"Here's your payment for that North Africa job."
Old Man Lin carefully pulled two crumpled hundred-yuan bills from a tattered cloth bundle and handed them to Lin Yi, who was watching with eager, hopeful eyes.
Lin Yi couldn't wrap his head around it. The mission he'd completed was incredibly dangerous, the enemies were overwhelmingly powerful, and his client had made a fortune from it—yet his cut was pathetically small.
Where the hell does the old man find these garbage jobs?
Every single time, Lin Yi risked his life for fifty or a hundred yuan. On good days. Sometimes it was three yuan, maybe two... Just thinking about it made him want to cry.
As he took the two hundred yuan he'd nearly died for, what Lin Yi really wanted to say was: What a load of crap!
He was an orphan who'd never known his mother.
For fifteen years, he'd studied martial arts under Old Man Lin, his adoptive father. Fifteen years of training, becoming what anyone would call a master of both literature and martial arts.
In ancient times, he would've been the top scholar in both categories! Instead, here he was being treated like manual labor... When would this miserable life ever end?
Construction workers in the city made tens of thousands a year, while he risked his neck daily for an annual income of barely eighteen hundred yuan...
"Old man, are you screwing me over? Two hundred yuan? Are you pocketing my real payment?"
Lin Yi had suspected this more than once, but the old man wore the same clothes and ate the same food as him—he didn't look wealthy at all.
"Be grateful you're getting paid at all. You think making money is easy these days?"
Old Man Lin rolled his eyes and snapped irritably. "What? Don't want it? If you don't, give it back. I haven't had a proper meal at Widow Wang's place at the village edge in ages."
"..."
Lin Yi wanted to punch the scrawny old man in front of him, but he knew he'd be the one getting beaten if he tried.
Lin Yi had no idea just how incredible Old Man Lin's martial arts were.
He only knew that the old man never went all-out when they sparred.
Every time Lin Yi's skills improved, he'd suddenly realize the old man had also leveled up, leaving Lin Yi still his defeated opponent.
"Alright, you've been trained enough these past few years. That big job—it's about time."
Old Man Lin didn't even look up, sitting cross-legged on the kang, munching on star anise beans. "Pull this mission off, and you'll never go hungry again!"
"Really? Or are you bullshitting me?"
Lin Yi knew that everything he'd learned since the old man found him scavenging at age three—martial arts, medicine, worldly knowledge—was all for some big job.
But Lin Yi seriously doubted whether this big job's payment would really be what the old man claimed: one mission that could support him for life.
"Have I ever lied to you?"
Old Man Lin tossed another star anise bean into his mouth. "Going or not? If not, I'll find someone else."
"I'm going! Of course I'm going!"
Lin Yi thought to himself: Only an idiot would turn down a deal like this!
One mission for a lifetime of security. No more risking his neck every day. Even if it meant entering a dragon's den or tiger's lair, it was worth betting his life on!
"Good, then go. Head to Songshan City, find Pengzhan Group, and look for a man named Chu Pengzhan. He'll tell you what to do next."
A barely noticeable sly smile crept across Old Man Lin's lips. "But think carefully. Once you take this mission, you have to see it through to the end. No backing out halfway."
"Why not? What if it's too dangerous and I need to run?"
Lin Yi wasn't someone who charged blindly ahead—he absolutely refused jobs that were certain death.
"Yi, my boy, I've raised you for fifteen years, fed you, given you drink, bought you a laptop, got you a 3G card..."
The old man's eyes bulged as he launched into his endless litany of complaints. "Ask me to do one little favor and you give me this much grief? I'll disown you!"
"Damn it!"
Lin Yi got pissed hearing this. "Sure, you raised me the first three years, but from age six on, I've been cooking, chopping firewood, weaving straw sandals to make money and support you! You're the one who should stop threatening me!"
"Think I don't know you sneak onto that computer at night to watch porn?"
The old man's eyes went wide. "You made me say it! You sit in front of that computer and—"
"Fine... I'll go... I won't run away, okay? Happy now?"
Lin Yi's face turned red. He was genuinely embarrassed that the old bastard had caught him in his most secretive activities.
If he let this continue, the old man would probably expose the really explicit stuff too.
And so, under Old Man Lin's combination of threats and temptation, Lin Yi shouldered his pack and boarded a northbound train, traveling all the way to Songshan City—this modern international metropolis.
On the train, Lin Yi was thinking: From now on, I need to encrypt my porn and hide it in system file folders. And when I'm doing that... business, I need to be alert in all directions.
Still, Lin Yi was excited about this mission. A job that could set him up for retirement was a dream come true.
Admittedly, from what Old Man Lin had said, this mission didn't sound easy.
Well, that's exactly why it's worth the challenge!
Pop
The pockmarked guy sitting across from Lin Yi opened a cola can and tossed the pull-tab onto the table.
The bald guy next to him casually picked up the tab and started fiddling with it in his hands. Suddenly, he shouted loudly:
"Whoa! Whoa! Holy shit! First prize!"
The bald guy's voice wasn't that loud in the noisy train car, but nearby passengers all turned to look.
The pockmarked guy was no exception. Realizing the pull-tab in the bald guy's hand was the one he'd thrown away, his expression grew unnatural. "Give it back, that's mine..."
"What's yours? Where's your name written on it?"
The bald guy pulled his right hand back, gripping the tab tightly, his eyes wide. "Is your name 'First Prize'?"
"No... I'm not First Prize... but that winning pull-tab is the one I threw away..."
The pockmarked guy looked at the bald guy's menacing expression and felt a bit intimidated, but he couldn't give up his rights. He stared longingly at the pull-tab.
"You said it yourself—you threw it away. Thrown-away stuff belongs to whoever picks it up."
The bald guy snorted dismissively.
"Hey, that's not fair!"
The pockmarked guy suddenly got anxious and called out to a passenger sitting across from him—the glasses-wearing man next to Lin Yi's left. "Sir, you look like a scholar. Please judge this. Isn't this cheating?"
"Who's cheating?"
The bald guy also got offended and turned to the glasses-wearing man. "Sir, please tell us who this pull-tab belongs to."
"Well..."
The glasses-wearing man adjusted his glasses, hesitated briefly, then said, "I'm a university professor. If you both trust me, I'll make a judgment."
"Please, go ahead!"
Both the pockmarked guy and bald guy nodded, staring anxiously at the self-proclaimed professor.
"Logically speaking, since this pull-tab came from the drink can this gentleman opened, it originally belongs to him..."
Halfway through the professor's words, the pockmarked guy looked smug while the bald guy started getting anxious. Just as he was about to say something, the glasses-wearing man waved his hand to stop him and continued:
"However, since this gentleman threw the pull-tab away and this gentleman picked it up, it should belong to the one who picked it up..."
"But Professor, you said that pull-tab was mine..."
The pockmarked guy's face immediately fell after hearing this.
"I think we should do this: you two split the prize. That way nobody loses out!"
The professor suggested.
"Split it..."
The bald guy hesitated after hearing this, then gritted his teeth. "Fine, let's split it."
The bald guy probably realized his logic was a bit shaky, which is why he agreed to the professor's suggestion.
The pockmarked guy, seeing that the pull-tab was in the bald guy's hands and knowing he might get nothing if he didn't agree, figured half was better than nothing and nodded in agreement.
"Good, since you both agree, let's split it."
The professor took the cola can from the pockmarked guy to examine it, then said, "It says here that first prize is 100,000 yuan, but after 20% personal income tax, 80,000 yuan remains. However, claiming the prize is complicated, so how about one of you claims it and gives the other 30,000 yuan?"
"Sure!"
The pockmarked guy immediately agreed, happy to get any money at all. "Give me 30,000 yuan and you can go claim it!"