Chapter 4: The Lady's Watch Hidden Within the Down Jacket's Inner Layer!

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After a video call with his wife and child that lasted over an hour, the whole family was buzzing with excitement over the lottery win. Once the call ended, Jiang Tao began preparing dinner for the evening. Living alone in the capital city, he kept things simple and practical, managing with whatever was at hand.

He boiled a pack of instant noodles in an electric cooker and fried an egg. Once cooked, he poured the noodles into a vintage-style yellow enamel basin he usually ate from. Then he took a flatbread that had been warming on the radiator and added a dollop of spicy chili sauce. Simple and straightforward, his dinner was ready to be enjoyed.

After finishing his meal, Jiang Tao went outside to the communal water basin to wash the pot and scrub the dishes. Full and satisfied, he returned to his room, lay down on the bed, and started listening to an audiobook.

Jiang Tao rarely went out unless necessary. His routine after work was to video call his wife and child, eat, then settle in at home listening to audiobooks, reading novels, or scrolling through short videos. Beyond that, he had no other hobbies and lived a fairly reclusive life.

Close to midnight, Jiang Tao’s mind suddenly shifted. He opened his daily intelligence system to check for updates.

[Next intelligence update in 00:06:51!]

Seeing there were just over six minutes left for the next update, Jiang Tao’s attention drifted from the audiobook. He began to wonder what the next piece of intelligence might be. Would it be another lottery win notification like the first? Or perhaps the winning numbers for the national lottery?

He stared intently at the countdown timer on the virtual panel, watching it tick down for over six minutes. When it finally hit zero, a new piece of intelligence appeared:

[Today's intelligence]: This afternoon, passing through the villagers’ square in Xiaoshahe urban village, you received intelligence — inside the first trash bin on the west side of the square, concealed within a light green women's down jacket, there is a Longines Mini DolceVita ladies' wristwatch valued at 13,300 yuan!

Seeing that the new intelligence again involved a trash bin, Jiang Tao couldn’t help but chuckle. It seemed the system had a special focus on garbage bins! But when he read about the ladies' watch worth over ten thousand yuan, his heart raced with renewed excitement.

“I should go check it out right now! Better not wait; what if someone else beats me to it?”

With that thought, Jiang Tao immediately started dressing. He put on a long, stained military-style coat, a fur-lined ushanka hat, cotton gloves, and grabbed a flashlight. Fully equipped, he stepped outside, descended the stairs, pushed open the communal building’s main door, and stepped into the night.

Snowflakes were swirling gently in the air.

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The snow had been falling in the capital since dusk and now covered the ground with six or seven centimeters of white. Jiang Tao’s heavy work boots crunched loudly as he left a trail of footprints behind.

He carefully navigated the slippery path for over eight minutes until he arrived at the villagers’ activity square on the west side of Xiaoshahe village. His gaze immediately locked onto the four trash bins on the west side of the square.

Striding forward, the few stray cats rummaging through the bins meowed a few times before scattering.

“Is the first trash bin the one on the left or the one on the right?” he muttered.

“Never mind, I’ll start with the right side!” There were only a few bins, and the area was deserted, so no need to rush.

Donning a pair of work gloves, Jiang Tao began searching the rightmost bin. He rummaged from top to bottom, sifting through a chaotic mix of garbage: torn clothes, broken jars, bricks, and shards of tile.

When he reached the bottom, there was no sign of the light green women’s down jacket mentioned in the intelligence.

“Next one!”

Undeterred by the failure at the first bin, Jiang Tao moved to the next. He pushed aside cardboard boxes, torn plastic bags, and piles of leaves.

“There it is!”

After removing a black delivery bag, the flashlight’s beam caught a flash of green. Quickly, Jiang Tao pulled out a small light green women’s down jacket. This had to be the jacket from the intelligence report!

However...

He checked both outer pockets and the inside pocket thoroughly but found no sign of the wristwatch.

Frustration made sweat bead on his forehead.

“That can’t be right. This intelligence system shouldn’t be wrong!”

He reopened the system and scrutinized the day's intelligence message word by word.

This time, he noticed that the watch was said to be hidden “within a compartment of the jacket.”

“A compartment in the jacket?” Jiang Tao wondered.

This time, he didn’t just check the pockets. Running his hands along the jacket’s hem on the left side, he found something unusual—a subtle foreign object.

“That must be the watch!”

His excitement surged again at the thought of the watch’s value. Over ten thousand yuan! Which careless woman would throw such a thing away? Luckily, his own wife wasn’t so wasteful.

Jiang Tao tried all three pockets again but found no holes for his large hands to slip through, and he had no tools handy.

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He decided to stuff the down jacket into his military coat and take it home for further inspection.

By the time he retraced his steps back to his rented room, it was already past midnight.

Normally, Jiang Tao would have been off to bed by now, but tonight he felt wide awake, full of energy.

Once inside, he shed his military coat, retrieved the green women’s down jacket, and pulled a pair of scissors from his drawer.

Snip, snip, snip...

Without hesitation, Jiang Tao cut open a seam near the mysterious object in the jacket’s lining.

Reaching inside, he pulled out a small square watch face paired with a red crocodile leather strap—a delicate ladies’ wristwatch.

The watch looked brand new, nearly indistinguishable from one just purchased.

Moreover, Jiang Tao saw the hands on the dial moving normally, showing the same time as his phone.

This meant the watch was fully functional.

Flipping it over, he saw the model number: L5.200.

Jiang Tao had reached thirty years of age, and aside from doodling watches on his wrist with a pen as a child, he knew nothing about timepieces.

But since the intelligence system valued it at 13,300 yuan, he trusted that estimate.

“Condition looks over 98% new. If I put it up for sale, what price should I set?”

“Let me check Bilibili for similar models to get a price reference.”

When it came to things he didn’t understand, Jiang Tao never pretended otherwise; he diligently researched.

After watching several videos on Bilibili, he gained a rough idea of the watch’s market value.

This mini Longines DolceVita ladies’ wristwatch retails at 13,300 yuan.

Though the series is a classic, the brand’s resale value is average.

Therefore, second-hand sales typically fetch 60-70% of retail price.

“Sixty percent of 13,300 is 7,980 yuan...”

Jiang Tao calculated on his phone—a price he found perfectly acceptable.

Getting nearly 8,000 yuan for free—what more could he ask for?

Since it wasn’t his own money, he felt no qualms.

He quickly snapped several photos of the watch and posted it on his second-hand marketplace account for 8,000 yuan.

After listing it, he glanced at his phone. It was already 1:30 a.m.

“Wow, it’s so late! Time to sleep, time to sleep!”

He poured hot water into the washbasin for a quick freshen-up, then crawled into bed, switched on the electric blanket, and drifted off within ten minutes.