Raio-X: Sem apostar em pedras, você fez o quê?

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Southern Province, Donghai City, Jiangtai District, at the border between urban and rural areas, inside a cramped lottery shop.

Xu Yi’s eyes shone with intensity as scratch-off tickets slid swiftly through his hands, one after another. Soon, he finished a whole booklet of scratch-offs and immediately reached for another, brand new stack beside him.

Smack!

A plump hand landed on the tickets before him.

“Hey, buddy! You’ve been flipping through these for half an hour already. Are you buying or not? If you’re not, quit messing around! These are all the latest scratch-offs! If you damage them, you’ll have to pay for them!”

An impatient voice rang in Xu Yi’s ear.

Xu Yi looked up and found the shop owner staring at him warily.

Xu Yi frowned slightly. “I told you before, this is how I buy scratch-offs. If I damage anything, I’ll pay for it.”

The owner eyed him even more suspiciously. “Strange! Kid, I’ve run this shop for years, never seen anyone scratch tickets like you. Do you think you can see through them? You think you can just look and know if there’s a prize?”

Xu Yi glanced at the owner meaningfully and replied calmly, “How do you know? Maybe I really can see through them.”

The owner was stunned.

Xu Yi pulled a hundred-yuan bill from his pocket, slapped it on the table, and took the booklet from beneath the owner’s hand.

“The money’s right here! Watch closely—your scratch-offs are twenty apiece, I’m paying a hundred, but I only want one ticket.”

“One? Are you sure?” The owner asked,