Chapter 39: A Winning Lottery Ticket About to Expire! (Please Keep Reading!)
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[Today’s Intelligence 01]:
Last night, while browsing on your phone, you came across a second-hand Lavida that Tian Zhipeng was selling.
Tucked inside the car manual in the vehicle’s glove compartment was a winning lottery ticket worth 68,996 yuan.
[Note]: The redemption period for this ticket expires in two days. After that, it will be void.
…
“A winning ticket? And it won more than sixty-eight thousand!”
“What kind of careless fool bought a lottery ticket and then forgot about it?”
“Aren’t these things only ever won by directors and their relatives?”
When Jiang Tao saw the newly refreshed intelligence, he was suddenly wide awake.
“There are only two days left to redeem it. That means I still have two days to get my hands on it.”
“Wait! I only have one day!”
Jiang Tao suddenly realized that today was the twentieth day of the twelfth month on the lunar calendar—a Sunday!
The Welfare Lottery Center was closed today!
In other words, he had only tomorrow left to redeem the ticket!
Time was of the essence!
Clearly, obtaining the ticket took priority over selling the sugar mandarins—and was far more urgent.
The current sugar mandarin boom would last for more than ten days.
Based on their inventory, Jiang Tao and the others would probably need only another four or five days to sell everything. There was no real rush.
It would not matter if Sugar Mandarin F4 were missing one person tomorrow.
When they divided the profits, he could simply give Liu Zhiyuan and the others an extra thousand yuan each.
That would only amount to three thousand yuan.
But if he got his hands on that winning ticket, it would be worth nearly seventy thousand yuan!
Even after paying twenty percent in taxes, he would still have more than fifty thousand yuan left!
Besides, Jiang Tao had also planned to look for Ma Dongmei at Hongxing Wholesale Market tomorrow.
The intelligence concerning Ma Dongmei was worth at least the landlord’s 88,888-yuan red envelope.
The things he had to do tomorrow were worth more than a hundred thousand yuan in total!
After adding it all up, he absolutely had to ask for leave tomorrow.
“I never imagined that the first lottery ticket I’d ever win would come about like this…”
After analyzing the intelligence and making plans for the next day, Jiang Tao climbed into bed and pulled the covers over himself.
Early the next morning, Jiang Tao got up as usual, only to see snowflakes drifting outside.
He checked his phone and found that several weather-related stories had made it onto Weibo’s trending list.
A cold wave, blizzards, and dense fog!
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Heavy to blizzard-level snow in eight provinces and regions across the country!
Jiang Tao was delighted when he saw the news, but he also quietly condemned himself.
Worrying that coal was cheap and wishing for colder weather—that kind of mentality was unacceptable!
Fortunately, the capital was merely overcast over the next couple of days, with no snowfall, so it would not affect their sales.
That morning, Jiang Tao still treated the brothers to mutton soup.
While they ate, he told them that he had something to take care of and would be unable to sell goods that day.
He also explained in advance that he would pay Liu Zhiyuan and the other two an additional thousand yuan each in wages.
At first, Liu Zhiyuan and the others tried to refuse the money, but in the end they were unable to turn him down.
Jiang Tao’s gesture earned him even greater admiration from the brothers.
After eating their fill, Liu Zhiyuan and the others drove off to load the goods.
Jiang Tao, meanwhile, walked toward Tian Zhipeng’s auto repair shop.
At eight in the morning, the repair shop had only just opened for business.
Tian Zhipeng was already repairing a small car that had been brought in the previous day.
When Jiang Tao arrived at the entrance, he glanced around, but he did not see the car Tian Zhipeng had posted on his social feed the night before.
Jiang Tao’s heart gave a sudden lurch.
Could the car have already been sold?
With that thought, he took several steps toward Tian Zhipeng and asked in as calm a tone as possible,
“Boss Tian, I saw on your social feed last night that you were selling a Lavida. Where is it?”
“You’re interested in that car too, Master Jiang? You should have said so!”
“It sold less than an hour after I posted it last night.”
Tian Zhipeng spoke casually as he continued repairing the car.
“Damn! It sold that fast?”
Jiang Tao could not help swearing.
He had planned to use the excuse of looking at the interior that morning to quietly retrieve the lottery ticket from the car.
After all, he could hardly buy an entire car just for the sake of one lottery ticket!
And now the car had actually been sold!
If only he had bought it from Boss Tian through WeChat the previous night!
“The car was in pretty good condition. It was six years old but had been driven fewer than forty thousand kilometers.”
“It had never undergone any major repairs, and the body had not been involved in any serious accidents—just a few minor scrapes.”
“A beginner could spend thirty thousand yuan on it, drive it for another four or five years while practicing their skills, then sell it. They wouldn’t lose much money.”
“The value for money on that kind of second-hand car is quite high, so they’re very popular.”
As he spoke, Tian Zhipeng used the electric screwdriver in his hand to remove the screws from the parts of the car he was repairing.
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“When was it… driven away?”
At the thought of the lottery ticket worth nearly seventy thousand yuan, tucked inside the manual and now squandered for nothing, Jiang Tao was filled with regret.
At present, only Heaven, his system, and Jiang Tao himself knew about the winning ticket.
The owner who had bought the car probably had no idea that a lottery ticket was hidden inside the manual!
Once tomorrow passed, that nearly seventy-thousand-yuan ticket would become nothing more than a worthless scrap of paper—too stiff even to use for wiping oneself.
“When was what driven away?”
Tian Zhipeng clearly had not understood Jiang Tao’s question. He stopped working and looked over at him.
“Oh, I mean, when was the Lavida you sold driven away?”
Thinking that he had nearly brushed past seventy thousand yuan, Jiang Tao felt a pang of frustration.
“It hasn’t been driven away yet. One of my employees took it to buy breakfast. Look, he’s back now.”
As he spoke, Tian Zhipeng nodded toward the space behind Jiang Tao.
Jiang Tao turned around and saw a white Lavida slowly pulling to a stop in an empty lot beside the repair shop.
The door opened, and a young man in the shop’s work uniform climbed out, carrying two savory crepes.
At the sight of this, the despairing flame in Jiang Tao’s heart sprang back to life.
This early in the morning, his emotions had plunged from a high to a low and then soared back up again. It was insanely thrilling!
Jiang Tao looked at Tian Zhipeng and suppressed his excitement as he asked,
“Boss Tian, could I sit in the car for a moment and get a feel for the space and take a look at the interior? I’ve been thinking about buying a Lavida myself.”
“Of course! Why not? Go ahead and take a look!”
“Xiao Liu, unlock the car so Master Jiang can go inside and have a look.”
Tian Zhipeng said this casually to the apprentice who had walked up to him, treating the matter as though it were nothing important.
“Sure thing, Brother Peng.”
Click!
Xiao Liu did not think much of it either. He took the key from his pocket and unlocked the doors.
“Thanks, Boss Tian!”
Jiang Tao politely thanked Tian Zhipeng, then turned and quickly walked toward the second-hand Lavida.
Through the car window, he saw a faint, dusky golden glow radiating from the glove compartment on the front passenger side.
“That’s it!”
Jiang Tao reached the Lavida, walked halfway around it, then went to the passenger side, opened the door, and sat down inside.
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