"This is your payment for the North Africa mission," Old Man Lin carefully took out two crumpled hundred-yuan bills from a well-wrapped piece of cloth and handed them to Lin Yi, who was watching him eagerly.
Lin Yi didn't understand why the mission he executed was so dangerous, his enemies were so powerful, and the client gained such substantial benefits, yet his own reward was so little.
Where did the old man get these premium missions for himself? Every time it was a life and death situation, but the payment he received was only fifty or one hundred yuan. That was okay, but there were times when it was only three or two yuan... Every time Lin Yi thought of these, he wanted to cry.
Receiving the two hundred yuan he earned with his life, what Lin Yi most wanted to curse was, "Damn it!" Although he was an orphan and had no mother since childhood.
Following the mysterious Old Man Lin who raised him, he learned martial arts for fifteen years and read books for fifteen years. How could he not be considered talented in both literature and martial arts? In ancient times, that would have made him a top scholar in both fields, but he was treated like a laborer and ordered around... When would this life end?
He heard that in the city, people building houses could earn tens of thousands a year, while he went through hell and back every day, yet only earned eight hundred to a thousand yuan a year...
"Old man, you're not tricking me, are you? Two hundred yuan? I really doubt whether you're deducting my payment," Lin Yi had doubted this matter more than once, but the old man wore the same clothes and ate the same food, and didn't look like a rich person.
"Be grateful you're getting paid. You think money is so easy to earn nowadays?" Old Man Lin rolled his bulging eyes and said irritably, "What? Don't want it? If you don't want it, give it back. I haven't gone to Widow Wang's snack shop at the village entrance to treat myself for a long time."
"..." Lin Yi really wanted to beat up this skinny and shriveled old man in front of him, but he knew that if he took action, the result would be getting beaten up himself.
How powerful Old Man Lin's martial arts really were, Lin Yi himself didn't know. He only knew that every time the old man accompanied him to practice martial arts, he never used full strength. Just when his own martial arts improved one level, he suddenly discovered that the old man had also improved one level, and he was still his defeated opponent.
"Alright, you've gained enough experience these years. That big mission is about time now," Old Man Lin said without even lifting an eyelid, sitting cross-legged on the kang, munching and cracking fennel beans in front of him. "Complete this mission well, and you'll have no worries about food and drink for life!"
"Really or fake?" Lin Yi knew that since he was three years old when the old man picked him up while collecting scrap, he had been following the old man to learn martial arts, medicine, and outside knowledge, just for doing one big mission. But Lin Yi really doubted whether the payment for this big mission was exactly as much as the old man said - one mission that could last a lifetime.
"When have I ever lied to you?" Old Man Lin threw another fennel bean into his mouth. "Are you going or not? If not, I'll find someone else."
"Go? Of course I'll go!" Lin Yi thought to himself, such a good deal, if not going would be a waste.
---
The man opened an aluminum can of cola and casually threw the pull tab on the table.
A short-haired man next to him pretended not to care, picked up the pull tab, fiddled with it in his hand, and after playing with it a few times, suddenly shouted, "Wow! Wow! Wow! First prize!"
The short-haired man's voice wasn't very loud in the noisy train carriage, but the nearby passengers heard it and turned to look at him.
The pockmarked face man was no exception. Seeing that the pull tab in the short-haired man's hand was exactly the one he had just thrown away, his face immediately became somewhat unnatural: "Give it to me, this is mine..."
"What's yours? Where does it say your name?" The short-haired man quickly withdrew his right hand and tightly clenched the pull tab in his palm, glaring and saying, "Is your name 'First Prize'?"
"No... I'm not called 'First Prize'... That first prize pull tab was the one I threw away..." The pockmarked face man, seeing that the short-haired man looked fierce, became somewhat timid, but he didn't want to lose what he deserved, so he said tremblingly.
"You said it yourself, you threw it away. Since you threw it away, whoever picks it up gets to keep it," the short-haired man snorted disdainfully.
"Hey, how can you be like this?" The pockmarked face man immediately became anxious and called out to a passenger opposite him, who was sitting to Lin Yi's left, a bespectacled man: "Sir, you look like a scholar. Please judge this fairly. How can he be like this? Isn't this just being unreasonable?"
"Who's being unreasonable?" The short-haired man also became unhappy and turned to the bespectacled man: "Master, tell us, who should the pull tab belong to?"
"Hmm..." The bespectacled man pushed his glasses and hesitated for a moment before saying, "I am a university teacher. Since both of you trust me, I'll give you a fair judgment."
"Please tell us, please tell us!" Both the pockmarked face man and the short-haired man nodded eagerly, looking anxiously at the self-proclaimed university teacher.
"Logically speaking, this pull tab was pulled from the drink can by this big brother, so the item should be his..." The bespectacled man said half of this, and the pockmarked face man showed a triumphant expression, while the short-haired man immediately became anxious and was about to say something, but the bespectacled man waved his hand to stop him and continued, "However, since this big brother has already thrown away the pull tab, and it was picked up by this brother, then it should belong to the latter brother..."
"But you also said that the pull tab was mine..." The pockmarked face man, hearing the bespectacled man say this, immediately looked dejected.
"In my opinion, why don't you two split the prize equally? This way, neither of you loses out!" The bespectacled man suggested.
"Split it..." The short-haired man, hearing this, hesitated for a moment, gritted his teeth, and said, "Fine, let's split it."
Probably the short-haired man also felt that his reasoning was somewhat shaky, which is why he agreed to the bespectacled man's suggestion. As for the pockmarked face man, seeing that the pull tab was clenched in the short-haired man's hand, if he didn't agree, he might not get anything at all, so it was better to get half, so he also nodded in agreement.
"Alright, since you both agree, let's split it," the bespectacled man took the aluminum can from the pockmarked face man's hand and looked at it, saying, "It says here that the first prize is one hundred thousand yuan. After deducting twenty percent personal income tax, there's eighty thousand yuan remaining. But considering that claiming the prize is quite troublesome, whichever of you goes to claim the prize should give the other person thirty thousand yuan, then go claim the prize yourself. How does this idea sound to you?"
"Deal!" The pockmarked face man was happy to get whatever money he could, so he immediately agreed: "You give me thirty thousand, then you go claim the prize!"