Tòumíng stepped out of the mine complex, his ruined designer clothes making him look like someone who'd gotten into a fight with a coal processing plant and lost. The evening air hit him, cooler now that the sun had mostly set, and he headed toward the bike rack with his mind already planning the route to the pawn shop.
The bike rack looked worse than he remembered. New scratches marred the already dubious metal frame, deep gouges that suggested someone had tried very hard to break it apart. Tools had been involved, probably a crowbar or pipe wrench based on the pattern of damage.
But his bike was still there, gleaming and intact in its spot.
That was weird. The rack had clearly been attacked. Someone had put serious effort into trying to steal something. But the bike was fine.
Then Tòumíng noticed: his three-hundred-yuan "military grade" lock was gone. Just completely missing. No broken pieces, no chain left behind, just an absence where the lock should have been.
"Wait, what the fuck?" He circled the bike, checking to make sure it was actually his and not some similar model. No, same scratches on the frame, same slight dent in the fender from when he'd crashed it into a pole during his second day of ownership.
Why would someone only steal the lock? The bike was worth almost three thousand yuan. The lock was worth three hundred. That made no sense. Who commits theft and takes the least valuable item?
"Don't worry about it," Cupid said dismissively. "Probably some idiot thought the lock itself was worth more than it was. Or they got interrupted. Either way, you've got your bike and we have more important things to deal with."
True. Like converting compressed amethyst into liquid assets.
Tòumíng swung his leg over the bike, powered it on, and headed toward Golden Fortune Pawn. The ride took the usual thirty minutes, traffic heavier now with the evening rush, workers flooding out of factories and offices, street vendors calling out their final deals of the day.
The pawn shop's neon sign flickered in welcome, half the characters still dark but the meaning clear enough. Tòumíng parked without a lock this time, just hoping nobody would steal it in the fifteen minutes he planned to be inside and pushed through the door.
The bell chimed.
The greasy shopkeeper was exactly where he'd been every other time, sprawled in his protesting chair with another bucket of fried chicken. This one looked fresh, still steaming slightly, the smell of oil and spices filling the small shop. Bones were already accumulating on the desk beside him.
He looked up as Tòumíng entered, his eyes tracking over the coal-stained clothes, the destroyed designer pants, the fanny pack that had somehow survived the day intact. One eyebrow raised.
"Looks like that paycheck did you well," he said around a mouthful of chicken. "Or you got mugged by a coal processing plant. Hard to tell."
Tòumíng grinned and reached into his fanny pack, fingers closing around the small crystal. He pulled it out and set it on the counter with a soft clink.
The shopkeeper's expression changed instantly. The boredom evaporated, replaced by sharp focus. He set down his chicken, wiped his greasy fingers on his pants not helping the overall aesthetic and picked up his magnifying glass.
"Is this..." He held the amethyst up to the light, turning it slowly, examining every facet. "Holy shit."
"Good holy shit or bad holy shit?"
"This is flawless. Like, actually flawless. I've seen high-grade amethyst before but this..." He grabbed a jeweler's loupe from his desk, a more professional tool than the magnifying glass, and examined it more closely. "The clarity is perfect. The color saturation is maximum. The cut is rough but the crystal structure is..." He looked up at Tòumíng with suspicion. "Is this lab-grown?"
"No."
"You sure?"
"Positive."
The shopkeeper set down the loupe, still holding the crystal, his expression thoughtful. "I believe you. But this quality... this is only possible if the surrounding stone was under constant condensing heat that expelled all iron impurities. For thousands of years. Specific geological conditions that don't exist anywhere within hundreds of miles of here."
Tòumíng adopted what he hoped was a mysterious, wealthy persona. He reached up and styled his coal-dusty hair back, striking a pose that probably looked ridiculous. "Hmph. That's classified information."
"Classified."
"My supplier wishes to remain anonymous."
"Your supplier."
"I have connections you couldn't imagine."
The shopkeeper stared at him for a solid five seconds, then shrugged. "Whatever. I don't care where you got it as long as it's real, and this is definitely real." He pulled out his scale, measured the crystal precisely, did some mental math. "One hundred eighty thousand yuan. Final offer."
Tòumíng glanced internally toward Cupid. "Is that good?"
"Ask him to round up to one ninety-five. He'll do it. This is a steal for him at even two hundred thousand."
"Make it one hundred ninety-five thousand and we have a deal."
The shopkeeper considered for maybe three seconds. "Done. You drive a hard bargain for someone covered in coal dust."
They shook hands, greasy palm meeting coal-stained palm in what was probably the least hygienic business transaction of the day.
"Do you have a card?" the shopkeeper asked, reaching for his payment terminal.
Tòumíng blinked. "A what?"
"A card." The shopkeeper looked at him like he was slow. "You know. Credit card. Debit card. Bank card. For transferring money."
"A... what?"
The shopkeeper's expression shifted to something between pity and disbelief. He spoke slower this time, enunciating each word. "A. Credit. Card."
"What's that?"
"Oh my god. You want cash then?"
Cash. Yes. That made sense. Tòumíng nodded quickly, trying to recover from his obvious ignorance about how modern finance worked.
But wait. Fifty thousand in cash was fine, but carrying one hundred ninety-five thousand in physical bills was asking to get mugged. He'd seen videos on his phone about digital payments. That was a thing people did now.
"I want fifty thousand in cash," Tòumíng said, then paused dramatically for effect. "And the rest paid through... Alipay."
He said it like he'd just invented fire.
"Bet you've never heard of that before. That's okay, I just learned about it. It's like money... but on your phone. Sick, huh?"
The shopkeeper stared at him. Just stared, completely silent, for a full ten seconds.
"I know what Alipay is."
"Oh."
"Everyone knows what Alipay is."
"Right. Obviously. I was just—"
"Testing me?"
"Yes. Testing you. To see if you were tech-savvy."
"Uh-huh."
Heat crept up Tòumíng's neck, his face warming with embarrassment. But he pushed through it, straightening his spine, trying to maintain his fake rich-boy persona. "Just do it. Fifty thousand cash, the rest Alipay."
The shopkeeper sighed deeply, like this was the most exhausting transaction of his life, and pulled out his lockbox. He counted out fifty thousand yuan in neat stacks of one-hundred-yuan bills, rubber-banding them in bundles of ten thousand each.
Five bundles. Five thick, beautiful bundles of cash.
Then he pulled out his phone, opened Alipay, and showed Tòumíng his QR code. "Scan this."
Tòumíng fumbled with his phone, nearly dropping it twice, finally managed to open his Alipay app—which he'd set up three days ago after watching a tutorial video—and scanned the code. He typed in one hundred forty-five thousand yuan with shaking fingers and hit confirm.
A moment later, both phones chimed.
"Pleasure doing business," the shopkeeper said, already returning his attention to the chicken bucket. "Now get out before you track more coal dust on my floor."
Tòumíng grabbed the five rubber-banded stacks of cash, his hands trembling slightly, and just stood there for a moment staring at them. Fifty thousand yuan. In his hands. Real, physical, spendable cash.
"Hehehehe."
The giggle started again, that same unhinged sound that was becoming his signature reaction to sudden wealth.
He shoved three of the ten-thousand-yuan stacks into his fanny pack, carefully zipping it shut. Two more stacks went into his pants pockets, one on each side for balance.
"HEHEHEHE."
"You sound insane," Cupid observed. "Again."
"I don't care! I'm RICH! Again!"
Tòumíng walked toward the door, his pockets bulging with cash, his fanny pack heavy with more cash, his phone showing one hundred forty-five thousand yuan in his Alipay account, and his coal-stained clothes making him look like the world's poorest millionaire.
He pushed through the door, the bell chiming, and stepped out onto the street giggling like a schoolchild.
"Hehehehe. Hehehehehehe."
Life was good.