Chapter 2 — The Scam
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
In that instant the girl gained several more points in Wei Zhao's estimation. That a girl was pretty mattered, of course, but if her heart were vicious, then no amount of beauty would be of any use. That was Wei Zhao's standard for judging girls.
"Cough, cough." The buzz-cut man sitting opposite the girl seemed to notice what she was doing, and at once broke into loud coughing, shooting her a vicious glare. Frightened pale, the girl lowered her head.
Naturally such small maneuvers could not escape Wei Zhao's eyes. But Wei Zhao was bored stiff on this journey, and after leaving home with a bellyful of anger at the old man and nowhere to vent it, here were several fools delivering themselves to his door. How could he miss this chance to toy with them?
The girl kept her head down, yet she went on nudging Wei Zhao with her foot to warn him. Wei Zhao, however, seemed to feel nothing at all, utterly unmoved.
"I have only forty-nine thousand here, not that much," Wei Zhao said truthfully, putting on the air of an honest simpleton.
Hearing that Wei Zhao had forty-nine thousand, brilliant light shot from the eyes of the pockmarked man and the buzz-cut man across from him, though their faces still wore the same bitter-melon look. "Only forty-nine thousand? Is that not a little short? How much could each of us get then?"
"Forty-nine thousand divided by two makes twenty-four thousand five hundred..." the buzz-cut man calculated aloud.
"Twenty-four thousand five hundred? That is not bad at all. I agree. What about you?" Hearing this, the pockmarked man nodded hastily.
"All right. Since you agree, then I agree too." The buzz-cut man nodded. "Hand over the money."
Wei Zhao opened his backpack and took out a small parcel wrapped in newspaper. He unwrapped it layer by layer, revealing five neatly bound stacks of banknotes inside.
"This is forty-nine thousand. This is all I have... Count it if you like," Wei Zhao said plainly. "Give me the pull-tab."
This money was the living allowance Old Man Wei had given Wei Zhao for the years to come. In recent years Wei Zhao had earned the old man no small sum. Take that assassination job in North Africa last time, for instance. By international custom the reward should have been at least several hundred thousand, should it not?
Yet when he was about to leave, the old man had rummaged through chests and cabinets and dug out these forty-nine thousand yuan from a tattered bag, claiming it was every last coin in the household and telling him to spend it sparingly.
That left Wei Zhao deeply depressed. Did the old man truly have no money, or was he only playing poor? It did not look like an act, either. The old man ate the same food as he did every day, and Wei Zhao had never seen him enjoy anything. Could it be that he had overestimated the pay for those missions all along?
"Good, good." Like hungry wolves, the pockmarked man and the buzz-cut man divided up the cash before them cleanly, then handed the pull-tab to Wei Zhao.
Wei Zhao tucked the pull-tab carefully against his person, as if terrified of losing it, handling it gingerly like some precious treasure.
Seeing the three swindlers succeed, the girl sitting beside Wei Zhao sighed helplessly. Looking at Wei Zhao's excited expression, for all the world like a man who had just won a prize, she truly did not know what to say to him.
With the money in hand, the three swindlers settled back into their earlier calm, each minding his own business as if they were strangers to one another.