Spy-x-War Showdown-Chapter 86 - 85: Conning the Con Artist

Yang Yi could have transferred Chris to the maximum-security area if he wanted and if he was willing to pay a certain price. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Why did Yang Yi want Chris transferred to join him in the maximum-security area? Because Yang Yi felt that he could actually learn a lot from a con artist.

The information Yang Yi had gotten from Owen was confirmed: Chris had indeed smoothly deceived many people, but eventually, while in the midst of a big deal that had been largely successful, he slipped up.

However, Chris did lie about one thing: he was not as harmless as he had described himself. In fact, when a former accomplice tried to extort him, Chris didn’t choose to avoid disaster by losing wealth or use money to shut the informer up. Instead, he chose the most decisive method—murdering the accomplice who was blackmailing him.

Chris had successfully gotten rid of the person extorting him, but nobody knew how he had done it. Moreover, nobody knew whether the betrayer was dead or alive.

Chris was betrayed after he had killed; his accomplice had arranged a contingency plan, so that if Chris didn’t pay or if he was killed by Chris, someone would leak Chris’s dark past to the police.

The person extorting Chris disappeared, but Chris’s accomplice successfully exposed him, leading to the police arresting Chris and accusing him of a series of crimes, including murder and fraud.

Chris admitted to the fraud—denial was futile given the solid evidence against him—but he firmly denied having killed his own accomplice. The police, for their part, couldn’t find any evidence to charge him with murder.

The person who exposed Chris vanished into thin air, never returning from the agreed-upon location to collect the money. There was no body, no bloodstains, nothing left behind, a complete disappearance.

In the end, Chris went to jail for fraud. His pregnant girlfriend left him, and his furious would-be father-in-law wished he could kill him. All this was true. Incidentally, at the time of these events, Chris was just twenty-two years old, and to some extent, when Chris said he was a genius among con artists, he wasn’t wrong.

As for the fate of the person who betrayed him, Yang Yi fully understood why Chris never spoke of it. As long as Chris wasn’t foolish, he could not tell anyone, because speaking up would be incriminating evidence.

Yang Yi could learn from Chris and thought that Chris was indeed talented. Therefore, Yang Yi decided to pull Chris into the maximum-security area, continuing their companionship. Of course, Chris’s objections were simply ignored by him.

"Go to sleep early. We’ll have plenty of time to talk later. Goodnight, Chris."

Chris, on the verge of tears and filled with despair, said, "I was only joking with you, please, don’t do this to me. If you send me to the maximum-security area, I’ll die. You don’t know what happened, so please, don’t send me there!"

Seeing Chris’s state, Yang Yi felt that his worry might not be just about the dangers of maximum security, but rather that he was afraid of being sought out for revenge. Yang Yi asked with curiosity, "Why are you so afraid? What did you do?"

"When I first entered this prison, I was younger, man. Two psychos tried to make a move on me, but I’m not as tough as you, so I had no choice but to play to my strengths. I made them both believe that I liked them, and then, I got them to pull knives on each other in the yard. One of them died, and the other went to maximum security for life!"

With palms pressed together, Chris pleaded, "Please, don’t send me to maximum security. I know you have the power, but please don’t kill me, I’m begging you."

With a strange look on his face, Yang Yi said, "So you’re telling me, two men got jealous over another man, brought out knives, and one of them died?"

Chris, with a pained expression, nodded vigorously, saying, "Exactly, that’s what happened. You can understand how I feel, right?"

Smirking, Yang Yi nodded and said, "Well then, sending you to maximum security now seems a bit irresponsible. Although you lied to me, it’s not worth letting you die over it."

"Exactly, that’s right!"

After much consideration, Yang Yi said to Chris very seriously, "I will look into it. If you’ve lied to me again, you will pay a severe price. You said before that you take people for fools and then deceive them. I don’t know if you’re lying now, but let me remind you of something, Chris. You can consider everyone a fool, but there are some fools you don’t want to mess with. I hope you remember that."

Chris didn’t hesitate to raise a hand, his voice urgent, "I swear to God, I didn’t lie to you this time. You can ask around, it’s very easy to find out the truth."

Yang Yi nodded, then he looked at Chris and said, "You’re a talent, even though you’re a swindler, you really are a talent."

"Uh, thanks for the compliment."

Yang Yi slowly said, "I want to ask you, do you want to change your destiny?"

"What do you mean?"

"I need talent, to put it frankly, I need a subordinate, and you have the talent. Is that direct enough for you? Chris, for a swindler like you, the thing you should do when your identity might be exposed is to run away immediately without hesitation, just as you have always done. But you didn’t do that, you chose the wrong way."

Chris’s face darkened as he said in a low voice, "I was confused at that time."

"It’s said that your girlfriend was eight months pregnant at the time, which means, you have a child, although very small, but you indeed have a child. Also, you really fell in love with your girlfriend, so you didn’t want to run. You got everything you wanted, you didn’t want to lose your girlfriend, child, wealth, and status, so you didn’t run, right?"

"It’s none of your business! Stop talking!"

Yang Yi started to laugh, then he said with a smile, "Oh, oh, oh, even a swindler can have emotional moments, even a swindler can have a sad story. It seems to me that you’re not just pining for the money and status, it looks like you really can’t get over your girlfriend, hmm, and your child too."

Chris suddenly stood up, and then he shouted at Yang Yi, "Shut up! I told you to stop talking!"

"I’m giving you an opportunity."

Taken aback by his anger, Chris instinctively said, "What? What do you mean? Oh, no, you can’t do that!"

Yang Yi spoke very seriously, "I can do it, I can give you everything you want, everything you’ve lost, and not as a swindler. I can make you a real man of power, give you endless wealth, and allow you to rightfully take back everything you want."

Chris didn’t speak, just heaving heavily.

Yang Yi smiled and said, "Work for me, and I’ll give you everything you want. There’s no such thing as a free lunch in this world. Working for me could be very dangerous, it could be deadly, I won’t hide anything from you or threaten you in any way, but I can guarantee one thing: if you work for me, there will be a payoff for your effort."

Chris said quietly, "What would I be doing for you?"

Yang Yi smiled and said, "Don’t be in a hurry to agree, to refuse, or to ask questions. You haven’t yet qualified to work for me because you haven’t passed the test. Right now, I’m not going to put you in solitary, but I’ll give you an opportunity, if you want to take back everything you’ve lost, then come find me in solitary of your own volition. Don’t rush your decision, think it over."

Chris’s breath came rough and sharp, then he suddenly laughed and said to Yang Yi, "I’m a swindler, not a fool. What kind of work? You’re just looking for an underling to die for you. Buddy, if you want me to risk my life for you, you’ve got to reveal something."

Yang Yi waved his hand and said, "No, you don’t qualify, you really don’t qualify. Chris, you’re just a swindler, so you have no right to understand a world you can’t touch. I’ve given you an opportunity, but only an opportunity to undergo the test. Only after passing the test will you qualify to know more, got it?"

Chris said resentfully, "With just these few words, you want me to risk my life for you? Buddy! It doesn’t work that way, to bring someone into the fold you’ve got to be more forthcoming. You tell me to find you in solitary, that’s like saying I should stab someone; doing that would come at a great cost!"

Yang Yi spread his hands, laughed, and said, "You know where to find me. It’s your choice whether to come or not. Take your time and think it over—oh, and it’s best to come find me before I leave, or you’ll lose this chance forever. That’s all, it’s time to sleep. Good night."