Chapter 733: Empathy — The Pig-Butchering Scam

"You were the one who mentioned divorce, why are you regretting it now?"

A mocking voice came through.

Ji Xiang focused his attention to look around.

This time it was the bystander mode; "himself" was a middle-aged man around thirty years old wearing gold-rimmed glasses, and a woman of similar age with a glowing complexion stood opposite him.

She should be the wife of "himself."

Divorce... Ji Xiang sighed, it really was such a hassle.

If one has this time, why not do something else instead of having to get married and divorced.

Ji Xiang did not want to suffer internal friction, and having experienced Empathy, Ji Xiang had gone through many similar internal frictions, so he was unconsciously examining marriage, friendship, and family affection.

Perhaps this was the difficulty of Empathy that the system NPC had mentioned, and Ji Xiang was also experiencing it unconsciously.

"It was just a moment of agitation for me, won't you forgive me?" the bespectacled man said humbly.

"Heh." The woman just laughed, disdainful and condescending.

Although she didn't speak, her micro-expressions had already said everything.

"The child is still young, we must give the child a complete home," the bespectacled man affirmed again.

"What is the point of having a complete home?" the woman said. "Some people are born already standing in Rome, but what about us? One is out earning money, one is at home raising the child, and every month we have to pay off the mortgage and car loan. To be honest, I've had enough of this life."

"Himself" seemed to want to say something, but his lips moved, and in the end, he didn't say it out loud.

"Let's get a divorce, really, there is no point in us continuing to live like this." The woman said sincerely, "Liang Ge, I know you are good to me, working overtime every day until you're tired like a dog, and I feel heartbroken watching it."

"I know what your temper was like before. I still remember when we were in the third year of high school, the thugs from the school next door came to the classroom to collect protection money, you grabbed a shovel and went for them, chasing that gang of thugs for three streets."

When reminiscing about the past, the atmosphere of the conversation became warm unconsciously.

Ji Xiang watched the two with great interest.

"Himself" was clearly the one who did not want to divorce, while the woman opposite was insistent on it.

Yet the conversation between the two was not tense, but rather strangely slightly warm.

Ji Xiang searched through the memories and was stunned by the matter.

It turned out the woman had had a "romantic encounter" in the last month or so, meeting a middle-level leader of a multinational corporation on a chat app, and the two had been chatting happily.

The other party went to the United States on a business trip, and the woman very considerately spent hours on the phone in the middle of the night, until one day she was discovered by "himself."

The two had a big fight, and "himself" said something about divorce in a fit of anger.

Perhaps divorce was what the wife wanted to say, but she had never brought it up. She just happened to seize the opportunity "himself" provided and insisted on the divorce.

Thus the bespectacled man began to try to save the marriage, but the woman firmly disagreed.

It was truly a headache; Ji Xiang thought of that scene he encountered in the Consultation Room.

Was there a connection?

It seemed there was a little, but it also seemed there wasn't.

He watched on quietly.

"In college, there was a teacher who wanted to threaten me with failing an exam, and you were so mean, hacking into his computer and printing out a lot of chat logs."

"Hehe, the firewall back then was almost equal to zero, it was very easy to hack in." "Himself" laughed.

"Yeah, but look at you now. The boss says to work overtime, and you don't go home for days and nights, not even daring to let out a fart.

You're only 29, and your head is already bald.

Liang Ge, I know your temper, and I also know you do this because you are afraid of losing your job, because there are me and the child, and the mortgage and car loan."

"..."

"Himself" was silent.

"It's been three and a half years, and we haven't gone out for a proper trip. It's been two years and three months, and we haven't gone out for a proper meal together."

"Do you still think this life is normal?"

"We are already different from before, have you noticed? We used to talk about the friction of society as if it were a joke. But now I truly realize that we are the ones being rubbed against the ground by society, and we still have to cheer loudly."

Facing the woman's words, "himself" took off his gold-rimmed glasses and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Liang Ge, life isn't meant to be lived this way. Look at me, 1.7 meters tall, 98 jin when I married you, considered pretty and well-proportioned. Look at me now, I don't even have time to work out every day, and I've reached 115 jin without realizing it."

"I can still comfort myself by calling it slightly chubby now, but in a few more years, I'll be a standard 'yellow-faced woman'."

"I... I... I will soon be able to become a middle-level manager at the company, and the company is going to go public, we have 5% equity incentive."

"Himself" explained sheepishly.

"What's the use of being middle-level." The woman sighed, "Some things, look, those large river-view flats of ours in the Northwest, if you're born with them, you have them. If you're not born with them, you'll never have them in your whole life."

"No matter how hard you work, you only make about 50,000 a month, plus the year-end bonus, after taxes it's only 700,000 or 800,000.

Liang Ge, let me go, and let yourself go too."

Although Ji Xiang didn't have much of a concept of money, he knew that an annual salary of 700,000 or 800,000 was not a small amount, and besides, the bespectacled man was only 29 years old!

These values were very peculiar.

"I know it's my fault, let's forgive each other, okay? I had a spiritual affair, but I can guarantee that I haven't done anything outrageous yet."

"But that's only for now, in the future... who knows."

The woman sighed, but her eyes were shining with light, a hopeful light.

"Let's get a divorce, and you won't have to work so hard anymore."

"Yuanyuan..." the bespectacled man thought carefully, and finally gathered the courage to say, "Yesterday I saw an app on your phone, it had a bat icon."

"Yes, so what?"

"I know this software, our company even researched it last year." The bespectacled man said, "Bat is an encrypted software that protects user privacy. Whether it's group chats or private chats, as long as someone takes a screenshot, it will notify the user. It uses..."

"Liang Ge, don't talk to me about these professional things." The woman said playfully, "I know you are very good at technology, but it's of no use at all."

"No." The bespectacled man suddenly calmed down, and he said seriously, "There is also a read-receipt function and other features. Currently, very few people in the country use this software; most of those who do are using it for telecom fraud."

Speaking of telecommunications fraud, the woman raised an eyebrow, and a cold, sharp aura overflowed from her.

Huh? Ji Xiang was also taken aback for a moment.

A Kill Pig Plate?!

Linking it to the strange things encountered in the emergency room, Ji Xiang vaguely understood something.

"Believe me, I have never lied to you. If you don't want to live this life anymore, feeling that I don't have the ability to provide a good life for you and the child, I accept that. I know it's hard for me to reach Rome in my lifetime; let alone Rome, I might not even be able to survive the hurdle of turning 35."

"But the person who instigated you to use the Bat Chat app is very suspicious."

"Heh, has Conan possessed you? Wanting to tell me there is only one truth?" The woman sneered.

"No, no, no, listen to my explanation."

"There's no need, Liang Ge. Rather than spending another few years looking at each other with mutual disgust, it's better to separate now; we can still have some fond memories between us. Why bother, why suffer?"

The woman sighed lightly, and the slight tenderness on her face vanished immediately.

"Himself" tried to persuade her a few more times, but the woman's mind was made up; Ji Xiang knew very well that she was already hooked and could not be dissuaded at all.

"Yuanyuan, he really might be a telecommunications fraudster!" the bespectacled man finally said directly without any concealment.

"Liang Ge, can't we just leave each other with a blessing? Must you curse me?" The woman sneered, "This habit of yours is quite bad."

The bespectacled man hesitated for a moment, then finally asked, "Have you gotten involved in any investment projects? Looking at how certain you are, it must be so."

"He went to the United States headquarters to maintain the software and discovered a bug. He can take advantage of the time difference to perform risk-free arbitrage every day."

"..." The bespectacled man was stunned.

"..." Ji Xiang was also stunned.

"Liang Ge, you have to trust my intelligence. Back then, my grades were not worse than yours." The woman smiled sweetly.

"Did he ask you to invest money?!" the bespectacled man asked hurriedly.

"Of course not, do I lack even that bit of common sense? Originally, it was supposed to be handled by his mother, but it sounds simple, yet it is extremely difficult to operate. You have to find various jump servers and proxy servers, and you have to register and download many obscure, unpopular software programs, and use an accelerator; an Old Man can't handle that."

"Himself" sighed deeply and shook his head slightly.

"No more explanations, you don't need to worry about my affairs." The woman finally said firmly, "Liang Ge, let's divorce. I only want the child; the house and the car are all yours."

"No! The child absolutely cannot go with you!"

The two began to argue about the child again.

Ji Xiang knew that "himself" had already realized the woman's heart could not be kept, so he focused his attention on the child.

Their conflict was simple, the kind that seemingly everyone has to face.

It was just that now, the woman seemed to have encountered an opportunity that fell from the sky like a pie,

a middle-level manager at a multinational corporation,

a young and wealthy golden turtle son-in-law,

a great opportunity to be worth tens of millions within a few weeks.

Everything was too perfect,

it really seemed like a Kill Pig Plate.

Ji Xiang was also very confused; it was said that an old professor from Qingbei had encountered a Kill Pig Plate and had been fleeced of over a million.

By rights, the intelligence of an old professor from Qingbei should not have allowed for that.

Ji Xiang didn't know much about Kill Pig Plates, so he watched on with great interest.

The two argued for a long time, sometimes with deep affection, sometimes with firm refusal. They understood each other; they could be called a match made in heaven.

What a pity.

Ji Xiang felt very regretful.

Finally, the two reached an agreement: divorce, divide the assets, the woman takes away the vast majority of the cash, and the house and car go to the man.

The child would stay with "himself" first; within 1 month, if the woman's assets reached over five million, custody would go to the woman.

It looked like the woman was deeply convinced that she could earn a large sum of money.

No matter how the man tried to persuade her, the woman firmly set the money amount at five million, and judging by her tone, this amount was far from the limit.

Ji Xiang also completely failed to understand why the Kill Pig Plate was so powerful that it could bewitch people's hearts.

A highly educated woman had just fallen into it like that.

Perhaps there were factors like the seven-year itch, a dull life, or a Prince Charming appearing from the sky at work, but Ji Xiang simply could not understand it.

Recalling the description of the system NPC, Ji Xiang became more certain of the content of this Empathy, and also more curious.

He wanted to know how telecommunications fraud could trick a person of superior intelligence into having nothing left and even being heavily in debt.

The two also had strong initiative; they completed the divorce procedures in the shortest time possible, divided the assets, and at the time of parting, they hugged and wished each other well.

The bespectacled man got dead drunk, and the next day he went back to the company to work as usual.

The heavy pressure of mortgage and car loans would not give him time for sadness.

Moscow does not believe in tears,

and mortgage and car loans do not believe in tears either.

Another half a month later.

The bespectacled man received a call from the woman, and the two arranged to meet at a coffee shop.

It was already midnight; there were few people in the coffee shop, as young people at this time were all partying in bars.

When the bespectacled man arrived, the woman was curled up on the sofa, thinking about something with a smile on her lips and a relaxed expression.

"I'm here, Yuanyuan. There was a temporary matter at the company, sorry, I'm late." The bespectacled man apologized.

"Heh, I'm used to it." The woman smiled, "Come, let me show you something you don't believe."

The bespectacled man sat down and ordered a glass of pure water.

The woman took out her phone, opened an app, and then placed the phone on the table between the two of them.

The app interface was simple, or one could say slightly crude.

"How much money did you invest?" the man in glasses asked.

The woman smiled slightly but didn't speak, instead opening her account.

A string of numbers appeared before their eyes, full of impact.

8 digits, with a 2 at the front.

Over twenty million!

There was actually over twenty million!!

The man in glasses' expression suddenly turned very ugly.

"Hehe, Liang Ge, look at you, what kind of expression is that," the woman laughed, "Shouldn't you be congratulating me?"

"What is going on?" the man in glasses asked.

"At first he didn't tell me about the investment. I didn't want to take out the money from home either. After all, it's shared property, wouldn't you agree?"

"..." The man in glasses looked up, staring deeply at the woman.

"Later, I invested 1.22 million."

"Where did you get that much money?"

"I maxed out all my credit cards."

"You're crazy, Yuanyuan!" The man's hand gripped the cup tightly.

"Life is rarely about taking chances," the woman said, "In 2 weeks, it more than eleven-folded."

"It's just a pity that this kind of opportunity can't be done year-round. The United States headquarters has already noticed. He told me not to do it anymore after this, to earn what I can, and that I could start withdrawing today."

"He said you can withdraw?!" The man in glasses was startled.

"Of course." The woman smiled slightly, everything under control, "Liang Ge, there isn't only bad people in this world."

The man in glasses was speechless, silent.

He was thinking about what the other party's scheme was.

But whether it was the man in glasses or Ji Xiang, both belonged to the technical talent category and were not familiar with this kind of telecommunications fraud.

"Actually, I was scared too, until today when he told me I couldn't do it anymore. People shouldn't be greedy; if it continues like this, the United States headquarters will notice. A few million dollars isn't much to a big company with a turnover of tens or hundreds of billions, so we're stopping now."

"People, you can't be too greedy."

The more the woman spoke, the happier she became, and a flush appeared on her face.

Blood pressure is at least over 160, Ji Xiang judged.

"And then?" the man in glasses asked in a hoarse voice.

"Then? What else is there to say." The woman was stunned, then laughed, "Oh, then I called you and asked you to come out. I wanted you to see with your own eyes how pies fall from the sky."

"I'll withdraw the money; this amount is enough for me to buy a large flat, although the location is still limited. But, it's still okay. The remaining money will ensure the child's schooling and such."

"Liang Ge, I will take care of the child, please rest assured."

The man in glasses remained silent, frowning as he looked at the phone opposite him.

The interface was slightly crude, but the numbers on it were like a succubus's whisper, constantly pouring out, with infinite temptation.

Ji Xiang thought carefully and felt there were no flaws.

The other party actually told the woman not to be greedy; is this something a scammer would say?

Strange, too strange, Ji Xiang also looked at that string of numbers.

The rate of return was ridiculously high; even his own old man couldn't achieve this level, and furthermore, it was risk-free arbitrage.

If this were real, telling his old man would shame him into crawling into a crack in the ground.

Although it was just finding a bug for the short term.

In an instant, even Ji Xiang wavered, beginning to doubt whether it was true or false.

Could pies really fall from the sky?

"Here, Liang Ge, I'm starting the withdrawal." The woman smiled, elegantly extending her finger, hovering over the phone screen.

"I was in a rush waiting for you to get off work; if it weren't for the child, I wouldn't want to show off in front of you."

After speaking, the woman's finger fell.

Click

Withdraw

The man in glasses and Ji Xiang both held their breath.

"Ding-dong~"

For a moment, Ji Xiang felt a System Task had been issued.

But then he realized it was the sound coming from the woman's phone.

A dialog box appeared, the woman froze for a moment, and her face began to turn pale.

Ji Xiang looked closely; the dialog box prompted that the woman's permissions were insufficient.

The woman hurriedly picked up the phone; in her panic, she lost her previous elegance, and the phone almost fell to the ground.

"Yuanyuan..."

As soon as the man in glasses spoke, the woman made a shushing gesture and began to dial a number.

"Bao'er, when I was withdrawing, a dialog box popped up telling me my permissions were insufficient. What does this mean?"

Hearing the term of endearment the woman used on the phone, the man's expression also turned extremely ugly.

Ji Xiang sighed.

These messy domestic affairs.

However, the woman dialed the phone and the other party answered, meaning things seemed to be able to continue; Ji Xiang didn't quite understand.

The man and woman on the other end of the phone were explaining.

Soon, the woman's complexion gradually returned to normal. But she did not recover her original elegance and composure; she just kept nodding and responding.

Hanging up the phone, the woman smiled, "You have to become a VIP member, and there are some taxes and fees and such afterward."

"It turns out it wasn't as simple as I thought. He thought I should know, so there was a bit of a misunderstanding."

Listening to the woman's explanation, the man in glasses furrowed his brows tighter and tighter.

Ji Xiang also felt that something was wrong.

This couldn't be the constant squeezing before finally closing the net, could it?

It was just like the "slash a price" feature on Pinduoduo; the last slash never ends.

Seeing the progress bar had already reached 99%, yet there were countless paths to take within the internal settings—this was a road of no return.

The man in glasses didn't speak; he and Ji Xiang watched the woman operate her phone together.

The woman also seemed to feel that something was different, so she didn't show the phone to the man in glasses, but instead held it and began to follow the prompts step by step.

"What's up!" the woman cursed.

"Yuanyuan, what's going on?" the man in glasses asked.

"It's nothing." The woman bit her red lips with her white teeth, so hard.

She seemed to be making some kind of decision, but soon, she began to continue the operation.

"Do you have to top up to become a VIP member?" the man in glasses asked.

"It's not a top-up, it's a membership fee."

"Don't!" The man in glasses reached out to grab the woman's phone, but she dodged.

"What are you doing!" the woman snapped sternly.

"Yuanyuan, don't you know yet? This is a trap!" the man in glasses said hurriedly, "How much does it cost to become a VIP member?"

"150,000."

"!!!" The man in glasses was stunned for a moment, then pleaded, "Yuanyuan, it's not too late to stop now!"

"Why should I stop!" Bloodshot eyes appeared in the woman's eyes, looking slightly ferocious.

"Becoming a VIP member won't be the last step."

"Yes, it is," the woman said. "He told me, saying there are international taxes and a security deposit. He mentioned all these things; he wasn't hiding them from me!"

The woman's voice grew sharp, as if emphasizing that she had not been deceived.

But both Ji Xiang and the man in glasses could see clearly that she had already fallen into the other party's trap.

Now all her explanations were just to cover up her own stupidity, and perhaps also due to her covetousness for the eight-digit "deposit" in the mobile app.

"Yuanyuan, it was fake from the very beginning, stop immediately!"

"No, absolutely impossible!" the woman said somewhat crazily. "The accelerator uses a Xianggang IP, routed through Mauritius; these operations are too difficult. If they were scammers, they wouldn't set up so many obstacles!"

"And it uses the Quark search engine. How could scammers set the threshold so high!"

"Yuanyuan!"

"Shut up!" the woman said sternly, her previous elegance and composure completely gone.

"I'm upgrading to a VIP user right now, and I'm going to show you that I really can withdraw the money!"

The woman had gone mad.

"You've used up all your cash and maxed out your bank cards; where are you getting the money?" the man in glasses asked calmly.

"I can use my credit line."

"!!!"

"!!!"

The man in glasses and Ji Xiang finally understood the purpose of the final step of the telecommunications fraud.

Knowing that the woman had no more oil left to squeeze, they used the massive returns to exploit her greed and trust, taking the final step of withdrawal to make the woman open her phone and borrow every cent she could.

"Don't!"

"Slap~~~"

The man in glasses tried to grab the woman's phone, but she raised her hand and slapped him across the face, then grabbed her bag and walked away quickly.

"I'm going to prove it to you!"

The woman's voice still echoed in his ears, but she had already left the cafe.

The man in glasses knew the woman's temper; he didn't chase after her, but sat at the table in deep thought for a long time.

It's over; Ji Xiang knew the woman was definitely finished.

What followed seemed to correspond exactly to jumping off a building, serious injury, and being sent to the hospital for Emergency Rescue.

But even if she could be saved, what about the loss of one or two million?

The woman had already pulled the bowstring to its limit, even resorting to online loans.

This amount of money was not something an ordinary family could bear.

It's over...

Ji Xiang sighed deeply.

The man in glasses paid the bill very calmly and left.

But after returning home, he couldn't sleep all night.

The next morning, he received a phone call and rushed to the hospital.

Just as Ji Xiang had anticipated, the woman jumped off a building to commit suicide and was finally sent to the hospital by a kind person who called for an ambulance.

Light flickered, the Empathy ended, and Ji Xiang returned to the System Operating Room.

(End of chapter)