He was already prepared to accomplish great things in his next life. He had memorized the winning lottery numbers for the past three years. If only he could be reborn a few years earlier, wouldn’t he make a fortune? He wouldn’t even need to win every time—just ten jackpots would be enough. The more Edward Thompson thought about it, the more delighted he became, grinning from ear to ear. Unfortunately, his beautiful dream was shattered by a punch from the sharp-eyed George Thompson. “Dreaming, are you! After drinking Mary's Soup, you won’t remember a thing.” Mary's Soup, that’s right! He knew that after drinking Mary's Soup, all memories of one’s previous life would be erased. Edward Thompson became anxious again. Was there any way to avoid drinking that damned soup? He racked his brain the whole way but couldn’t come up with a good idea. The key problem was that he had nothing valuable to bribe George Thompson with.

At this moment, Edward Thompson was so excited he almost cried out—there were actually lottery tickets for sale in the underworld! Dying was worth it! Seeing Mary Carter in a daze, he quickly glanced at the ghost official and whispered, “Give me a lottery ticket.”

The shop may be small, but it never cheats its customers. Mary Carter immediately put on a beaming smile and asked, “What’s your name?”

According to the rules of the underworld, lottery tickets must be purchased with real names to prevent the issuing agency from cheating. Edward Thompson replied, “My name is Edward Thompson—Li as in the character for ‘wood,’ Wei as in ‘vitamin,’ and Zhi as in ‘stop.’”

At that, Edward Thompson suddenly remembered the most fatal problem—he didn’t have a single cent on him. He froze for a moment and muttered, “Big sister, can I pay you later?”

Mary Carter’s face immediately darkened. She deleted his name from the lottery machine with a ‘snap.’ “Pay later?” Wasn’t he just messing with her? After drinking Mary's Soup, who would remember buying a lottery ticket?

“Go! Go! Go! Don’t make trouble here, or I’ll tell George Thompson to beat you up.” She tossed a meal token to Edward Thompson and drove him away. Edward Thompson looked longingly at the lottery machine but had no choice but to follow the line in resignation.

Before long, all the new ghosts had received their tokens and gone to eat. The area around the lottery machine became quiet again. Mary Carter was in a foul mood and shut off the lottery machine. She hadn’t even sold ten thousand underworld coins’ worth of tickets this month, let alone made any money. If her husband found out, he’d laugh at her. He worked next door and got a monthly transportation allowance of seventy thousand underworld coins, while she toiled all day for this paltry sum—what was the point? She might as well go back to being a government official’s wife!

‘Ding-a-ling!’ A crisp bicycle bell rang out as the postman Matthew Smith sped over on a dark green Forever bicycle. He put one foot on the lottery counter and shouted, “Anna Carter, has the new ghost named Edward Thompson arrived? There’s a letter for him.”

‘Edward Thompson?’ Mary Carter suddenly remembered the young ghost who wanted to buy a lottery ticket but had no money. She pointed to the cafeteria not far away. “He’s over there, about to eat yin-yang rice and drink Mary's Soup!”

“Then I’ll leave the letter his family burned for him with you, big sister. Please pass it on!” The postman Matthew Harris irresponsibly tossed the letter down, pushed off on his bike, and sped away.

“Typical of public sector workers!” Mary Carter complained angrily. “Can’t handle big things, don’t want to do small things, but always manage to give me more work.”

She grumbled as she opened the letter. Sometimes, people in the world of the living would burn hundred-yuan bills, and if she saw them, she considered it compensation for her extra work.

She opened the letter and found an A4 sheet inside—more precisely, a photocopy of a lottery ticket, stamped with “First Prize: 20 Million Redeemed.” Mary Carter suddenly let out a shriek, jumping three meters high, her eyes bulging into coin shapes. The ticket clearly stated: Issue 1114! Wasn’t that tomorrow’s draw? The underworld and the world of the living used the same lottery system, but due to the time difference, the draw in the underworld was a week later than in the living world, and the winning numbers were exactly the same. Although cheating was possible, with the divide between life and death, not even the King of Hell could find out what was happening in the world of the living.

“Two hundred million first prize!” Mary Carter danced with excitement, as if she had already won the jackpot. She was like someone on drugs, her fantasies running wild. If she won, she’d buy ten of the latest LV handbags first. Even though her family was wealthy, her husband insisted on keeping a low profile so the anti-corruption bureau wouldn’t suspect their declared assets were fake, which meant she had to suffer. Her old Baleno bag had been used for twenty years—how embarrassing! Oh, and she’d buy twenty bottles of Chanel No. 5 and never use Pechoin again. Of course, she’d need a new house. Last year, Jiuyou Ravine Real Estate launched the so-called “most luxurious villas in the underworld”—the Tomson Riviera mansions, at 400,000 underworld coins per square meter. She had to buy one no matter what! She was sick of the two-bedroom apartment her husband’s work unit had assigned them. She’d get a boob job, a facelift, travel to the Dragon Palace in the Mediterranean, and buy a passport to the Western Paradise…