By Xu Ning

Rich Poser, Poor Poser

By Xu Ning

A brand new Hyundai E-lantra was speeding along the city streets recklessly when it hit a pedestrian.The driver immediately fled the scene.The police got the call and were soon in hot pursuit.

The cops in their Toyota SUV had their pedal to the metal,but somehow they just couldn’t seem to catch up.The long arm of the law finally caught up with the hit-and-run vehicle,as the officers up ahead had gotten word of the situation and set up a roadblock,finally capturing the car.

It was a stolen vehicle.But being gripped by temporary insanity owing to his guilt,the thief was acting rashly when he struck the pedestrian.

The police were puzzled,how could an automatic car with power steering and a large block engine be unable to catch up with a cheap compact car with a four-banger and a stick shift?

They took a look under the hood and were absolutely taken aback—what model of Elantra could this possibly be?Other than the exterior, the rest was approximately 1.5 million yuan worth of genuine Cadillac parts.

The owner of the car was summoned to the police station.He was a man in his fifties,balding,stout, with a face aged by time that carried a look of humility and self-deprecation.He wore bargain bin clothes that you could buy off some roadside stall.

As soon as they met,he was immediately obsequious,constantly bowing and fawning on the officers; anyone who saw him would think that he had been laid off,was on welfare or had just been dischargedfrom a labor camp.

“Is this your vehicle,sir?”A police officer inquired.

“I parked it in my apartment complex yesterday and somebody stole it.Thank you so much.I’m so grateful to you for finding it so quickly.”He responded.

“Not so fast,we’ve still got a few questions for you.What’s the brand of the vehicle,sir?”The policeman inquired.

“Isn’t it written there?It’s an E-lantra.”the man answered.

“Then why is it that,apart from the body,everything else is Cadillac parts?”

The old man blinked several times in disbelief,“Oh,how could you tell?”

“You think cops are stupid? What’s the story with this car?”The policeman interrogated.

“I had it modified.”The man proclaimed.

“Why is that,sir?”The cops asked in annoyance.

“Pretty much,just because I wanted to.”The old man said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Sir,why are you pretending to be poor?”Another officer inquired curiously.

The old man went on to explain,“Well,I’m afraid of being robbed or kidnapped.I’m afraid of people always coming around and borrowing money.I’m afraid of people calling my ethics into question,like there’s this expectation that I have to be a philanthropist just because I have money.I don’t know.It’s hard to put into words exactly why.”

The cops began growing impatient,quizzing the man,“You sound like a rich man,how much do you have?”

The old man replied in a falsely humble,self-effacing tone,“Not much really,just about one or two hundred million yuan.”

The officers looked at his background information.He was born in 1963,an“educated youth”who was sent to the countryside for re-education during the Cultural Revolution. After returning to the city he followed in his father’s footsteps,joining and working at a“collectivized”factory.Later the factory went bankrupt.The government instituted sweeping reforms on it,after which he applied for retirement due to ill health.Even now,he only makes two thousand yuan per month from his pension.

The officers were obviously suspicious,“You can save that much on this little bit of money?It’s not clear where this large sum of money of yours came from.Is your son, perhaps,a senior official or a senior executive?”

The old man replied,“I did have a son,though he died,when he was just a little over thirty.My wife has passed on too.I’m all alone now.”

The officers speculated,“Then you must be an actor or a drug dealer,right?”

The old man responded,“No,no, I cannot carry a tune and my body is not as flexible as it used to be.I couldn’t possibly act.As for drugs, well,I can’t even run a small business.And besides I certainly don’t have those kinds of connections.”

The cops questioned,“So,where is the money from?”

The old man moved in close to the police officers,whispering in their ear,“If I tell you,you’ve got to keep it a secret.”

The police officer pushed him away sternly,“Don’t play tricks. Just tell us the truth.”

The old man confessed,“Didn’t you hear about the lottery winner, last year,who secretly took away the 350 million yuan jackpot?That was me!”

Evidence proved that what the old man was saying was true.He had certificates of both winning the lottery and on the taxes that he had paid on the winnings.

Keeping his secret is perfectly reasonable and legal.The only illegal thing here was the private modification of his vehicle.The old man told them which place it was that had modified his car for him and related why he had done so.

Before buying his car,he went to a car show,and met a young guy who was in love with high-end cars, but with a furrowed brow and constant expression of doom and gloom.

When they got talking,the guy said that he was still single and that a lot of girls nowadays are very snobbish,preferring to cry in a BMW rather than smile in a Volkswagen Jetta.He was in pursuit of an incredibly stunning woman and just needed to get his hands on a high-end car to make himself look like a big-shot.

The two of them talked about it. Why couldn’t he buy a cheap car, the old man an expensive one and then swap car bodies?

“Who was it that you switched cars with?”The cops queried.

The old man replied,“From the beginning,we agreed on a‘don’t ask,don’t tell’policy.”

In reality though,the cops didn’t even need to make inquiries.Just at that moment,a couple was in court looking for a divorce.The wife asserted that her husband was pretending to be rich,had a junk car passed off to look like a high-end model,and was defrauding her love.

(FromStory Woods,December 2016.Translation:Sam Bowden.)