The Seven-Hundred-Million-Dollar Trick - Chapter 5

…I died anyway.

I opened my eyes with a violent shudder.

The horror was still vivid. My legs wouldn’t stop shaking. I slapped myself across the face to snap out of it.

They really hadn’t been able to find me. Even the magic enthusiasts who guessed I had gone underground couldn’t work out where I was.

So they found my family.

My father had died years ago. My mother was a country woman.

Our village lay deep in the mountains. It had no internet and had only recently received electricity. You couldn’t even find its name on a map. My household registration was in the township, which administered more than fifty mountain villages of all sizes.

I’d thought no amount of doxxing could uncover my home.

I had badly underestimated them.

They found no digital or written records. Apart from Zhao Cheng, who was dead, no one even knew the village’s name.

But with my face and name, they tracked down my vocational college. A few visits yielded scraps of information from former classmates.

They pieced it together: how long it took me to travel home, the local specialties I brought back, details of my accent. They narrowed it to an area about a hundred and fifty kilometers south of the city.

Only five villages lay in that area.

On the fourth day, they arrived at mine. That afternoon, they found my mother.

They dragged her out of the house and humiliated her in public.

On a livestream, the thugs declared that for every day I stayed hidden, they would spend another day torturing her.

Mum had always been a timid, frail woman. Ever since I was in my teens, she’d waited for me to decide everything, from changing a light bulb to buying a piglet.

How terrified she must have been.

I immediately made an anonymous call to the police.

The next day, the stream was still running. A different thug with bleached hair had taken over the abuse.

They weren’t worried. They knew a lawyer, they said. They’d checked: intentionally inflicting “serious injury” carried a sentence of between three and ten years.

And serious injury covered so very much.

A ruptured eyeball. A colostomy bag for life. A crippled limb.

The bleached-haired thug planted a foot on Mum’s head and spat a thick glob of phlegm.

“Ten years, so what? I’ll pretend I’m doing factory work. Turning screws won’t earn me US dollars.”

I furiously typed that if they hurt her again, once I got the money, I would offer hundreds of millions for their lives.

The thug pulled a face at the camera.

“Ooh, hundreds of millions. I’m so scared.”

“Maybe I’ll be dead. But you won’t have a mum, either.”

“Ha! Go on. Take that bet if you’ve got the balls.”

“Fucking lunatic!”

I kicked the wall and screamed until, suddenly, I went still.

They had my mother. However tough I talked, I couldn’t hold out forever.

But there was an old saying: the weak fear the strong, the strong fear the ruthless, and the ruthless fear those who have nothing left to lose.

However vicious these men were, they still wanted to live.

And I knew a man who was truly desperate.

I scrolled quickly through the billionaire’s comments, found a familiar avatar, and sent a message.

Silence Is Golden: “I’m Chen Mo, the man with the coin. Do something for me. When you die, I’ll adopt your son and make sure he grows up healthy and happy.”

Single Dad Guo’s Cancer Diary: “Are you serious?”

I invited him straight into a video call.

Guo sat on a bed against a wall with peeling plaster. His face was gray-blue, his lips bloodless.

His boy sat on his knee, holding a plain steamed bun. Six short birthday candles stuck out of it. The child seemed to be singing.

When Guo saw my face clearly, he startled. Then, as if something had clicked, his expression darkened and he sent the boy out of the room.

He studied me warily.

“We’re not friends or family. But we’ve got no quarrel, either, have we? Why come to me?”

That familiar face stirred more feelings than I could name.

He had killed me with his own hands the previous time. Yet deep down, I didn’t hate him all that much. Not the way I hated Zhao Cheng.

Compared with Zhao Cheng’s inexplicable betrayal, at least I could understand him. He was a murderer, yes, but also a father with nowhere left to turn.

I was asking him because I didn’t dare work with people who had no limits at all.

I took a breath and put on the lofty manner of the rich.

“I’m offering you an opportunity. And… the truth is, I was six when my dad died of liver cancer, too. I feel sorry for your boy. I want to help.”

“If you’re not interested, forget it.”

“Plenty of people want this money.”

I delivered it all in one breath, then pretended to reach for the button to end the call.

“I’ll do it!” he cried. “Mr. Chen, I’ll do it!”

I slowly withdrew my hovering finger.

And smiled.