Chapter 78 - Father's Gambling Debt
Chapter 78: Father’s Gambling Debt
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
The mission assigned by the Heavenly Court had been successfully completed, as had all the shopping duties delegated to him by An Lin’s upperclassmen.
It could be said that now An Lin did not have a care in the world and had regained his freedom.
On a bright and sunny day, he put on some casual clothes and embarked on a bus journey to Shan City.
All the assignments from the Heavenly Court were completed.
It was now time to tie up all the loose ends in the mortal world.
Come to think of it, if it wasn’t for his bastard of a father accumulating four million two hundred thousand in gambling debts, he wouldn’t have had a chance to encounter the brand new world that he was now a part of.
An Lin’s father was named An Mingchuan. He was previously the boss of a small construction company.
Prior to his mother’s death, An Lin’s life was quite good, they were at least not short of money.
However, a traffic accident resulted in his mother’s death.
His father also became extremely despondent due to the tragedy, even starting to gamble to relieve the pressure and escape the emotional aftermath.
Gambling bred greed, and his father was not an exception to this rule.
All gamblers wanted to win more and more, this was, however, only to be the precursor for heavier losses in the future.
Gambled away all your assets? No problem, put the house on a mortgage and strive to win everything back.
Finally, the house was also inevitably gambled away.
What could they do now? They couldn’t just sleep on the streets, could they?
He had to win the house back!
The vicious cycle he fell into eventually resulted in a debt of four million two hundred thousand…
There was no way to repay all that debt, so he could only run.
Prior to running away, An Mingchuan had given An Lin a call. “Lin, I’ve accumulated some debt and have gone into hiding. You should hurry up and find somewhere to hide as well!”
An Lin: “Dad, how much do you owe?”
An Mingchuan: “Four million two hundred thousand!”
An Lin: “…
“What the f*ck! Have you gone crazy!?”
An Lin slammed the phone down in anger.
If he were to hide now, what would he do about his classes at Hua Qing University?
The person owing the debt was his father, why should he have to hide?
Hence, An Lin chose to continue going to classes.
Thereafter, he was captured by the debt collectors…
To them, the law didn’t exist and they immediately forced him to work in grueling manual labor.
It didn’t matter if An Mingchuan did not repay his debt, as his son was here repaying his debt for him.
The longer you delayed your debt repayment, the more your son was going to be tortured!
Thus, An Lin couldn’t withstand the torture and escaped.
Finally, on top of that building, he met the person that would completely change his life.
As An Lin walked upon the hilly path to Shan City, his mind was basking in memories.
It was only less than a year that had passed since then, but it felt like an extremely long time to him.
Past events began to resurface in his memory, seemingly as if they were fragments of a past life.
Finally, he arrived at the entrance of a tall building.
An Lin raised his head to read the plaque on the building. On the plaque was written words that read, Hongda Construction and Investment Corporation.
“Sigh, this is the place.” An Lin sighed lightly before striding in.
…
In the luxuriously-furnished office sat a man who looked to be in his fifties, looking at the company’s quarterly report as he sipped on some tea.
He was Zhang Hongtao, the boss of the company.
Suddenly, the phone began to ring.
Zhang Hongtao picked up the phone upon seeing that the call was from the front desk.
“Mr. Zhang, there is a young man by the name of An Lin that would like to see you.”
“Cough…”
Zhang Hongtao choked on his tea. “An Lin? Quick! Let him in!”
There was a brawny man standing by the table and his eyes lit up upon hearing An Lin’s name. “This little sh*t disappears for a few months and now he’s voluntarily handing himself in?”
The brawny man’s name was Huang Feibiao, and he was the person leading the chase when An Lin escaped.
Not long after, a young man knocked on the door before walking into the room.
Both Zhang Hongtao and Huang Feibiao were a little taken aback upon seeing An Lin.
He still looked like he did before, but the air about him seemed completely different
An Lin now seemed to have a sense of self-confidence and determination, which was a stark contrast to the weakling he was.
“An Lin, who would have thought that you would come here.” Zhang Hongtao looked at An Lin with a smile on his face.
This was a place that had left him with extremely painful memories. An Lin had tried everything to escape back when he was still being held captive here.
But today, he had come here of his own choosing, which was truly quite a surprise for Zhang Hongtao.
“Actually, I’m here to repay some debt.” An Lin said as he fished out a bank card.
“Repay debt? What debt?” Zhang Hongtao’s expression was filled with confusion.
An Lin was also taken aback upon hearing his response.
Are you f*cking serious? How could you just forget several million dollars worth of debt!?
“To repay the four million two hundred thousand.” An Lin’s lips spasmed slightly as he said this through gritted teeth.
For f*ck’s sake!
He had prepared to really flex and show off by throwing the bank card onto the table.
But Zhang Hongtao was clearly completely baffled, just what in the hell was he thinking?
At this time, Huang Feibiao cut in. “You still haven’t met An Mingchuan, right?”
An Lin was confused by his question. “What do you mean by that?”
Huang Feibiao replied, “An Mingchuan has already repaid all of his debt.”
An Lin’s pupils contracted drastically upon hearing this. “How is that possible? It’s only been less than a year, where would he have gotten more than four million from?”
“That’s something that we don’t know. You should just hurry up and go see him!
“He comes every once in a while to demand we release you and defame our reputation, saying that we wouldn’t release you even after having the debt repaid.
“But you really did disappear, what could we do? I get a massive headache every time I see your father now!”
Zhang Hongtao said with a look of resignation.
“Then, do you know where he is? And how to contact him?” An Lin continued.
Prior to going into hiding, his father had already changed phone numbers. An Lin had no clue where he could be at the moment.
Zhang Hongtao smiled wryly. “We don’t know his address, but we do have his phone number. Please call him as soon as possible so he doesn’t come to bother us again.”
…
An Lin did not immediately call the number he was given.
He walked out of the Hongda Construction and Investment Corporation building and instead called another number.
“Hello, is this Huang Shanshan? I need you to do me a favor.
“Yes… Please help me investigate An Mingchuan, he’s my father. Please give me all the information on him you can find.
“Alright, thank you.”
He hung up the phone and took a deep breath, walking aimlessly on the road.
The sun was extremely bright, searing the earth with its heat.
But he did not take notice of this. His mind was completely occupied by thoughts of his father.
In all honesty, the last thing he expected was that his father would repay his debts himself.
This made him develop very mixed feelings. There was now a lot less hatred, but a lot more worry and joy.
Could it be that his bastard of a father had somehow turned over a new leaf?
…
After two hours, Huang Shanshan called back with some very detailed information.
His father was only able to repay his debt by borrowing from his friends.
One of his especially good friends loaned him close to a million.
The rest also borrowed him bits and pieces, thus accumulating to a total of more than four million.
It was also kudos to his father that he was a very generous person himself who’d helped a lot of his friends in their times of need, otherwise it would’ve been very difficult to borrow so much money in such a short time.
He was now at Lanhai Construction Company and had assumed the role of project vice manager for a residential area project for the company.
He would work at the construction site during the day, then take on some design-related jobs to earn some extra money to repay his debt.
An Lin immediately recorded the address upon receiving this information and began to make his way there.
As day transitioned into night, the heat of the day began to dissipate and the temperature dropped slightly.
The construction site was quite far from the city, and his father was living in a standard worker’s cabin on the construction site.
There was all sorts of stuff cluttered in the room of about 20 square meters in size.
But everything had been organized neatly, with no trace of messiness.
An Lin had already arrived at the entrance of the cabin but did not go in.
He silently looked at the familiar figure of his father through the window.