Chapter 4 I Don’t Believe It

The butcher who demanded a red envelope of eighty-eight thousand ended up with nothing.

Chen Feng, who drove away, didn’t actually call the police; the number he had dialed earlier was 114.

He was about to die and didn’t want to waste his time on such boring disputes.

The drive back was smooth, and he returned to the rental house in less than an hour.

He took the goat bezoar out of his pocket, first went to the bathroom to wash it, then held it in his hand and weighed it slightly. It really felt like it was about half a catty, which is around 250 grams.

Even calculating at a price of ten thousand yuan per gram, this goat bezoar was worth 2.5 million.

And it was clear that natural goat bezoars were now worth more than ten thousand per gram.

Chen Feng took out his phone and searched online again, finding some news reports about goat bezoars.

One piece of news reported that two years ago, someone had auctioned a goat bezoar with a net weight of 320 grams for a price of 8.9 million.

That calculated to more than 20,000 per gram.

Of course, this was an auction price, which is generally higher than the market price. However, the two should be similar.

Moreover, this was the price from two years ago; the price now would definitely be higher. Because prices had risen sharply in the past two years, and the prices of Chinese medicinal materials, in particular, had generally increased, with some individual ones increasing several times within a year.

Goat bezoar is also considered a type of Chinese medicinal material, so it was natural for its price to rise as well.

Chen Feng planned to go to a Chinese medicine shop tomorrow to ask about the price.

It was already a bit late today, and there was a freshly slaughtered large white goat waiting for him to eat.

He immediately opened the woven bag, took out the whole slaughtered goat, and placed it in the kitchen area.

Afterward, Chen Feng went out again and brought back an induction cooker, an electric pressure cooker, as well as a cutting board, kitchen knife, pots and pans, and some seasonings like oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar from the car. He had bought all of it at a supermarket on the way back, packed in two large plastic bags.

Returning to the rental house, Chen Feng began to get busy in the kitchen. It was very simple. First was to stew the mutton in the pressure cooker. He chopped the plump, fresh mutton into pieces, put them in the pressure cooker with seasonings, added water, and just let it stew.

While the mutton was stewing, Chen Feng went back to the car to carry a bag of rice and a rice cooker back, and got the rice cooking as well.

In less than half an hour, the mutton was stewed. The whole house was filled with the aroma of stewed mutton. He dished it out, took a gentle bite, and it was truly delicious, feeling much tastier than the mutton bought from the market.

He first had a large bowl of stewed mutton, eating until his mouth was greasy, then he got a bowl of white rice and ate it with the mutton soup and mutton.

Although he had a terminal illness, his appetite was still not small, and his weight showed no signs of decreasing.

His weight had started to increase a year ago. Originally, at a height of 1.78 meters, his weight of 146 jin was considered standard, but now his weight was one hundred and seventy, a proper fatty.

Being able to eat is a blessing. Especially for Chen Feng, who didn’t have long to live.

He ate another bowl of rice before letting out a satisfied burp, ending his dinner.

There was still a small half of the stewed mutton left in the pressure cooker, saved for a midnight snack.

It was only a little past six in the evening. There was no TV in the rental house, and he hadn’t moved his desktop computer over. It was really quite boring.

He picked up his phone but had no WiFi, and playing games using mobile data was obviously not something he could afford. He would have to get broadband installed tomorrow.

So, Chen Feng decided to go out for a walk and to aid his digestion.

He didn’t drive. Just as he walked out of the residential complex, he saw a digital store across the street holding some kind of “Double Ten” lottery event. It was just during the evening rush hour, so it was quite lively.

Thinking that he was actually in need of a high-configuration laptop, he went over to take a look.

He crossed the road and entered the store to see more than a dozen people gathered around, staring at the red envelopes hanging from colorful balloons on the counter. One of them pointed to a red envelope, and the lady boss behind the counter took it down and opened it. Inside was a piece of paper with the prize written on it: a pair of Bluetooth headphones.

Chen Feng stood and watched for a while and figured it out. If you spent over two thousand in this computer store, you would get one chance at the lottery, which were the red envelopes hanging from the lines of the colorful balloons.

The sign stated that the lowest value gift inside was a USB drive worth a few dozen yuan, and the grand prize was a laptop worth over ten thousand yuan.

In other words, as long as you participated in the lottery, everyone would win a prize.

Someone had previously won a Fruit phone worth five or six thousand here, which attracted many people to watch and participate.

There were even a few people who didn’t know each other originally, discussing pooling their money to reach the two-thousand-yuan spending threshold to draw together.

Chen Feng had originally come over to look at laptops, but seeing this situation, he decided to buy himself a phone first.

His current phone was a gift from Shen Lin when they got married. Two years had passed, and although the phone was still usable, it was a bit outdated.

Thinking of the goat bezoar in his hand, he wasn’t short of money now. He went over to the phone counter and looked around. He quickly chose the latest model of a Huawei phone, which cost over five thousand yuan, directly draining his previous personal savings.

In the past, Chen Feng would certainly have been reluctant, but now that he didn’t have long to live, and with a goat bezoar worth millions in his hand, this bit of spending was just a drop in the bucket.

After buying the phone, Chen Feng got two chances to draw red envelopes.

There were two large piles of colorful balloons with red envelopes hanging from them, with about fifty or sixty red envelopes hanging from the dangling red strings.

The chance of drawing the grand prize laptop from these fifty or sixty red envelopes was actually not that low, one in fifty or sixty, much more reliable than buying a lottery ticket.

No wonder so many people were gathered in the store. Everyone was smart; the odds of winning were quite high.

However, the store owner would definitely not be at a loss.

As Chen Feng was about to choose his red envelopes, the surrounding crowd of onlookers gathered around again.

“I’ll take these two,” Chen Feng casually pointed to two red envelopes hanging at the very front. He wanted to test his luck again.

It seemed that ever since the divorce, his luck had started to turn. First, he picked up a grand prize scratch-off ticket out of thin air, and then he got a goat bezoar when he wanted to buy a goat to eat.

He just didn’t believe that by casually picking two red envelopes this time, he could win a grand prize again.

The lady boss behind the counter first opened one red envelope, and several bright red bills came into everyone’s view.

Someone shouted, “Damn! They’re giving cash directly. How many are there?”

“This luck is too good. Looks like there are five or six bills.”

The lady boss was also a little surprised. She pulled out the red bills from inside and counted them. There were actually 8 of them, eight hundred yuan.

What luck!
Everyone was envious and jealous.

Especially a middle-aged fat man who said懊恼ly, “I was originally going to choose that red envelope, but then I changed my mind and chose another one, only winning a power bank.”

The lady boss said helplessly, “I didn’t even know there were cash red envelopes. My husband must have put them in.”

Chen Feng took the eight-hundred-yuan cash red envelope, slightly dazed. It seemed his damn luck had really turned around.

It was just that this good luck, one after another, made him feel a bit unreal.

“Hurry up and open the second one,” someone urged.

“Yeah, hurry up and open it.”

Seeing that Chen Feng didn’t object, the lady boss opened it, then took out the slip of paper from inside. She took a closer look and was instantly stunned.

“Lady boss, what’s the prize? Hurry up and take it out,” someone urged again.

Someone noticed that the lady boss’s expression was not right and teased, “Lady boss, it’s not the grand prize, is it? Are you reluctant to give it away?” As this person said this, everyone else also reacted. Especially those who hadn’t won a big prize before, they all started urging her.

With so many people watching, the lady boss could only pull out the slip of paper with a bitter face. On it were the handwritten words “laptop computer,” written clearly with a red watercolor pen. Underneath, a few “anti-counterfeiting numbers” were specially written, which only the lady boss and the boss knew, so it couldn’t be faked.

It was just that she remembered she had already taken this red envelope down! How did it get hung up again?

(End of Chapter)