Chapter Thirty-Five: Wait for It

  I'm finally one of the 50 million now, I float forward, passing by a soy milk stall and can't help but think of that "when we have money" joke. When we have money, emperors will raise two, one Qin Shi Huang and one Han Gaozu; when we have money, heroes will raise two, one Jing Ke and one Xiang Yu; when we have money, women will raise two, one for night use and one for daytime viewing. Ah, the one used at night doesn't look quite right - Baizi's should be over by now?

  There's another trouble now, and that is Jin Shao Yan, who I knocked down. After he wakes up, I don't know how he'll deal with me. It seems like Jin Shao Yan has a clean record and shouldn't have any connections to the underworld. But what I'm afraid of is that he might sue me for "bodily harm" or something like that. This kind of crime can be either big or small, and if the Jin family decides to make a big deal out of it, it's not impossible that I'll get sentenced to 10 or 8 years. At that time, my unseen friends 300, 54, and Bao Zi will take turns visiting me, and basically, I'll be able to see new faces every day within the year. What I'm afraid of is that the prison won't allow it.

  Thinking of the 300 of them, my heart cooled down a lot. I only then reacted that the 5 million I struggled to earn is only enough for their living expenses for one year. Just eating alone would take up half of it. Using Engel's coefficient as a measure, they barely reached the warm and fed line. If lucky, by the end of the year, there might be a few thousand left over, which would be enough for me to take my wife on a trip to Tiananmen Square.

  Thinking of this, I can no longer hesitate, I can no longer delay, I can no longer procrastinate! I rushed into a second-hand mobile phone store - I have to notify Baozi and the others to withdraw from the hotel immediately, after 12 o'clock it will be another day!

  The store owner saw someone coming in and asked me: "Sir, what kind of phone are you looking for? Straight board? Flip cover? Rotating style?"

  I hastily said, "The cheapest one." My previous phone had been enthusiastically given to the new rural migrant worker in their store by Baozi. Now I only have 200 yuan on me. 200 yuan is a very classic number, it's a valuable experience that I've summarized from life: as long as you have 200 yuan on you, you can buy cigarettes to smoke, and when you're thirsty or hungry, you don't need to worry; if you run into an old classmate, you can even treat her to a decent meal. The biggest advantage is that if it's stolen, you won't be too heartbroken, and if you encounter robbery, you don't need to panic.

  The shop owner looked at my outfit and took out a Nokia latest model starting with 6, saying: "This is the best-selling one, high cost-effective, that person used it for only two days, I'll give it to you for 1600 yuan."

  I said: "Just give me the cheapest one, I don't have time to waste with you."

  The boss had no choice but to take out another motorcycle V8: "This 600."

  "Get something cheaper!"

  The boss rolled his eyes and threw a Lenovo Pucai on the counter, saying: "If you want to use it temporarily for a few days, just use this one. But I'll remind you in advance that this machine receives signals at irregular times all day long, 300."

  "Get something cheaper."

  The boss glanced at me and said lazily, "You're here to cause trouble, aren't you?"

  ……

  Finally, I managed to persuade the store owner to sell me their treasured item for 100 yuan. This phone has a delicate and compact body, a silver-gray shell, a strong antenna, and comes with a free phone chain that looks like a platinum ring. According to the boss, it can last up to 72 hours on standby due to its unique design concept. Temporarily, it does not support Bluetooth, but it has an earphone jack (earphones can be purchased separately). Moreover, it has a rich history - only a few years younger than me.

  It's an ageless blue screen phone.

  After calling baozi, I wandered around for a while, thinking of hailing a taxi but didn't think it was worth it. There were no motorbikes on this road yet, and by the time there were some, I was almost home.

  Baozi and the others have arrived home, I rushed upstairs at the first moment, ran to my bed and lifted up the pillow to take a look - as expected, there was a card (heart skipped a beat, right?). First, I memorized the card number by heart, even if my head got chopped off or blood flowed out, this 5 million yuan cannot be lost. I crazily flashed that set of numbers in my mind at a frequency of once every 0.3 seconds, and even when Baozi asked me to call Liu Bang back for dinner, my responses were all just a string of numbers.

  What? Where's Liu Bang?! I just realized that Liu Bang is not in the house. But my fake manager, who earns 1,400 yuan a month, was blinded by the 5 million and it's understandable. And judging from Baozi's tone, he shouldn't be far away. When I asked, I found out that Liu Bang had become addicted to playing cards and was taken by Baozi to the elderly activity center on the street to play mahjong. I rushed over and saw Liu Bang sitting between two ladies, with Zhao Dage from our street opposite him. The two old ladies looked serious, while Zhao Dage was still smiling. Looking at the pile of money in front of Liu Bang, there were stacks of 100-yuan bills, and occasionally a few 10- or 20-yuan bills. It seemed he hadn't lost much. I said: "Liu Ge, let's go home for dinner."

  Before Liu Bang could speak, Old Zhao chuckled and said: "Can't leave yet, he won seven or eight yuan from us."

  I poured a pile of cash on the table and let them take it themselves, then pulled Liu Bang out while he was struggling and turning his head to say: "This time I'll consider it a gift for meeting my elder brother and sister, next time we play with blood." This scene is so similar to when my dad dragged me out of the arcade all those years ago.

  As I walked out the door, I said gloomily: "Liu Ge, you're also someone who has been an emperor in Chinese history, running here to win money from old ladies for groceries, do you think it's interesting?"

  Liu Bang said with a sigh: "Then what do you want me to do? I thought it would be fun, but it's just the same old thing. Squeezed in a sedan chair watching tigers bite deer, living in a big and cold house, the food is okay, but after a long time, it gets boring too. The women are all mediocre and only care about dressing up, except for Baozi who looks good, you won't even let me touch her. The only good thing is that I have more free time than before, what's the point of not playing cards?"

  I said: "Then you can't always win over others, those two old ladies are still living on low pensions."

  Liu Bang said: "Then I'll occasionally lose a couple of rounds too. Actually, I just love watching them lose money. We're not short on cash, are we?"

  Look at how he uses "I" and "us", it's more vivid than a Han language literature undergraduate, this one word is worth 5 million, I'll give him a share. Liu Bang is a man of four words: wine, lust, wealth, and anger.

  Lunch was again hosted by Baozi, and from far away from home, you could hear the cheerful sound of chopping vegetables and the sizzling sound of oil in the pot. The small gate's Baozi treated the experiences of the past few days as a dream, woke up and forgot about it, never thinking that she could really be a princess - if there were princesses as ugly as her in the world, if she were born in the Han Dynasty, she would have been an empress.

  What delights me is that, apart from Li Shishi's relatively low mood, the other members of the five-man group didn't feel uncomfortable at all when they returned to their cramped pawnshop from the luxurious hotel. As Liu Bang summed it up, for them, it was just another big and cold house; they had lived in even bigger and colder houses before, and now that so many people were crowded together, it actually made them feel very novel and peaceful. In the words of Qin Shi Huang, this is the only place where he doesn't have to worry about someone harming him while sleeping next to him (if Cao Cao came, he would definitely need a single room prepared for him). Apart from Xiang Yu looking down on Liu Bang extremely, the five-man group got along very harmoniously with each other.

  In short, they have a good attitude, and I'm the same. My net worth is 50 million, but I still use a blue screen phone, don't I?

  As for Li Shishi, I don't know what she's thinking. Is she really a little fond of Jin Shaoyan or is she feeling a bit lost because she suddenly lost weight and no one praised her? She'll probably be fine in a few days.

  Now I have at least some money in hand, what I need to do is think about the future. If the police don't come knocking on my door within these two or three days, I'll have to prepare a place to live that costs 300.

  (I'll rush to finish another chapter tonight, everyone can take a look again tomorrow, something earth-shattering will happen in the next chapter)