The Seven-Hundred-Million-Dollar Trick - Chapter 6

I joined the bleached-haired thug’s livestream.

He grinned nastily and turned his camera toward Mum.

“Look, your son’s here. Tell Chen Mo to get home, or his mum’s dead.”

At my name, my motionless mother struggled to raise her head. Her eyes, swollen shut, opened to the thinnest slits as she searched the screen for me.

I swallowed my fury.

“It’s all right, Mum. I’m coming back.”

Her body shook. I thought she was crying.

Instead, she forced a smile through the gaps where her front teeth had been.

“Son… don’t come back.”

My heart twisted. I almost cried.

I took a deep breath, forced myself to stay calm, and arranged a place for the “hostage exchange.”

Three hours later, I reached a secluded wood on the outskirts of the city, at the very edge of the sewer network.

Not far away, they held my distraught mother by both arms.

As the men began edging toward me, I thrust out my hand, dangling the coin over the cliff.

“Let her go, or I throw it!”

The five or six thugs exchanged calculating looks and slowly closed off my escape. Then they shoved Mum forward. She fell.

I flung the coin into the distance without hesitation, hauled her up, and ran. We jumped back through the manhole.

The thugs hesitated for half a second before leaving us and chasing the coin.

They spotted it beside the mountain road’s guardrail and erupted in joy.

Then headlights blazed, turning the darkness to day.

The truck roared like a cornered, desperate beast.

Guo gave me one long look.

Then came running feet and screams, one after another.

Finally, the crash of the truck breaking through the guardrail and plunging off the cliff.

He had driven over deliberately.

That was his price for my promise to adopt his son.

Dead. The people who had hurt me were finally dead.

A broken, exultant laugh escaped me. I went to retrieve the coin, but Mum caught my arm.

“Don’t go, son. Can’t we just forget the money? Please?”

I wrenched free.

“Don’t be silly, Mum. How can we forget the money? Wait here. Once I’m rich, I’ll bring you to the city. You’ll have a good life!”

I searched along the shattered, blood-spattered railing. Then I saw it.

The coin lay in the grass beside the drop.

I leaned out and stretched my arm toward it.

Behind me, two white headlights suddenly flared…

The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind it. I hadn’t expected a slingshot waiting behind the oriole, too.

I doubled over, gasping for a long time before I could think again.

The pain of dying in two crashes still haunted my body. At last, I saw what I had missed.

How could a gang of thugs who had barely finished middle school have traced my village with such precision? How could they have known the sentencing rules for assault so well?

Someone was behind them.

Someone educated and meticulous.

I remembered the driver’s hysterical laughter as he knocked me over the cliff.

I’d only heard his voice over a phone before, but that was enough.

Shang Yun. The Yundun Group rich boy who had killed Zhao Cheng.

The memory of that scornful, crazed laughter chilled me.

This time, I could not lead danger to Mum again.

She was frail, with several chronic illnesses. She couldn’t hide in the mountains the way I could. Wild animals or a cold snap could kill her.

To be safe, I couldn’t go home, either. Someone might follow.

What could I do?

After a moment’s thought, my heart began hammering.

There was a very simple trick that might work wonders.

I’d thought of using it last time, but I hadn’t dared gamble with Mum’s safety.

Now I had the perfect opportunity. No one would see it coming.

I changed direction and dragged my heavy feet toward the nearby coast.