"Ding-ling-ling..."
The urgent ringing of the phone broke the silent atmosphere in the house.
"Hello." Erhua answered the phone.
"Mr. Liang, something happened!"
"Is the sky falling? If not, don't call me!"
He hung up the phone angrily.
"Ding-ling-ling..."
The phone rang again, but Erhua didn't answer it. He just let it bark. Everyone was confused and no one paid any attention.
"Hello." Luo Zhen answered the phone for him.
Before the person on the other end of the phone finished speaking, her face turned pale, and Erhua realized the seriousness of the problem.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"Something's wrong." Luo Zhen tried to calm himself. "The approval document for the piece of land we invested in last time was fake."
"What!" Erhua stood up suddenly, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets.
"I'll call Boss Zheng right away!" Erhua picked up the phone.
"No need to call. If we can't find him, the company will contact him immediately." Luo Zhen shook his head and continued, "I'm afraid he has been deliberately deceiving you for a long time."
"Impossible! I've been doing business with him for a while now. Why would he wait until now to deceive me? This, this, this... there must be some misunderstanding!"
Dahua suddenly felt something was wrong and immediately contacted the owner of the tree company. He and Zheng Ming were brothers so close that they could wear the same pants, and part of the company's shares belonged to Zheng Ming.
After the phone call, Dahua's face became more and more ugly.
“Even our boss was deceived.”
Hearing this, Erhua was stunned. He hadn't gotten over the blow of his mother's death yet, and now he was hit by this blow. He couldn't recover for a while and fell to the ground.
"Brother!" Qiuhua hurried to help him. "Don't worry, let's find someone first. If we really can't get the money back, we're still here. We can always help if we pool our money together."
Erhua shook his head mechanically. He hadn't had enough rest these past few days, and his eyes were bloodshot. Now his eyes were empty and at a loss, which made him look even more terrifying.
"It's useless. Over two million! This is over two million, my entire fortune!"
When these words were spoken, everyone was dumbfounded.
Over two million! I've never seen so much money in my life!
Even if Dahua, Qiuhua and Xiaohua sold all their belongings, it would not be enough!
"Erhua." Luo Zhen sat with him on the cold muddy ground, holding his hand tightly. "We can earn money again if we lose it. The most important thing is that you, I, and Xiaoxiao are together."
In a trance, Erhua came to his senses and looked at Luo Zhen. Even though she didn't blame him, Erhua felt uneasy.
"We still have so many stores to run. Without funds, I'm afraid..."
He didn't dare say any more.
"It has already happened. Let's report it first and see if we can find Zheng Ming." Wu Xin was the first to react.
Erhua rushed to the city overnight. Luo Zhen was worried, so she asked Dahua to go with him.
It was already midnight and there was no one on the road. The Santana was speeding on the road, and the insects sleeping in the grass were scared away by the roar.
He didn't dare to relax at all. He shifted gears, stepped on the gas, and steered. At least he could still drive by relying on muscle memory.
Erhua's nerves at this moment are like fried dough sticks in a frying pan, each one thin and crispy, and will fall apart with the slightest force.
Dahua was also nervous, but he didn't dare to say anything.
Two million, he couldn't even think about it.
No matter how busy the streets are during the day, they are still silent in the early hours of the morning.
With a sharp brake sound, Santana stopped in front of Zheng Ming's company.
At this time, there were more than a dozen people huddled at the door. When they saw a car coming, their eyes suddenly lit up and they all stood up and looked out.
Erhua jumped out of the car without turning off the engine and rushed to the front of the company. More than a dozen people surrounded him, looking at each other. The leader glanced at Erhua, then sighed dejectedly and waved to the others.
"Let's disperse. Another one got scammed."
Everyone huddled back in the corner, the dim light casting shadows that enveloped them.
The tense and depressed faces made the atmosphere seem very strange.
"Brother, what's going on here?" Dahua walked up to the leader and handed him a cigarette.
The man took the cigarette, fumbled for a long time but couldn't find a lighter. He spat on the ground and cursed, "What a bad luck! I can't even find a lighter to smoke."
Dahua hurriedly lit a cigarette for him. The man put the cigarette in his mouth and put it close to the fire, took a deep breath, and the sparks flickered before finally lighting up.
He took a long puff of smoke and asked, "You guys were also cheated out of money by that beast Zheng Ming, right?"
When Erhua heard this, he felt very disappointed. This was obviously a pre-planned scam, and it wasn't just him who was fooled.
With so much money in hand, wouldn't he have disappeared without a trace long ago?
"Have you called the police?" Dahua asked.
The man didn't answer, but just kept smoking, taking each puff very hard, and the burnt ash didn't have time to fall off, and remained the same.
"I've reported it. The police said they might be able to find the person. As for the money..."
He flicked the cigarette butt onto the ground, twisted it again and again with his toes, and finally kicked it aside hard.
"How much have you been cheated out of?" the man asked.
Erhua walked around outside and found the company door was closed and there was no one around.
"Fuck you!"
He kicked the iron door hard, and it slammed shut with a clanging sound.
The man looked at Erhua, then at Santana, smacked his lips and said, "I guess there will be a lot. Hey, let's wait together."
Erhua stood at the door for a long time, his eyes suddenly lit up, and he asked, "Where are his family members? The monk may escape, but the temple cannot. Let's go find them."
The man sighed heavily and said, "I've already looked for them. There's only an eighty-year-old mother, an unarmed woman, and a three-year-old child at home.
What do you think we should do? We can’t use women and children to pay off debts. This is the modern age.”
"He has to go home eventually, right? He doesn't care about his family anymore?"
"Well, if I had that much money, wouldn't it be good to run away to a foreign country, marry a wife and have some children?"
Erhua was speechless, and the light that had just lit up in his eyes dimmed again.
He also walked to the wall and squatted down, the shadow under the lamp making it impossible to see his expression.
Dahua walked over and squeezed in with him.
"My dear, money is good to have, the more the better. But it's okay if you don't have it. To put it bluntly, money can't buy life."
Erhua smiled miserably and said, "Brother, these past few days I've been living like I'm in a dream, a fucking nightmare at that.
My mom passed away suddenly, and I was scammed out of my money. I was terrified. I was afraid that these past few decades had been fake, that Luo Zhen was fake, that Xiaoxiao was fake, that it was all a dream.
When I woke up, I was still that low-class guy from Hetou Village who was not presentable.
"Then I can assure you that Luo Zhen, Xiao Xiao, and those happy and fulfilling days are real.
You, Liang Erhua, are not a second-rate person, you are the most promising among us!"
Erhua listened to Dahua's words and looked up at the sky. A ray of light was coming from the east.
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