Upon seeing Yang Yi, particularly watching him returning to his own cell, Chris seemed incredibly surprised.
"You’re back? You actually didn’t die? That’s great! That’s so great!"
Chris climbed up from his bed, patted Yang Yi on the shoulder excitedly, and then said with a face full of emotion, "It’s good that you made it back. You did it, you really did it!"
Yang Yi cracked a smile, then suddenly punched Chris in the stomach.
With a groan, Chris immediately bent over and, as he staggered backward clutching his stomach, he looked at Yang Yi with disbelief and said, "Fuck! Why did you hit me?"
"Your son’s about the same age as me, right? Your wife was killed by someone who came to your door, right? You’re waiting to get out of prison to take revenge, aren’t you?"
Yang Yi asked several questions in a row with a cold laugh, walked up to Chris, and then another fierce punch sent Chris sprawling onto the bed.
"Tell me, how old are you this year?"
Yang Yi slapped Chris on the top of his head.
"Forty, I’m forty years old this year!"
Another harsh slap came down, and Yang Yi laughed, "How old are you this year?"
"Stop hitting me! Stop it! Alright, I’ll tell you, thirty-five! I’m thirty-five years old this year!"
Yang Yi took a step back, then he raised his foot and kicked Chris in the face, afterward glaring ferociously, "How old are you this year!"
Chris looked like he was about to break down and shouted, "Twenty-eight, I’m twenty-eight this year! It’s really twenty-eight, just twenty-eight years old!"
Yang Yi exhaled, then he snickered and said, "Please tell me, if you’re twenty-eight this year, then how can your son be about the same age as me, hmm?"
Chris, covering his face, shouted, "I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have lied to you, I’m sorry!"
Chris always seemed very profound and calm, as if lost in thought alone, making people feel that he was missing something. And when he looked at someone with his melancholic eyes, it always made people willing to believe every word he said.
Yang Yi had never doubted a single word that Chris said.
Now, Yang Yi was very angry, because he had been played.
Always priding himself as a genius, he had been fooled by his own cellmate, so even though Yang Yi didn’t lose anything, he was still very angry, or rather, furious.
"Speak, what crime did you commit to get in here."
Carrying the afterglow of having defeated the Boxing King, Yang Yi was now in a position where Chris would not dare to resist whatever he did. So upon hearing Yang Yi’s question, Chris meekly said, "Fraud, sentenced to ten years..."
"What have you done, tell me!"
"I, swindled money..."
Yang Yi grabbed Chris’s collar, then he said very seriously, "Give me more details, or else I’ll show you what I’m capable of."
Releasing his grip, Chris fell onto the bed and then with a mournful face, he said, "I’ve done everything, any trick to get money, I’ve used them all. What do you want me to say? I posed as a tenant, exploited the loopholes and time delays in check processing to swindle money from landlords, I’ve used the lottery scam to deceive people, I’ve investigated the income of the wealthy and then posed as a tax official to extort them, that’s all..."
Yang Yi scoffed, "That’s all?"
Yang Yi raised his hand, and Chris said hastily, "There’s nothing else!"
After a fierce slap, Yang Yi smiled, "Just that?"
Chris, feeling extremely helpless, said, "Alright, alright! There’s more. I thought these scams were low-level and didn’t make much money, so I figured if I was going to scam, it should be a big one. So, I used my savings to upgrade myself, fabricating my identity as a star Ivy League student with a very bright future."
"Why would you do that?"
"Why? Because I wanted to make big money, I wanted to..."
"No, I’m not asking why you deceived people, but why you packaged yourself that way."
Chris shrugged his shoulders with a resigned look, "Alright, why package myself? Because without it, you can’t blend into high society, and it’s only the people in high society who have big money. If you want to earn a lot, of course, you have to take it from the wealthy. Deceiving the paupers doesn’t make much, and with the same effort, the risk of exposure isn’t small. Since that’s the case, why not deceive the rich? They are actually just as easy to deceive."
Chris sighed and said, "Actually, swindling requires opportunity. You have to find the right moment to strike precisely. So my plan was to first infiltrate high society and then slowly look for opportunities. This might take a long time, but just one successful hit is enough to enjoy for a lifetime."
"Makes sense, go on."
"I managed to infiltrate high society quite successfully, but then, but then, a woman fell in love with me, her father was a tycoon, and then, then we fell in love, just like that. She wanted to marry me, her father was satisfied with me, at this time my girlfriend got pregnant, so we were going to get married, but just then, I was exposed..."
Yang Yi smiled, "You used your girlfriend and her father’s social circles to swindle six million US dollars, set up a company that was doing quite well, all the investors got their returns, but at that time, someone denounced you. Your company was just a shell, everything was just a Ponzi scheme, so you ended up in prison, your bride-to-be left you, and your future father-in-law personally delivered you to jail."
Chris said somewhat angrily, "If you already knew, why did you even ask me?"
"I’m concerned about why you were exposed. Up to now, because of witness protection laws, this is still a mystery. Tell me, why were you denounced?"
Chris looked even more despondent, speaking in a low voice, "I had a partner who got jealous seeing me gaining fame and fortune. He couldn’t stand that I got what I shouldn’t have, so he turned me in."
"So it was an unequal share of the spoils?"
Chris shook his head, "It wasn’t about an unequal share, everything I had was swindled by myself, it had nothing to do with him. I just got fake documents and credentials through him, but I paid for them! Twenty thousand US dollars, I paid! He just couldn’t bear seeing me so successful, so he demanded three million US dollars from me! I didn’t have three million to maintain the fraud, so I gave him five hundred thousand hoping to settle it, but he still denounced me!"
Shaking his head resignedly, Chris said with anger and sorrow, "That’s just it, really just that. I just encountered a bastard with no professional ethics and a case of jealousy."
Yang Yi nodded, then he said very seriously, "Why deceive me? If you don’t have a good reason, you’re as good as dead!"
Chris, with a dismal face, said in a low voice, "Boredom, I was just bored, truly just boredom..."