Prologue

  On a summer stormy night, a black Porsche sedan was driving on the country road. The driver was short and wore a hat with the brim pulled very low. In the passenger seat was a man wearing glasses and a suit. In the backseat, there was only one man, a burly forty-year-old with a rugged face, gently tapping an envelope beside him.

  In a place where there was no village in front and no store behind, the car slowed down. Leaving kilometers behind, it turned onto a narrow dirt road. At the end of the dirt road stood an ancient house.

  The car stopped in front of the house, and the glasses-wearing passenger in the front seat took an umbrella and got out. He opened the rear door and a burly man emerged from the car, walking towards the house. The driver turned off the engine, also getting out and entering the house.

  A burly man pushed open the wooden door, and in the main hall of the house, there was a table with a young man sitting beside it. Next to the young man stood an old man about sixty years old. The young man closed his eyes to meditate, while the old man stepped forward to greet him: "Director Wang, hello."

  "Hmph!" Wang Zong was that big Han, he pulled over a chair and sat down with a flourish, slapping the envelope on the table, then drew out a dagger and stuck it into the wooden table, saying: "I'm a person who likes to get straight to the point. I'll put my cards on the table first, if you people try any tricks, I'll take one hand from each of you. If you have real skills, the things in this envelope are yours."

  The young man opened his eyes, revealing a pair of bloodshot eyes. A flash of lightning cut through the air, and even Wang, who was known for his boldness, couldn't help but take a step back.

  The driver looked around the house, very simple. This is the ancestral home of the village head in a nearby village, and no one has lived here for a long time. Nor did he allow others to move in. Half a month ago, these two people moved in.

  The boy closed his eyes: "What do you want to know?"

  "Haha." Director Wang looked around and laughed loudly: "Aren't you good at calculations? You calculated that the village head's daughter-in-law had an affair with a wild man outside, how can you not calculate what I came here for?"

  The young man remained unmoved and said calmly: "Eight lives, what's the point of calculating? Besides, I'm not a fortune teller from the jianghu, I just can see your future."

  "Oh?" Wang asked with a smile: "Where is my future?"

  "Prison." The young man opened his eyes and looked at Wang, then closed them again.

  "What nonsense are you talking about?"

  "It's inevitable, let's go surrender." The young man said: "But after you come out of prison, you will have food and clothing without worry, wealth and honor."

  Mr. Wang looked at the young man for a while, then waved his hand and the driver and secretary came to his side. Mr. Wang said: "Would you mind helping me see if these two also need to go to prison?"

  The young man opened his eyes and stared at the secretary for a long time before saying, "He won't go to prison, but he will die in the water five years later."

  The secretary was about to scold someone, but Wang stopped him and asked: "What about my driver?"

  The young man glanced at the driver and closed his eyes: "I saw him walk into a church with a man. She was a woman, and the wedding took place in a seaside church."

  The driver asked in a female voice: "What church?"

  The young man still closed his eyes and said, "I don't know, I don't understand English, but I can see that this church is very old, and there are tulips planted next to it. Is there a garden behind the church?"

  "Get out." The driver muttered in a low voice.

  Wang stood up obediently and stood behind the driver. The driver asked, "What's next?"

  "I can only see the two moments when people are happiest and most painful, but I cannot foresee the entire future." The young man's gentle eyes opened, and his originally blood-red pupils returned to normal.

  That was enough, and the three of them left, leaving behind not only an envelope but also another one filled with money.

  The old man stood at the door and watched as the car disappeared into the rainy night. He turned around to see a young boy counting money with his saliva, and shouted: "Put down the money."

  The young man didn't care, counting his money while saying: "Uncle, I think it should be like this. If we're going to do something, we should do it big. Earning 100,000 in a month and a half is enough for our four years of expenses. Robbing the wealthy is every student's duty."

  "Let it go."

  The young man reluctantly put the money on the table, no mistake, he wasn't some kind of bloodthirsty prophet who could see into the future, it was just a scam. The details aren't worth mentioning, mainly it was about fishing, waiting for someone to bite, and reeling them in. Having money doesn't necessarily mean you have high IQ. Moreover, having high IQ doesn't mean you won't get cheated. The key is in grasping the details. They spent a month understanding their target and the people around him.

  The young man leaned on the chair and said: "Uncle, since you dare to do big things, why do you pull me out to make a living during holidays, summer vacations, and weekends?"

  The young man recalled the last scam, buying A market mushrooms and then selling them in B market. One person sold one catty for 600, another sold one thousand. By using price and quality contrast to imply, they made a profit from the difference. After a day's work, he was exhausted but earned over a thousand yuan.

  "Haven't I ever told you about my stuff?"

  The boy nodded.

  The old man sat down: "Today I can tell you, my real name is Yan San. Don't look at me now so shabby, more than 20 years ago I was also a high rich handsome guy. In modern terms, I was a scammer. Wearing a suit, I took away the money of those who yearned to get rich overnight. People in the industry called me a leech, not letting go until I sucked out all the blood."

  "This is indeed hard to see." The young man rarely admitted that he also had times when he was blind. The young man was curious: "Why did you hide your surname and live in a closed village for so many years?"

  "For you."

  "For me?"

  "Twenty years ago, I did a job. It swept away all the funds of a company and the boss's entire family fortune. But this time, something unexpected happened." The old man paused for a long time before continuing slowly: "Seven days later, he died. He jumped off a building, leaving behind a newlywed wife and an unborn child. From then on, my nightmare began. On the seventh day after the boss's death, my first son suddenly fell ill and died despite rescue efforts. The next year, on the anniversary of his death, my one-month-old daughter also died."

  The young man said in a low voice: "I heard you and my aunt are cousins."

  "What did you want to say?" the old man asked.

  "No, you continue."

  "Your aunt collapsed, went mad. She cursed me for being heartless and killing her own child. The madness got worse and worse until one day your aunt walked to the riverbank ready to take her own life. That's when you floated down from upstream."

  "Uncle, can you not use floating words? Every time you mention where I'm from, you use floating words. It makes me feel like I don't exist."

  "You knew that your aunt thought you were a gift from heaven, so you stayed with her. After only one month of living together, you started running a fever and my aunt forbade me from using dirty money again. Miraculously, you survived. It was then that I began to believe in karma. So I started doing hard labor to earn a living for the family until you were six years old, during which time you never fell ill once. Your aunt didn't want you and me to be too close, fearing it would bring bad luck to you, so you took her surname instead. But then you got sick again on a rainy night just like tonight, your aunt's old illness relapsed, she ran out of the house and never came back."

  Young man: "According to foreign scientists' research, it is more likely to lead to... you say, you say."

  "I wasn't cut out for physical labor to begin with. After your aunt left, I was overwhelmed by household chores and couldn't handle the heavy manual work. So I had no choice but to start swindling again. Perhaps heaven took pity on me, and I managed to swindle enough money to make ends meet and raise you. But in doing so, I also raised a little swindler."

  "In elementary school, you dared to deceive the teacher by saying I was dying soon, so you hoped the teacher would change my score from 30 points to 100 points on the report card, just to let me die with peace of mind. In junior high school, you forged a medical record saying you had leukemia, and the whole school donated money for you, forcing me to transfer you out. By junior high school, you became even more outrageous, sneaking into the teacher's office, cheating on exams, gambling, selling fake cigarettes, and anonymously blackmailing the vice principal under the pretext of an improper relationship."

  "But I turned over a new leaf in high school and my math and physics were just passing."

  "It's because you met a good teacher." The old man said, "Also, your math and physics passing grades were purely due to cheating. Don't think I don't know. Anyway, with the help of Huang Teacher, you graduated from high school."

  "Then we messed up big time." The young man sighed: "The result of Teacher Huang's careful cultivation over the years was ruined by you in an instant."

  The old man didn't say a word, placing four bundles of cash in front of the young man and six bundles in front of himself. The old man picked up three bundles: "This is the money to buy your way into university. What's in front of you is your four-year university tuition and living expenses. The other 30,000 is my travel expenses; now that you're grown up, I can finally go find your aunt."

  The young man shook his head: "I don't plan on going to college."

  "I have plans." The old man said: "Regret four years after attending university, regret a lifetime without attending university."

  This phrase sounds so familiar! Where did this old thing plagiarize from?

  "The old man said, 'Once you go to college, you're considered an adult. From then on, the path ahead will be up to you to walk. Whether you end up in prison or lying dead in the street, it's all your own choice. After I washed my hands clean, I handed over all my money to a sworn friend. This friend is now in America and has used my money to set up an investment fund, which has already grown into an astronomical sum.'"

  "Uncle, last time you described the number of mosquitoes, you also used astronomical figures. Actually, there won't be more than twenty."

  The old man took out his mobile phone and dialed an international long-distance call. After hanging up the phone for a while, a text message came in. The young man stretched his head to take a look at the phone and was stunned: "So many zeros!"

  "This money is yours."

  The young man asked excitedly: "Is it in US dollars?"

  "Even with renminbi, it's enough for you to use for a lifetime." The old man said: "However, there are two conditions for you to get this money. The first condition is that you have no previous convictions before the age of 30."

  "The second condition."

  The old man pointed to his mobile phone and showed a photo to the young man: "Her name is Du Qingqing, she's the posthumous daughter of that businessman who committed suicide. Her mother passed away three months ago, if you want that money, you have to help me repay this debt for her."

  "How was it?"

  The old man was taken aback, and this question had indeed not been carefully considered. He tentatively asked: "Three wishes?"

  "I'm not Aladdin's lamp. What if Du Qingqing's first wish is to marry Jay Chou?"

  "This... you handle it yourself, but make sure your conscience is clear. Don't give her 20 bucks and think you can just brush it off."

  Young man smiled: "Uncle, you're out of date. Nowadays, it's not good to lend a hand without at least 100 yuan. Alright, uncle, rest assured, you have saved my life and raised me, this is your heart disease, even if there isn't much money, I will definitely help you repay this debt. Where does she live?"

  "I've already sent it to your email. Don't think you're the only one who knows how to use a computer." The old man looked at the young man for a while and said, "I can no longer control you, fly away."

  "No matter how far I fly, you're still my family."