I couldn't take it anymore; when I went home for Chinese New Year, the family genealogy book ha

"Do you know what it means to be foolish and rich? Liu Cuifen spent 800,000 yuan on a tree; she's definitely out of her mind!"

Song Daming carried his small stool and sat at the intersection of the old street in Qingshui Town, holding a thermos in one hand and slapping his thigh with the other, spitting out words that flew three meters away.

The seven or eight elderly men and women surrounding him were all eating sunflower seeds and listening with great interest.

"It's not just about buying trees!" Song Daming got more and more excited as he spoke, putting his thermos on the ground and gesturing wildly with his hands. "That Sun Yumei, even more outrageous! She was swindled out of eight million by a fake best friend! Eight million! Guess what? The Porsche that swindler was driving was rented!"

"Tsk tsk tsk..."

"And Jiang Jianwen! Even more outrageous!" Song Daming lowered his voice, but it still carried for twenty meters. "Ten million in stocks, gone in half a day! Half a day! Even your piglet standing in front of the computer randomly pressing buttons couldn't lose that much!"

Yu Jiaojiao, the proprietress of the grocery store at the intersection, poked her head out and chimed in, "Brother Song, are you out of touch? Jiang Haoran's situation is even worse! His Lamborghini, worth 4.8 million, crashed into a pillar before he even left the dealership! The repair bill is 5.67 million, more expensive than the car itself!"

"What?"

The onlookers all gasped in surprise.

Song Daming slapped his thigh: "It's over, it's over! These four families combined have probably lost two or three hundred million in just two months!"

Yu Jiaojiao counted on her fingers: "Liu Cuifen's villa and renovation cost more than 100 million yuan, Sun Yumei was cheated out of 8 million yuan plus detention and fines, Jiang Jianwen lost 10 million yuan in stock speculation, Jiang Haoran was in a car accident and had to pay more than 5 million yuan in compensation... and there are all sorts of miscellaneous expenses, conservatively estimated at least 150 million yuan."

"A hundred and a half hundred million!" Song Daming exclaimed, patting his chest in amazement. "If I had a hundred and a half hundred million, I could sit on this street until I die!"

Wang Guixiang, who was selling vegetables nearby, chimed in, "Even if you had a hundred million or a half, you'd still squander it all."

"I'm different! I have a background in macroeconomics!"

"You call that economics? You couldn't even find your own sow if it went missing for three days."

Everyone burst into laughter.

Before the laughter had even subsided, the sound of spicy peppers erupted from the market across the street.

"Serves them right! These ingrates deserve to be taught a lesson by those swindlers!"

Hu Lahua slammed her boning knife against the cutting board with a loud clang. The middle-aged women queuing to buy meat in front of her shrank back.

"Back in Jiangjia Village, everything we ate, lived in, and used—wasn't it all provided by Brother Chen? Medical care was free, schooling for the children was free, and year-end bonuses were plentiful. In ancient times, that would be the treatment of royalty!"

Hu Lahua got angrier and angrier as she talked, and chopped faster and faster with her knife.

"And what happened? He took 300 million and ran away! He thought the village temple was too small and wanted to become a city dweller! Did he succeed?"

The middle-aged women in line answered in unison, "We didn't get to!"

"What a load of rubbish! Some got scammed, some were ripped off, some were imprisoned, and some were involved in accidents. Three hundred million in their pockets was gone in less than two months!"

Hu Lahua pointed the knife in the direction of the outside of the vegetable market.

"Tell me, if we had just stayed in the village obediently, would this have happened?"

An older woman buying pork ribs chimed in, "That's right. I heard that in Brother Chen's village, each household gets hundreds of thousands in dividends at the end of the year. They even give out gold bricks!"

"That's not just a few hundred thousand." Hu Lahua tossed a piece of pork belly onto the scale. "Jiang Mancang, that honest man, took in two hundred thousand in bonuses alone last year. Add in profit sharing and his salary, and he'll have close to a million in hand. Tell me, is it more worthwhile to work in the village for a million, or to get scammed out of a hundred million?"

The middle-aged woman clicked her tongue: "One million? Then I also want to go to Jiangjia Village..."

"Go to hell! People need to scan their faces to enter the village now, and your face isn't even in the system."

Outside the market, Jia Fugui, a vendor selling counterfeit antiques, was sorting through his pile of fakes he'd bought from Yiwu. Hearing Hu Lahua's words, he shook his head and sighed.

Qian Duobao, who was passing by, asked him, "Old Jia, what's with the sigh?"

Jia Fugui said with a regretful look, "If these people came to my stall to buy things, I would feel embarrassed to cheat them. It's too unchallenging."

Qian Duobao chuckled: "You've finally had a change of heart?"

"No," Jia Fugui said seriously. "There's no sense of accomplishment in deceiving these kinds of people. It's like fishing; a fish jumps right into your basket, and you don't even need to cast the rod. What's the point?"

These words made the surrounding vendors laugh.

News travels fast.

In less than three days, the "glorious achievements" of the four families spread from Qingshui Town to the county seat, and then from the county seat to several surrounding towns.

Someone in the teahouse composed a jingle:

"Liu Cuifen bought a luxury house, a huge waste of 80 million. Sun Yumei trusted her best friend, and 8 million went down the drain. Jiang Jianwen speculated on the stock market, and 10 million evaporated in half a day. Jiang Haoran drove a supercar, and crashed into a pillar before even leaving the house. Four families, 300 million, not even enough for a drink outside. They wouldn't listen to advice and kept making trouble, making the whole county a laughing stock."

The rhyme went viral in WeChat groups. Some people even added audio and catchy background music, and posted it on short video platforms.

The number of views exceeded 500,000 in three days.

The comments section exploded.

"Isn't this a living fable? Having a mountain of gold but not knowing how lucky you are, going out to throw your head at someone else's door."

"I suggest making it into a TV series, and calling it 'One Hundred Ways to Die for Three Hundred Million.'"

"Qingshui Town, the universe patted you on the shoulder—the people here are funnier than jokes."

Jiang Jianwen was walking down the street in the county town to buy groceries when he was recognized by several middle-aged women playing chess by the roadside.

"Hey! Isn't that the stock market guru who lost ten million?"

Another middle-aged woman came over and asked, "Really? Let me see what it looks like."

"That's him! The TV station even reported on him last time!"

Jiang Jianwen's face went from white to red, then from red to purple. He lowered his head, held the vegetable basket in front of his face, and walked quickly forward.

"Why are you running away! Tell us how to trade stocks!" the older woman shouted from behind.

Jiang Jianwen almost tripped over the steps by the roadside.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the county town.

Qian Duobao was driving his beat-up pickup truck, which made noise everywhere except for the horn, when he passed by the high-end repair shop that was fixing Jiang Haoran's Lamborghini.

He rolled down the car window, faced the repair shop gate, and turned on the large horn welded to the roof of the car.

"If you want to get rich, don't squander your money! Ignoring Brother Chen's advice will only lead to regret!"

The loudspeaker played the message three times.

The mechanic in the repair shop peeked out and saw Qian Duobao's beat-up pickup truck sputtering away, black smoke billowing from its rear.

The sound of the horn carried for half a block.

Jiang Haoran, who was inspecting the wreckage of his Lamborghini at the repair shop, turned green upon hearing the sound.

He ripped the fake gold chain off his neck and slammed it to the ground.

"Holy crap..."

The repairman next to him glanced at him and silently handed over the repair quote.

Jiang Haoran looked down and saw that the repair cost was 5.67 million yuan, of which 500,000 yuan had been paid as a deposit, leaving 5.17 million yuan still owed.

My hands are shaking.

These events, one by one, flew from Qingshui Town to the county seat, and from the county seat to the provincial capital, as if they had grown wings.

Finally, it flew to an unexpected place.

In the north of Qinghe County, there is an office building with a sign that reads "Hongyuan Trading".

In the office, a middle-aged man in a gray suit is on the phone.

"Young Master Chu, there's new information from Qinghe County. The few spies Jiang Chen planted inside have all been rendered useless."

There was a two-second silence on the other end of the phone.

"Write down all the details in a report."

"Yes."

The middle-aged man hung up the phone, turned on his computer, and started typing.

Twelve hours later.

The report was transmitted in encrypted form, traversing most of China.

It landed on a mahogany desk in a courtyard house in Beijing.