“Oh? Are you talking about this? Hehe, I had almost forgotten where I put it. I never thought you would find it!” Father Yang took the lottery ticket and looked at it, then he threw it back on the table. “That day I was rushing to get some change and then arbitrarily bought a lottery ticket. We would never hit a jackpot anyway! Later on, when you are leaving, do throw it away for me and make sure that your mom doesn’t see it or else she would blame me for wasting money again! On that day I wanted to toss it out immediately but I seem to have left it somewhere!”
Throw it away? Yang Ming sweated! It seemed that father never thought he would hit the jackpot! This also meant that without the Zhang Xiulu brothers, this lottery ticket would have been under his bed forever! He really has to thank both of them!
“Dad, I’m glad you didn’t throw it away!” Yang Ming smiled bitterly. “Dad, this is a winning lottery ticket!”
“What? I won? Stop joking with me. People who buy it every day don’t even win and my one-time purchase hit the jackpot?” Yang Ming’s father shook his head skeptically. “Stop making me happy. Alright, I will have a meal with you then!”
Father Yang actually thought that Yang Ming was lying to him so that he would eat his meal peacefully.
“Dad, I’m not lying to you. If you don’t believe me, give a call and check it out!” Yang Ming pointed to the telephone. “I just finished checking it so the phone book is still out here!”
“Really?” Father Yang took the lottery ticket and stared at it dubiously but he still went to the telephone and called the lottery inquiry hotline.
Gradually, Father Yang’s expression turned into an elated one and he hung up the phone. Father Yang said happily. “We actually hit the jackpot! It’s a lump sum of sixty thousand yuan! Son, this time you have done a great deed for the family. If it wasn’t because of you finding out about this lottery ticket, this prize would have been gone!”
“Dad, now you believe me! Quickly have your meal!” Yang Ming was glad to see how joyous his dad was.
“Oh yes! Right after that, I have to call your mom to tell her the good news so that she can also share our joy and we can celebrate tonight!” Father Yang was really excited.
“Dad, I have something to say but I don’t know whether I should tell you or not. You know what? I must say it.” Yang Ming said seriously.
“What?” Father Yang asked feeling troubled.
“Dad, I think that the matter about us winning the lottery should just be kept between the three of us at home. Keep it as a secret from all your relatives and friends!” Yang Ming shared this because he thought about it few times. After the incident with Zhang Xiulu, Yang Ming realized that men are greedy by nature. He wouldn’t want to change his usual peaceful life just because his dad had won the lottery!
“Why? Isn’t this a great thing? We could tell our friends and relatives so that they could share the joy together!” Father Yang didn’t understand his son’s explanation.
“Dad, do you think that people would be happy when you tell them that you won the lottery?” Yang Ming questioned instead. “People really don’t like others who are better off than them. Those entrepreneurs who earned millions wouldn’t care anything about this but when people see others who earn slightly more than them, they would be jealous to death! Alright, even if they weren’t jealous of you, are you sure that they won’t actually want you to buy them a meal or borrow money from you? If you said no to all these requests, they would say that you were a selfish person! Sixty thousand yuan isn’t exactly a large figure. If you had a few cases of what I mentioned, then there wouldn’t be much money left. We could even end up with a deficit in our saving accounts!”
Once he heard Yang Ming’s words, Father Yang calmed down too! Yup, what Yang Ming said wasn’t unreasonable. There were a lot of similar stories like this in the newspaper. A person who announced that he won the lottery had his relatives and friends come over to ask for cash. Moreover, sixty thousand yuan wasn’t exactly a huge amount! Once all of this cash was gone and people still came to borrow money from you, then if you say that you ran out of cash, they would think that you were using an excuse to not lend money to them!
As he thought about this, Father Yang’s forehead became drenched with cold sweat. He was too naive and wasn’t able to see through things as clearly as his son! But he was also really glad because the student had surpassed the master. This meant that when his son goes in society, he wouldn’t be taking any unnecessary losses!
Father Yang nodded his head quietly, and then sighed and said, “Alright! I will listen to you. This prize money is to be kept for your university fees. We can’t just spend it like that!”
Yang Ming smiled and didn’t say anything. Yang Ming didn’t believe that he wouldn’t be able to earn anything once he entered university! He had already gotten some superpowers, therefore, no matter how poor he was, he believed he would at least be able to get the necessary income. Those web novels on “Qidian” [1] always talked about how there were many characters who were in far worse situations than him and still succeeded in life. Why would he not make it?
That afternoon, Yang Ming practiced his newly discovered ability. This was a tremendous breakthrough. It would simply be too cool to know what other people were thinking.
Think about it. If you were picking up girls and you knew what they are thinking, you could adjust your words to what they preferred and have an easy win!
Or when you were discussing business with others, you would be able to know what the other person’s baseline or figures were. These things would give you an insurmountable advantage!
Yang Ming decided to test looking at Chen Mengyan’s thoughts so he turned his eyesight to look at Chen Mengyan. One minute, two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, and even half an hour had passed by but Yang Ming could not see anything!
It cannot be. Could Chen Mengyan not be thinking about anything during this past half an hour? Yang Ming shook his head. This possibility was near zero. How could she not be thinking about anything? Unless she was in a coma.
What’s actually happening? Yang Ming wasn’t willing to give up. He looked at Wang Zhitao but he also didn’t receive any signal. Next, Yang Ming switched to a few other people to experiment with but none of them yielded any reward.
Could this ability differ by person? Not really, Yang Ming remembered that he wasn’t able to receive their thoughts when the two thieves walked back!
What could it be then? Could it be that this was just an extra experimental function of the contact lenses – that it was sometimes useable and sometimes not? Or was it because he hadn’t yet grasped the key points of using the function?
Yang Ming recalled the afternoon’s scene in detail but regrettably, he didn’t find anything! It seemed like there was nothing special in that situation. He wasn’t attempting to consciously peek into their thinking, it was just that he unconsciously received their thinking!
Yang Ming tested for a while longer but it was all to no avail. Eventually, he gave up. He had decided that this was a flaw in the contacts.
However, Yang Ming didn’t feel disappointed. These lenses already had plenty of other functions that he was grateful for. He wasn’t a person who was that greedy.