Winning A Lottery Is A Dangerous Business

"Release her or fight with me!" He was challenging the big man with a confident gesture. Any fight can be solved without using any fist if one was able to intimidate his opponent to withdraw.

After thinking for a while, the big man released Ms. Lim. He didn't think that he could beat the young man in front of him. Furthermore, his brother was unconscious, fighting alone with this confident and serious young man might result in death for his unconscious brother.

The big man released Ms. Lim. At the same time, Zhang Wei dropped down the unconscious man. The big man took his friend and left, he only let down his guard after they were far away from the apartment.

"That guy is quite dangerous…" Murmured the big man.

Back to the apartment.

"Do we need to call the police?" Asked Ms. Lim after being untied by Zhang Wei.

"No need, however, starting tomorrow please assign yourself a few special bodyguards, the company will pay for it. So, hire the best one available." Zhang Wei had a feeling that this matter will not end here.

"So, are you okay?"

"I am fine thank you, this is not my first time, I was mugged twice a few years ago." Ms. Lim's previous experience made her more resolute. Living alone in the big city, taught her a few things about life.

"Okay just finish what you want to do, and I will accompany you to your home." Ms. Lim nodded while Zhang Wei went outside waiting for her.

Zhang Wei: Alice please search for any information regarding those 2 men before. How did they found out that she won the lottery?

Alice: Searching…(after a moment) One of Ms. Lim's acquaintances Xu Gounan, a grocery store cashier who was selling the winning lottery ticket, told these 2 men about it. Long Chen, the small guy also vaguely informed his friend Big Sam about this matter.

Zhang Wei: Tell me more about this Big Sam.

Alice: Searching…Big Sam is one of the leading men for a gang called Dragon Master Gang. A few years back, he was only an ordinary member, but he was promoted as a vice gang leader after a few major contributions to the gang. He is also well known for his notorious and cunning moves. Be aware, he has a black belt in karate-do martial arts.

Zhang Wei: Keep monitoring him, if he goes near her, do inform me immediately.

On the way to Ms. Lim's new Bungalow House, she has been thinking how on earth her new boss suddenly appeared in her apartment during her helpless hour. He should have more important things to do than following her around.

"Do you have any questions?"

She was startled by the sudden question from her boss. Seems like her new boss was able to read her mind.

"I was wondering, how did you suddenly pop up in my apartment?" After a bit of hesitation, she asked the question.

"If I answer your question honestly you may not believe it."

"Try me."

"I can see the future."

"Seriously?"

Zhang Wei didn't answer it, he just gave a little smile to Ms. Lim. She became more confused with the answer. Surely, she didn't believe it.

"Drop me in front, it's almost your house already. Check your email, I have emailed you something." Zhang Wei doesn't want to be seen with Ms. Lim by the other employees. All of the new employees' bungalow houses are located at the same location as Ms. Lim's house.

After dropping Zhang Wei at the bus station, Ms. Lim drives to her bungalow house with a big question mark on her face. Could her new boss really see the future? It's impossible, but so far how did her boss knew where to buy the lottery-winning ticket? How did her boss suddenly come to rescue her?

Zhang Wei hailed a taxi and went back to his apartment. He reached his apartment at almost 7 pm. As usual, every night he will evaluate his mission progress.

Alice: Day 7, Mission Completion 0.029%.

"What!? I have completed so many missions for the past 7 days and it only gets to 0.029%?"

Thinking of how many missions he will have to do in the future to reach a 100% completion rate made him pale.

6:00 am. Sept 18, 2030. Day 8.

As usual Zhang Wei woke up early in the morning doing his usual exercise. The hotel apartment costs him about $2500 per month with free gym membership for the tenant. For the past 3 days, Zhang Wei came to this gym regularly to maintain his best condition.

Today, his main task was to launch the investment firm up and running. 43 days from now, the virtual reality online game called Earth 2.0 will be launched worldwide. Based on his original goals, he needs a lot of money to support him inside or outside the game. The game studio and the investment company will need a lot of money to run from now on.

He needs at least $1 billion ( 7 billion Yuan ) in 42 days! With the little capital he had left, this must be an impossible job for a normal person. However, who is Zhang Wei? He was a man who came from the future. With Alice's help, it will be as easy as eating peanuts to reach the $1 billion goals.

Back at his apartment, Zhang Wei made some breakfast for him. He likes to cook since he was a child. His mother taught him a few simple recipes so that someday, he will become a self-sufficient adult. Even with her busy work as a scientist, she still spent her time with Zhang Wei regularly. Growing up, his mother shaped him well to become a responsible man.

Sitting in front of his desktop PC provided by the Hotel Apartment, Zhang Wei was looking at the company's current bank account balance. The AOSIS Investment Co. Ltd's current bank account balance was $104.2 million. $100m wired from Senior Sun Wei Company. Senior Sun Wei's assistance wired the money without any attachment in return. Because of this, Zhang Wei has a very positive impression of Senior Wei. He promised himself, if one day Senior Wei needed his help or a favor, he would try to fulfill it as best as possible.

With Alice's advice, Zhang Wei begins typing the coded instructions.

Coded Message:

Deposit $100m to 4 different foreign exchange currency online accounts $25m respectively. Invest $20m to each platform only.

Account 1, closed position on 27 Sept, 5:30 pm sharp.

Account 2, closed position on 30 Sept, 11:00 am sharp.

Account 3, closed position on 10 Oct, 3:30 am sharp.

Account 4, closed position on 29 Oct, 9:00 am sharp.

Trade-in 4 counters we have agreed on.

Coded Message End.

This coded message system is easily learned and used by anyone. However, in order to crack the coded message, one needs to know and understand the system behind the code. This is a system created 500 years in the future which is impossible for the current coder to crack.

Previously, Zhang Wei gave and taught Ms. Lim simple notes on how to use the code. After she learned it, she burned the simple notes to remove any possibility of someone able to crack the code.

Meanwhile, somewhere in a small office. 2 guys were talking.

"So, how is the mighty Long Chen knocked down by a pizza boy hahaha! This must be the most hilarious news on a recent day hahaha!"

Mocked by the tough looking man, Long Chen wanted to punch the man with self-devil laughter. This was one of the most embarrassing events that had happened to him. He wanted to go out and find the pizza boy to have a rematch. However, after thinking carefully, he refrained himself from doing so.

"Why did you come here, I don't believe you came from so far away just to mock me?"

"Visiting you my friend, what else? Hahaha."

"Seriously? If that is the only reason, I am going now… I am not as free as you, I have a business to run!" Long Chen was quite angry being mocked by his acquaintance Ah Sam.

His real name is Xi Meng Yan. He quite hates when people called him Ximeng, Long Chen's first duel with this guy was after he called him Ms. Ximeng. Since that day, he called him Ah Sam.

"Haha Brother Long, I am just joking, the reason I came to see you is to inquire about the lottery winner. Tell me more about her." After having his laugh Ah Sam wanted a share from the lottery winner. This was the main reason he came here.

Long Chen does not want to help Ah Sam. But thinking of how Ms. Lim's bodyguard will smack Ah Sam's face just like him, he couldn't stop smiling sneakily.

After being knocked unconscious by Zhang Wei, Long Chen thought that Zhang Wei was Ms. Lim's personal bodyguard. Anyone with a decent brain will employ a bodyguard after winning the lottery.

"Her name is Ms. Lim. She used to work for a small company around here, but she quited after winning the lottery. She also had moved out to her new place, we don't know where. A man of your caliber will easily find her new place, or you can go ask the 24hours grocery store cashier Xu Gounan. He was the one who told us about this." Even though they were competitors, Long Chen did not want to compete with Ah Sam after being smacked twice in the face by Zhang Wei.

"Thank you my friend, I will gladly buy you a drink after this thing is over hahaha…" Without waiting any longer Ah Sam left them after getting the necessary information.

"Brother Long, do we really let him steal our little loaded miss?" After Ah Sam was long gone, Fatty Yu asked.

"Stole our loaded miss? He must be dreaming, you saw the little miss bodyguard, he is not a common bodyguard. After our act, she must have employed more bodyguards to protect herself. Rather than doing impossible things, we better concentrate on our own business. Ah Sam might be thinking he is a smart guy, but this time he is totally wrong. Someone who can beat me in one move is not someone we can afford to provoke again!"

"Okay Brother Long, I will trust your judgment on this, that little bodyguard was quite strong. Even if we two ganged up on him, I think we will still lose miserably."

"So long as we know our limit, we will be fine."

At AOSIS Private Investment Co. Ltd

Ms. Lim was looking at the company's current account, she transferred $100m to 4 different currency exchange platform accounts $25m respectively. She traded $20m each to every account, $80m was used and $2m gone just like that to pay for the trading fees. Basically, all of the trading accounts started with a position loss of $500,000 each.

After that, she went to the meeting room next to her office. Zhu Ling was given a task to identify any potential investment with $1,000,000 startup capital, she was waiting alone inside the meeting room.

In this room, she will try to present her findings to her new boss Ms. Lim. If everything was agreeable by her new boss, she will start investing in 2 companies for a huge profit.

While these two people were discussing the potential investment, Wong Fook Yong and Jing Mei Chen were in their respective offices, reading their emails full of instructions from the company boss.

While Sui Jianguo the young blacksmith and Yen Qiang the young swordsman were trying to adjust to their new city life. A few days ago, both of them were living in the countryside far away from the busy and noisy city. Neither of them had ever been to the city in their entire life. However, after meeting with Zhang Wei, both of them agreed to work for him in the city.

Zhang Wei promised that both of them will be working as blacksmiths and swordsman but in a better environment where a lot of people will appreciate their talent more. Thus, both of them are here now, waiting to work as promised.

Zhang Wei himself needs to find another chef. He failed on his first choice chef, so now he needed to meet face to face with the second choice chef. He needs people with skills, a blacksmith, swordsman, a chef, and others.

When Earth 2.0 goes online in the next few weeks, many players will think that this game genre is the same as the other virtual reality games. Obviously, they are greatly mistaken.

This Earth 2.0 one will mimic much of the human real-life world's input. For example, any chef job related inside the game can produce a low level of food for players. However, to produce a higher level of food, it will require a chef with great real-life cooking experience to produce. Someone without much real-life experience in the kitchen will never be able to consistently produce a very high level of food. The same goes for any other in-game job selected by any player. Thus, getting a real-life chef is of utmost importance.

In a small restaurant 45 km north outside Shenzhen City.

The restaurant with only 5 tables left to serve its customer, Zhang Wei was sitting and drinking his coffee at noon. During this lunch break, this restaurant should be packed with customers, however, besides him, there were only two other customers eating their lunch. Soon this restaurant will be out of business.

5 years ago, this restaurant was packed with customers. Every day for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, this restaurant with over 50 tables was crowded with customers.

But like every other business in the area, from the peak of 50 tables to the lowest 5 tables, from 25 staff to just 1 chef remaining, this restaurant is on the verge of bankruptcy. The owner, the chef, and the waiter were the same people. The owner, Chef Gan Li, took out a large loan 10 years ago to upgrade and increase his restaurant capacity. However, 6 months after he took out the massive loan, the government suddenly announced that they will build a new and massive road 5 km away from his restaurant.

At first, the announcement did not really impact his business. However, soon the real estate value in his area started to drop, and after the new road completed and opened, many other new restaurants opened alongside the new road. Because of the new road, the traffic going into his restaurant became less and less until it became a dead town. He tried everything he could with the town residents and business owners to attract people to their town, but nothing worked.

He wanted to sell his restaurant, however, the estate price dropped so sharply that many investors stayed away from this place. With a family to support and a business loan to pay, even if he sells this restaurant, there is still a massive balance amount to pay. The drop in market prices in his restaurant land and building really gave him a massive loss.

He wanted to sell everything, go to the city, work as a chef, and pay his debt slowly. But how could he? Sell his family heritage, he was the 5th generation, and the family heritage will be sold off during his time?

Working for another restaurant or hotel? He does not have any education or culinary certificate, he will have to start from the bottom again and even his salary might not be able to pay his monthly loan payment.

He becomes a chef due to his family heritage, not by a choice. He had only completed his standard 6 studies and has been working with the restaurant since then.

Besides cooking, what else can he do? His future looks so bleak!