4 Gift from Heaven

The sky appeared a fish-belly white, Wei Gaoyuan woke up to find himself on the ground in the doorway of the cabin, where he'd been sleeping for a night.

Recalling what had happened yesterday, he felt as if it were a dream. He opened the door, empty, only the scroll made by unknown materials quietly placed on the rock, which told him that everything yesterday was not a dream, but why did he get a sleep on the ground in front of the door last night?

After a deep breath, he pondered — the air smelled kind of different today. It was more soothing than ever, because of the fine weather?

Indeed, outside the cabin was a particularly beautiful sunshine. Wei gaoyuan washed his face, tidied up his clothes, and walked towards the direction of the gate of the White Plain Town.

It was a new busy day for the people in the town, and for Wei Gaoyuan as well. He intended to open the new chapter of his life.

He had been a pickpocket. Being a young boy with little education and less strength, he had to support himself and his sister by stealing, if lucky, which could earn them a few copper coins a day. Over time, he'd been one of the experts in this field.

The tea houses in town, undoubtedly, were his ideal workplaces as guests there tended to let their guard down while focusing on the attractive stories by the storytellers in the tea houses.

Unfortunately, Wei Gaoyuan had already been a celebrity among various tea houses in the town. He was so well known that the shopkeepers and the waiters always turned their heads warily whenever a twelve or thirteen years boy approached the door of the tea house. Accordingly, he had to change his dress up constantly to disguise himself.

Today he did little dress up, but looked clean and neat — about 1.6 meters tall, thick eyebrows and big eyes, angular features, not an extraordinary, but impressive appearance.

When he came into a tea house, the waiter could not recognize him right now, greeting politely, " Please come in, we've got a private dining-table for you..."

"Thank you. I am Wei Gaoyuan, and wanna find a job. I should be obliged if you could tell whether there is an opening here..." He gave his name and purpose. Having listened to the stories in the tea houses for many years made him a well-spoken boy.

Once hearing "Wei Gaoyuan", the waiter changed facial expression immediately and said vigilantly, " It's you! What's your new trick this time?!"

"I just want nothing more than a decent job to earn my living," Wei Gaoyuan responded seriously.

"You must be kidding! Hire a thief?" The waiter waved him away, " just get out of my way, or get in jail!"

"Stew in my own juice..." Shaking his head with a light wry smile, Wei Gaoyuan walked away, trying to find other possible job opportunities.

When the sun sank in the west, Wei Gaoyuan had eaten nothing and was still wandering in the town, followed only by his own long shadow.

He was absolutely not a lazy boy, but with one day gone, no job even a coolie was available. Some of the shopkeepers just shut the door while saw him a young boy. In desperation, he hesitated about whether he should return to his usual field — a cutpurse.

Everybody has to eat.

Job issue Weighing heavily on his mind, Wei Gaoyuan suddenly heard something as walking along the street. He looked around and found a gambling house opposite the street, where he got the sound of dice cup shaking, no, more precisely, the sound of each dice rolling in the dice cup as if they were rolling in his ears. It was so clearly that he could "hear" every movement and position of each rolling dice.

"Why has my hearing become so acute?" he thought in surprised, opened the door and went into the gambling house.

The house was not big. There was only four tables in it, and the biggest one was located in the center for the VIP customers. At the moment all four tables round were crowded, very noisy. Lots of spectators were around the biggest table.

Wei Gaoyuan came close to the crowd and listened carefully — three dices were flying in the shaking dice cup,colliding with each other, and then turned quiet and still finally.

"Two, three, three. Eight dots in total! " he said to himself.

The dice cup was opened. "Two, three, three. Eight dots! Small!" the dealer yelled at the top of his lungs.

(the dice game: three dices in a dice cup, a maximum of 18 dots and a minimum of 3 dots in total while the dice cup stops shaking. Two sides on the table, bet "big" side > 10 dots in total, or bet "small" side ≤ 10 dots in total before the dealer opens the dice cup)

"Bingo!" a cheerful smile on Wei Gaoyuan's face.

Rather than placed a bet on the next round, he got the result by hearing again, "One, four, six. It's eleven dots!"

Another bingo.

Then came four bingos. "It's the time!" having made up his mind, Wei Gaoyuan found out his two spare copper coins through a crack in the sole of his shoe.

Seeing a boy sliding through the crowd to the table, the dealer smiled and covered the cup on the table, "boy, you want a try? "

"Sure, just for fun," Wei Gaoyuan hold two copper coins, and clapped them on the "big" side, " I bet big ! "

"Done?" asked the dealer.

"Done!" Wei Gaoyuan withdrew his hand.

"Well, open! Two, four, five. Eleven dots! Big! " shouted the dealer. Wei Gaoyuan turned two coins into four. He put all of them still on the "big" afterwards, and again four coins turned eight...

He walked out of the gambling house, looking unhappy in spite of eight copper coins in hand. God suddenly sent him the ability to gamble which would get him a comfortable future life, but gambling really means no right track.

Wei Xiaoxue had been taken by the Sword Taoist and was likely to be a flying-on-sword in the sky. On the contrary, he might only be a struggling-at-bottom among commoners.

If so, they would never ever meet in this lifetime...That scroll in the cabin! That scroll of Martial Arts! Yes! It might be a chance!

As soon as he remembered the scroll the woman in white left, Wei gaoyuan rushed to the outside of the town. However, with low literacy and little basic Martial Arts knowledge, how could he read if there wasn't any illustrations in the scroll?

It was getting dark. At the street corner, Wei Gaoyuan heard two young men whispering far across the street, who, he knew, were members of the Sole Dragon Gang. He quickened his pace to leave, knowing that all his copper coins would be gone if he was the two young men's target.

Fortunately, the two young men behind did not chase him. Once got back in the cabin, he took out the scroll immediately, nervous; he opened it, relieved: there were eight pictures in it, and each of the pictures got a few words on its right. He tried to read and only recognized half of the words, so he turned his attention to the pictures.

The room getting darker, Wei Gaoyuan had been completely immersed in the scroll. If someone beside him was looking on the scroll at the moment, he would find a fantastic scene: what Wei Gaoyuan was reading were turning into the blank pages little by little with every picture and word in it fading away...