The sea breeze, reeking of fish, sliced through the gaps in the corrugated iron shed like a knife.
Jiang Yu opened her eyes, expressionlessly shook the sand out of her canvas shoes, and tapped them against the wooden floor of the waiting room.
She had just knocked the sand from her shoes when the old phone began buzzing incessantly.
It was the so-called family group chat.
Having just been cast out by the Jiang family—the top Metaphysics powerhouse in the capital—her reaction was eerily calm. No crying, no fuss. She simply unzipped her backpack and dumped out all her belongings.
Three old outfits, half a bottle of water, and a pile of loose change crumpled with sweat.
On the phone screen, the red text of the family announcement was both glaring and absurd.
[Due to Jiang Yu being born with an innate malevolent aura and repeatedly disrupting the family’s feng shui, the Council of Elders has resolved to immediately expel her and banish her to Deer Horn Island. Life or death—no one cares!]
[Finally got rid of that jinx! Last month, a deal worth tens of millions fell through just because she walked past me!]
[Yaoyao is the true phoenix of our Jiang family. What is that broomstick compared to her? Better she dies on the island.]
Jiang Yu stared at those venomous words, a cold sneer curling at the corner of her lips.
Her fingertip swept across the screen—leave the group, block, power off.
A fluid series of motions without a hint of hesitation. The screen went black, and the world finally fell silent.
“Growl—”
Her stomach chose that moment to protest, a hand-like cramp twisting inside. She stood up and pushed open the creaking glass door of the waiting room.
Outside was a remote fishing village dock that even navigation needed to zoom in three times to find.
The moment she stepped out, a middle-aged man ahead of her, carrying a briefcase, slipped as if his feet were greased—crash!—and went down face-first, scattering goji berries from his thermos all over the ground.
A woman in a sun hat nearby was about to laugh when a mischievous gust of wind whipped around, sending her hat and brand-new silk scarf plopping into the water to feed the fish.
“Damn it! Stepped in dog shit the moment I left the house!”
The two cursed into the wind.
Jiang Yu didn’t even lift her head, expertly stepping around the mess.
She’d seen this kind of thing her whole life. They called it being a jinx.
But Jiang Yu knew the truth—she wasn’t cursing anyone. Her fate was simply too strong, automatically devouring the luck of those around her.
Following the downhill slope, the island’s only convenience store glowed with light.
“Buying something.”
Jiang Yu’s voice was crisp and cold.
Behind the counter, a young man named A-Wang was scrolling through short videos. He looked up at the sound and froze.
This rundown fishing village hadn’t seen a girl this pretty in years. Beautiful she was, no doubt, but her eyes were too cold—like a piece of ice that could never be warmed.
“Wh-what do you need?”
A-Wang straightened up quickly.
Jiang Yu scanned the shelves. “Braised beef noodles. Cook it.”
Seven yuan. She counted out three bills and four coins, carefully tucking the rest of her change back into her inner pocket.
Three minutes later, Jiang Yu crouched on the steps outside the store, slurping down the noodles.
The scalding broth warmed her insides, finally driving out the damp chill that had settled into her bones.
Just as she drank the last sip of soup, her movements came to an abrupt halt. Her gaze shot past the dock and locked onto the rocky shoal exposed by the receding tide.
Through her dharma eye, within that gray-black mud, a faint layer of golden light was seeping out in wisps—astonishingly dense!
In the inland city, she had never seen such concentrated providential luck! Those golden glows scratched at her heart like cat claws, making her itch with temptation.
No money to eat? Then she’d earn it herself!
Jiang Yu finished the soup in two gulps, tossed the paper bowl into the trash, and turned toward the beach.
She rolled up her pant legs, stepped barefoot into the icy mud, fished a broken plastic bucket and a bamboo pole out of the garbage pile, and headed straight for the half-man-tall black reef where the golden light burned brightest.
Using the bamboo pole as a lever, she braced her core and pushed—crash!—the reef split open.
The mud beneath exploded into chaos! Three wild green crabs, each the size of a washbasin, brandished their massive black-purple claws, scuttling frantically to escape.
“Prime goods!”
Jiang Yu’s eyes lit up. The bamboo pole pressed down with precision, pinning the largest crab’s back, while her two fingers locked firmly onto the joint of its shell, lifting it straight up.
The shell was dark green and glossy, with a satisfying heft. At this quality, in a fancy restaurant in the capital, it wouldn’t go for less than four figures.
The moment her fingers touched the crab, that layer of golden light invisible to ordinary eyes seeped into her body through her fingertips, transforming into a warm current.
All her exhaustion vanished in an instant. This wasn’t just catching crabs—it was practically absorbing dragon qi!
She worked quickly, repeating the same technique, tossing all three giant crabs into the bucket.
Following the trail of light, she waded deeper.
The bamboo pole pried aside loose stones, revealing a nest of palm-sized wild scallops beneath, spitting water as their shells opened and closed.
She reached into a deep water hole—the bottom was covered in premium purple sea urchins, each one plump with thick, sturdy spines.
At this grade, in a Japanese restaurant, each one would start at triple digits.
Half an hour later.
Jiang Yu returned to the convenience store carrying a battered bucket nearly overflowing, her fair calves splattered with mud, but her eyes blazing with brilliance.
“Sis? You go for a swim in the mud pit or something?”
A-Wang teased casually, but the moment his gaze landed in the bucket, his voice cracked. “Holy mother of—!!”
His eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets as he pointed at the massive crabs flailing in the bucket and the pile of purple sea urchins, his tongue practically tripping over itself: “Sis, you… did you just ransack the Dragon King’s lair?!”
“The rocky shoal by the pier.”
Jiang Yu’s tone was as flat as if she’d just come back from the market. “Is there a place on the island that buys seafood?”
“There is, there is! But that shoal’s been picked clean by the old fishermen—usually you can’t even find a shrimp fry there! Your luck is just too freaky!”
Freaky luck?
Jiang Yu said nothing, only casting a faint glance back at the reef-strewn shore.
She certainly wasn’t about to tell A-Wang that the half-month’s worth of fish-run providential luck accumulated on that beach had already been sucked dry by her in one go.
Just as she withdrew her gaze, three tourists, green with envy over her haul and hoping to try their own luck, stepped into that very puddle.
One twisted an ankle, one dropped their phone, and the last one got drenched by a sudden wave that turned them into a drowned rat.
Providential luck was always conserved.
“Never mind them.”
Jiang Yu hefted the bucket weighing dozens of pounds, her wrist steady as a rock. “Lead the way to the buying station. How much is this haul worth?”
A-Wang swallowed hard, eyeing the lively, top-tier catch in the bucket, and lowered his voice: “Sis, with this bucket of yours, any ordinary dealer on the island would choke trying to buy it. If you want top dollar, you’ve got to see Uncle Zhou. That old geezer’s known as the Living Yama—sharp-eyed and ruthless—but his prices are the fairest around!”