't like this type of woman. My woman had to be gentle, obedient, and loyal, dependent on me and treating me as her king—like the "big king" in a deck of cards.

Until one day, a woman, all sweaty and fragrant, lay in my arms and told me that the big king in the cards actually means the joker.

On my twentieth birthday, Liu Ye took me to Zui Xiang Lou, the best restaurant in our town. In the elegantly styled private room, Liu Ye, with a golden nanmu pipe in his mouth and silver hair, was still as carefree and unrestrained as ever.

"Pour the wine..." In the blue and white porcelain bottle was thirty-year-old aged bamboo leaf green. The wine swirled in the jade-green bowl, and the aroma filled the air.

"Xiao Liu, how long have you been with me?" Liu Ye took a puff from his pipe and asked me as smoke swirled around.

"Thirteen years, two months, and twenty-two days!"

"What did I teach you?"

"Cheating techniques!"

"What are cheating techniques?"

"Using deception to achieve one's goals!"

Liu Ye nodded slightly, seemingly satisfied with my answer. He knocked on his pipe and raised the bowl, saying to me, "After you drink this bowl of wine, you will graduate! From now on, you won't have to follow me anymore..."

I knew this day would come eventually. I just didn't expect it to be on my twentieth birthday. As the thirty-year-old bamboo leaf green went down my throat, a spicy heat shot straight from my stomach to the top of my head.

Putting down the wine bowl, Liu Ye continued, "Xiao Liu, you must remember. What you have learned is cheating techniques, you have entered the world of deception, and you will walk the blue path. From now on, you are no longer an ordinary person. You are now a master of deception!"

The so-called blue path refers to all gamblers and con artists. As long as you gamble, you are walking the blue path.

Thinking back to my father's dying words, telling me to be an ordinary person and never touch gambling. But I never expected that after more than a decade, I had become a master of deception.

Perhaps this is the unpredictability of life and fate playing tricks on people.

"Xiao Liu, let me ask you again. From now on, do you want to be the master or the apprentice?"

"The master!" I thought that no one in this world would willingly want to be the apprentice.

"Good, since you want to be the master, I want you to use what you have learned over the years and make sure that within three years, the entire blue path knows of Liu Ye, and you, Chu Liu!"

Three years? Can I do it? I felt a bit lost. Over the years, although I had accompanied Liu Ye to countless gambling games and casinos, I had never actually participated in gambling myself. I didn't know how good my skills in deception really were.

But I nodded in agreement. Liu Ye had once told me that the hardest part of being a con artist is not the technique but the mindset. In front of thousands, being able to fully utilize everything you have learned in your life is the key.

"Alright, from now on, you will navigate the world of deception on your own!" Liu Ye spoke lightly. But in his eyes, I still saw reluctance.

"World of deception? Where is it?" I looked outside the window in confusion and asked softly.

"Stepping outside, the world becomes the Jianghu!"