Liebe unter den fernen Sternen

Kapitel 14

4-8, 3,600 yuan counterfeit*

Wei Boxi has been having a run of bad luck lately. He has abandoned the Weida Group, which he built from scratch, with a tragic sense of sacrifice. The Weida Group is now insolvent, and the Binhai Municipal Government is leading the restructuring of Weida Shares. All of this is now irrelevant to him. His qualifications as a municipal committee member and provincial people's representative have also been revoked. With the loss of his wealth, the halo above his head is also fading.

All of this was within his expectations, and he was prepared to face it. However, his luck seemed to be worse than he imagined. Someone had compiled a list of all his current assets and sent it to almost all of his creditors, even posting it publicly online. These lists even included his vacation villas in Guilin and Hangzhou, shops he had invested in under the names of his cousin and ex-wife, and even his memberships at golf clubs. The creditors swarmed him like flies once they found a target, leaving him nowhere to hide. Even his seven properties in Binhai were subject to freeze and preservation orders from various creditors.

Fortunately, fate was kind; there was one omission on the list: he still owned a property in Binhai that hadn't been discovered. It was an old two-bedroom apartment in a run-down residential area, the first house he bought after moving to the city with his first earnings from fishing and selling fish over a decade ago. He hadn't returned for many years after moving away, and the house had never been sold. Unexpectedly, he found himself living there again more than ten years later. It was a corner he had almost forgotten, and others probably wouldn't even remember it anymore.

The dilapidated house reeked of decay, and only sparse furniture remained, making Wei Boxi feel very uncomfortable. However, he wasn't worried about his future. He was still wearing a well-tailored, high-end suit, carrying a photo of himself under an alias and his ID card, as well as a bank card with three million yuan in cash deposited under that alias.

His current plan is to hide for a while and make further plans after things calm down. After dark, Wei Boxi's stomach started to rumble; he was a little hungry. He didn't want to go too far to crowded places, so he waited until late at night before deciding to go to the 24-hour Quick Supermarket on the street to buy a few packets of instant noodles to fill his stomach.

As he stepped out of the room, he suddenly had a very peculiar feeling. He felt as if a pair of eyes were coldly watching him from inside the room, right behind him. This feeling made every pore on his body stand on end. He glanced at the wooden door, which offered almost no security, and decided to take all his important belongings with him.

All the way, he felt like someone was watching him from behind, and a chill ran down his spine. He quickly walked to a small supermarket by the roadside and bought some instant noodles and sausages before hurrying back to his lodgings. He seemed preoccupied with worrying about the unseen eyes behind him, forgetting to observe the situation ahead. Just as he reached a dimly lit corner, two figures suddenly appeared, sandwiching him between them and blocking his path.

Before Wei Boxi could react, someone had already placed a steel file against his neck and whispered, "Don't speak. We don't want to die. Take off your clothes now."

Wei Boxi instinctively wanted to ask what they wanted, but before he could utter even half a "you," a steel awl was pressed against his throat, forcing him back down. Knowing better than to fight a losing battle, Wei Boxi had no choice but to take off his clothes. If he was too slow, he would be hit a few more times. The other person, seemingly impatient, also began to clumsily help Wei Boxi undress.

Wei Boxi had never experienced anything so strange in his life. Forced by the weapon, he managed to strip off a mere thread of his clothing. He saw the two men frantically stuff the clothes into a woven bag and toss him another. They shoved him to the ground and quickly ran into the darkness. Wei Boxi hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should call for help, but then felt a chilling sensation on his throat. In that brief moment, the two men had vanished.

...

"Is everything here?"

“It’s all here, damn it. This kid is dressed so nicely, but he only has a few dozen yuan on him.”

Feng Junzi didn't reply, but instead took out a wad of cash and handed it to the two people in front of him: "Here you go, I've paid you exactly three thousand yuan, now you can leave."

The two men took the money, glanced at it a few times, and hurriedly left. A strange, cold smile played on Feng Junzi's lips. He had paid those two men with counterfeit money—not his, but Hu Shiwei's. Hu Shiwei had a book in her apartment containing a list of counterfeit money she had received from customers while working at the nightclub. Later, Feng Junzi took out the money; it totaled three thousand six hundred yuan.

After the two men had gone some distance, Feng Junzi took a taxi to the seaside park. He threw the woven bag filled with stones into the sea from the sea-viewing rock in the park. The bag contained Wei Boxi's clothes, a photo of his alias and his ID card, and a bank card. With a tumble of the waves, these items disappeared into the depths of the sea.

...

Wei Boxi stood alone in the darkness, the autumn evening wind carrying a chill that made him shiver. He couldn't understand what had just happened to him. When the two "thugs" left, they had thrown him a woven bag. With trembling hands, Wei Boxi opened the bag, and inside was a set of worn-out clothes, clearly meant for him.

Wei Boxi reluctantly took out the clothes, only to find a note wrapped around something underneath. He opened it and found six hundred yuan in cash and an ID card made with his photo. The note simply read: "This six hundred yuan is counterfeit. Be careful when you spend it!"

Wei Boxi probably never imagined that Feng Junzi would leave a fake 600 yuan note here. He probably couldn't remember that night at midnight when he gave Hu Shiwei a "reward" of 600 yuan to test whether she was a real college student.

Right across from him, Piao Piao looked at him coldly with a gaze that seemed to be both hatred and pity, but he couldn't see her figure.