Tòumíng picked up the azurite pebble and slipped it back into his pocket. "Alright, see you later, fat guy."
"I HAVE A NAME, DAMN IT!" The owner's face flushed red with indignation, his jowls shaking as he leaned forward over the counter. "It's Xuān Láng! XUĀN LÁNG! I've been doing business with you for weeks and you still call me 'fat guy' like some kind of disrespectful punk!"
Tòumíng paused at the door, turning back with genuine surprise. He'd honestly never bothered to learn the man's name. In his mind, he'd just been "greasy pawn shop owner" or "fat guy who buys my gems." Actual names hadn't seemed necessary.
"Oh. Sorry. Xuān Láng. Got it." He tried to sound sincere. "I'll remember that."
"You better!" Xuān Láng was still red-faced, clearly having held in this frustration for a while. "I'm a businessman! A professional! I deserve basic respect! Not to be called 'fat guy' every time you walk in here like I'm some nameless NPC in your personal story!"
"Right. Sorry. Really." Tòumíng pushed open the door. "See you next time, Xuān Láng."
The bell chimed as he left, cutting off whatever response Xuān was preparing. Tòumíng pulled out his phone and opened the ride-sharing app, requesting a car back to Guanlan Lake.
The wait was longer this time fifteen minutes before a vehicle accepted the request. The driver arrived in a slightly older sedan, eyeing Tòumíng's work clothes with barely concealed judgment but saying nothing about picking someone up from a sketchy pawn shop in the industrial district.
The drive back took even longer than the morning commute. Traffic had picked up as the afternoon progressed, rush hour beginning to build as office workers started heading home early, as school buses clogged side streets, as delivery trucks made their final rounds.
One hour and eight minutes later, the car finally pulled up to the Guanlan Lake community gate. The security guard recognized Tòumíng from his earlier departure and waved them through without questions.
The villa looked even more impressive in the late afternoon light, the sun casting long shadows across the pristine lawn, the lake beyond shimmering with reflected colors from the approaching sunset. It still felt surreal every time he saw it, this was home now.
Tòumíng paid the driver with a decent tip and headed inside, immediately going to the master bedroom.
The safe was built into the wall of the walk-in closet, hidden behind a false panel that looked like part of the wood paneling. Háo Héng had shown him during the rushed tour before fleeing in terror apparently the previous tenant had insisted on premium security features.
He opened the panel and stared at the digital keypad. Time to set a password that would keep his one-point-five-million-yuan gemstone secure.
After a moment of consideration, he punched in: 000001
The safe beeped in confirmation, the door clicking open. Tòumíng placed the azurite pebble inside the empty interior, closed it, and locked it again.
"That is the dumbest password in human history," Cupid said immediately.
"What? No it's not!" Tòumíng turned away from the safe, heading back toward the bedroom. "It's actually genius when you think about it!"
"Explain. Please. I'm dying to hear the logic here."
"Okay, so robbers break in, right? They find the safe. They're gonna try the obvious passwords first. 000000. 111111. 123456. All the standard ones everyone uses." Tòumíng flopped onto his bed, proud of his reasoning. "But they WON'T think to try 000001 because it's so close to the obvious one that it seems stupid. It's hiding in plain sight!"
Cupid was silent for a long moment.
"That's…" he started.
"Brilliant?" Tòumíng offered.
"That's like having a password that's literally just 'password,'" Cupid said flatly. "Except somehow even dumber because at least 'password' has the excuse of being a word. You've chosen sequential numbers that are one digit away from the most commonly guessed password in existence."
"But that's exactly why—"
"No. Listen to yourself. 'They won't guess it because it's too obvious to not be obvious.' That's circular logic that makes no sense. Any competent thief with a brain would try 000001 within the first five attempts. It's literally the next sequential number after 000000!"
"Well what would YOU suggest then?" Tòumíng crossed his arms defensively.
"Literally anything else! A random six-digit number! Your birthday! The date you died and came back to life! The amount of debt you inherited! ANYTHING with actual unpredictability!"
"Those are all personal information that could be researched—"
"And 000001 is a PASSWORD THAT A TODDLER COULD GUESS!" Cupid's frustration was palpable. "I'm living in your chest and even I think this is embarrassingly bad security!"
Tòumíng tried to defend his choice for another minute, bringing up points about reverse psychology and criminal profiling that he'd half-remembered from TV shows, but Cupid methodically destroyed each argument with actual logic.
Finally, he gave up.
"Fine. FINE. I'll change it later. Maybe. When I feel like it."
"You're going to get robbed and lose one point five million yuan because you're stubborn."
"I'm not stubborn, I'm just—"
"Stubborn. The word you're looking for is stubborn."
Tòumíng grabbed his phone and opened the pirated streaming website, determined to return to Breaking Bad and ignore Cupid's continued commentary about password security and basic digital hygiene.
The episode loaded after the usual barrage of pop-up ads. He settled into the expensive pillows, the compressed fortune now locked behind the world's dumbest password, and let Walter White's criminal empire distract him from his own growing criminal empire.
At least in the show, the protagonist had actual technical knowledge. Tòumíng was just stumbling through this with supernatural powers and movie quotes.
But hey, it was working so far.
Kind of.