Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
“Future News? What on earth is this?”
Lin Bai stared at the new app that suddenly appeared on his phone, his face full of suspicion.
“Could it be a virus?”
With this thought in mind, Lin Bai planned to delete this app called Future News.
In the end, his hand accidentally trembled and he ended up tapping on the app, thus opening it.
“F*ck!”
Lin Bai subconsciously exclaimed. It was too late to close it.
He was greeted by a simple and crude interface.
There were only two sections in the entire interface—local news and world news.
Other than that, there was nothing else.
Lin Bai could not help but complain, “This is too simple and crude! Any random computer science student would write a more exquisite program than this. This is too careless!”
Although he was complaining, he could not help but tap on the local news page.
In the end, he was dumbfounded again.
He saw that the page was divided into three subsections. The dates on them were tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow.
However, there was no news for today.
Lin Bai did not know whether to laugh or cry.
“What is this? Is this a joke?”
With the mentality of hunting for novelty, he casually clicked on the date of tomorrow.
The headline read:
[ Hail in midsummer, abnormal weather calls for vigilance! ]
The main content was:
[There will be an extremely large hailstorm in the city tomorrow. The relevant departments would like to remind citizens to make necessary preparations and precautions, close the doors and windows, and try not to go out during the hail.
Experts believe that the appearance of this extreme abnormal weather is very likely related to the excessive emissions of carbon dioxide, which causes environmental pollution, and they urge everyone to pay attention to environmental protection.]
Lin Bai casually glanced at the main text and smiled. “It’s quite a plausible story, but the content is too ridiculous. How can there be hail in the middle of the summer? And it’s extremely large? Isn’t this nonsense!”
“Seriously, why not make it seem more plausible? It’s a waste of such good writing.”
He muttered as he closed the page. He wanted to uninstall the app, but after hesitating for a moment, he did not delete it in the end.
“Forget it. I’ll just watch it to relieve my boredom,” he said to himself.
For the next half of the day, Lin Bai was a little absent-minded. From time to time, thoughts would pop up in his mind. ‘Would there really be a hailstorm tomorrow?’
However, he immediately felt that it was funny.
“Seriously, I took it seriously when I saw a spoof news. It’s summer. How is that possible?”
Thus, he completely suppressed these thoughts and forced himself to never think about it again.
The next day.
Early in the morning, the alarm clock rang on time.
In a daze, Lin Bai reached out his hand to turn off the alarm clock. He turned over and thought in a daze, “Five more minutes, the next alarm clock will ring again.”
While he was half asleep and half awake, he heard a rumble, followed by a crackling sound, as if there were countless pebbles hitting the glass.
“What’s that sound?”
“Is it hail?”
Lin Bai thought in a daze.
The next second, he instantly woke up!
“It can’t be!?”
A strong sense of shock overcame his desire to stay in bed. Lin Bai directly jumped off the bed, even wearing only one pair of slippers. He jumped to the window with one leg and forcefully pulled open the curtains!
Outside the window, a mist filled the air.
In the pouring rain, there was a hailstone the size of a coin.
The sound he heard just now was indeed the sound of the hailstones hitting the window.
Lin Bai was completely dumbfounded. He stared at the scene outside the window in disbelief.
After a long while, he finally said, “This is too much of a coincidence!”
That spoof app really hit the nail on the head!
As Lin Bai thought of this, another thought popped up in his mind uncontrollably.
“Maybe that app can really predict the future?”
If it were any other time, Lin Bai would definitely dismiss such an absurd thought.
But now, he couldn’t help but believe it a little.
“Let’s test it again. If it’s still accurate this time, then I believe that the news on this app really comes from the future!”
Lin Bai made up his mind. He opened the local news page again and chose the date for tomorrow.
The headline on the front page —
[Hard work pays off. S city’s veteran gambler insists on buying the same betting number for 30 years and finally wins the first prize!]
Lin Bai read the text carefully and found that the veteran gambler who won the first prize in the report actually lived in the same neighborhood as him!
“This is too much of a coincidence!”
Lin Bai couldn’t help but exclaim.
In the news reports, the names were all aliases, and the real name of the old lottery winner was not written.
However, it revealed a very crucial piece of information, which was that the old lottery winner had already retired for ten years.
According to the regulations ten years ago, the retirement age for non-special jobs was 60 years old, which meant that the old lottery winners were already 70 years old this year.
There shouldn’t be a second veteran gambler of this age who had persisted in buying lottery tickets for 30 years.
Therefore, Lin Bai planned to go to the lottery betting station across the district to ask around.
He didn’t have the habit of buying lottery tickets normally. This was the first time he walked into the betting station, so he was really a little nervous.
Fortunately, the owner of the betting station was very enthusiastic. Seeing that Lin Bai hadn’t bought many lottery tickets before, he took the initiative to introduce them to him.
It turned out that this kind of lottery ticket only cost two dollars per bet. You could choose your own number or choose at random.
The highest winning amount of a single bet was 50,000 dollars.
“Then how many bets can you buy at one time? Is there a limit?” Lin Bai asked.
When the owner heard this, he immediately felt that he had a big customer, and his eyes instantly lit up.
He answered enthusiastically, “Only a maximum of 100 stakes of the same number can be bought. If you want to buy more, you can choose a few more different numbers. This way, you won’t reach the upper limit, and you can also increase the probability of winning the lottery.”
“I have a few sets of rare lucky numbers here, all of which have been winning numbers of the lottery before!”
“Handsome, you don’t often buy lottery tickets, so you might not know. In fact, the higher the winning frequency of a number, the more likely it is to win the lottery again!”
“If you really want to buy, I’ll show you the number right now! I Won’t Tell Ordinary People!”
Lin Bai smiled and said, “Thank you for your kindness, but that’s not necessary. I already have a selected number…”
“By the way, I want to ask you about someone.”
Lin Bai turned around and cut straight to the chase.
The boss was stunned for a moment, then asked, “Who is it?”
Lin Bai said, “It’s an old man. He should be 70 years old this year. He has been buying lottery tickets for more than 30 years. Do you know him?”
The boss said, “You should be talking about Old Zhang, right? I don’t know if he has persisted for 30 years. Anyway, I have taken over this betting station for 11 or 12 years. He has been buying from me for every draw.”
Lin Bai thought to himself, ‘That’s right! It should be Old Zhang!’
So he asked again, “I heard from my friends that Old Zhang’s personality is very strange.. He only buys the same number for thirty years. Is that true?”