Chapter 3 — Are You Rich? The Girl No Longer Kicked Wei Zhao in the Leg, but Leaned Against the Window, Quietly Listening to Her MP3

"Songshan Station is approaching. Passengers getting off, please prepare yourselves. This train will stop for fifteen minutes." The announcement came over the train's speakers, and Wei Zhao began gathering his luggage, preparing to disembark.

To his surprise, the girl beside him began gathering her things as well. Apparently, she was getting off at Songshan Station too.

When the girl stood up, Wei Zhao gave her a quick once-over. His estimate had been right: she was roughly a hundred and sixty-five centimeters tall.

After getting off the train, Wei Zhao stared in amazement at the station's magnificent architecture. He had visited this place once, ten years ago, but in the decade since, Songshan had undergone a complete transformation.

"Wait." A sweet female voice sounded behind him. Wei Zhao stopped and instinctively turned around.

It was the girl who had been sitting beside him on the train. She was waving as she hurried toward him.

"Is something wrong?" Wei Zhao certainly did not believe she had fallen for him at first sight. He was fairly handsome, true, but his clothes were hopelessly rustic: mustard-yellow trousers and a white undershirt, the sort of outfit worn by migrant laborers who had come to the city looking for work.

"You are not actually planning to redeem that prize, are you?" the girl asked bitterly. She was angry that Wei Zhao had ignored her warning on the train.

"Oh, you mean this?" Wei Zhao took the pull tab from his pocket and casually tossed it onto the roadside.

"What?" This time, it was the girl's turn to stare in stunned disbelief. She had never imagined that Wei Zhao would make such a move.

"You... you threw it away?" The girl pointed at Wei Zhao in astonishment, her mouth hanging open.

"Yeah. I threw it away." Wei Zhao nodded. "It was fake in the first place. There was no point keeping it."

"You knew it was fake?" The girl's mind seemed to seize up at his words. She stared at him blankly. What on earth was wrong with this man? He knew it was fake, yet he had still paid for it. Was he insane? And judging by his appearance, he did not look like some rich man with a bizarre sense of humor.

"I knew. And even if I hadn't, you warned me on the train." Wei Zhao shrugged.

"Then why did you give them the money?" The girl grew frantic. What kind of person was he?

Wei Zhao smiled, slipped his backpack from his shoulder, and unzipped it. Then he opened it wide in front of her.

The girl cast him a puzzled glance before lowering her head to look inside the backpack. The moment she saw what was there, she nearly jumped. There were seven or eight bundles of banknotes inside.

"You are rich? Even if you are, you cannot spend money so recklessly." The girl did not quite understand what Wei Zhao meant. She assumed he was showing off how wealthy he was.

"This is the money from earlier," Wei Zhao said.

"The money from earlier? What do you mean?" The girl had not understood. "Are you saying you got the money back? There were only forty-nine thousand, were there not? That looks like seventy or eighty thousand."

"The bespectacled man had another thirty thousand on him. I took that too." Wei Zhao shrugged. It had been nothing, merely a matter of lifting a finger. For him, it could not have been easier.

"Huh?" This time, the girl was completely dumbfounded. It was not that Wei Zhao had something wrong with him. He had simply been one step ahead. Not only had he recovered his own money, he had casually walked off with the bespectacled man's money as well.

"Why the look on your face? You are not thinking of reporting me for theft, are you? You have quite a strong sense of justice." Seeing her astonishment, Wei Zhao smiled and teased her.

"Of course not." The girl's face flushed, and she shook her head.

"Still, thank you for earlier. There are not many girls like you." Wei Zhao spoke sincerely. "How about I buy you a meal later?"

"No, thanks…" The girl twisted shyly, shaking her head. "My family is waiting for me at the exit."

Wei Zhao nodded at her answer and did not press the matter. Picking up girls was a technical skill, but it also required letting things take their natural course; being too deliberate would backfire. "Then I won't disturb you."

Wang Xinyan watched Wei Zhao's receding figure and shook her head. What a peculiar man he was. If her mother had not been waiting for her at the exit, she would not have minded getting to know him a little better.

It was not that she had any particular fondness for Wei Zhao, only that he seemed truly out of the ordinary—carrying that much cash in his backpack instead of putting it in a bank, dressed in the shabbiest clothes possible, yet possessing an indescribable sort of presence.

"Sir, need a room? Very cheap…"

The moment Wei Zhao stepped out of the train station, he was surrounded by a crowd of touts from nearby inns. A getup like his, a migrant worker's attire, made him the prime target for these small lodgings' business.

Who among the rich would stay at such small inns? The big hotels did not need to send people out to hustle customers.

Wei Zhao waved them off, pushed through the ring of touts, and headed toward the taxi stand in the square. In his hand he held a slip of paper—the address the old man had given him before he left.

He got into a taxi, and the driver asked warmly, "So, young man, where are you headed?"

"To this address." Wei Zhao handed the slip of paper to the driver.

This driver was one of those who hung around the train station area all day, and he could size up a passenger at a glance. One look at Wei Zhao told him this was an out-of-towner, probably a laborer come to find work. So he figured he could fleece him a bit—the kid would not know his way around anyway. Grinning with satisfaction, he took the paper Wei Zhao handed him, glanced at the address, and his face instantly turned green.

The slip read: No. 36 Guangming Avenue, Songshan City, Pengzhan Tower. 11.2 kilometers from the train station, taking the new Second Ring Bridge.

The route had already been mapped out, and the distance was marked to the decimal. What was there left to fleece anyone on? But why would this kid be going to Pengzhan Tower? That was the biggest conglomerate in Songshan City. Could a man dressed like a migrant laborer possibly know anyone inside?

The driver sighed, tossed the paper aside, and drove on without any tricks.

The traffic in Songshan was smooth, and there were plenty of bridges, so Wei Zhao felt that he had reached his destination almost before he knew it, going up one and down the next. He paid the fare of twenty-four yuan and got out of the car.

Gazing up at the towering building before him, Wei Zhao felt a little dizzy. Wasn't this even taller than the mountains back home? His employer must be wealthy indeed—maybe it really was as the old man had said, that a single job could keep him set for life. He just wondered whether jumping off the top would kill him.

Then again, back home, the old man had once kicked him in a flying boot from the mountaintop straight down into a ravine, and he had not died—just ended up black-and-blue with a swollen face, lying in bed for several days.

Wei Zhao confirmed the building number and the name of the tower, and only after verifying that there was no mistake did he stride boldly through the entrance.

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