Fortune tellers are a large group, and you can still see rows of fortune tellers on the streets of Shenzhen. It usually says "No need to speak, let's count your surname", "Marriage, wealth, destiny" and so on. Fortune telling is also a business. How to attract customers? Attracting customers is the first priority, so use your curiosity or competitive spirit to pull you over for a chat first. After you are stunned, start the second step and say some ambiguous words, such as "You have met a villain recently" or "You have been having a hard time recently."
I just want to say that unless a boring person like me goes to fortune telling just to experience the feeling of fortune telling, once a person wants to find a fortune teller, it must be due to inner hesitation or unsatisfactory life. Therefore, when these people think about it, it is indeed true. Who doesn't have a "little man" around him? Who can have a smooth life? Indeed, the person who was counted began to add to the drama, and began to look for life prototypes to trick the fortune teller's words.
I have always felt that fortune tellers are masters of psychology. They need to understand people and the world, and they also need to be successful. Once customers start to take the bait, they will say, "I did meet a villain" or "I did meet something." There are indeed many things in life that cannot be said to relatives, the person next to you, or friends and colleagues, but many people have no boundaries when it comes to a fortune teller who may only deal with them once in a lifetime. Therefore, in ancient times, fortune tellers were a very important source of information, especially for gangs that wanted to do evil things. Fortune tellers were often the first step. Knowing the true inner thoughts or stories of these people, it would be easier to make targeted follow-up actions to defraud money or sex.
Of course, nowadays, there is usually only the third step, which is to lose money and eliminate disasters. "It's fate that you met me, you need a talisman" and so on. Of course, a fortune teller's routines cannot be so shallow. They will have different routines for different people. Every fortune teller has many routines and countermeasures in his heart, so fortune telling is a profession that requires experience and accumulation.
Hunan is very mountainous. Once you climb one mountain, there are countless more mountains behind it. Generally, there are endless mountains in front of and behind the house. In fact, it is not too steep, but there is not a lot of flat and endless land. It is basically in the form of terraces, or patches of soil are developed on the hillside. Therefore, basic farm work requires manual labor, and machinery cannot be used for sowing and harvesting. Therefore, due to the inability to mechanize operations, large-scale planting or large-scale land contracting cannot be carried out in my hometown.
When I was a child, I had several fortune tellers in my memory, among which the most memorable one was "Zhang Shangxian". Zhang Shangxian's surname is Zhang. I haven't seen him often, but every time I go to the village fair, I can see him occupying a stall and sitting on a small bench. There is also a small bench in front of him, without even a table. Fortune telling is a very private activity, unlike singing or dancing, so usually the person who wants to tell the fortune sits on a small bench and starts chatting.
There are three places to go to the market in our hometown, namely Litan, Dahetan and Longwan. Looking at these place names, we know that there must be rivers passing through our area, so there are so many beaches or bays. There are only about three fairs in a month that take turns, starting from the lower reaches of the river, first to Litan, then to Dahetan one day later, then to Longwan one day later, and then again to Litan five days later. For children, going to the market is the happiest thing. Not only can they see all kinds of things, but they can also meet many strange people. If they are lucky, they can also eat the most delicious steamed buns or other snacks.
Especially if it is a major festival, there will be performances at the fair. Some performance groups that go around the countryside, such as a very small circus, are just two monkeys, a few birds, and a big gong . The clanging can last a whole day, and children can watch it all day and be happy for several days.
At first, there was a different fortune teller every time we went to the market, because the location of each market was really far away, so it was equivalent to a fortune teller taking care of the people who wanted to tell fortunes every time we went to the market.In rural areas, it all depends on word of mouth. Which fortune teller is effective and which fortune teller is not effective will be determined in the hearts of everyone.
Zhang Shangxian was only in his forties when he started to tell fortunes. I don’t know what he did before. I just heard that he also sat on the bench for three years. At that time, there was a fortune teller in every market place, and those people were older. He was not afraid of hard work. Every time he went to the market, he would set up two stools in each place, and I don’t know where he got the cloth with the word "fortune telling" written on it.
For him, this could be a way to make a living. But everything is difficult at the beginning. In the first three years, Zhang Shangxian was the first to arrive at the market every day and the last to leave. However, there were only a few people who came to him for fortune telling. Even if there were a few people who came to him, they did not get a good reputation.
The turning point occurred three years later. I don’t know why, but suddenly the three fortune tellers disappeared. Some said they had traveled around the world, and some said they had ascended to immortality. But I don’t know the specifics, because fortune tellers in rural areas are usually very talkative, and they are usually single, and others don’t care whether they are alive or not. And I don't know when one day, Zhang Shangxian suddenly became "blind". Every day, he would take a stick he made by himself and bang it on the ground.
And gradually, stories about his several fortune-telling efficacies spread.
For example, once an old mother went to calculate where her eldest son was now. Why haven't we contacted each other in several years? He said two words: "It's gone." Naturally, he was scratched a few times by his old mother, but a month later, the news of the eldest son's death came, saying that he was beaten to death in the cell. The old mother quickly sent over many things.
Another mother asked her daughter about her marriage, and he only said two words: "It's close." As a result, a month later, her daughter got engaged to a young man from the same village.
Another mother asked her son if he could go to college, and he only said one word "yes". As a result, the child from that family did get admitted to college, even though that was the time when colleges were expanding their enrollment the most.
Since then, Zhang Shangxian's reputation has completely spread. Every day when he goes to the market stall, there are many aunts and ladies waiting for him. It's like a streamlined operation. Of course, it can't be ignored. Depending on the length of time or the size of the matter, everyone he talks to has to leave 1 or 2 yuan, and some even give out 100 yuan bills. This is an era when the average salary is only about 1,000 yuan. It can be imagined that Zhang Shangxian is indeed relatively "fairy".
After five years of calculation, Zhang Shangxian not only married a widow who was more than 20 years younger than him, but also built a new house. Of course his wife is also one of his clients. What's particularly amazing is that his reputation is still very good. He is almost a celebrity in the village. Everyone is willing to come to him for big and small matters. He is said to be very effective. During the
period, there were several other "immortal style" colleagues, but they all changed careers after less than a year. Although Zhang Shangxian himself did not have any children, the widow he married at that time had two sons, so he could still be regarded as continuing his career.
And I heard that when he was fifty-five years old, he suddenly stopped telling fortunes to others. It is said that too many secrets have been leaked, and if you continue to calculate, you will die.
Zhang Shangxian lived a leisurely life like this. Every time he went to the market, he would go to buy something. He would still carry his crutch. Of course it was not the one he had originally, but he spent a lot of money to buy it in the city, and then he would walk home carrying the things "bang bang bang".
But Zhang Shangxian did not live long. It is said that he died on the night of his fifty-eighth birthday. Two years later, I heard that Mrs. Zhang and her two children married a thirty-year-old man from a neighboring village. Of course, she still lived in Zhang Shangxian's house.
