He wins 30 million dollars, but doesn’t tell his wife and son. Instead, he puts on a yellow costume to take the prize.
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Winning the lottery is probably everyone’s dream, although winning big can inevitably turn your life upside down… and not always for the better. In fact, having a lot of money means that you have to be much more careful about your security and always be wary of people who have their eye on a deal.
It’s no coincidence that winners of very large cash prizes avoid revealing their identities or announcing the news to friends and family. The man in this story is one of those cautious people who must avoid flaunting their winnings.
Mr Li, the alias by which the protagonist of the story was identified, won a large sum of money after buying about forty lottery tickets at a very reasonable price. The uniqueness of the tickets was that they all contained the same sequence of numbers: 2, 15, 19, 26, 27, 29 + 2. Apparently, Mr Li had been playing the same combination for years and was not about to make an exception.
Little did the man know that this time the combination would be a winning one. When he realised he had won, the man took the first train to the capital to claim his prize. He didn’t tell anyone, not even his wife and son, so as not to arouse suspicion. When he arrived, he didn’t want to reveal his identity, so he decided to present himself for the prize in a yellow costume.
It was a strange sight, but this clever idea allowed him to maintain his anonymity until the end. After receiving the $30 million cheque, Mr Li gave an interview to the press and explained the real reason why he wanted to hide his winnings from his family: “I didn’t tell my wife and son because I was afraid they would become too careless and not work hard in the future. I didn’t want them to just rely on it”. How would you handle such a significant win?