Chapter 46: The Plan

I went back to my room, completely unaware that Wang Chuyi and Chen Jianguo knew nothing about what had just happened. They were shirtless on the bed playing cards, and neither of them could have imagined that moments earlier, I had been calling someone "Grandfather" and begging for mercy.

"Let's get to work," I said.

"What work?" Chen Jianguo asked.

"Work that will make us rich," I replied.

Wang Chuyi immediately put down his cards, but my cousin Chen Jianguo looked like he had something to say. I prompted him, "Cousin, there's no outsider here. Speak your mind."

"The three of us are no match for the boss. You haven't been here long so you don't know, but that guy is a notorious smiling tiger who has connections in both the underworld and the upper echelons. That Cheng Yi is viciously good at fighting. We have no money and no manpower, so what gives us the right to fight them? If Uncle Yong were willing to step in, we might have a slight chance, but you guys keep putting on airs, claiming it's inappropriate for Uncle Yong to get involved. Don't look at me like that—I'm not scared just because I got beaten up once; I genuinely can't figure out how we're supposed to fight him," Chen Jianguo said.

"Chuyi, do you have any thoughts?" I asked Wang Chuyi.

"I listen to Brother Cheng. Even though I don't know how we can win, what is there to be afraid of losing? At worst, I'll just ask Uncle Yong to spare my dog's life and I'll head back to my hometown. We're already dirt poor like this, we have nothing left to lose," Wang Chuyi said.

I said nothing, opened the drawer, tore a sheet of paper from a notebook, and began to sketch a diagram.

It was a very simple tree diagram.

At the very top of the tree diagram, I wrote the name Ah Wang.

"Ah Wang has two wives: his legal wife, Fang Yi, and his second wife, He Wanyue. Fang Yi's family has ties to the upper-world establishment, though her family's influence has declined and is no longer what it used to be. Fortunately, Ah Wang has built up his business over the years and established his own network of connections. The second wife, He Wanyue, gave birth to a son for Ah Wang, thereby gaining the support of Ah Wang's parents' family. There is a deep, massive conflict between his two wives—a feud as irreconcilable as water and fire, just like the one between Leopard and Cai. According to my original plan, we were supposed to approach Brother Leopard to latch onto Fang Yi's faction. As for how to do that, it's simple: we could help her deal with He Wanyue and Brother Cai, thereby entering Ah Wang's line of sight and gaining access to the third floor. But now, that plan is obviously dead in the water," I explained.

"You mentioned earlier that you wanted to deal with Brother Cai; is that what you had in mind?" Chen Jianguo asked me.

I nodded and continued, "I received a piece of intelligence over the past two days: Ah Wang deeply believes in a feng shui master. The reason he took in He Wanyue despite her soiled past was entirely due to a word from that feng shui master. That feng shui master's surname is Lai. I have a way to approach him and try to establish a connection. My previous plan was to use the feng shui master to get Ah Wang to accept me. After all, if a word from the feng shui master could make him accept a woman whose promiscuous private life was common knowledge, he certainly wouldn't mind taking in one more lucky asset. Though this path is ruined now, I will still seek out that feng shui master. He will be a crucial piece in our future strategy against Ah Wang."

"Cousin, your task is to shadow He Wanyue and map out her daily routine and activity patterns."

"Chuyi, you will approach Fang Yi. For some reason, I feel Fang Yi will be much harder to deal with than He Wanyue, so you must be careful."

"Until then, I will pay you both a salary matching what you made at Ah Wang's restaurant, and any expenses incurred during your operations will be covered by me. Don't tell me you won't take it—we all have parents to support back home, and Chuyi has a girlfriend, so we can't have the girls subsidizing us. Everything we are doing is known only to the three of us so far. No one else can be told, not even those closest to us. That is all I have to say. This is the preliminary plan. I make no guarantees whether it will succeed or fail. Give me two months. If we fail after two months, we go our separate ways." I sat down.

Wang Chuyi lit a cigarette and said, "I'm in."

Chen Jianguo looked astonished and asked, "When did you come up with all of this?"

"I've been thinking about it from the very beginning," I answered.

Chen Jianguo nodded and said, "Cousin, say no more. What I admire most are people who make a living with their brains. I wouldn't dare commit murder or arson, but how hard can tailing someone be?"

I said nothing more.

Tracking down the whereabouts of these two women was not difficult, considering both of them had been working here for a long time.

I walked out and sat on the rooftop, smoking half a pack of cigarettes.

Books describe the underworld's lower strata and various martial sects, but nowadays, the most suitable path for us is the Thousand Gates—the world of deception and con artistry.

The Thousand Gates encompass eight trades, and without mastering five of them, success will not blossom.

To deal with an old fox like Ah Wang, the people I have around me right now are simply not enough.

After finishing my last cigarette, I got up and headed out to the North Street of the village. Along North Street, there were always young girls standing by the roadside, pulling off very simple scams.

It wasn't a honey trap.

Nor was it a beauty scheme.

It was the begging scam.

They usually operated in pairs, dragging suitcases and carrying backpacks, stopping passersby to say: "Mister, we came out here to look for work, but a thief stole our wallets. Could you lend us a dollar to buy a steamed bun? Fifty cents is fine, too."

When a pretty young girl looks at you with pitiful eyes and asks to borrow a dollar or fifty cents, nine out of ten men will give it to her. Some might even say, "Come with me, miss, I'll take care of your meals." If you were foolish enough to say that, she would actually go with you, but you would never get the slightest advantage out of it. What awaited you would either be a setup where accomplices blackmail you or having your wallet entirely cleaned out. It was a ring of interlocking traps.

What I wanted was to collaborate with professional con artists possessing this level of acting skill.

However, perhaps because it wasn't yet late evening, I circled the area twice and couldn't find the girls who usually scammed people here. Just as I was about to head back and return later, a car pulled up right in front of me. A man stepped out, dressed in a tailored suit with his hair meticulously combed, wearing a glittering watch on his wrist and holding a Motorola mobile phone. He opened the car door and said, "Brother, hold on a second."

"Something you need?" I asked.

"Can you do me a favor? I forgot to bring money when I went out, and I have a client meeting now. Can you lend me fifty bucks to get some gas? Don't worry, I never welch on a debt. Once I see my client, I'll get some cash from him and pay you back a hundred. My phone number is..." he said.

The man had an extraordinary bearing and articulate speech; he looked every bit like a boss, yet he was asking to borrow fifty bucks right off the bat.

Is fifty bucks a lot?

Not really.

Is it a little?

Not really.

An ordinary person seeing his demeanor would assume he was genuinely a wealthy boss and definitely wouldn't default on a hundred bucks or so.

I felt in my pocket, pulled out a fifty-yuan bill, and handed it to him. He quickly expressed his gratitude: "Thanks, brother. Where do you work? If you don't have a job, come to the Jiangnan Leather Factory in the Development Zone. My name is Wang He; just tell HR that President Wang sent you."

"What should I do if I can't find you?" I asked.

"Should I write you an IOU?" He leaned into the car to grab pen and paper.

"What I mean is, what should I do if I can't find you? If I can't find you, what good is an IOU?" I emphasized.

He hesitated, as if making a tough decision, and said, "Brother, how about this? This Motorola phone—brand new, cost me 9,800. I'll leave it with you as collateral for your five hundred bucks. Now you aren't worried I'll run off, right? Can't you easily pawn this phone somewhere for two or three thousand? Even a hero can be stumped by a penny; I'm genuinely in a tight spot."

"How much can you make in a day doing this?" I asked.

"You mean at the factory? We do a turnover of over two hundred thousand a month," he said proudly.

"I mean pulling scams like this. The car is rented, the watch is fake, the phone is a dummy model, and only this suit is worth anything. Am I right or wrong?" I said.

His brow furrowed. "Little brother, even heroes fall on hard times. I just went out today without cash; there's no need for you to insult me like this. If you aren't going to lend it, forget it."

Seeing him pull open the car door and prepare to leave,

I immediately grabbed the car door.

"You won't make much money doing it this way. I have a major deal. Are you willing to do it?" I asked.

He looked at me in surprise and then flashed a secret underworld hand gesture at me.