"You can't be serious…"
Rishō gawked. "You're a cadet of privilege. A deputy director's heir. How can you be broke?"
From the outside, Anshin looked like he came from a comfortable, well-connected family. Surely money was no problem.
But reality was harsher.
His parents were gone. His income was only his salary.
In the year 2000, a rookie police officer earned about nine hundred yuan a month—not even a thousand. Next year it would edge past that mark, but still, modest. Even so, at the time, such pay was considered enviable. The security system jobs always offered higher wages and stronger benefits than equivalent government posts.
Yet for Anshin, fresh out of school, with no inheritance or nest egg, his savings amounted to a mere few hundred yuan.
"Fine, I'll treat you," he grinned.
It was a joke, but he didn't mind the cost. That evening he invited Rishō to a meal of braised pig-trotter noodles.
…
After completing interrogation records for the Tang brothers, Anshin took some fish he'd bought from Kō Kikkyō, added other gifts from the market, and paid New Year's visits to Director An and Director Meng.
These two men were his greatest backers. His original self hadn't known how to use such connections. But this life, he intended to.
With greetings exchanged and ties reaffirmed, he moved on to the real task: money.
…
At a real estate office, he put his family's apartment up for sale.
It had been purchased by his parents years earlier, their high salaries enough to secure it. But before they had even moved in, they were killed in the line of duty. The family had lived in bureau housing until then.
Now, in early 2000, Jinhai's property market was still a backwater. Prices barely touched two thousand per square meter. Their hundred-square-meter flat sold for only 180,000 yuan.
Adding his parents' martyr's compensation and leftover savings, he assembled a fund of 200,000. He withdrew it all in cash, stuffed into a travel bag. In those days, bank transfers between regions carried steep fees, and credit cards were rare. Cash was king.
…
But money wasn't enough. He needed a story, a trail.
At Xinhua Bookstore, he bought armloads of investment books. He even chatted with the owner about the stock market, Shanghai exchanges, futures, and left with the man's phone number.
Every receipt, every slip, he saved. He snapped photos with a film camera and filed them away.
Because he knew. Someday, when he was rich—filthy rich—eyes would turn red with jealousy. Enemies would cry corruption. Internal investigators would dig through his life with claws of iron.
So he would leave behind a flawless record. Evidence of study, of planning, of legitimacy. His wealth would be indisputable.
…
He thought of the others who had fallen. Heroes once, who had fought hard, bled, sacrificed. But years later, crushed under life's weight, they bent.
When parents grew sick and hospital doors stayed closed, when children needed good schools and money wasn't there—when temptation appeared in the form of someone who could fix everything with a snap—how many men could refuse?
Few.
And so the noble became tainted.
Anshin refused to gamble with his own humanity.
He wouldn't test the bottomless well of human weakness.
He would cut temptation at its root.
By becoming wealthy.
Legally. Cleanly. Hugely.
So when corruption whispered, he could laugh. When temptation knocked, he could say: I already have more than you could ever offer.
In the year 2000, opportunity was everywhere.
Moutai hadn't even listed yet. Jack Ma and the others were still nobodies. JD's founder was hawking secondhand computers in Zhongguancun. Bitcoin was nearly a decade away. Housing was dirt cheap. The stock market was a chaotic wilderness.
But he knew the future.
And with that knowledge, he would rise.
The first step: capital. The sale of his parents' home was just the beginning.
The next: the stock market. The fastest way to multiply his fortune, to gather seed money for a larger empire.
His path was set.
Anshin, the officer, the warrior—would also be a tycoon.