"Get lost, get lost! You smell like a dog."
Disgusted, Xu Qingfan kicked away the three mongrels that had surrounded him and followed his dad back to the home he had lived in for over twenty years.
The layout of Lianhua Courtyard was a bit like a school's teaching building, with a dozen or so families living in one-story buildings; it was inevitably crowded, but it had more of a human touch than the steel and concrete high-rises.
With its retractable iron gates and retro small square tiles, the little fifty square meter house held all of Qingfan's Childhood memories.
Because the neighbors knew each other, the residents of Lianhua Courtyard were accustomed to not locking their doors during the day. If they had to go out for a short while, they would just pull down the iron gate outside.
"Hello, Uncle Li, hello Aunt Zhao..."
As he walked along, Qingfan greeted each of the neighbors he knew; they had all watched him grow up, living in the same courtyard for so many years, and hardly ever experiencing any upside-down or nonsensical situations.
As he passed Xia Xiaoxiao's house, she was already sitting in front of a fan, engrossed in the Cantonese version of Digital Monster.
It was Qingfan who had introduced her to this anime.
Just last week, Qingfan had finally found an anime he was interested in on TV, but his dad took the remote control from him and switched to the daily news broadcast he had to watch, claiming it was to help broaden his son's horizons.
Qingfan figured it was just thirty minutes, so he decided to wait. However, once the news was over, a phrase from next door, "Having a child is not necessarily a blessing," diverted his mother's attention.
The remote control simply passed from one parent's hand to the other.
Following the principle that watching somewhere else was just as good, Qingfan decisively ran over to Xiaoxiao's house and forcefully took her remote control to watch Digital Monster.
Xiaoxiao cried and made a fuss, but since parents tend to favor visiting children, she had no choice but to reluctantly accompany Qingfan in watching Digital Monster.
Although she enjoyed the anime, Xiaoxiao believed Qingfan owed her an apology for snatching her remote control. So from that day on, she never again showed him a happy face.
"Mom!"
"Come here and help me get that." A voice came from the kitchen.
Accustomed to his mother's cryptic instructions, Qingfan went to the doorway of the kitchen and asked, "Get what?"
"That... go get the mop and mop this up here," his mother said, pointing to a puddle on the floor.
"Oh."
After the family of three hastily finished dinner at the small dining table, they all busied themselves again.
Qingfan's dad had joined the army in his early years, serving as a military driver for several years before returning to work at a local factory.
A few years later, during the wave of layoffs, both Qingfan's mom and dad lost their jobs, so they heeded the call for flexible employment.
His dad used his layoff compensation to buy a motorcycle for transporting passengers, while his mom bought a small cart to sell sugary treats and snails.
The family just got by, neither too well nor too poorly.
Fortune never comes in pairs, but misfortune does not come singly.
After earnestly living for several years, Xu's father got into an accident one time while transporting a passenger, who accidentally extended his foot into the wheel.
It was already illegal to transport passengers, and at that time, there was an outright ban on motorcycles; not only did he compensate the victim with a large sum of money, but his motorcycle was also confiscated, and Xu's father was detained for more than half a month.
Later, it was Xia Xiaoxiao's family who lent a helping hand, and only then was Xu's family able to struggle out of that quagmire.
Therefore, the relationship between the two families was closer than relatives, and they were both very willing to become even closer.
Several years had passed since that accident happened.
"The path to redemption lies within," Xu Qingfan thought to himself as he looked at the small booklet of team analysis in his hands.
Because the National Football Team qualified for the first time, that year's World Cup was extremely popular, and Xu Qingfan had often heard customers chatting idly while he was delivering food for his mom.
Xu Qingfan didn't remember much, but things like bad refereeing and the Korean controversy stuck with him because he had heard about them so often that they still left a deep impression to this day.
In 2002, many new sports betting games were introduced, on top of the regular wins, losses, and scores, there was also the simplest and most brutal competition of predicting the Top 16, as well as predictions for the quarter-finals and semi-finals.
The Top 16 competition had 16 games: 8 for the round of 16, 4 for the quarter-finals, 2 for the semi-finals, and 2 for the finals, where you predict win, loss, or draw. If you get them all right, you could win the first prize, wagering two yuan for the chance to win two million.
However, anyone with a bit of high school mathematics knew how low this probability was, the 16th power of 1/3, a long string of zeros after the decimal point would completely dampen your enthusiasm.
The quarter-finals prediction was much simpler, identifying the eight teams from 32 to advance, but with a series of restrictive conditions, the odds of winning were similarly low.
Xu Qingfan remembered that the cumulative betting amount that year was over one hundred million, but not a single person in the whole country won. Of course, he wouldn't have won either if given another chance, since he didn't remember anything except the Korean controversy.
The final match was Samba against Debang, which Xu Qingfan also remembered.
But who won third place he truly couldn't recall.
Xu Qingfan's goal was the semi-final pool, and even though he didn't remember the third-place team, through the process of elimination and the information he had, he narrowed his target from 28 to 7.
Why 28 and not 29? Obviously, the National Football Team was the first he ruled out.
Actually, Xu Qingfan's method of elimination was simple: first, rule out a batch based on the top two from each group, and next, since there didn't seem to be any dark horse in the semi-finals that year, the team that got third place had to be among the top tier teams, after some tinkering, he finalized the list that was potentially worth a fortune.
That year, Chen Daozai won thirty-seven million with just twenty yuan, I, Xu Qingfan, winning two million with one hundred isn't a problem!
From the moment he knew it was the year 2002, Xu Qingfan stubbornly stole ten yuan from his mother every day, and counting today, it has been ten days, just enough to make a hundred.
Xu's father and mother didn't have the habit of accounting every day, the money earned each day was directly locked in the wardrobe in the room, and then deposited in the bank after accumulating for a month, which conveniently provided Xu Qingfan with the initial capital for his endeavor.
He could go buy lottery tickets by himself, as the rules and regulations in the small county town in the early 2000s were very relaxed. There was no shortage of parents who would send their children to buy cigarettes or lottery tickets, and sometimes they'd even get a small tip for running the errand.
But if he really won, even if his parents would be overjoyed, a severe beating would be inevitable.
At 6 years old, daring to steal money from home to buy lottery tickets; when he grows older, would he dare to sell the house and gamble with it?
Xu Qingfan could already imagine what his parents would say as they tried to hide smiles, taking the clothes hanger to spank him.
"Eh, if I don't enter hell, who will?" A long sigh echoed inside the room.