Case Files 013

It was not that easy to find Lee Xian. When Lee Xian hung up on me for the third time, Mary finally managed to triangulate his location. It was a dilapidated board game shop. Of course, that was just a front, although technically gambling was also a type of board game. The shop had remained in operation despite its appearance because of one reason, it had a lot of repeat customers. Pushing the door open, we were greeted by a corridor which was only several metres wide. There was a staircase on the left, it looked like the real action was upstairs. Before we even got up the stairs, someone's head popped out from above and demanded, "Who are you two?"

I answered. "We're Lee Xian's friends." The man didn't suspect anything and allowed us to pass. The second floor was a lot more spacious. We spotted Lee Xian immediately. He was seated beside a mahjong table. Based on the focus on his face, you'd think he was a CEO deciding international business, which at a time, he indeed was. When I was in jail, a gambler had introduced me to the art of mahjong and the change to the whole scene of gambling thanks to technology. With the introduction of e-wallets, most gambling dens didn't use real chips and money anymore. Every win and loss would be calibrated online. That way, if they were ambushed by the police, they could say they were merely playing for fun, there was no money involved. At the time, I remember asking that gambler, "Then how did they get you?" The gambler froze and then after a long time, he asked me, "Yes, we hid our tracks so well, so how did the police manage to bust us?"

I answered, "If you don't want to be captured, the only way is to not do it. Technology can change life but it can't change habits, think about it."

While I was reminiscing, Gu Chen's voice pulled me back. "Is that Lee Xian?" I looked around and noticed that this place was still stuck in the past. We saw a lot of cash on the table. I believed the entry fee was about 100 RMB a seat. Lee Xian held a mahjong tile in his hand and frowned deeply as he looked at his set. He didn't even hear Gu Chen mention his name. I finally understood why gambling was so hard to abolish, these people had melted their souls into the exercise. After I nodded, Gu Chen walked towards to grab Lee Xian by his wrist and Lee Xian's tiles scattered on the table.

"Who are you?" Everyone turned to look at us. Gu Chen answered. "The police." No one reacted but only looked at Gu Chen dumbly. And then all hell broke loose. Everyone scattered immediately. People rolled up their cash and ran, others tumbled out the door. Instantly only Lee Xian remained in the large room. Lee Xian was held firmly behind his back by Gu Chen. Based on what Lee Taida said, we knew Lee Xian didn't have money anymore and the casino den wouldn't allow a bad credit to enter… unless of course someone was willing to lend him some.

"There were so many people, why did you only come after me?" Lee Xian failed to escape, he demanded angrily. To be honest, we were not there for him but for another person. It was Lee Xian's gambling buddy that I was here for. Apparently he won 20,000,000 RMB from the lottery but that wouldn't be the case because the winning amount wouldn't still be 20,000,000 RMB after he paid the prize tax. Unless of course, he sold his winning ticket to another person, a person like Zhou Guo.

"Bring him back to the station." I told Gu Chen. Gu Chen asked, "What about his friend?" I smiled. "Those with heavy baggage won't be able to run far."

The moment we reached the station, Lee Xian gave up his friend. In less than half an hour, the friend appeared before us. After some questioning, the friend admitted that he did sell his winning lottery ticket to someone but he had never seen that person.

This friend was also a gambler, Liu Hwarong. His father died when he was 3 and his mother died when he was 17. He was chased out from his aunt's home when he was 17 and he had to work when he was 20. But when he was 22, he fell into the trap of gambling. He lost every penny that he earned. 20 years after that, he spent his life barely surviving. Whenever he had extra cash, Liu Hwarong would go gambling. He knew that he couldn't juggle two sins at once so to sustain his gambling, he managed to force himself to quit smoking which he had picked up when he was 12. When he had money, he would play the big table; and vice versa. Like all gamblers, Liu Hwarong lost most of the time, he couldn't even tell how much money he had lost to gambling. But like most gamblers, he had faith that he could one day win them all back.

Sometimes, he had that moment of clarity, he knew that he was sinking but he couldn't stop himself. He couldn't stop now because once he did, what would become of him? He was a gambler and nothing more. Many people knew about the danger of gambling but they just couldn't stop themselves.

Liu Hwarong sometimes thought back to his 40 years of life and saw how truly unlucky he was. Why are some people born in riches and not him? Liu Hwarong felt cheated and he tried to fight back against fate through the only way he knew how, by gambling. He starved himself and spent his dinner money on several lottery tickets. Ironically enough, it did work. One of the tickets changed his life. He hugged the television and kissed it for a long time. He won the second prize, 20,000,000 RMB, how much was that? Liu Hwarong had no idea because whenever he had cash larger than 10 RMB, it would be on the gambling table.

He hurried to exchange his prize money but before he did, he was approached by a kid. It was a thin young man with a cap. The boy gave him a phone and then ran away. Liu Hwarong had no idea what it meant but at that moment, the phone rang. He decided to pick it up. A low middle-aged man's voice said that if Liu Hwarong had won the 2nd prize, he was willing to pay 20,000,000 RMB for it. Liu Hwarong had heard about this from his gambler friends before. This was a money-laundering scheme. Say someone came into illegal money but had no way to spend it officially, what could they do? One of the ways was to turn that illegal money into a winning lottery ticket. Liu Hwarong didn't expect something like that to happen to him. Liu Hwarong hesitated because it meant that the illegal money would then be his responsibility while the buyer got away with the legal winning ticket. But the upside was Liu Hwarong wouldn't need to pay prize money tax if he sold the ticket instead of trading it in. The difference was 4,000,000 RMB, that was a lot of money. After some contemplation, Liu Hwarong agreed. After Liu Hwarong told the man on the phone his account number, a full 20,000,000 RMB was wired into it immediately. Liu Hwarong thus handed his winning ticket to that boy. What happened after that, Liu Hwarong had no idea.

When we asked Liu Hwarong to describe the boy for us, he told us that it was a primary school student. He was most likely just an errand boy. The real mastermind behind it never showed. Liu Hwarong thought the things would eventually blow over but he still fell into our hands. I called Mary and told her to look into Zhou Guo's accounts. However, the 20,000,000 RMB had gone around so many places, it would be hard to trace the source anymore. Even if we believed that the money was the same 20,000,000 RMB Lee Zhinan scammed from the bank, we had no actual evidence to prove that.

How could a boy in his teens manage to come up with something as genius as this? What had he experienced in his childhood?

Liu Hwarong told us everything he knew, we had no right to confiscate his assets so we let him go. But Lee Xian had to stay. As Lee Taida's guardian, he had to go through a series of procedures. But that was not under our jurisdiction anymore.

Soon, Guan Zhenglin came to join us. She had finished the autopsy on Zhou Guo. The two glasses on the table contained respectively sedative and cyanide. Based on the tests, both glasses only had one person's lip and fingerprint. Both glasses were drunk by Zhou Guo, one was to sedate himself and the other to poison himself. Guan Zhenglin confirmed that Zhuo Guo died from cyanide poisoning. His time of death was when Guan Zhenglin was unconscious. The deaths of 5 victims corresponded to 5 teens; 16,000,000 RMB; 5 teens with their respective dreams.

Suddenly something dawned on me. If that was true, then Zhou Guo's mother might be dead already. Right then, my phone rang. It was Xiao Liu. "Ol' Wu, you won't believe this. Zhou Guo's mother was already dead when he was 2nd year in junior high. Not many people know about this, not even the staff at his school."

"Look into Zhou Guo's father then." I sighed. Everything fell into place then. What Zhang Xue told me rang in my mind, that night, 5 young men and women on the rooftop; dreams needed money to be funded; if Zhou Gou didn't use the money to cure his mother, then he would have split the 16,000,000 RMB among his best friends. The puzzle was solved.