Chapter 47: Cashing in the Lottery, Money Arrives!

After giving remote instructions to his young female assistant to handle ten thousand Ultraman hair clips, Jiang Tao finished his breakfast.

He scanned the QR code to pay the bill, lit a cigarette, and stepped outside.

Strolling along leisurely, he arrived at the entrance of a lottery shop tucked inside an urban village.

It was just past eight o'clock in the morning.

There wasn't a single customer inside the shop.

Only the owner, Liu Feng, stood anxiously behind the counter making a phone call.

"Brother Wang, I've really been trying my best to find one for you."

"I've asked over a dozen peers in the business, and the biggest win anyone's had these past few days is only two or three thousand."

"If the amounts are smaller, wouldn't multiple tickets work?"

"Alright, alright, I'll keep looking for you."

"I'll do it as soon as possible. Got it, got it!"

Hanging up the phone, Liu Feng sighed with helpless resignation, "A grand prize of tens of thousands of yuan—where is it that easy to win?"

Liu Feng's lottery shop had been open in this urban village for nearly ten years.

He remembered clearly that the biggest prize ever won at his shop was only forty thousand yuan.

That was when a veteran lottery player spent over eight hundred yuan on a multiple-selection ticket and was lucky enough to win dozens of third-place prizes.

As for second-place prizes with higher payouts, there wasn't a single one.

Let alone the first-place prize.

Throughout the entire capital city, there were only a handful of first-place winning tickets issued in an entire year.

This time, a small engineering contractor who frequently bought tickets from Liu Feng asked him to find a winning lottery ticket or scratch card with a prize amount of around seventy to eighty thousand yuan.

Liu Feng had contacted seven or eight of his peers, but none of them could find a winning ticket of that amount.

If all else failed, he would just have to stake out the Welfare Lottery Center and wait for some lucky person going to claim their prize!

Turning his head, Liu Feng saw a handsome man push open the door and walk straight up to the counter in a few strides.

"Boss, do you buy winning lottery tickets here?"

Last night, the intelligence system had provided crystal-clear information.

This Liu Feng was in urgent need of a lottery ticket with a winning amount of around seventy thousand yuan.

Therefore, Jiang Tao didn't waste any words with Liu Feng and went straight to the point, stating his purpose.

"I buy them, of course I do! Brother, how much did you win?"

Hearing Jiang Tao's words, Liu Feng's face immediately lit up with surprise.

This was like someone offering a pillow right when he was feeling sleepy!

Jiang Tao said very straightforwardly, "68,996 yuan. A quick-pick second-place prize for the Super Lotto. If the boss wants it, I'll let it go at face value."

Hearing Jiang Tao's words, Liu Feng immediately realized that the person standing in front of him knew the ropes!

"May I see the ticket?"

"Sure."

Jiang Tao reached into the inner pocket of his down jacket, pulled out a wallet, and handed the lottery ticket, which was set to expire today, to Liu Feng.

Seeing the date on the ticket, Liu Feng's pupils constricted slightly as he looked at Jiang Tao in astonishment.

"Brother, you certainly have nerves of steel! Today is the very last day to claim the prize!"

As a professional lottery retailer, Liu Feng was naturally extremely sensitive to prize-claiming deadlines.

Upon receiving the ticket, his first glance was at the date the ticket was printed and the date of the draw.

Seeing that the ticket Jiang Tao gave him expired today, Liu Feng truly admired Jiang Tao's composure!

If it were him, he would have happily gone to claim the prize the very next day; how could he possibly have waited for another two months?

"Right, today is the last day to claim it, and my time is tight."

"Boss, give me a straight answer. If you don't want it, I'll go ask someone else. If nobody wants it, I'll just go claim it myself."

Jiang Tao's expression remained calm and collected.

"Hold on, let me check the authenticity of the ticket!"

As Liu Feng spoke, he directly placed Jiang Tao's lottery ticket into his prize-verification machine to test it.

The moment the ticket entered the machine, a burst of tinkling chimes and cheerful music suddenly rang out inside the room.

On the screen of the lottery machine, several large characters appeared:

*Congratulations on winning the second-place prize of 68,996 yuan! Please go to the Welfare Lottery Center at No. 4, Nanlu, Xizhimenwai, Xicheng District to claim your prize!*

Seeing the prompt on the verification machine's display, Liu Feng swallowed hard in excitement!

This kind of ticket had actually won a second-place prize!

"Brother, you know that for prize amounts over 3,000, you need to pay..."

"Give me the ticket back, I'll go ask somewhere else."

Without waiting for Liu Feng to finish speaking, Jiang Tao directly reached out his hand for the ticket.

"No, no, no! My friend, hold on a second. Let me make a call to my buddy; he's quite interested in what you have in your hand."

As Liu Feng spoke, he hurriedly dialed the phone of the Brother Wang he had been talking to earlier.

He briefly told Brother Wang over the phone about the prize amount on Jiang Tao's winning ticket and the expiration date.

Although Brother Wang on the other end of the line wasn't entirely satisfied with the expiration date of Jiang Tao's ticket, in the short term, he probably wouldn't be able to find any ticket with a better matching prize amount than this one!

The two muttered back and forth for a good while before finally deciding to buy the ticket from Jiang Tao!

After hanging up Brother Wang's phone, Liu Feng turned to Jiang Tao and said,

"Brother, just as you said earlier, whatever the prize amount is, I'll buy it back from you giving you the exact same amount in cash."

Having finally waited for a winning ticket worth over seventy thousand yuan, Liu Feng naturally wasn't going to let Jiang Tao walk away so easily.

"Alipay or WeChat?"

Jiang Tao didn't want to bother with any more hassle.

If he went to claim the prize himself, not only would he have to ride the subway for over an hour, but he would also have to pay a 20% accidental income tax—it was entirely a case of working hard for little reward.

Selling the ticket to Liu Feng saved him time and effort, and actually allowed him to pocket over sixteen thousand yuan more!

"Alipay, please! I don't have that much cash on WeChat."

As Liu Feng spoke, he took out his phone, opened Alipay, and very readily transferred 68,996 yuan to Jiang Tao!

The business of selling the lottery ticket went much smoother than Jiang Tao had expected!

With the transaction complete, Jiang Tao spent another 10 yuan to casually play five quick-pick bets of Super Lotto before leaving with his new ticket.

"What kind of heaven-defying luck is this to actually win a second prize!"

Watching Jiang Tao walk away, Liu Feng turned his head back to glance at the total amount on the verification machine—68,996 yuan!

Even as a lottery shop owner who had been selling tickets for nearly ten years, he found it quite unbelievable.

To ensure everything was foolproof without a single flaw, Liu Feng finally called the Brother Wang he had just spoken with to report the progress.

Brother Wang readily transferred 73,000 yuan directly to Liu Feng.

The 68,996 yuan covered the cost of purchasing the ticket, and the extra money was considered a reward for him.

In just a few days' time, he had earned an extra three thousand-plus yuan out of nowhere.

For Liu Feng, this result was also the absolute best outcome.

...

Stepping out of the lottery shop, Jiang Tao immediately felt refreshed and clear-headed.

Today's two plans had been successfully completed.

One had saved him 16,000 yuan.

The other would help him rake in hundreds of thousands of yuan over the next few days!

Thinking of this, when lunchtime came, Jiang Tao treated himself to a lavish meal at a restaurant.

He ordered three dishes and a soup all to himself and ate his fill.

After eating and drinking to his heart's content, Jiang Tao took a bus and wandered around aimlessly.

He wandered until past six o'clock in the afternoon.

When Liu Zhiyuan and the others packed up their stalls and finished work for the day, the group gathered once again at the "Wangcai Restaurant" for a dinner get-together.