The Old Man at the Construction Site

"Were you the one who called the police?"

"Yes, that was me..."

The police in the Xia Kingdom were dependable. Shortly after the call, officers arrived to investigate. Once they confirmed the report was genuine, they called for backup and brought in a police car. Yao Dawu and the others were escorted into it, their heads hanging.

As for Xia Xu, who had made the report, the police were understanding after he explained that he was a student and feared retaliation. They discreetly took his statement and bank account details, then let him go home. Once they tallied the gambling money and completed the paperwork, the reward would be deposited directly into his account.

"I wonder how much I'll get. Twenty or thirty thousand, at least?"

Back home, his heart still pounding, Xia Xu lay on his bed and reviewed what he had done that day. He was more than satisfied.

He had successfully stayed behind the scenes. Apart from posing as a customer at Xue Mingjie's stall, he had never even shown his face. He had made a sizable sum without exposing himself to any risk at all. For his first attempt, his performance had been outstanding.

With that reward, he would at least no longer have to scrimp and save just to get by. He could even use it as seed money for a small business or investment to earn more.

He had also gained something else from the story's protagonist, Zhang Jianmin-a new section of the plot of "The Dying Man."

["The Dying Man": ...Having won several hundred thousand by sheer coincidence, Zhang Jianmin thought of how little time he had left and found himself unable to feel happy. Numbly, he indulged in reckless spending, drinking and partying all day, getting into plenty of comical situations along the way.

Meanwhile, Yao Dawu, unwilling to accept defeat, came looking for him again and refused to leave him alone. Zhang Jianmin was forced to gamble against Yao Dawu, but this time his luck had run out. He lost all his winnings, along with over a hundred thousand of his own savings.

Fortunately, this also freed Zhang Jianmin from Yao Dawu and his companions' harassment. With little time left, he was not particularly concerned about gaining or losing money. Having never even left his home province, he decided to take a trip before he died, spending some of his remaining savings on a tour package at Xieyou Travel Agency.

After signing up and leaving the travel agency, Zhang Jianmin wandered aimlessly. He kept feeling out of place among the bustling pedestrians around him. Without realizing it, he drifted into increasingly deserted areas and eventually reached the vicinity of a construction site.

An old man dressed as a construction worker stopped Zhang Jianmin, trying to sell him antiques he claimed to have just dug up...]

This was the new synopsis he had obtained from [Protagonist: "The Dying Man"] after meeting the protagonist, Zhang Jianmin.

That essentially confirmed that these special fate types for story characters could indeed unlock more of the plot as he encountered more of the relevant cast and filled in the gaps. The plot descriptions were fairly detailed, too.

The only thing Xia Xu found frustrating was the ellipsis that appeared at every crucial moment.

Although he broadly understood that this probably meant he had not encountered the supporting characters connected to that section of the plot, having it cut off at the critical point still made him grit his teeth.

"A construction worker selling antiques..."

There was nothing he could do. No amount of anger would conjure up more of the plot, so Xia Xu could only try putting his brain to work.

The parts about Zhang Jianmin drinking and partying and Yao Dawu coming to harass him held little value for Xia Xu. Following the logic of a comedy, those scenes were probably intended to get laughs and set up a low point before the story's next rise.

If he were actually watching a movie, those scenes might have made him laugh. Here, though, they offered no practical help or value beyond making him feel a little relieved and congratulate himself on his wisdom in staying out of the gambling. There was nothing to gain from them.

Besides, he had personally reported Zhang Jianmin and gotten him hauled into the police station. Even if Zhang Jianmin was released, the gambling money would certainly be confiscated. That part of the plot was probably dead in the water.

Only the final sentence struck him as potentially profitable.

A construction worker. Selling antiques. Those two key elements already revealed quite a lot.

If he put himself in a screenwriter's shoes, the plot needed to stir the audience's emotions. For a comedy like this, pleasure was naturally the best choice, and achieving that required ups and downs in the story.

What could be a more delightful surprise than coming into an unexpected windfall right after losing all your money?

So there was a good chance this scene involved buying an undervalued antique.

He had heard of the construction-site old man routine. It was actually a scam. Usually, an old man dressed as a migrant laborer would sell antiques near a construction site, claiming he had accidentally dug them up there. In reality, they were imitation pieces bought in bulk for a few dozen yuan each.

Because the scam was easy to pull off and extremely common, plenty of people fell for it. Eventually, "the construction-site old man" became something of a meme. Anyone who knew even a little about it would understand what had happened the moment they heard someone had bought an antique from an old man at a construction site.

Xia Xu suspected this part of "The Dying Man" might have subverted the usual trope. Much like the earlier gambling scene, it would use the construction-site old man routine to create a situation that seemed almost guaranteed to end in a crushing loss, then turn it around through absurd good fortune.

For example, the old man might actually have been selling genuine antiques, but overlooked a valuable piece and sold it as a fake, creating a climactic moment.

If that was how things developed, there would be another opportunity for profit. Xia Xu could easily get there first and make another tidy sum.

"The problem now is that I got Zhang Jianmin sent to the police station, and he didn't win any money. Will the plot still follow its original course?"

After a brief surge of excitement, Xia Xu quickly regained his composure.

If he had not interfered with the plot, he could have followed Zhang Jianmin and picked up the bargain. But that was a paradox. Without reporting Zhang Jianmin and the others, he would not have received the police reward. With no money in his pocket, even knowing about the bargain would not let him buy it.

Finding a bargain only meant the seller did not know its true value, not that they were giving it away.

On one side were tens of thousands of yuan within easy reach; on the other was a tantalizing prospect he had very little chance of securing. The choice was obvious. Even if he had seen this part of the synopsis beforehand, he would still have reported Zhang Jianmin and the others without hesitation.

Only now, with the reward practically in hand, did he have the leisure-or rather, the greed-to consider whether he could gain even more.

Zhang Jianmin had been taken to the police station. Even if he was released, the scenes of him partying after his big win and Yao Dawu coming to cause trouble would probably never happen.

That was already miles away from the original plot. Whether he would even encounter the old man at the construction site remained an open question.

There was another problem, too. Tomorrow was Monday, which meant classes again. Getting leave from high school was practically impossible. Unless he abandoned his education or found a way to take a temporary leave of absence, he would have almost no chance of following Zhang Jianmin and finding out how the plot developed.

"Too bad private detective agencies and the like aren't allowed here. Even if some operate underground, I have no way to reach them..."

Xia Xu felt helpless.

Naturally, he was reluctant to give up on Zhang Jianmin, a protagonist he could follow to scoop up bargains and reap benefits. But he was also unwilling to abandon his education for a little money right now.

Since he could not be in two places at once, his first instinct was naturally to find someone to help. But he could hardly pull a random person off the street to tail someone, and the original owner of his body had no close friends or relatives he could trust.

There was only so much one person could do.

Of course, it was not impossible. If he really wanted to find someone suited to being a detective or paparazzo, he should be able to tell from their Fate Potential attribute. Failing that, Attribute Viewing should at least help him find people he could trust and safely put to use.