This lottery outlet was more disappointing. After Ryan finished scratching all the tickets, he only won a few dollars and tens of dollars. He had no choice but to reluctantly move on to the next one.
Ryan was not discouraged at all. Since the scratch-off tickets were free, he treated every single one he scratched as a potential profit.
It was just a bit of wasted time and effort. But if he could scratch out a few tens of thousands, that would be a huge gain.
And if he hit a million-dollar jackpot, he'd be rich!
Whenever he thought of this, Ryan felt as if he had been injected with a shot of adrenaline, full of zeal.
By 11 p.m., Ryan had scratched the scratch-offs at nearly 40 lottery outlets within a 5-kilometer radius, spending about twenty minutes at each outlet.
He had no idea how many scratch-offs he had gone through. All he felt was that his hand had gone numb, and he was even feeling a bit nauseous.
But Ryan was extraordinarily excited because he had finally scratched off two big prizes: a $ 188, 000 ticket and a $ 100, 000 ticket.
Ryan meticulously recorded the locations of these two winning tickets, including the specific outlet and the exact package number, on his laptop. On his way back, he began to memorize the details over and over again.
As long as he could make it out alive, he would immediately pocket a whopping 300,000 dollars. The next day, he could scratch even more lottery outlets, aiming for a few million. With that money, he would buy shares in the Regent Group.
He didn't even need the stock price to double; even a single-fold increase could potentially net him close to ten million.
At this moment, Ryan could almost see himself reaching the pinnacle of success, and he couldn't help but get excited all over again.
So excited that even after returning to the mountaintop villa, he was too wound up to sleep.
Ryan tossed and turned in bed, unable to drift off. The thought of the potential fortune kept him wide awake.
He even considered skipping sleep altogether and heading back out to scratch more tickets.
Ryan didn't come from a wealthy family; his background was ordinary. His ancestors for several generations were farmers.
It wasn't until his father, Ross Miller, that the family had some education and moved from the countryside to a small county town.
Unfortunately, Ross had a penchant for taking risks. When Ryan was in elementary school, Ross started a business, dabbling in transportation, construction, wholesale building materials, snail farming, and all sorts of other odd ventures.
The family had experienced a brief period of prosperity, but it quickly plummeted.
By the time Ryan was in college, the family was in debt by half a million.
In Ryan's memory, every New Year, debt collectors would show up at their door.
It wasn't until Ryan started university that Ross realized he couldn't even scrape together Ryan's tuition fees. Only then did he see that his years of taking risks hadn't just failed to bring his family any real happiness, but had also jeopardized his son's future.
Ryan never blamed his father because he understood why Ross took such risks.
During Ryan's college years, Ross stopped taking risks to pay off debts and save for Ryan's tuition.
He steeled himself and sold the family's only house, paid Ryan's tuition, settled some debts, and with the remaining money, started a small-scale chicken farm near the county town, hoping to earn a steady income.
However, during the farming process, Ross had a conflict with the local villagers over breeding issues. In the chaos, a villager fell and broke a rib.
At that time, the scene was chaotic, and no one really saw what had happened. But the villagers unanimously blamed Ross, and the situation turned against him.
Not only was Ross injured in the conflict, but he also faced legal trouble and had to compensate the injured villager.
To avoid jail, Ross had to sell the chicken farm at a low price. After paying the compensation, all the money from selling the house was gone. Ross had no choice but to work at a lumber mill in the county, earning a meager daily wage of a hundred dollars. Ryan's mother didn't have many skills either and could only do odd jobs and housekeeping.
Throughout his four years of college, Ryan hardly had any downtime. Whenever he had time, he worked part-time jobs, especially during winter and summer vacations.
Watching his parents' increasing gray hairs, Ryan desperately wished time would pass quickly so he could graduate, start earning money, and alleviate his family's financial burden and debts..
During his senior year internship and the first half-year of his job, Ryan sent almost all his income back to his parents, except for necessary expenses.
Sometimes, when he couldn't make ends meet, he had to rely on credit cards and other forms of borrowing to get by until payday. Life was quite tight.
So when he saw a chance to solve his family's long-standing financial troubles, there was no way he could sleep.
"At No. 178 Park Avenue, I can find the second pack of scratch-offs in the glass cabinet."
"At No. 1457 Pinecrest Road, I can find ninth-pack scratch-offs in the first row of the cabinet."
In the dark, Ryan kept repeating these two phrases, wide-eyed, for fear of forgetting them.
This was crucial information that could change his fate. As long as he could make it back alive, he would be able to get his hands on those two winning scratch-off tickets.
Just as Ryan was repeating these phrases to himself, he suddenly heard a noise outside the door.
He froze, thinking he must have been hearing things from repeating the phrases too quickly.
In the past half-month, Ryan was certain that there was no other living being in this world besides him
As Ryan was about to continue repeating the phrases, he heard the noise again, and this time it was getting louder, as if something was scratching at the door.
Ryan sat up abruptly in bed, turned on the room light, and looked toward the door.
Scritch-scratch! Scritch-scratch!
The sound of something scratching at the door sent shivers down Ryan's spine.
"What the hell is that?"
Ryan felt a bit spooked.
He suddenly remembered that old sentence: When all humans on Earth disappear, and then you hear a knock on the door.
Now, he really did hear something scratching at his door.
Ryan didn't dare to open the door, because this was a survival game.
Hearing the increasingly rapid scratching sounds outside, even a fool could guess that it was probably not a good thing.
Ryan immediately jumped out of bed and locked the door.
Even though he was sure there were no other people in this world, he had always closed the door out of habit when sleeping.
The thing outside apparently didn't know how to open the door, even though it could just pull down the doorknob to get in.
Ryan's heart raced. The unknown was terrifying, especially with the increasingly frantic scratching sounds from outside.
"What is that thing outside?"
Ryan waited for a while, but there was no response from the game's prompt sound.
Ryan instantly realized what was going on. The game must have seen that he had been comfortable for a few days and was now throwing another curveball his way.
Whatever was outside his door was likely very dangerous.