Chapter 59 Counterfeit Bills Appear Again

The fire was spreading rapidly, and in the blink of an eye, the high-rise building was enveloped in a dense cloud of smoke.

Lu Xingzhou was in the middle of handing over the summer vacation homework to the young boy's mother.

He repeatedly exhorted her that despite the severe disaster that had befallen their home, the boy's studies must not be neglected, and his completion of the summer vacation homework must be strictly supervised. Amidst the boy's weeping sounds of "no longer believing in the light," Lu Xingzhou once again scaled the exterior wall and climbed up to the eighth floor.

The residents of the eighth floor had already removed the diamond security mesh from their windows, providing convenience for Lu Xingzhou's rescue.

Climbing onto the eighth-floor balcony, Lu Xingzhou discovered that the young boy's neighbor was a woman with a strong, mature charm.

She had shoulder-length hair, wore light makeup, held a slim cigarette between her lips, and was dressed in a purple shirt and white trousers, with high heels on her feet.

However, what surprised Lu Xingzhou the most was that on the table in her bedroom lay scattered studded latex tight-bodysuits, a small riding crop, and a large pile of photographs showing her together with other women...

Well... they looked like very happy photographs.

Seeing the expression of someone who had clearly seen nothing of the world on Lu Xingzhou's face, the woman extinguished her cigarette butt in the an ashtray.

"They are all my lovers. I like women, of course... as for a cute little guy like you, well, big sister here is quite satisfied too!"

Lu Xingzhou withdrew his gaze from a table full of tools whose names he couldn't even fathom.

"Everything outside the eighth floor is already choked with smoke. We'd better evacuate this place first. Is there anything you need to take with you?"

The woman stood up with great nonchalance: "Nostalgia is the most boring thing in the world."

With the woman on his back, Lu Xingzhou climbed down from the eighth floor once again, drawing another wave of cheers from the crowd below.

The woman led Lu Xingzhou to the parking lot, pulled a business card from her pocket, and then drew two stacks of cash from the glove box in the front passenger seat, wedging the business card into the money before handing it to Lu Xingzhou.

"Thank you for saving my life. Consider this as compensation, and my private business card is in there. Give me a call if something comes up. I might not be able to solve any major problems for you, but I can certainly offer you some financial assistance. Of course, if you want to ask me out on a date, that's fine too... Logically speaking, I should at least treat you to a meal, but I have things to attend to shortly. Little brother, I'll be off first!!"

Listening to the wailing sirens of the fire engine, Lu Xingzhou asked, "Your place is literally on fire, and you're just going to leave like this? The firefighters are going to come looking to question you in a minute."

The woman flashed a charming smile: "That wasn't my home, just a temporary lodging. My assistant will take care of the aftermath. I hope that the next time we meet, it will be in a dimly lit place."

After bidding farewell to Lu Xingzhou, the woman drove away.

Watching the taillights vanish into the residential compound, Lu Xingzhou muttered, "Why does this feel like the opening chapters of a traditional miraculous doctor novel, or a king-of-soldiers novel? Oh well, never mind. I probably won't have any further intersection with this woman anyway."

Lowering his head to look at the stack of cash in his hand, Lu Xingzhou wore a peculiar expression.

"What era is this, and people still use real money... No, paper money... Wait, that's not right..."

"What was this stuff called again? It's been so long since I used it that I forgot?"

Lu Xingzhou glanced at the business card. There were no titles or affiliations on it, just a name with a phone number underneath.

The woman's name was Yu Yiting.

Meanwhile, the viewers in the livestreaming room were green with envy.

<The streamer has really hit the jackpot this time! That beauty was driving a Bentley Continental!>

<At the very beginning of the broadcast, our streamer said his biggest dream in life was to be kept by a wealthy older woman and live off soft rice, at which point he'd quit streaming... Today is probably the streamer's final broadcast day!>

<The streamer is merely returning to the righteous path after a temporary deviation. If not for his original family background, he almost went to work as a male model at a hotel!>

<Streamer, if you wanted to eat soft rice, you should've said so sooner! Big sister has plenty here.>

<Seriously, who acts like they can't afford a Bentley? You just want to be kept—streamer, just say the word, and we can each have a Bentley!>

Lu Xingzhou tucked the money away and waved dismissively at the unruly barrage of comments.

"No, do I look like the kind of person who lives off soft rice?"

<Yes!>

<Yes!>

...

In an instant, the screen-wide arguments vanished, replaced entirely by a unanimous character: "Yes."

With a helpless expression, Lu Xingzhou lowered his head, returned to his canvas, and continued working on his paint-by-numbers artwork.

During the subsequent painting process, only a firefighter came by once to ask a few questions, and after that, no one else and nothing else disturbed Lu Xingzhou's coloring.

At ten o'clock in the middle of the night, under the illumination of the fill light, Lu Xingzhou finally completed his very last stroke.

And he received the notification that the task was successfully completed!

"Whew! It's finally done! Albert Bierstadt's *Among the Sierra Nevada, California*, measuring three meters long and one meter eighty-three high, a hell-difficulty paint-by-numbers masterpiece, is finally finished! Tonight, I'll leave it here to dry. The number one benefactor from yesterday, make sure to leave your phone number; I'll mail this painting right to you!"

<Eat Meat Only Tonight (LV67) sent 'Future Capsule' × 10 (valued at 10,000)!>

<Eat Meat Only Tonight (LV67): I didn't expect the streamer to actually pull it off. Awesome! I'll private message you my address!>

<Hiss! The benefactor is truly wealthy, dropping 100,000 in one go. That makes him the top contributor of the day, right?>

<Actually, no.>

<Hiss! The streamer's chat room really is crouching tiger, hidden dragon. So many rich people.>

<More than just rich people—if you click on the viewers and scroll down, you'll find a whole row of official accounts from the XX City Public Security Bureau.>

Leaving the painting to dry in the open area on the first floor, Lu Xingzhou turned off the livestream, hoisted his broadcasting equipment, grabbed a bottle of floral water that was more than half empty, and headed home.

As soon as he opened the front door, he saw takeaway boxes littered across the dining table and his older sister curled up on the sofa, legs tucked in, watching television.

Lu Xingzhou was somewhat curious: "Sis, you're back today? No overtime?"

Yawning, Lu Jiangyang knew the progress of the case was still classified and couldn't share details with Lu Xingzhou.

"Mm, I'm on rotation rest today."

After all, people weren't machines; investigating cases required scheduled days off.

Lu Xingzhou slapped the two stacks of cash onto the coffee table and turned to fish a bottle of cola out of the refrigerator.

Lu Jiangyang glanced casually at the cash on the coffee table: "Where did you get this money?"

Lu Xingzhou briefly recounted the incident of the courtyard catching fire and how he had rescued someone.

"See, as a token of gratitude, they handed me two stacks of... uh... paper money from their car. But seriously, Sis, that Bentley Continental looked really nice. Sis, don't you want to upgrade to a new car?"

Lu Jiangyang rolled her eyes: "If you have the money, buy it yourself. Do you think I could ever drive a car that nice?"

"However..."

Lu Jiangyang raised an eyebrow and picked up the cash from the tabletop.

Due to the nature of a recent case she was handling, she subconsciously checked the prefix letters and serial numbers.

Her eyes suddenly widened in shock: "This serial number..."

Lu Jiangyang sat up straight from the sofa, pulled out her phone from her pocket, and dialed a number.

"Hello, is this Officer Fan? Could you help me check the serial numbers of a few banknotes and see if they've ever flowed out from a bank vault?"

Randomly pulling a few bills from the two stacks of cash, Lu Jiangyang read out the serial numbers to Officer Fan on the other end of the line.

"What did you say? These are all counterfeit notes?! Alright, I understand!"

Pulling on her slippers, Lu Jiangyang stood up from the sofa and grabbed Lu Xingzhou by the collar just as he was busy scrolling through short videos.

"Come with me to the police station right now."

Looking utterly bewildered, Lu Xingzhou asked, "Isn't today my day off? Why do we need to go to the police station?"

Glancing sideways at him, Lu Jiangyang replied, "Your day off has been canceled!"

*(Some readers might feel that Yu Yiting's plot sequence was a bit abrupt. That's because I deliberately trimmed it down. Originally, giving it a whole transitional chapter would have made it smoother, but I was worried people might misunderstand whether Yu Yiting's role would be excessively prominent later on, so I made cuts to the plot. To give a clear spoiler here: no, she won't. Yu Yiting's sole appearance was meant to introduce the subsequent plot involving the counterfeit money syndicate. That's also why today's update was a bit late, as there was quite a lot of content edited out. There was actually another version of the counterfeit money dealer arc where the protagonist receives fake money after selling items, but that chapter was discarded as well.)*