A Valiant Life

Yang Yong Kang was full of energy. He didn’t even sleep last night. The next morning, he brought his identification documents and the lottery ticket to the main lottery center in Shanghai.

$15 million! He had actually won $15 million! Most people couldn’t even earn that much money in their entire lifetime. If Yang Yong Kang hadn’t eaten or drunk for his entire life, he wouldn’t even have been able to earn that much money.

After he was done with everything, the first person he thought of was Lin Fan. If not for him, he wouldn’t have bought the lottery ticket.

“Little Boss!”

Yang Yong Kang was so excited that his face and ears turned red.

“Mr. Yang, don’t panic. Speak slowly.” Lin Fan smiled and said.

The surrounding customers knew what had happened the day before so they interrupted to mock Lin Fan.

“Little boss, look. Mr. Yang is here to settle scores with you.”

“Mr. Yang, did you waste your money on the lottery ticket that day? It’s good that you’re here today. little boss said he was going to be a fortune-teller and quit the pancake business. Don’t you think it’s a joke?” said a resident.

“I won! I really won!” Mr. Yang was full of admiration and respect for Lin Fan. He would’ve gone down on his knees and worshipped Lin Fan like a god if he could.

“Won what?”

The residents were all confused.

Yang Yong Kang calmed himself down and sternly said, “Two days ago, little boss reminded me to buy a lottery ticket even though I wasn’t a fan of it. However, I bought a ticket that day at the school entrance after I heard what he told me. I actually won the first prize after matching the numbers yesterday night.”

The residents were all doubtful of his words. “How many numbers did you win by?”

“Just $10, right? You’re just here for free scallion pancakes, right?”

“Looks like little boss really has some talent if I were to buy a ticket every day, I would get free scallion pancakes in future too!”

…

Yang Yong Kang anxiously said, “No, no, I won the first prize. $15 million dollars!!!”

“Huh…?”

“What…?”

Every single resident was stunned beyond words. It was as if they had just seen a cow flying in the sky.

Those who had heard what he said started to laugh. They said, “Little boss, where are your morals? How could you gang up with Mr. Yang to lie to us? We don’t believe in that bullsh*t.”

Just as the conversation ended, several reporter vans came and a large number of reporters charged out of the vans.

“Mr. Yang…”

“Mr. Yang…”

These reporters were from the large newspaper publishers of Shanghai. This was a potential big headline.

The scale of the news article for winning the first prize wasn’t always a contender for a big headline. Most of the people who had won the first prize rejected the interviews. But it was the first time in history that someone had won over $15 million, the highest amount ever.

Two dollars won him $15 million dollars.

They initially wanted to just interview Yang Yong Kang and did not expect to find out any shocking piece of news. They just wanted to know how he was feeling.

Mr. Yang was unexpectedly someone who has never bought any lottery tickets before and he had wanted to donate the remaining amount of money to educational organizations after paying off all his debts.

The reporters were all shocked beyond words. It was the first time they had witnessed such a thing happen. In the past, there were cases of charitable winners but the most they had donated was merely a few hundred thousand dollars.

As for Mr. Yang who wanted to donate over $10 million dollars to charity, the reporters had the potential to write big headlines with that piece of information.

Then, the reporters followed Mr. Yang to the respective educational organizations and witnessed him donate all the money away.

But just before he donated, he took out $300,000 from the winnings and kept it for himself. From all the reporter’s’ point of views, they were full of nothing but respect for Mr. Yang. They could only use ‘respect’ to describe the feeling they had towards him.

He only kept $300,000 with him and he had donated everything else. Then, they realized that the $300,000 was to be given to someone else. This gave them more things to write about.

Especially after hearing what Yang Yong Kang said, they all felt extremely curious.

“Without Little Boss, there wouldn’t even be this winning ticket.”

…

Lin Fan was also stunned by the situation that had happened in front of him. It created such a big commotion. The reporters rushed out of the place as if they were stalking a superstar.

“Mr. Yang, do you regret donating everything away?”

…

The residents in the vicinity couldn’t believe what they had seen. Did he really f*cking win $15 million dollars?

One of the residents who knew what had happened two days ago, pulled one of the reporters and asked, “What happened? Mr. Yang really won the first prize?”

Initially, the reporter that was dragged out was rather unhappy as the resident had prevented him from conducting his interview.

Suddenly, he realized how stupid the question was. What did he mean by ‘really won’?

Could it be that there was something more to the story?

“Hi sir, Mr. Yang has won the first prize for the double colored ball lottery. The prize was $15 million dollars. What were you implying when you asked if he had really won?”

The reporter placed his microphone in front of the man, hoping to get more juicy news. The other reporters who heard their conversation also did the same thing.

At that instant, the resident was shocked and couldn’t believe what he had heard. All that was going through his mind was, “He won… $15 million dollars…”

“Sir, what’s wrong? Could you tell us?” the reporter noticed his reaction and anxiously asked. Why was this man so shocked?

Then, the other residents who had the same reaction came over and said, “This was what happened. Two days ago, Little Boss told Mr. Yang that he was going to win big money. He told him to buy a lottery ticket. Initially, we all told it was a joke. But he really won the first prize.”

After he told them the story, the resident exclaimed to Lin Fan, “Little boss, I don’t want my scallion pancake anymore, just help me read my fortune.”

…

The situation became really chaotic, everyone was having their own conversation. Although $15 million wasn’t exactly considered to be a massive sum of money in Shanghai, it definitely wasn’t a small sum.

What shocked the crowd was the fact that little boss had reminded Mr. Yang to purchase the ticket. If not for what they had witnessed, nobody would have believed what they said.

Yang Yong Kang took out a credit card from his pocket and shook Lin Fan’s hand. “little boss, I am truly grateful for you.”

“This card has $300,000 in it, it’s what you deserve.”

Lin Fan had accepted Yang Yong Kang’s gift of gratitude as he felt that he deserved it. Besides, with his current stall front for fortune-telling, it did seem a little underwhelming. If he had the money, he could use it to rent a nicer place to set up his stall.

But what had shocked Lin Fan was the fact that Mr. Yang donated all his money away.

“Mr. Yang, did you really donate all your money?” Lin Fan asked.

“Yes, I donated all of it. I am more than satisfied with my life even if I were to die now. I used to fascinate about what I would do if I had a large sum of money. But now I know that education of others holds the highest place in my heart.” Mr. Yang said emotionally as if he was going to cry.

Lin Fan nodded after hearing what Mr. Yang had said. He was full of respect for him for donating over $10 million dollars without saving any for himself.

At the same time, Lin Fan understood the reason why Mr. Yang decided to do that. As a teacher, he had dedicated his entire life to educating others and that’s probably the reason why. He thought that Mr. Yang would definitely be promoted to be the principal.

“Hi Little Boss, may I know what’s your occupation?”

“Hi Little Boss, may I know why you requested for Mr. Yang to purchase the lottery ticket? And how did you know that he would win the first prize?”

Lin Fan just smiled to the reporters, took a few steps backward as he pointed to something that was beside him and said, “It’s because of this…”