Chapter 52: Winning A Lottery
"Yes..." Zhang Xiulu nodded depressed.
"Both of your characters are unflattering. My dad is your coworker in the same car workshop. How could you steal from him? Aren't you afraid that others will find out?" Yang Ming looked at Zhang Xiulu in disdain. Based on his age, Yang Ming should address him as 'Uncle' but a guy like him was able to actually commit something so sly.
"We deceived Master Worker Yang[1] by saying that the factory manager was looking for him. At that time, the factory manager was in a meeting. Thus, he would need to wait for quite a while and we seized this opening to come here..." Zhang Xiulu explained, "We also discussed it. We would only take the lottery ticket and not the other things so that even if Master Worker Yang found out that there was a burglary, he would not delve deeply into the matter because nothing was taken.
"You guys are quite thoughtful. You knew that my dad wouldn't notice if a lottery ticket had gone missing!" Yang Mind nodded his head. "Yes, from where did you obtain the key to my house?" Yang Ming recalled that he locked the door before he left!
"We duplicated the key when Master Worker Yang wasn't paying attention!" said Zhang Xiulu.
"Hand it to me!" Yang Ming extended his hand.
Zhang Xiulu obediently took out a key from his pocket and gave it to Yang Ming.
"There's only one?" Yang Ming simply asked a question. Unexpectedly, it was a simple question that led to a lead.
"Yes... Yes!" Zhang Xiulu reluctantly nodded and smiled.
--- "There's another one in the drawer of the cabinet. Hmph!Hmph! I will wreck your house when the opportunity comes. Even if I don't steal anything, I will give your television a bath in the laundry basin!"
"Who are you fooling?" Yang Ming was enraged as he launched a kick that knocked Zhang Xiulu to the ground. Then he walked toward the cabinet and took the key out of the drawer. He left a cold sneer. "You kept one as a backup. Are you waiting for the opportunity to take revenge on me at my house? For example, bathe my TV in the laundry basin?"
"I... I..." Zhang Xiulu was speechless. He couldn't believe that Yang Ming knew what was he thinking. He at least knew that Yang Ming was more than just violent, this kid was quite smart as well. His lies would be exposed by Yang Ming at the moment he spoke them.
"For the sake of my father's honor, I will let today's matters go! However, you shouldn't hold grudges as well. If I find that you took an opportunity to cause problems for my dad, I will not tolerate it. I am someone who went to prison twice and I don't mind going in for another few times. You think it over for yourselves!" Yang Ming kept the two keys as he spoke in an awe-inspiring voice.
Yang Ming felt the matter of him going to prison wasn't something he was proud of but such villains required more vicious methods so that they would be intimidated!
"We wouldn't dare to!" pledged Zhang Xiulu as he nodded his head after listening to those words.
--- "Why would Old Yang have such a ferocious son? I never heard him mention it. Oh, yes! Now that I think about it, I heard that this little brat was the leader of the gang in this area when he was in junior high school! Oh my, why would I mess with him? Would he just let us go like that? Will he take revenge on us in the future?"
Yang Ming knew they were genuinely afraid of him this time. Let's not talk about seeking revenge on his father, now they were afraid of Yang Ming taking revenge on them.
After being assured of their thoughts, Yang Ming walked out of Zhang Xiulu's house satisfied. He hastily walked back to his home. He wanted to clean up the house before Father Yang got back. Since the matter was resolved, there wasn't a need for his father to get worried about the burglary.
Luckily, this place wasn't far away from home. Yang Ming quickly reached his house. At this time, Father Yang had not yet returned. It was easy to see that the factory manager had not yet finished his meeting while my dad was foolishly waiting at his office.
Yang Ming organized the objects back to their original place. Since it was his home, Yang Ming was familiar with the original position of the items. Hence, he managed to quickly tidy up everything.
Only now did Yang Ming take out the lottery ticket. On the top was the popular dual-colored ball game. Even though he didn't know how much money it was worth, he was sure that it wouldn't be millions of yuan. He never heard of the first prize being awarded for the dual-colored ball lottery.
Yang Ming took out his phone book. He looked up the automated inquiry number for the province's lottery center and dialed the number. Following the voice instructions, he entered the numbers on the lottery ticket. The voice on the other end of the phone came out, "Hello, please wait. We are in the process of querying..."
Yang Ming was excited at this moment. Even though it wasn't the biggest prize but at least it hit the jackpot! That was an excitement, a delighted excitement, that was similarly felt by most people!
"Greetings, congratulations. You won the prize for season X's duel-colored ball lottery. The prize is sixty thousand yuan."
Sixty thousand! It was actually sixty thousand! Yang Ming didn't care about the money. But for his family's situation, six million was a great sum of money! If my parents knew, they would be delighted!
Most of the workers of the Song Jiang Car Factory weren't wealthy. No wonder Zhang Xiulu had ill intentions after seeing this amount of money!
After a while, Father Yang returned home. He carried two bags in his hands and spoke as he saw Yang Ming, "Big Ming, I returned home late. I didn't make it in time to prepare lunch. Instead, I have grabbed some dishes and steamed buns from the restaurant downstairs. Quickly finish up your food and go to school!"
After listening, Yang Ming took the things in his father's hands and put it on the dining table in the kitchen. He put the dishes on plates. It was actually shredded pork with chili and soy as well as spicy beancurd [2]. They were Yang Ming's favorite foods!
Yang Ming actually was hungry. He handled Zhang Xiulu for quite a long time which exhausted his energy. Thus, he took a steamed bun and gobbled the food!
After a few bites, Yang Ming realized that his father wasn't eating but rather looking at him in an amicable manner!
"Dad, you also eat!" said Yang Ming.
"I won't eat first; you go ahead. I will take care of it later!" Father Yang said.
"Dad, I can't eat anymore! Hurry and eat!" said Yang Ming as he passed a steamed bun to his dad.
"Never mind. If you can't eat anymore, we can keep it for your dinner!" Father Yang took the steamed bun and put it into a plastic bag.
Yang Ming knew his father was reluctant to eat. In a family like his, they rarely got food from a restaurant unless it was a special occasion! Yang Ming was a bit sad. Suddenly, he thought about the matter of the lottery ticket and asked promptly, "Dad, did you buy any lottery tickets?"
"Lottery ticket? Where would I get the money to purchase such thing!" Father Yang laughed.
"Dad, you didn't buy this?" Yang Ming took the lottery ticket and put it on the table.
Chapter 53: Contact Lenses' Flaws
"Oh? Are you talking about this? Hehe, I had almost forgotten where I put it. I never thought you would find it!" Father Yang took the lottery ticket and looked at it, then he threw it back on the table. "That day I was rushing to get some change and then arbitrarily bought a lottery ticket. We would never hit a jackpot anyway! Later on, when you are leaving, do throw it away for me and make sure that your mom doesn't see it or else she would blame me for wasting money again! On that day I wanted to toss it out immediately but I seem to have left it somewhere!"
Throw it away? Yang Ming sweated! It seemed that father never thought he would hit the jackpot! This also meant that without the Zhang Xiulu brothers, this lottery ticket would have been under his bed forever! He really has to thank both of them!
"Dad, I'm glad you didn't throw it away!" Yang Ming smiled bitterly. "Dad, this is a winning lottery ticket!"
"What? I won? Stop joking with me. People who buy it every day don't even win and my one-time purchase hit the jackpot?" Yang Ming's father shook his head skeptically. "Stop making me happy. Alright, I will have a meal with you then!"
Father Yang actually thought that Yang Ming was lying to him so that he would eat his meal peacefully.
"Dad, I'm not lying to you. If you don't believe me, give a call and check it out!" Yang Ming pointed to the telephone. "I just finished checking it so the phone book is still out here!"
"Really?" Father Yang took the lottery ticket and stared at it dubiously but he still went to the telephone and called the lottery inquiry hotline.
Gradually, Father Yang's expression turned into an elated one and he hung up the phone. Father Yang said happily. "We actually hit the jackpot! It's a lump sum of sixty thousand yuan! Son, this time you have done a great deed for the family. If it wasn't because of you finding out about this lottery ticket, this prize would have been gone!"
"Dad, now you believe me! Quickly have your meal!" Yang Ming was glad to see how joyous his dad was.
"Oh yes! Right after that, I have to call your mom to tell her the good news so that she can also share our joy and we can celebrate tonight!" Father Yang was really excited.
"Dad, I have something to say but I don't know whether I should tell you or not. You know what? I must say it." Yang Ming said seriously.
"What?" Father Yang asked feeling troubled.
"Dad, I think that the matter about us winning the lottery should just be kept between the three of us at home. Keep it as a secret from all your relatives and friends!" Yang Ming shared this because he thought about it few times. After the incident with Zhang Xiulu, Yang Ming realized that men are greedy by nature. He wouldn't want to change his usual peaceful life just because his dad had won the lottery!
"Why? Isn't this a great thing? We could tell our friends and relatives so that they could share the joy together!" Father Yang didn't understand his son's explanation.
"Dad, do you think that people would be happy when you tell them that you won the lottery?" Yang Ming questioned instead. "People really don't like others who are better off than them. Those entrepreneurs who earned millions wouldn't care anything about this but when people see others who earn slightly more than them, they would be jealous to death! Alright, even if they weren't jealous of you, are you sure that they won't actually want you to buy them a meal or borrow money from you? If you said no to all these requests, they would say that you were a selfish person! Sixty thousand yuan isn't exactly a large figure. If you had a few cases of what I mentioned, then there wouldn't be much money left. We could even end up with a deficit in our saving accounts!"
Once he heard Yang Ming's words, Father Yang calmed down too! Yup, what Yang Ming said wasn't unreasonable. There were a lot of similar stories like this in the newspaper. A person who announced that he won the lottery had his relatives and friends come over to ask for cash. Moreover, sixty thousand yuan wasn't exactly a huge amount! Once all of this cash was gone and people still came to borrow money from you, then if you say that you ran out of cash, they would think that you were using an excuse to not lend money to them!
As he thought about this, Father Yang's forehead became drenched with cold sweat. He was too naive and wasn't able to see through things as clearly as his son! But he was also really glad because the student had surpassed the master. This meant that when his son goes in society, he wouldn't be taking any unnecessary losses!
Father Yang nodded his head quietly, and then sighed and said, "Alright! I will listen to you. This prize money is to be kept for your university fees. We can't just spend it like that!"
Yang Ming smiled and didn't say anything. Yang Ming didn't believe that he wouldn't be able to earn anything once he entered university! He had already gotten some superpowers, therefore, no matter how poor he was, he believed he would at least be able to get the necessary income. Those web novels on "Qidian" [1] always talked about how there were many characters who were in far worse situations than him and still succeeded in life. Why would he not make it?
That afternoon, Yang Ming practiced his newly discovered ability. This was a tremendous breakthrough. It would simply be too cool to know what other people were thinking.
Think about it. If you were picking up girls and you knew what they are thinking, you could adjust your words to what they preferred and have an easy win!
Or when you were discussing business with others, you would be able to know what the other person's baseline or figures were. These things would give you an insurmountable advantage!
Yang Ming decided to test looking at Chen Mengyan's thoughts so he turned his eyesight to look at Chen Mengyan. One minute, two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, and even half an hour had passed by but Yang Ming could not see anything!
It cannot be. Could Chen Mengyan not be thinking about anything during this past half an hour? Yang Ming shook his head. This possibility was near zero. How could she not be thinking about anything? Unless she was in a coma.
What's actually happening? Yang Ming wasn't willing to give up. He looked at Wang Zhitao but he also didn't receive any signal. Next, Yang Ming switched to a few other people to experiment with but none of them yielded any reward.
Could this ability differ by person? Not really, Yang Ming remembered that he wasn't able to receive their thoughts when the two thieves walked back!
What could it be then? Could it be that this was just an extra experimental function of the contact lenses - that it was sometimes useable and sometimes not? Or was it because he hadn't yet grasped the key points of using the function?
Yang Ming recalled the afternoon's scene in detail but regrettably, he didn't find anything! It seemed like there was nothing special in that situation. He wasn't attempting to consciously peek into their thinking, it was just that he unconsciously received their thinking!
Yang Ming tested for a while longer but it was all to no avail. Eventually, he gave up. He had decided that this was a flaw in the contacts.
However, Yang Ming didn't feel disappointed. These lenses already had plenty of other functions that he was grateful for. He wasn't a person who was that greedy.