“Find a job?”

William had just gotten back from wandering the streets. He looked at his girlfriend at the stove and shook his head, a trace of guilt in the motion.

She showed no disappointment, no real shift in mood, as if failing to find work was simply… normal.

William avoided talking as much as he could. He was afraid the woman who slept beside him every night might notice something off about him.

She carried over a slightly warped frying pan, set it down on the rickety, paint-flaking wooden table, slid a fried egg onto a plate of minced meat, then sat.

“Don’t overthink it. I’ve still got some money. Maybe you’ll find something tomorrow. Eat first.”

William nodded and began working through a dinner that was, at best, tolerable.

His fork pierced the thin, half-set surface of the egg. Thick yolk spilled out, coating the minced meat like a natural sauce, making the scraps look almost appetizing.

He ate mechanically, his mind elsewhere.

He had crossed over. He had no idea what principle or mechanism lay behind it, science or something else, but the fact remained, he had crossed into another world.

Before that, he had done all kinds of work, courier, insurance salesman, waiter, half-trained cook.

For the first thirty years of his life, he drifted from one insignificant job to another. Then, after he turned thirty, everything changed.

As he later put it, he spent those thirty years accumulating experience, then cashed it in all at once. A stirring, well-delivered speech, and he successfully moved the judge.

And then, the very first night he lay in that cramped room, already planning to write a memoir about his so-called legendary life, he drifted into a hazy sleep… and crossed over.

The moment he crossed, he appeared in this house. The body’s owner happened to be named William as well, but this was already another world entirely, one with no connection to his “previous life.”

He had nothing here except a girlfriend.

As things stood, he looked exactly like the worst kind of societal refuse, living off his girlfriend, staying under her roof. Aside from helping her deal with certain nightly frustrations, he was little more than a parasite.

Over the past few days, he had been using the excuse of job hunting to wander around outside. This world gave him a strange, hard-to-pin-down sense of novelty.

It felt like the forties or fifties, maybe the fifties or sixties. Technology was not yet advanced, but it stood on the brink of explosive growth.

New products kept appearing before the public, dazzling, overwhelming.

To him, this world, this society, money lay everywhere. All he had to do was bend down and pick it up.

His blood stirred, his heart grew stronger, a quiet hunger rising from deep within. He was certain there was a reason he had crossed over.

Perhaps something had brought him here, so he could carve out a legend of his own.

“Go run the hot water. We’ll take a bath tonight,” his girlfriend said as she cleared the dishes.

William nodded, got to his feet, and walked toward the bathroom. As he went, he asked casually, “Didn’t we just wash yesterday?”

Since arriving, he had noticed that he and his girlfriend lived by a fairly clear routine. It wasn’t complete chaos.

The weather wasn’t hot or cold. Without heavy activity, there wasn’t much sweating, so there was no real need to bathe every day.

It wasn’t that people didn’t want to stay clean. It was that clean clothes and hot water both cost money.

For those with means, it didn’t matter. They installed boilers at home, set up heating systems, bought washing machines, did laundry whenever they pleased.

For the poor, these were unnecessary, unaffordable expenses. Their lives had to be structured.

Every coin calculated, every habit regulated like a monk’s discipline, squeezing value out of every cent. That was their reality.

Not because they preferred order, but because they were poor.

His girlfriend turned to the sink, opened the valve, and began rinsing the dishes. “After midnight, the hot water gets cut off. We’ll pay again next week. Saves a bit.”

William shrugged, stepped into the bathroom, turned the tap, let the initial cold water run out. Soon, steaming hot water flowed through the pipes.

After they bathed, they lay down on the narrow bed and quickly slipped into sleep.

William’s girlfriend worked at a supermarket, a cashier. Ten-hour shifts, including one hour of break.

She often brought back near-expired or expired food, along with cheap household items. That was the only reason the two of them could get by on a single income.

They had been high school classmates. Neither had made it into college. William had worked as a laborer for a time, then quit because it was too exhausting.

Eleanor, his girlfriend, had found her job at the supermarket and held onto it.

A textbook failure of a household. Neither William nor Eleanor knew how long this life could last.

Maybe they would scrape by long enough to reach marriage, then keep scraping through an entire lifetime.

Or maybe, at any moment, a sudden surge of emotion would shatter this fragile relationship and end it all.

Early the next morning, William washed up quickly. Eleanor had already left. On the table sat a box of cereal and a bottle of milk.

He went to the cupboard, poured the milk into a pot to heat it, glanced at the expiration date. As expected, it was two days past.

Milk like this would normally be thrown straight into the trash at the supermarket. But many employees were willing to endure long hours and low wages just to keep these jobs.

This was what they were after, the things they could take home for free.

The rich, heavy scent of milk rose with the heat, almost intoxicating. William was used to pouring hot milk over things. Eleanor and the others soaked them cold. It felt wrong to him.

After breakfast, he tidied himself up and headed out, stopping at a street corner not far from where they lived.

He had not been doing nothing these past few days. Not in terms of job hunting, anyway. He had been thinking about where to get his first bit of capital.

This world might be entirely different from the last, but certain patterns were still predictable.

For example, knowing that a piece of land under your feet would be worth a fortune in a hundred years. Knowing that art prices would keep rising year after year. Knowing…

Anyone standing where William stood now would feel a surge of ambition. Most people could sense the pulse of the future.

The problem was, for most, ambition remained just that. It never materialized. Because now was not the future, and everything required capital.

Where would that capital come from?

It would not fall from the sky. It would not drift in with a flood. In truth, even if many people were given the chance to return to the past, they still would not have the ability to change their fate.

Maybe they would change something, but only a little. Perhaps they would buy a house or two more, then grow old staring blankly at assets doubled from their previous life. Not quite what they had imagined.

Some people were destined to stir the winds and command the tide. Others, even with opportunity, remained powerless.

Clearly, William was the former. He already possessed everything required. He had succeeded once. That was the decisive factor.

He stood there, staring at a laundromat across the street for most of the morning, jotting notes in a notebook. He was working out how to earn his first pot of gold.

Close to noon, as the flow of pedestrians thinned, two men in trench coats stepped in front of him. One had his hand tucked inside his coat, gripping something unseen.

“Mr. Fox wants to see you, friend.”

They did not look like good people. Or maybe William was overthinking it. He felt no fear at all. Instead, a smile spread across his face.

“I’ve been waiting for you for days. What are you waiting for? Lead the way.”

Mr. Fox had a certain reputation on this street. He was the sort of man with “capability.” He was willing to help the poor, willing to lend them money to get through hard times.

Of course, he was no pure philanthropist. He expected a return on that kindness, a return that might well exceed the principal.

But all in all, he was a good man. Perhaps. Maybe. Roughly speaking, something like that.

In a basement office, William finally met Mr. Fox, a man who looked to be in his late thirties, perhaps around forty.

He wore this year’s most fashionable dark gray suit, patterned with subtle red and blue dots. A red-and-blue silk scarf was tied at his collar, not entirely formal, yet undeniably elegant.

Before William ever arrived, Mr. Fox had already heard from his men about this young man’s unusual behavior, especially that earlier remark of his. It stirred his curiosity.

“You’re not afraid of me?” He had his men push William down into a chair across the desk. “On this street, very few people aren’t.”

William showed not the slightest trace of fear. To him, this was trivial. He shrugged and countered, “Mr. Fox, are you going to hurt me?”

That question caught Mr. Fox off guard. He actually thought about it, then shook his head. “I generally don’t go out of my way to hurt anyone. But if you do something unfriendly first…”

For anyone, hurting others without reason was foolish. It damaged one’s image, and worse, it drew the attention of the FBI.

Most people were in the business of making money, not making trouble. Mr. Fox was no exception.

“Exactly,” William said calmly, a faint smile on his face. “So why should I be afraid?”

For a brief moment, that composure unsettled Mr. Fox. He glanced at his assistant, then returned his gaze to William. “My men say you’ve been watching me these past few days. Maybe you can tell me why. Are you with the FBI?”

Before bringing him here, they had already searched William. Nothing on him suggested any official identity. His clothes alone disqualified him from being the sort of man the FBI employed. Fox did not believe he was an agent.

That was precisely why he was curious. This kid had been watching his business, that laundromat, for days. He had already dug into William’s background. Curiosity and caution led to this meeting.

He wanted to know what William was up to.

He picked up the notebook from William’s pocket and flipped through a few pages. It was full of things he couldn’t make sense of. He asked his college-educated assistant, but even the assistant could not decipher the symbols.

William’s smile was warm, almost disarmingly so. It made Fox… uncomfortable. The feeling was strange, like being shown concern, something he was not used to.

“It’s like this, Mr. Fox. I noticed the laundromat’s business, and a few of your… minor inconveniences. I believe you’ve already investigated me, so you know the situation I’m in…”

Mr. Fox nodded and added flatly, “Poverty.”

William pointed lightly at the ceiling, a small gesture that drew Fox’s attention and let him reclaim the lead. “Exactly. So I need to get out of my financial crisis as quickly as possible. I’d like to do a bit of business with you.”

For a moment, the entire office burst into laughter. Mr. Fox, his assistant, and the two heavyset men who clearly were not to be trifled with all laughed out loud.

William watched Mr. Fox without the slightest embarrassment. Only after they had laughed for nearly thirty seconds did he speak again. “This isn’t a joke.”

Mr. Fox laughed again, though the laughter quickly began to taper. “I don’t see what kind of business we could possibly have together…” His smile faded, and he frowned slightly. “You want to borrow money?”

William shook his head. “No. Business, Mr. Fox.”

Fox had laughed enough. The curiosity rooted deep in human nature kept him going. Until he had his answer, or lost interest, he would not end this conversation.

“What kind of business do you want to do with me?”

William’s expression remained as confident and open as ever, the kind of smile that easily won people over. “I can supply you with more small change. Nickels, dimes, quarters, half-dollars. Coins, both new and old.”

Mr. Fox’s expression changed abruptly. His eyes narrowed, something cold flickering within them. If one had to name it, it was killing intent.

“You know what I do?” He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “You’ve got nerve.”

William remained completely unfazed. “I’m not even afraid of being poor. Why would I be afraid of anything else?”

They held each other’s gaze for a moment. This William did seem bold. And what he had just said truly began to interest Mr. Fox.

Some industries always had gray areas. The financial company he ran was not entirely legitimate. Both the FBI and the IRS were watching him.

He needed channels to turn his money into something that could be taxed legitimately, without drawing too much attention. The laundromat was an excellent channel.

No one tracked where each coin came from, nor could they. Across the Federal Reserve’s reach, most laundromats were controlled by people like him.

But there was still a problem. It was too slow.

The middle class and the wealthy had their own washing machines. They did not need to bring clothes to the street. Only the poor did.

And the poor tended to save up a week’s worth of laundry before coming in, washing everything at once.

To compensate, people like Mr. Fox had even introduced a pricing model by weight. But it was still a drop in the bucket.

You could hardly force everyone to come wash clothes every day. That would only attract the attention of the FBI and the IRS. This was Mr. Fox’s biggest frustration.

His safe was full of money he couldn’t spend. The feeling was unbearable.

And now this bastard in front of him was claiming he could solve that problem. That alone was enough to spark real interest.

“How do you plan to do it?”

William did not hide his method in the slightest. He couldn’t. Given his current position, nothing would stop Mr. Fox from digging it out. Better to lay it out plainly and show good faith.

“I’ll collect large quantities of coins and resell them to you, in exchange for a fee. My profit comes from the margin.”

Mr. Fox shot a glance at his assistant. The assistant leaned in and whispered something in his ear. Only then did Fox frown and ask, “How much?”

William’s bright, almost disarmingly warm smile returned, once again giving Fox that strange sense of being… cared for. “Ten percent.”

“Are you insane?” Mr. Fox snapped. “I’d rather wait it out slowly!”

At a one-dollar transaction, ten percent was just ten cents. But at a hundred thousand, a million, it became a painful number.

William did not immediately haggle. Instead, he asked another question. “Mr. Fox, do you have The Wall Street Journal here?”

The Wall Street Journal was one of the most widely circulated newspapers in the Federal Reserve, covering seventeen states and all territories, focusing on national and international financial trends, as well as regional economic changes.

Through this string of exchanges, Mr. Fox found himself gradually losing the initiative. He glanced at his assistant. The assistant nodded, indicating they had it.

Their business might not have been entirely proper, but it was undeniably tied to finance.

“Bring me an early issue and the latest one,” William said, his voice firm. “I’ll show you who the real winner of this deal will be.”

The confidence in his tone, the certainty in his expression, began to convince Mr. Fox in spite of himself. It was exactly like the way William once stood before a crowd, microphone in hand.

People would look at him, believe every word he said, then put money into his pockets, thanking him for it.

A few minutes later, one of Mr. Fox’s assistants brought in two newspapers, one from four months ago, the other from this week.

A finance house like Mr. Fox’s naturally kept a close eye on the financial currents of the whole nation, even the wider international order. They dealt with money every day, and they knew perfectly well what those things meant.

Beyond that, they also watched shifts in the shape of society, employment rates, unemployment rates, public order, matters of that kind.

If unemployment kept rising, they would cut interest rates while reducing large loans to lower their exposure, and that in turn would make their business more attractive.

When the national economy showed obvious signs of recovery, they would raise rates somewhat and at the same time encourage people to borrow more, because people could afford to pay it back.

Every day, Mr. Fox’s assistant had to read through a great stack of newspapers, analyze where the country might be headed next, then decide whether certain pieces of business ought to be called in early, or conveniently forgotten for the time being.

This was absolutely not a simple trade, nor a straightforward one. Men of lesser calibre could not scale it, and could not keep at it for long. Only someone like Mr. Fox could run this sort of operation over the long term.

That was also why he had spent good money to hire a university student to help him. He treated this as an enterprise, not a quick racket.

After opening the papers, William spent some time reading through them, around ten minutes or so. Mr. Fox did not disturb him once. He even had coffee and cigarettes brought over.

Somewhere in his heart, a quiet expectation had begun to stir. This ordinary fellow named William was going to give him a surprise.

It was not a groundless guess. It was something he had observed.

An ordinary nobody like William should not have been able to stay calm after being invited here, much less hold his gaze after he had deliberately let his killing intent show.

He was not an ordinary boy, and from Mr. Fox’s standpoint, William really was only a boy. He was just twenty.

After a dozen minutes or so, William used the pen in his hand to mark a few lines, then set both newspapers in front of Mr. Fox at once. “I underlined the parts you need to read. This way you can see them more clearly.”

Mr. Fox and his assistant both studied them in earnest. They read back and forth several times, but still found no clue at all. It was all property rental information. They saw nothing there.

Mr. Fox frowned slightly. “I don’t know what any of this is supposed to mean. Is there some special significance to it?”

William was not irritated in the slightest. He remained patient. Faced with an excellent client and the money in his pocket, anyone who needed money could become patient.

He walked over to Mr. Fox’s side. One of the bodyguards moved to stop him, but Mr. Fox raised a hand and checked the man. That meant William had earned Mr. Fox’s trust, at least for the moment.

If he could deliver on what he had claimed earlier, that trust would last a very long time.

“This paper carries rental listings for two street-facing apartments. The rent on this one is…,” William said, pointing to the line he had marked, then stopped there.

Mr. Fox answered instinctively, “One hundred and thirty-five dollars.”

William nodded in approval. “That’s right. One hundred and thirty-five dollars. Now let’s ignore everything else and look at how much the place next to it costs…”

Mr. Fox cooperatively shifted his gaze to the underlined listing in the other paper and, with equal cooperation, continued, “One hundred and seventy-two dollars!”

“These two apartments stand on opposite sides of the street, and the straight-line distance between them is less than a hundred meters. From the change in those prices, Mr. Fox, what do you notice?”

After a brief silence, Mr. Fox had already begun to think in earnest. “The monthly rent went up by thirty-seven dollars.”

In the mature and successful cases of William’s past life, he had always believed one thing, let the participants involve themselves more deeply in the problem, and it would save a great deal of time while preventing certain blind spots people never even realized they had.

They would persuade themselves, and firmly believe that the conclusion they reached was correct. This was especially obvious with mathematics.

Until a math problem was explicitly shown to be wrong, every solver believed his own answer was right, and everyone else’s was wrong.

Through a simple little “equation,” Mr. Fox had completed the process of deep participation. The sensation wrapped him in a false illusion, a counterfeit sense of security that he himself had constructed.

He would not think William was a swindler, because none of this had been told to him by William. He had thought it through himself, using his own clever head, and reached the conclusion on his own. He trusted his own conclusion.

“A rise in rent means buying those properties now costs more money. Four months’ time…,” William said, then paused. “No. In truth, it has been rising every single day, bit by bit. The change is small enough that you may not notice it, but it is changing. You admit that, don’t you, Mr. Fox?”

Mr. Fox nodded. “Then what does that have to do with the business we were discussing before?”

“Of course it does, Mr. Fox. Those buildings are standing right there. They don’t change with time. They don’t suddenly grow a few more bricks, or lose a few roof tiles.”

“They were what they were the day they were built, and they are still what they were now. They haven’t changed. They are constant. But the price has changed. What does that mean?”

Without waiting for Mr. Fox to think it through, William gave the answer himself, because with Mr. Fox’s head, this was not an answer he could arrive at.

What he did was guide people, at the right moment, toward the corner he needed them to notice, not encourage them to scatter their thoughts in all directions.

“If the value of a thing itself has not changed, but the process of paying for it has changed, then the only explanation is that the thing used to mark its price has changed in value.”

“In other words, over the past four months, the currency in our hands…,” William said. At some point he had drawn a coin from his pocket and trapped it between the joints of his thumb and forefinger.

With a light flick of his finger, a faint metallic tremor, discreet, but still audible enough, drew every eye in the room. Mr. Fox, his assistant, even the bodyguards at the side, all of them looked toward the coin spinning up into the air.

William said with calm confidence, “It has been depreciating the whole time, and over these four months it has lost roughly twenty-two to twenty-five percent of its value, Mr. Fox.”

Mr. Fox tore his attention away from the nickel lying motionless on the newspaper and began seriously considering William’s words, then turned to look at the assistant beside him.

The assistant looked embarrassed. He was not a finance student. He had studied management. If Mr. Fox had not paid so well, and if Mr. Fox had not been his father, he would never have been sitting here in the first place.

He felt that something about William’s argument was off, yet he could not find any obvious flaw in it. During the course of it, William had even used gold as a second example, and quietly pressed the ideas of depreciation and money as a commodity into the minds of everyone in the room.

He was not lying, because all of it was true. His examples were sound. He even brought up the fact that ten years ago people could buy a newspaper for five cents, whereas now it took fifty.

A newspaper was still a newspaper. Neither the ink nor the paper, nor the methods and process of production, had changed very much. It was not that newspapers had become expensive, it was that money had become cheap.

As understanding slowly dawned on him, Mr. Fox suddenly felt a chill creep over him. He shifted in his chair and, forcing himself to stay steady, said, “But our interest rates are high. Some of them are even compound interest!”

He was trying to use that thought to give himself some sense of security. But that flimsy reassurance was shattered a few seconds later by William’s laughter.

“I know, Mr. Fox. The problem is, the currency being devalued is not just the money you can pull out and place in front of people, it is all of your assets.”

“All of your assets are depreciating at a rate of five percent a month, and that is also a kind of compound interest. If you can’t get all your money over to the IRS and complete the final procedures as quickly as possible…”

William returned to the chair across the desk and sat down. He gave a small shrug and spread his hands. “Then the wealth you’re so proud of now may not be worth a fart a few years from today.”

“And you’re still worrying about that pitiful ten percent now?”

After leaving Mr. Fox’s place, William wandered the streets for a while. Now that the deal was settled, his first income would come in soon, and exactly how much he earned would depend directly on how much he put in.

The more he invested, the higher the profit. In truth, even the top-tier financial syndicates would have salivated over a business like this.

He had spent this whole stretch reading newspapers. For all the world’s feverish talk of development, construction, financial expansion, and economic growth, even the annual returns promised by various funds had not exceeded fifteen percent.

In the first-quarter issue of The Wall Street Journal, some of last year’s detailed figures had been published. The fund with the highest actual return had yielded only 9.74 percent for the year, not even ten percent, and that had already made it the most profitable fund of the previous year.

Which was precisely why this deal mattered so much. But at the same time, it created a new problem, he needed a sum of “principal” to exchange for all those coins and small bills.

Mr. Fox had not mentioned that money. Given the background check he had run on William, there was no way he did not know that William had less than a hundred dollars to his name, in cash and in the bank combined, never mind the scale William had promised for helping Fox complete his “transition” as quickly as possible.

He needed to get another sum together. It did not have to be much, a few hundred dollars, perhaps one or two thousand would be enough, because once this thing started turning, it would only gather speed. For a relatively small amount like that, he planned to talk to Eleanor that night when he got back.

Though he knew doing that was, admittedly… something rather low. Still, for the sake of the future, there was no helping it.

Time slipped away little by little as he drifted through the streets. That day, William returned home early. At half past six in the evening, Eleanor came back carrying a bag.

Inside were scraps of minced meat and some vegetables that no longer looked very fresh, things the supermarket where she worked was going to throw out that day. The employees usually divided them up among themselves. After all, the reason they endured the pressure and exploitation there was to get these things for free.

The moment she stepped into the apartment, Eleanor was a little surprised. During this period, William had always come home late. A day like this, with him back so early, was the first since all of this began.

At the start, she had still entertained the hope that William might honestly go find a job, preferably at a factory.

Factory work was hard, dangerous even, but the truth was that workers had the best benefits and social protections.

Those big industrial bosses had to look after them in all kinds of ways, and they could also join organizations like labor unions. Eleanor, working at a supermarket, had no way into one of those, because she was not a factory worker.

And there was no such unofficial organization as a Cashiers’ Union, either.

Nightmares were easy to remain trapped in. Good dreams, on the other hand, ended too quickly.

A full week had passed, and William, who had seemed newly fired up at first, had returned to the same dead point as before. Only now he had changed the pattern. Instead of loafing around at home, he used job hunting as an excuse to waste time outside.

The thought of it left Eleanor utterly disheartened. She felt her earlier choice had not merely been foolish, her eyes must have been blind as well.

And it was because she had gone through all this that she finally understood how right her mother had been, good looks were useless. Life needed foundations, not a handsome face.

She lifted her eyes and glanced at William, then changed her shoes, carried the bag into the kitchen, and began washing the meat scraps.

The scraps had all been shaved from bone racks, irregular little pieces with no real shape, most of them no bigger than a finger joint, lump after lump. For certain reasons, they looked noticeably darker than the neatly arranged cuts of beef.

So even at very low prices, they were hard to sell. Most people who bought them did not buy them to eat themselves, but to feed dogs.

In truth, there was nothing wrong with the scraps themselves.

The silence in the room carried something oppressive, something that made breathing difficult. It kept spreading, kept thickening.

William sat on a sofa they had dragged home from a trash pile, watching his girlfriend handle the food in silence. The distance between them was less than ten meters, yet it felt as though a chasm had opened up in the middle.

“Do you… have any extra money?” William asked.

Eleanor’s hands paused for a moment. She did not turn around, did not say anything. After that brief stillness, she resumed what she was doing. “A little. Less than five hundred dollars. It’s what I’ve managed to save this year.”

Saving money was not easy, especially not for young people with nothing but a high school education.

Rent, electricity, water, heating, necessary expenses and daily wear, and only one person working to support two lives. The fact that they had managed to save over four hundred dollars was already no small thing.

All at once, something heavier joined the strange atmosphere in the room and settled over both their chests.

Neither of them spoke again until Eleanor finished making dinner.

As usual, scraps with a fried egg, plus some ragged leaves of vegetables and a few broken pieces of wide noodles, one or two centimeters long.

These were all things the supermarket threw away every day. Now they were keeping many poor families alive.

“My mother came to see me today…” Eleanor broke the silence as they ate. “She doesn’t want us to keep living like this. But I can’t convince her…”

William set down his knife and fork. On the plate in front of the girl, some fresh “seasoning” had been added, clear, slightly bitter, slightly salty.

In truth, Eleanor had already made herself perfectly clear. She could not persuade her mother, which meant one of them had to give in to the other. The only real possibility was that she had been persuaded instead.

The food on his plate had not been good to begin with. Now it tasted even worse. William let out a sigh. “When are you leaving?”

Eleanor was on the verge of breaking down. “Tomorrow. My mother and my brother are coming to pick me up. I’m sorry, I never wanted this, but…”

“That’s enough. You don’t need to apologize. I’m the one who should apologize.” William reached out and touched the girl’s tear-wet cheek. He had to pay for what this body’s previous owner had done.

For more than two years, every burden of survival had been resting on the shoulders of this girl, who was only twenty.

There was no question that William had been trash, the worst kind.

That kind of life had gradually worn away every last fantasy the girl had about romance and the future. She had lived through it, and now she was bowing her head to reality and fate, though perhaps somewhere in the deepest part of her heart a sliver of fantasy still remained.

For example…

No, there was no for example. William would not ask her to stay. Whether she had chosen to leave first, or whether what lay ahead was still uncertain, but clearly full of risk and unease, none of it suited this girl.

Cruel as it sounded, the fact remained the fact.

After a night neither of them would forget, Eleanor left with her things early the next morning. But she left a few things behind for William as well.

A bank card, and the key to the apartment.

One had to be grateful that the bank did not care too much about who came to deposit or withdraw money with a card. That, too, might have served as a witness to Eleanor’s farewell to her old life.

After tidying himself up again, William withdrew every cent from the account that morning, four hundred forty-nine dollars and thirty-five cents.

Then he went to the landlord. After talking with him for about half an hour, he got a hundred dollars back on the remaining half month of rent, it should have been seventy-five, but William left all his things behind.

The landlord felt the deal was not too much in William’s favor, and in the end agreed to it, adding another twenty-five dollars.

He kept the loose change for the first few days of living expenses. Everything else would go straight into his plan. He was already starting to itch with impatience. He could hardly wait to teach this simple world a lesson.

“Sir, want a newspaper?”

A half-grown boy appeared in front of William, wearing a grimy newsboy cap and carrying an oversized leather satchel slung across his shoulder.

He looked about eleven or twelve. There was a flicker of hope in his eyes as he pulled open the bag to show the papers inside.

These children all worked under various “bosses.” Not the kind that made headlines, but the ones who controlled the newsboys.

Through connections, coercion, or other means, these men tightly controlled the street-level newspaper trade in certain districts. Only their boys could sell papers there. Outsiders were not allowed in. Newsstands were a different matter.

Every morning, they gathered outside the printing houses, loading still-warm newspapers onto handcarts, hauling them back to their “bases,” then distributing them to these half-grown kids and driving them out onto the streets.

Each child had a sales quota, a minimum threshold. Fall short, and they would be beaten or starved. Only by exceeding the quota could they earn the right to eat, and even then, there were no rewards.

The wages had already been claimed by orphanages or impoverished families. What the children worked for was simply a roof over their heads and two meals to keep them alive.

Some might call this hell. But compared to those trapped in even deeper pits of despair, these children might as well have been living in paradise.

William pulled a one-dollar bill from his pocket and picked two papers. Local papers cost fifty cents each. National publications went for a dollar apiece.

The boy thanked him repeatedly, even removing his cap and bowing. To William, one dollar for two newspapers was just a routine expense. To the boy, it was the kind of redemption he chased every single day.

The boy turned to leave, but William called him back.

“Sir, is there anything else I can help you with?” the boy asked.

Children like him adapted to this world far more quickly than those from comfortable homes still attending school. Looking at that young face, already carrying a practiced smile shaped by hardship, William felt a flicker of something.

The worst of times, and the best of times.

“Want to make some money?” William asked.

The boy nodded immediately. “More than anything, sir. But I don’t do anything illegal.”

Where there was light, there was shadow. The brighter the light, the deeper the shadow. Some used children to sell newspapers. Others used them for crimes. It was no secret. In a society surging forward in pursuit of wealth, people’s eyes were clouded.

As long as money could be made, someone would do it.

William shook his head. “Do you have ninety-seven cents?”

The boy hesitated, then quickly reached into his pocket and pulled out ninety-seven cents. It was all in coins, change that had been placed in each child’s bag by the boss before they went out.

The money did not belong to them. At the end of the day, the boss would count everything. If any money was missing, best case, they went hungry. Worst case, they were beaten. It made them extremely sensitive about money.

Looking at the coins in the boy’s hand, William took out another dollar. He placed the bill into the boy’s left hand and took the ninety-seven cents from the other.

“Sir, you’re still short three cents. I’ll get the change for you now…” The boy assumed William wanted to break the bill. Public transport usually required exact fares, ten cents for trips within five kilometers, twenty-five for longer routes.

Buses and subways did not give change. If you paid fifty cents, they handed you two tickets, not one ticket and change.

So most people carried coins to avoid losing money.

William stopped him and asked again, “Want to make some money?”

The boy still had not fully processed what was happening. Taking advantage like this, out in the open, made him uneasy. After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded. “Yes, sir. More than anything.”

A smile slowly spread across William’s face. To the boy, it felt like the first light of dawn, not harsh, but warm enough to tear through the dark and light up the sky.

“Do you have ninety-seven cents?” William asked again.

The boy froze for a moment, confused, shocked, uncertain. Then he hurriedly pulled out another ninety-seven cents from his bag and held it out in his palm.

His face flushed red. Excitement, tension, doubt, all tangled together. His clear eyes stayed fixed on William, waiting to see what would happen next.

William took out another dollar, placed it into the boy’s hand, and took the coins from the other. With a faint, knowing smile, he asked once more, “Want to make money?”

By now, the boy was trembling with excitement. He nodded again and again, digging out every last coin he could scrape together into sets of ninety-seven cents. “This is everything, sir…”

William counted out twelve dollars into the boy’s hand and swept all the coins into his own pocket. “Looks like that’s all you’ve got.”

The boy was thrilled. From William, he had exchanged coins worth fourteen dollars in total, and his own take was already forty-two cents, nearly half a dollar.

At his job, no matter how well he did, he would not receive even a single cent. The boss handed all the wages over to the orphanage.

This boy had grown up in one of those places. As the orphanage put it, now that they had raised him, it was time for him to give something back.

In general, if a child had not been adopted by the age of ten, the chances dropped sharply. The exception was some girls, adopted for other reasons and purposes.

The orphanages did not interfere much. Once children turned fourteen, they could refuse adoption. By sixteen, they had to leave and survive on their own.

In other words, boys over ten were already drifting toward the margins of the system. There was little adoption money left to be made from them, so they had to work.

Their labor was considered repayment for the years the orphanage had supported them. Whether that was right or wrong did not matter. No one cared. Everyone focused only on what affected their own interests.

How to adapt to society after being pushed out, how to find a place to exist, these were the real problems pressing down on these children.

If they could gather even a small amount of money before leaving, just enough to carry them through a short period, they would have a chance to survive.

William’s simple act of exchanging coins showed the boy a path, a bright, undeniable path, just like the question he had asked earlier.

Do you want to make money?

And the boy’s answer.

More than anything.

Clutching the money tightly, the boy hesitated, then asked, “Sir, will you be here tomorrow?”

William nodded. “Before lunchtime, I’ll be here. If not today, then tomorrow.” He tapped his wrist. “You’ve got time.”

Children like these, already brushing against the edges of society, understood immediately.

About ten minutes later, a cluster of newsboys had gathered around him, with more hurrying over from down the street.

“Today’s money…”

Mr. Fox stared at the sack William had hauled in, the man clearly having strained himself, making two trips back and forth. He fell silent for a moment.

Truth be told, his people had been watching William the entire time. He already knew exactly how William had gathered these coins. What he felt now was a mix of curiosity and shock.

What kind of mind could come up with a method like this, one that could gather such a volume of coins so quickly, yet leave barely a ripple across society?

At this moment, he could easily replicate William’s method and cut out that ten percent fee entirely.

But he had no intention of doing so.

Because all at once, he realized something. Compared to that ten percent, what truly had value was William’s mind, that constantly surprising mind was the real asset.

“Want to count it?” William straightened up, stretched his back, let out a breath, then dropped into the chair without a care for appearances. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lit one, and took a slow drag. “I can wait.”

Mr. Fox shook his head and gestured for his men to take the coins away. Later, the money would be delivered to the IRS for counting and registration, taxed, then deposited into the bank.

For people like Mr. Fox, there had never really been a good solution to these problems.

To put it bluntly, most people in this line of work were not exactly members of the social elite.

They lacked higher education. Many had no understanding of specialized fields. Some barely knew how to read.

Their business did not require any of that. All it required was a willingness to face danger and trouble. And that came with its own set of problems.

In recent years, across the Federal Reserve, the FBI and the IRS had been watching people like them closely. Not just to catch them in the act, but to keep an eye on the money in their pockets.

They had little legitimate business. That meant constant trouble. Having money but being unable to spend it became a quiet kind of torment.

To counter this, the Federal Reserve had introduced a series of regulations restricting large cash transactions. Under these rules, any cash deal exceeding five thousand dollars had to be reported. Anything over fifty thousand would be subject to review.

Even depositing large sums into a bank required advance disclosure of the source of funds and intended use, along with sufficient documentation proving taxes had been properly paid.

With restrictions from every direction, combined with the tight watch kept by those IRS officers labeled “Special Agent” or “Agent,” life had become difficult for everyone in this business.

Their vaults were stuffed with cash, yet they could not take it out. Even spending it for pleasure risked drawing targeted scrutiny. It was a miserable way to live.

But now, in William, Mr. Fox saw something different. Not just the coin operation, but something more, something he had always wanted.

He snapped back to himself, glanced at William, and gave a small shrug. “I should pay you…”

“Round it down, five hundred sixty dollars.” William casually shaved off a few dollars from the total, a gesture meant to build trust.

Mr. Fox smiled faintly. He pulled open a drawer filled with cash, stacks of it, including plenty of fifty- and hundred-dollar bills.

As his hand moved toward the hundred-dollar notes, William gave a light cough. “I think fives and tens would be better. Don’t you?”

Mr. Fox nodded without comment and counted out five hundred sixty dollars in smaller bills.

Hundred-dollar notes were rarely used in everyday life. Most of the time, they appeared in corporate settlements or officially reported large transactions.

This was a world without networks, without digitized systems. The banking sector was riddled with loopholes that could drive a man mad.

To avoid certain risks already discovered, large business transactions were still conducted in cash rather than by phone transfer, especially across banks, where issues were frequent.

If someone tried to spend a hundred-dollar bill in ordinary life, it would draw attention immediately. People’s sense of vigilance should not be underestimated.

Many shopkeepers, during official procedures like tax filing, received pamphlets or direct instructions on how to handle such situations, what to do if someone paid with a hundred-dollar note, what benefits compliance would bring, and what consequences came with ignoring it.

That made it extremely difficult to circulate hundred-dollar bills among the lower and middle classes. If someone carried too many of them, a judge might even approve a search warrant on limited evidence alone.

This was the real pain for men like Mr. Fox. The money sat in drawers, in safes, in hidden corners. They could not spend it, and sometimes others would not even accept it.

His move toward the hundred-dollar bills had been a test. If William had said nothing, their dealings would have been limited to coins.

A man who lacked judgment, who did not understand risk, who lacked caution, was not worth deeper engagement.

Fortunately, William passed.

Mr. Fox leaned back, resting his arms on the chair. He tilted his head slightly as he looked at William. “This pace is too slow. Got a better method?”

William pocketed the money without counting it. “Give it a few days. It’ll grow faster and faster. Soon, your little treasures will finally see daylight.”

Mr. Fox did not press further. He simply let out a breath. “I’m looking forward to that day.”

Sabine City, where William lived, ranked toward the lower end of second-tier cities within the Federal Reserve. Its total population was under eight hundred thousand.

Yet every day, the city sold at least a hundred thousand newspapers. Even if they were all local editions, that still meant fifty thousand dollars’ worth of coins.

And in William’s plan, newspapers were only one channel. There were also all the various retail trades.

At present, the main circulating currency consisted of coins and low-denomination bills, one-dollar, two-dollar, and five-dollar notes. Two- and five-dollar bills would not appear in laundromats, but one-dollar bills certainly could.

Once his influence expanded, he could draw in the loose change from the entire city.

But this business would not last forever.

The IRS would notice. The FBI would investigate his ties to people like Mr. Fox.

He had no intention of becoming a man like Fox, hiding forever in shadows and corners.

He wanted to be a magnate, a legend.

He wanted to stand beneath the spotlight, to be watched, admired, envied.

That was the life he was aiming for.

Everything he was doing now was simply to secure the perfect opening move.

“Money gleams with gold. It draws in everyone lost in the fog of poverty.”

“They may never grasp enough to shine themselves, but even a little can change their lives.”

Those were William’s words. In just a few days, every boss in Sabine knew there was a man who could turn loose change into larger sums, quickly, and profitably.

Coins flowed into William’s hands, rolling and compounding into bills. It was not just the bosses. Newsstands and retail shops had begun doing the same.

A three percent margin. No effort. No risk. To many, that sounded like a trivial gain, just three cents on the dollar.

But once the principal grew large enough, it became something else entirely. A hundred dollars, a thousand dollars, all one had to do was hand the money to William and take back more. That simple.

Under Federal Reserve labor laws and local regulations, an ordinary worker in Sabine City earned around two to three hundred dollars a month.

Dangerous work paid a bit more, but those jobs were rare. For most, that was the range.

Ten dollars meant a full day’s labor. But with William, no labor was required. Hand over the money, receive more in return.

Some people scoffed. More did not.

Loose change began to converge, then appeared, orderly and steady, inside Mr. Fox’s laundromat.

One week later, as William pushed a handcart into one of Fox’s shops, two men stepped into his path.

They wore black wool overcoats, tailored suits beneath, waistcoats and crisp white shirts.

And in that instant, William understood why Fox had said he did not look like someone from the Federal Executive Departments. He lacked the uniform, the unmistakable look, and more importantly, the arrogance worn openly on their faces, the kind that made sure everyone knew exactly who they were.

“William?”

The man blocking the cart called his name casually, then pulled open his coat to reveal a leather badge holder.

Half of it was tucked into the inner pocket to keep it from falling. The other half, displaying identification, hung outward. FBI men did the same. They thought it looked impressive.

Why such a foolish idea existed likely had something to do with the films that had become popular in recent years.

Actors made it look sharp. In real life, it just looked ridiculous.

“I’m a Special Agent with the IRS. You’re going to cooperate.”

There was no room for negotiation. The tone was not just firm, it had edges.

William smiled. “Do I need to raise my hands?”

From the beginning, he had known he would have to deal with people like this. Not just now, but again and again in the future. He just had not expected it to come this quickly.

That was the nature of the game. The golden glow of wealth drew not only those eager to bask in it, hoping to snatch a share, but also those who came to pick it apart.

His words sounded like mockery. After all, raised hands were usually associated with guns.

Clearly, these two agents were not authorized to carry firearms. Within the IRS hierarchy of the Federal Reserve, Special Agents were among the lowest ranks, far below Agents and senior Special Agents. Many people still wondered why the IRS even needed “Special Agents.”

The man behind William grabbed his wrist with one hand, his collar with the other, and slammed him against the wall, making sure he felt it.

Pedestrians on the street quickly gave the alley a wide berth. Some left. Others lingered, watching.

The first agent flashed his badge again and dispersed the crowd. Then he pushed William’s cart while his partner hauled William along, dragging both man and cart into a nearby alley.

William rubbed his cheekbone. When his face had hit the wall, it had stung. There would be bruising. He did not care.

One agent began rummaging through the cart, opening the box, tossing out old clothes onto the ground as if searching for something.

The other pulled out a notebook and pen. “You’ve been close with Fox lately. Working for him?”

The IRS had long been watching people like Mr. Fox. But watching did not always mean immediate arrest.

Where there was light, there was shadow. That was not a property of darkness. It was a property of light.

Without William, this fragile balance, strange yet functional, might have lasted longer. Until a new Tax Bureau Director took office, or the current one needed a record of achievement, only then would they have moved against Fox.

But now William had entered the equation.

Fox. William. Their movements were accelerating things, pushing them out of balance.

Catching a tax evader with a large case was a major accomplishment in the Federation’s tax system. The kind that led to promotion.

But if Fox slipped free, no one would praise the current Director. They would suspect backroom dealings.

On top of that, there were signs of internal personnel shifts within the Sabine IRS. Some people were growing restless.

The moment those signs appeared, the local IRS moved.

They investigated William’s background, his recent actions, and quickly pieced together the outline of his relationship with Fox.

To seasoned agents, William was just a lucky kid, someone who had stumbled upon a profitable method. Use him as leverage, and they might take down Fox’s entire operation.

But first, they needed to confirm what exactly was happening.

So this “encounter” took place.

Facing the menacing Special Agent, William kept smiling. A smile closed distances. It lowered defenses. “May I know your name?”