The Seven-Hundred-Million-Dollar Trick - Chapter 1
The coin dragged at my pocket, bouncing with every step. My heart bounced with it.
Seven days. Seven hundred million dollars.
It sounded like a daydream too good to be true.
I soon discovered it was nothing of the kind.
The billionaire had an enormous following. Whenever he went live, hundreds of thousands tuned in. Within minutes, the news had spread across the city.
He hadn’t given my name or described my appearance, only said that I was a magician who had been performing at a certain place and time.
But someone soon posted a photograph in the comments.
“The magician at the south end of Ziqi Avenue? This guy, right? Snapped him when I walked past this morning. His tricks sucked 😛 How does a loser like that get so damn lucky?”
Someone else posted a video. “My family has a shop nearby. This is from our security camera. He went north along Ziqi Avenue.”
My stomach dropped.
I knew both of them.
The photographer was a college girl who had been coming to my shows lately. She never tipped, but she was always telling me how wonderful my tricks were.
The shopkeeper was a middle-aged man. I bought my cigarettes from him. He was curious about how magic worked; we’d chatted a few times, and he’d told me he envied my freedom.
Why were they putting my details online?
What did they gain by hurting me?
Then I realized that it made perfect sense.
Seven hundred million dollars was enough to make anyone bleed envy.
Some people knew they weren’t strong enough to fight for the coin. Others were too cautious to take the risk. They wouldn’t join the hunt themselves.
But they couldn’t bear to watch someone else get rich so easily, either.
The whole city was about to have the time of its life.
No wonder the billionaire had given me that meaningful look when he handed over the coin.
“Good luck.”
Right now, I needed it.
About five hundred meters ahead, men were blocking the street.
A group of burly guys with radios had posted themselves at the north end of Ziqi Avenue. They grabbed every man who looked roughly my age and height, then held up their phones to compare his face with the photograph.
People complained—until they got a look at the muscles. Then they shut up.
Most of the men wore tank tops and shorts. Probably members of the second-floor gym overlooking the street.
Compared with them, I was a scrawny little runt. Any one of them could pin me down and beat me senseless.
Turning back was probably out of the question, too.
The men were barely ten meters apart. They didn’t need radios to talk to one another. If they’d brought radios, someone had to be watching from upstairs.
At this distance, the moment I turned around, they would notice.
My mind raced. I hesitated for a fraction of a second, kept my pace steady, and angled to the left.
That tiny change was enough. A man at the junction raised his radio to his ear, listened, then stood on tiptoe to look my way.
Fortunately, several hundred meters still separated us.
He narrowed his eyes. An unfamiliar face was hard to identify at that distance, and I’d already taken off the jacket I was wearing in the security footage.
Instead of raising the alarm and spooking me, he called over a friend. The two of them began closing in from behind, one on each side.
I pretended not to notice.
“Excuse me, sir, miss!” I said brightly. “Would you like some gold?”
The two people on the roadside bench blinked.
“Gold? No, thank you. We’re not buying anything.”
They were about twenty, sitting shyly side by side, each clutching an almost empty cup of milk tea and stealing glances at the other.
I had them figured out instantly.
First love. Not quite together yet. First date.
They would be too embarrassed to check their phones in the middle of a date. Chances were they hadn’t heard about the billionaire’s livestream.
More importantly, the boy was about my build, and his jacket looked like mine.
Magic is an art made of light, angles, and timing.
“I’m not selling gold,” I said with a smile. “Our jewelry store is celebrating its anniversary. We’re running a couples’ challenge. Would you like to try?”
There really was a jewelry store three or four hundred meters down the street behind us.
I kept lying without a blush. “If the gentleman can run from this spot to our front door in ninety seconds, the lady gets a gold ring as a souvenir.”
“Seriously?” They looked doubtful.
Fair enough. Gold prices were high. It was an absurdly generous promotion.
If gold wouldn’t turn their heads, love would have to do the job.
I took a gold-colored ring from my pocket and handed it to the boy, inviting him to put it on the girl’s finger himself.
It was only a cheap imitation-gold ring I used for audience participation. It had cost a little over ten yuan.
Both of them went scarlet. With trembling fingers, the boy took it and solemnly slipped it onto her hand.
“It looks lovely on you, miss. What do you think, sir? Still not interested?” I spread my hands, all casual innocence. “If you don’t take the challenge, I’ll need the ring back.”
“…I want it,” the girl whispered.
The boy looked utterly bewitched. He nodded before he knew what he was doing.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the two big men moving into position. They were less than a hundred meters away.
I hit the timer.
“Your time starts now. Run!”
The boy jolted, leaped off the bench, and sprinted back down the street without a second thought. He tore through the crowd like a gust of wind, turning heads, moving so fast that all anyone could make out was the flapping corner of his jacket.
“After him!”
The two men immediately changed direction and chased him.
The girl jumped. “Why are they chasing him? Is that part of the challenge?”
Several seconds passed. No answer.
She looked around.
The man who was supposed to be standing beside her with a timer had vanished.
