Chapter 2 — The Scam

"I haven't got that kind of money either. So what are we supposed to do now?" Pockmarked Face said, his own face a study in misery. "Look at me. Do I look like a man who can pull thirty thousand yuan out of his pocket?"

"Sir, can't you think of something for us? Neither of us brought that kind of money," Pockmarked Face pleaded again, turning to the man in glasses for help.

The man in glasses mused for a moment, then ventured, "How about this, then — I give you thirty thousand each, and you hand me the pull tab so I can go collect the prize?"

Pockmarked Face and Buzz Cut exchanged a glance. That way, each of them would still walk off with thirty thousand. So they agreed. "Fine. Let's do it that way."

A flicker of secret delight crossed the man's face. He drew over his briefcase and began digging for money. At first he still looked pleased, but as his hands rifled faster through the bag, his expression darkened by degrees and beads of sweat began to seep from his forehead. At last he heaved a mournful sigh. "Blast it. I didn't bring much cash when I left the house today. I've only got thirty thousand on me, and there's no way you two would sell for that. To watch a fortune like this slip right through my fingers — what rotten luck."

"What?" Pockmarked Face and Buzz Cut were struck dumb. If the man in glasses had no money and neither did they, how were they ever going to split the winnings? Pockmarked Face could sit still no longer. "Sir, you're a learned man, a man of culture — think of something for us, won't you..."

"Ah... how about this — we ask someone else..." Saying so, the man in glasses turned to Wei Zhao, who was sitting nearby. "Young brother, this is a golden chance, the kind that comes once in a lifetime. Have you got money on you? Give them thirty thousand each first, then take the pull tab and go claim the prize — you'll clear twenty thousand in one stroke. Is there a faster way to turn a profit anywhere? If I'd brought cash today, I'd have kept this windfall for myself..."

All this time Wei Zhao had watched the three of them coldly, putting on their little play. It was plain enough that the three were in it together: Pockmarked Face was the seller, Buzz Cut the buyer, and the man in glasses the shill.

Wei Zhao had grown up in the mountains, but he was no fool. He might dress like a country bumpkin, but when it came to learning, few men could hold a candle to him — to say nothing of three third-rate swindlers.

"Me?" Wei Zhao pointed at himself with a look of great astonishment. "Could I do it?"

"Of course you can. This stroke of good fortune has just landed right in your lap." Since Wei Zhao had asked whether he could, rather than saying he had no money either, the man in glasses was overjoyed. Anyone who answered like that had cash in his bag, nine times out of ten.

Wei Zhao was about to say something more when he felt a kick against his leg. He slid a glance out of the corner of his eye to his right. It was a very pretty girl, about his own age.

Her hair flowed like water, her skin was fair, and though she had not stood up, by Wei Zhao's reckoning she was at least a meter sixty-five — tall and slender, by any measure.

Ever since she had boarded the train, she had sat listening quietly to her MP3 player. Wei Zhao had half a mind to strike up a conversation with her, to pass the tedium of the journey, but the girl had kept her earphones in the whole way, giving him no opening.

And now she was watching him with an anxious face, wanting to speak yet plainly wary of doing so. She could only signal to him with her eyes.

Wei Zhao understood well enough what she meant: don't let yourself be taken in. Warmth rose in his heart. Wasn't it said that city people were all cold and indifferent, that anything not their own business they simply ignored? Yet this girl had tried to warn him — which showed the goodness of her heart.

And so the girl's image rose several notches in Wei Zhao's estimation. Good looks were all very well, but a beautiful girl with a vicious heart was good for nothing. That was Wei Zhao's standard for judging a girl.

"Ahem." Buzz Cut, sitting across from the girl, seemed to catch on to what she was doing. He coughed loudly and shot her a vicious glare. The girl went pale with fright and lowered her head.

Naturally, none of these small details escaped Wei Zhao's eyes. But he had been bored senseless on this journey, and he had left home seething after a quarrel with the old man, with nowhere to vent his temper. Here were a few fools knocking at his door — how could he pass up the chance to toy with them?

Yet though the girl had lowered her head, she kept nudging him with her foot, still trying to warn him. Wei Zhao, however, seemed not to feel it at all, and remained utterly unmoved.

"I've only got forty-nine thousand on me — not that much, I'm afraid," Wei Zhao said, putting on the look of a simple, honest bumpkin.

Across from him, Pockmarked Face and Buzz Cut, hearing that he had forty-nine thousand, shot brilliant beams from their eyes. Even so, they kept their faces puckered like bitter melons. "Only forty-nine thousand? Isn't that a bit short? How much would each of us get?"

"Forty-nine thousand divided by two is twenty-four thousand five hundred..." Buzz Cut said, doing the sum aloud.

"Twenty-four thousand five hundred? That's not bad at all. I'm in. What about you?" Pockmarked Face nodded hastily.

"Fine. Since you agree, I agree too." Buzz Cut nodded. "Hand over the money."

Wei Zhao opened his backpack and took out a small parcel wrapped in newspaper. He peeled back the layers one by one, revealing five neat bundles of cash.

"Forty-nine thousand. That's all there is... count it if you want," Wei Zhao said in his plain, honest way. "Now give me the pull tab."

This money was the living allowance the old man had given Wei Zhao to last him for years to come. But over the past few years, Wei Zhao had earned the old man quite a fortune—take that assassination mission in North Africa, for instance. By international standards, that alone should have brought in at least several hundred thousand as a reward, surely?

And yet, when Wei Zhao was about to leave, the old man had ransacked every drawer and corner, finally scraping together this forty-nine thousand yuan from a battered old bag, insisting it was the family's entire savings and urging him to spend it sparingly.

It left Wei Zhao feeling rather frustrated. Was the old man genuinely broke, or was he just playacting at poverty? Then again, it didn't look like an act—the old man ate exactly what Wei Zhao ate and never seemed to enjoy any kind of luxury. Could it be that he had simply overestimated how much those missions paid?

"Sure, sure," the pockmarked man and the crew-cut man said, and like a pair of hungry wolves, they quickly split the cash in front of them, cleaning it down to the last bill before handing the pull tab to Wei Zhao.

Wei Zhao stowed the pull tab carefully on himself, as if afraid of dropping it, handling it as preciously as though it were a rare treasure.

Seeing the three swindlers get away with it, the girl sitting beside Wei Zhao let out a helpless sigh. Watching the delighted look on his face, like that of someone who had just won a prize, she truly didn't know what to say.

With the money in hand, the three swindlers slipped back into their earlier composure, acting as though they didn't know one another at all, each going about his own business.