I Am Destiny

Chen Zhi leaned against the door, listening to the muffled sobs coming from the living room, and reached into the inner lining of his pants pocket.

His fingertips brushed against a cold bank card.

He needed a legal, perfect excuse.

Chen Zhi opened the door.

Zhang Guifang hurriedly turned her back to wipe her face.

"Mom, I'm heading out for a bit." Chen Zhi changed his shoes, his tone as casual as if he were just going downstairs to buy a bottle of soy sauce.

"Where are you going at this hour? It's almost time for dinner..."

"I feel a bit stifled, just going out for some fresh air."

Before Zhang Guifang could nag any further, Chen Zhi had already shut the security door behind him.

At 2:00 PM, outside the entrance of the city's lottery distribution center.

Chen Zhi sat on the curb, holding a dead twig he had picked up from the roadside, boredly drawing circles on the ground. The sun was scorching, baking the asphalt road until it shimmered with heat waves.

There weren't many people here to claim prizes.

Most were claiming small prizes of a hundred bucks or so, wearing that trivial joy of "making enough for a pack of smokes" on their faces.

Chen Zhi wasn't waiting for that kind of person.

He narrowed his eyes, his gaze scanning everyone going in and out like a radar.

It wasn't until the sun began to set in the west that a middle-aged man in a gray jacket caught his attention.

The man was walking fast, his right hand tightly clutching his inner chest pocket while looking left and right. His guilty, thief-like demeanor practically slapped an "I won the jackpot" label on his forehead. He paced around the entrance several times, wanting to go in but not daring to. Finally, he squatted on a stone block not far from Chen Zhi, pulled out a cigarette, and his hands shook so badly it took him three tries to light it.

Chen Zhi tossed the twig, patted the dust off his pants, and strolled over casually.

"Uncle, got a light?"

The middle-aged man jolted in fright, nearly dropping his cigarette into his lap. He glared at Chen Zhi warily, but upon seeing it was just a wet-behind-the-ears kid, his tense shoulders relaxed slightly.

"Shoo, shoo. What's a little kid doing smoking?" the man waved him off irritably.

Chen Zhi didn't get mad. He naturally sat down next to him, lowered his voice, and spoke at a volume only the two of them could hear: "How much did you win? Half a million?"

The man's pupils shrank violently.

He instinctively clutched his chest tighter, his butt scooting back half an inch as if sitting on nails, and he snapped, "What nonsense are you talking about! Who won a prize!"

"Stop pretending." Chen Zhi rested his hands on his knees, turning his head to look at him with a certainty that was unnerving. "Look at those bags under your eyes, you didn't sleep a wink last night, did you? Do you feel like the whole world is staring at your pocket?"

The man opened his mouth, his Adam's apple bobbing violently, but no sound came out.

Being seen through by a little brat felt far too bizarre.

"Second prize?" Chen Zhi continued to press. "How much is left after taxes? Three hundred something thousand?"

The man's defenses finally broke.

He looked around, ensuring no one was paying attention to them, before lowering his voice and glaring fiercely at Chen Zhi. "Whose kid are you anyway? What do you want?"

"Four hundred and fifty thousand," the man gritted his teeth and reported the number, as if venting some pressure he had been holding in all day. "Just verified it. Haven't cashed it yet."

Chen Zhi nodded and held up five fingers.

"Five hundred thousand. Sell it to me."

The man was stunned.

He looked at Chen Zhi like he was an idiot. After a long while, he laughed out of pure absurdity. "Kid, didn't your parents teach you not to joke about things like this? Five hundred thousand? Do you know how much five hundred thousand is? Selling you wouldn't even cover a fraction of it!"

"Besides," the man sneered, pointing at the doors of the lottery center, "I can walk right in there and claim four hundred and fifty thousand. After a twenty percent tax, I get three hundred and sixty thousand in hand. And you're offering me five hundred thousand? Did you get your head caught in a door?"

"My head is perfectly fine."

Chen Zhi pulled the bank card out of his pocket and spun it nimbly between his fingertips.

"I have money, but I lack the title of a lottery winner." Chen Zhi leaned in a bit closer, his youthful face revealing a shrewdness vastly disproportionate to his age. "You give me the ticket, and I transfer five hundred thousand to you. You get an extra hundred and forty thousand, and you don't even have to pay taxes. Good deal, right?"

The man stared at the completely ordinary debit card, sizing Chen Zhi up suspiciously.

Dressed in cheap street clothes, with mud on the edges of his shoes.

He didn't look like a rich young master no matter how you sliced it.

"Crazy," the man cursed, standing up to leave. "I don't have time to play house with you."

Chen Zhi didn't stop him, only saying slowly, "There's a Construction Bank right across the street. Whether I'm playing house or not, you'll know if you just go check the balance. It'll delay you by five minutes. What if it's real? A hundred and forty thousand, how many years of hard labor is that worth to you?"

The man's footsteps paused.

Greed is humanity's most primal instinct.

The temptation of a hundred and forty thousand was enough to make any rational adult unable to resist taking a gamble, even in the face of an absurd possibility.

Five minutes later.

In front of the Construction Bank's ATM.

The man stared blankly at the dizzyingly long string of numbers on the screen, his mouth open wide enough to fit a lightbulb. He rubbed his eyes and counted them again.

Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions...

"Holy shit..."

The man's legs went soft, and he almost knelt down before Chen Zhi.

He looked in terror at the calm Chen Zhi standing next to him, his brain instantly conjuring up a massive drama involving wealthy family feuds, money laundering schemes, and illegitimate children fighting for inheritance.

This wasn't some little brat; this was a walking, breathing pile of cash in human form!

"Transfer or cash withdrawal?" Chen Zhi crossed his arms, his tone impatient. "Hurry up, I'm in a rush to get home for dinner."

"Trans... transfer!" The man was so excited his voice cracked. He clumsily pulled his own card out of his pocket. "Little boss... oh no, Young Master! Please wait a moment, I'll give you the lottery ticket right now!"

The transaction went unbelievably smoothly.

With a soft beep, five hundred thousand was transferred into the man's account. Holding the thin bank receipt, the man's hands shook like he had late-stage Parkinson's. The sheer ecstasy on his face twisted into something almost grotesque.

He respectfully offered up the crumpled lottery ticket with both hands, looking as if he wanted to kowtow to Chen Zhi a couple of times.

"Young Master, please take it! This is good stuff!"

Chen Zhi took the ticket, casually glanced at the numbers, and shoved it into his pocket.

"Remember," Chen Zhi said before leaving, shooting the man a cold backward glance. "You never saw me today. You either lost this ticket yourself, or you gave it away. Understand?"

"Understood! Understood! I get it!" The man nodded like a pounding mortar. "I know the rules! Rivers and lakes are vast; my lips are sealed!"

Watching the man run off joyfully clutching his card, Chen Zhi curled his lip.

What vast rivers and lakes, it was just that the price was right.

He walked out of the bank. The sky outside had already grown dark.

The dim yellow streetlights stretched the young man's slender silhouette.

Chen Zhi reached into his pocket, pulled out the ticket worth four hundred and fifty thousand, and then took out the ten pieces of scrap paper he had bought earlier with Lin Wanwan and the others.

The eleven tickets were mixed together, crumpled into a messy ball, and stuffed back into his inner pocket.

This was the lifesaver that would pull the Chen family out of the mud tomorrow.

It was also the surprise he had prepared for those two silly girls.

"Quick pick is the will of heaven?"

Chen Zhi let out a scoff.

"I am the will of heaven."

Back home, the food had already gone completely cold.

Chen Jun sat at the dining table with half a bottle of cheap liquor in front of him. His back was deeply hunched, as if bent by an invisible burden. Zhang Guifang sat to the side, her eyes still red, mechanically snapping green beans in her hands. The air in the room was so heavy it was suffocating.

Hearing the door open, both of them looked up simultaneously. The moment Chen Jun's cloudy eyes met Chen Zhi's, he looked away in a panic, as if he had been burned.

"You're back..." Chen Jun's voice was hoarse and dry. His hand trembled as he reached for his glass, not daring to grip it tightly, merely resting his fingers loosely around it. "It's so late... you must be hungry."

Chen Zhi didn't say a word. He silently walked to the table, sat down, picked up his bowl, and shoveled a mouthful of cold rice into his mouth.

The rice was hard, grating painfully against his teeth.

Watching his son eat the cold rice, the corners of Chen Jun's mouth twitched. His flushed face was filled with unease and embarrassment. He opened his mouth to say something, but the words were choked back by a lump in his throat.

"Don't eat it yet, let your mom heat it up for you..." Chen Jun reached out to stop him, but his hand fell limply in mid-air. His voice dropped. "It's your dad's fault for being useless."

Zhang Guifang wiped away a tear beside him, lowering her head in silence.

Chen Jun bowed his head, burying his hands deeply into his hair. His voice carried a choked sob and profound self-blame. "I'm making you suffer along with me. Coming back this late, and you can't even get a decent meal... Dad has let you down."

Chen Zhi swallowed the cold rice in his mouth and looked up, gazing at his father's face that was too guilty to rise, and the greying hair peeking through his fingers