"Mr. Qin also said, the more people curse us, the more we'll earn. If you think about it from another angle, if we sue them, each person could claim two to five thousand in damages..." Liang Chengbin pinched his fingers and started calculating. It took a good while to coax his wife, but he finally managed to soothe her.

"I don't wish for any compensation. I just hope this matter passes soon. We're just ordinary people. It would be nice if they would stop cursing at us..." she sighed deeply, her voice dispirited.

"It will be over for sure. Mr. Qin and the others are good people. They've read a lot of books and are very knowledgeable about legal statutes," Liang Chengbin said earnestly, holding his wife. "Our days will get better and better. When Baoer comes to the city, she'll study hard and later get into a good university."

His wife added, "I've already decided. Baoer should study law in the future. We don't understand the law well enough, and we mustn't be taken advantage of..."

In this twenty-square-meter house, two ordinary and simple souls embraced, dreaming of a bright future.

「The next day,」 Qin Mu took another day off early in the morning. He took the high-speed train to the provincial capital, preparing to go to the lottery center to claim his prize.

To scrape together the litigation fees, he had bought 500 more lottery tickets last night. Of course, to avoid any unnecessary trouble, he did not go back to Ye Yuntian's lottery shop. Instead, he chose a different lottery shop. After all, Ye Yuntian's lottery shop... had already experienced two large-scale, concentrated jackpot wins.

The odds of winning this time were about the same as before. Out of five hundred lottery tickets, he won over ten million. Adding to his previous wins, he had raked in a total of twenty-five million from the lottery field. After taxes, it was almost twenty million.

After collecting the money this time, it's better not to buy lottery tickets anymore, he thought. Qin Mu still had some self-awareness about this. Although he had not cheated at all throughout the process, the phenomenon was extremely suspicious.

At eleven in the morning, he arrived at the provincial lottery center and went to the prize claim department.

"Please fill in the prize claim information first," the staff member patiently guided him through the prize claim steps, handing him a form. The form required details such as the type of lottery, the draw number, and personal information. Once these were completed, a specialist was responsible for verification.

"Ahem, could you give me a few more forms, please?" Qin Mu asked, looking at his bag full of lottery tickets with some embarrassment.

The staff member paused and then asked, "How many do you need?"

"Seventy-six," Qin Mu replied truthfully.

He had made three purchases in total; his winnings from the second to sixth prizes amounted to over 1,000 tickets. But this was the provincial lottery center, which only processed claims for major prizes. This meant first or second prizes.

"That many?" The staff member was somewhat incredulous. It wasn't until Qin Mu opened his bag, revealing seventy-six second-prize lottery tickets, that the staff member was truly taken aback. A second prize, no matter the lottery type, was worth at least several hundred thousand! These seventy-six tickets meant there was at least twenty million here! However, he had never seen a lottery player come in with more than seventy second-prize tickets!

"Please start by filling in your information." Swallowing hard, he quickly brought over a stack of forms and discreetly notified the head of the prize claim department.

The higher-ups were equally startled by Qin Mu. Once Qin Mu had finished filling in the information for all seventy-six second-prize tickets, they immediately had their backend team investigate the origin of these lottery tickets and check for any database vulnerabilities. After a thorough investigation, they found that Qin Mu's lottery tickets were indeed legitimate, and there was no sign of an internal information leak. However, upon verifying the lottery tickets, they discovered that all the tickets Qin Mu had purchased were bought at the same time, involving more than ten different types of lotteries. The first purchase involved a one-time printout of 200 tickets. The next two purchases were also one-time printouts of 500 tickets each.

This is truly bizarre. There's no anomaly in the total prize pool, and the data isn't exceeding any limits.

After an inspection by the staff, it was discovered that for these three lottery draws, the total number of second-prize winners issued was the same as usual; it's just that... this person's luck was exceptionally good.

So many second prizes, all won from tickets bought at the same time...

Since there's no impact on the prize pool, then go ahead and process his claim.

In the end, after an emergency discussion, the lottery center's leadership decided to pay out Qin Mu's winnings. Their total prize pool, under strict controls, hadn't diminished. That is to say, the fixed number of second prizes for each draw... were all concentrated in these two lottery shops, while other shops barely had any second-prize winners. This had no impact on them.

Therefore, the staff quickly opened an exclusive VIP channel for Qin Mu, guiding him throughout the process. The process involved paying taxes, filling out a check, and then proceeding to the bank for the exchange and transfer. After a busy two hours, the prize money of twenty million after taxes was finally in his hands.

「Lottery Center. Prize Redemption Department.」

In the afternoon, two unexpected guests arrived. Ye Yuntian and the owner of another lottery shop came, bringing a pile of second-prize lottery tickets to redeem. Ye Yunfei's own collection of second-prize tickets amounted to only a little over twenty. But the owner of the other lottery shop held three hundred second-prize tickets!

"Alas, Old Brother really has guts; I feel a bit petty in comparison," Ye Yuntian said enviously, looking at this owner, full of regret. When Qin Mu had come to his shop to buy lottery tickets the second time, Ye Yuntian had only followed suit and bought 500 bets for himself. And the third time... Qin Mu had gone to another shop—the one belonging to the man now standing beside him. That owner had made a one-time... purchase of 9,000 bets! As a result, he won three hundred second-prize tickets alone! That was more than ten times Ye Yuntian's own winnings!

Initially, Ye Yuntian had been thrilled to win a little over twenty second-prize tickets; calling it a windfall wasn't an overstatement. But now... he couldn't feel happy at all. If he had known, he would have risked his entire fortune to buy tens of thousands of bets! In comparison, his small winnings seemed like nothing; it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call himself dirt poor.

"What? Hundreds of second-prize tickets?" The staff member who had just assisted Qin Mu was dumbfounded upon seeing these two and quickly called his superior, informing them of the situation.

Afterward, senior leaders of the lottery center once again convened an emergency meeting and sternly rebuked the technical department.

"This... really has nothing to do with us! The probabilities are all equal, and the second prizes for each lottery type are supposed to be evenly distributed across all regions. Who knew they would all be concentrated in these two lottery shops over three consecutive draws..." the technical department staff protested, looking aggrieved and adamantly refusing to take the blame. Their scrutiny revealed no flaws in the backend technology, but the results of these three draws were too strange. The first two draws were somewhat manageable; instances of second-prize concentration weren't as severe. But the third draw... resulted in this one lottery shop issuing three hundred second-prize tickets from different lotteries! The cumulative prize money exceeded one hundred million! In other regions, the number of second-prize winners in this draw was, by comparison, much sparser.

"Thoroughly investigate!" one leader ordered. "Whether there's a technical flaw or not, this situation absolutely must not occur again! Otherwise, what will the public think of our lottery center? There are absolutely no rigged outcomes here!"

In the end, the leadership decided to temporarily halt prize redemption for Ye Yuntian and the other owner. Qin Mu's redemption in the morning hadn't been as substantial. For over thirty different lotteries, all his second prizes combined only added up to twenty million. But this afternoon's claimant... was truly on another level. They had to be more cautious.

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