Money changes people. Zhang Lei was discovering that the saying was true.
Not that he'd gotten cocky — at least, he didn't think so. But small things shifted without him noticing.
He started paying with WeChat instead of scrounging coins for a five-yuan breakfast. The steamed bun lady at the corner stall gave him a strange look the first time he held up his phone — she'd watched him count out exact change for eight months straight.
He bought his mother a case of milk and carried it upstairs. Twelve boxes, the brand-name stuff with the blue label. She used to haul back the cheapest bulk cartons from the wet market herself, the kind that tasted faintly of cardboard.
He replaced his scooter's battery. The old one died after ten kilometers — he'd been nursing it with a portable charger for months. The new one cost six hundred yuan. A month ago he wouldn't have dared even price it.
Small things. The kind of shifts you barely noticed until someone else did.
But to the people from the dealership — or rather, his former dealership — it was a different story entirely.
Wednesday afternoon, Zhang Lei ran into Xiao Ma at the trading market. The kid was picking up a car for Wang Defa — something from the auction house, by the look of it. They met face to face right at the market entrance.
"Lei-ge?" Xiao Ma's eyes swept over him. New jacket. New scooter battery. A milk tea in his hand — the twelve-yuan kind. He used to drink two-yuan water.
"Yeah." Zhang Lei nodded. "Picking up a car for Wang?"
"Yeah, yeah." Xiao Ma smiled. "What are you up to these days, Lei-ge? You're looking good."
"Odd jobs here and there." Zhang Lei kept it vague, gave a wave, and walked into the market.
He didn't notice Xiao Ma watching his back for a long time. Didn't notice him pulling out his phone and firing off a message.
That evening Zhang Lei took some guys out for dinner. Former colleagues — at a barbecue place near the old factory district, the one with the smoke-blackened awning and plastic stools that wobbled on the uneven concrete. Xiao Ma, plus two mechanics he'd been friendly with at the shop. Four guys, a table full of lamb skewers and cold beer, charcoal smoke drifting across under the string of naked bulbs. Three hundred and change for the bill.
Zhang Lei picked up the tab.
"Lei-ge, you hit it big?" A Dong bit into a lamb skewer, words garbled around the meat. "Heard you quit Defa's place and dropped off the map. How come you look better off now than when you had a paycheck?" This chapter was taken from novelping.com without permission.
"Got lucky. Little side business." Zhang Lei took a pull of beer.
"What kind of business? Cut me in." A Dong grinned.
"Just flipping some used cars. Nothing serious."
Xiao Ma said nothing. He kept his head down, scrolling his phone. Barely touched his beer.
Zhang Lei didn't think anything of it.
On the way home he was slightly buzzed. Three beers — not much, but his tolerance was mediocre. The scooter hummed along the narrow factory-district roads, streetlights stretching his shadow into crooked shapes on the asphalt.
His phone vibrated. Su Qing.
"You ran into Xiao Ma at the market today?"
"Yeah. Bumped into him."
"He told Wang Defa. Said you 'looked sharp, like you've got money now.'"
Zhang Lei's hands tightened on the handlebars.
"Wang Defa asked one question." Su Qing kept typing. "'What's he doing?' I don't know if he'll make a move, but watch yourself. Don't be so flashy."
Zhang Lei parked the scooter below his building. Stood there a moment.
She was right. Three hundred yuan of barbecue, a new jacket, milk tea — none of that registered to anyone with real money. But in this circle, to Xiao Ma and A Dong and guys pulling three or four thousand a month, a recently-fired man suddenly spending freely — it stuck out like a flare.
Su Qing was right. He'd been too loud.
Zhang Lei typed back: "Got it. I'll tone it down."
Wang Defa knew he "had money." What did that mean? It meant Wang Defa would try to figure out where the money came from. If he dug far enough to learn Zhang Lei was flipping cars — that was direct competition. A grasshopper versus an eagle, sure. But eagles still crushed grasshoppers that got in their way.
And what about Zhao Si?
Nearly a month since Zhang Lei had been fired. Zhao Si hadn't surfaced since then. The card table where Zhang Lei had pushed all-in and forced the man's hand — a guy like that didn't just forget. Didn't just let it go.
Zhang Lei had stopped going to the mahjong parlor in the urban village. But if Zhao Si wanted to find him, it wouldn't be hard. Not in a city this size.
Two directions of trouble. Wang Defa from the dealership side. Zhao Si from the gambling side. And Zhang Lei's recent visibility had broadcast the same signal to both: this guy is doing well.
Once that signal was received, the next step was someone coming to find out how.
Zhang Lei climbed the stairs. The stairwell smelled like it always did — damp concrete and old cooking grease from the shared kitchen on the second floor. His father was already asleep; the rhythmic snoring leaked through the thin wall between their rooms.
He sat on his bed in the dark for a while. Didn't turn on the light. Just sat there, elbows on his knees, thinking.
Time to pull back.
He'd been stupid. Not greedy-stupid — careless-stupid. The kind of mistake that came from relief, from the novelty of having money after years of scraping bottom. He'd let his guard down because things were going well. And going well was exactly when you needed your guard up highest.
Starting tomorrow — no new clothes to the market. No spending in front of old colleagues. No social media posts. Nothing.
Low profile. Low profile and make money. Invisible.
Zhang Lei peeled off the jacket and hung it on the back of the chair. That jacket — two weeks old, still smelled faintly of the store. Starting tomorrow, it stayed buried at the bottom of his closet.
Back to the old gray coat. Back to looking like a guy who was still struggling.
Because in this city, looking broke was a kind of armor.