[You have a letter from October 1, 2025]
[The company benefits are genuinely amazing—an Alienware laptop, an iPhone 17 Pro, and three 100-gram gold bars.]
[It’s just a pity that I only drew a 1,000-yuan consolation prize.]
[The winning numbers for the three gold bars are actually 1, 2, and 3.]
[Whoever assigned the raffle numbers in the Admin department definitely has a sick sense of humor.]
[With an eight-day mini-vacation in total, what on earth should I do?]
Wendy Lynch stared at the contents of the new email, her heart blazing with excitement. The company’s annual gala was holding a raffle, and the grand prize was three 100-gram gold bars.
A 100-gram gold bar! The price of gold had just broken past 800 yuan per gram a couple of days ago. A single 100-gram bar meant a whopping 80,000 yuan! That was no small sum. Since she knew the winning numbers in advance, if she could just figure out how they were distributed, the money would practically be hers for the taking. It was more than she could earn from several months of exhausting work, and she could acquire it openly and honestly without any risk.
She made up her mind. Those three gold bars... she was going to get them!
The next day at work, Wendy sought out Regina Campbell to indirectly fish for information about the gala’s raffle rules. "Ms. Campbell, how does the raffle process work for our gala this year?"
Regina didn’t find Wendy’s question strange at all. After all, a few other team members had asked similar questions just a couple of days ago. "It’s the same as previous years. It’ll be held at noon in the banquet hall of the Hilton Hotel. When you arrive, you’ll swipe your employee badge at the entrance. The machine next to it will automatically print out a slip of paper with a number, which will be your raffle ticket."
Wendy’s heart skipped a beat as she quickly followed up, "Are the numbers random?"
Regina stroked her chin. "Um... I don’t think they’re random. I believe they’re given out in sequential order. Or rather, they were sequential last year. I’m not sure if they will be this year.
"After all, you know how those folks in Admin can be. They’re always changing things up on a whim."
Suppressing her wild ecstasy, Wendy pretended to ask casually, "So when are we heading over? Is the company providing transportation?"
"They’ve arranged a bus. We’re meeting downstairs at eleven o’clock and entering the venue exactly at eleven-thirty."
Hearing about the shuttle bus, Wendy fell deep into thought. With so many people in the company, heaven knew who would end up at the front of the line. If she actually took the bus, the chances of snagging the first three numbers were practically zero. Having figured out all the rules, Wendy immediately pulled Shirley Lowell into the breakroom.
"Shirley, let’s take a taxi to the gala ourselves tomorrow!"
Shirley looked confused. "Why take a taxi? Doesn’t the company have a shuttle bus?"
Wendy quickly fabricated an excuse. "Oh, there will be so many people on the bus! It’ll be so crowded! Besides, it’s only a few kilometers away, so a taxi won’t cost much. I heard they’ll have plenty of pre-banquet snacks, including imported chocolates that cost over 200 yuan a pound."
She couldn’t exactly say that she already knew the grand prize numbers were 1, 2, and 3. The whole point of going early was to swipe in and secure those exact three tickets.
Shirley thought about it and decided it made sense. "Sure, a taxi won’t cost much anyway."
The two quickly agreed on the plan. Right at that moment, an untimely voice echoed from the breakroom doorway.
"Heh, why go so early? You act like you’ve never seen the world. Taking a taxi just to eat pre-banquet snacks... Have you no shame?"
The speaker was Carmen Sutton. Holding a mug, she gave Wendy and Shirley a sidelong glance, a completely undisguised smirk playing on her lips. "Raffles are purely based on luck. It’s not like whoever gets there first wins. Besides, do you really think those grand prizes will ever fall to ordinary employees like us?"
Carmen scoffed. "I’m telling you, stop dreaming! Those grand prizes are definitely rigged in advance for people with connections. I’ve been with the company for years, and I’ve never seen a single employee below S6 win a grand prize!"
Shirley wanted to retort right then and there, but Wendy held her back. Wendy merely smiled without saying a word. Rigged? People with connections? In the face of her emails from the future, those concepts were nothing but a joke!
There was absolutely no need to argue with such a toxic person; fighting would only ruin her own mood. Tomorrow, when she and Shirley both got their hands on those gold bars, that would be the loudest slap in Carmen’s face! Looking at Carmen’s self-righteous expression, Wendy sneered inwardly. However arrogant this woman was now, her expression would be just as ugly when Wendy claimed the gold bars tomorrow. After all, the better Wendy and Shirley did, the more miserable people like Carmen became.
That evening, after taking a shower, Wendy applied a sheet mask and binge-watched a TV show, pondering how she should handle the gold bars once she got them. Should she cash them in and go traveling? Or take advantage of the National Day Golden Week to look for a suitable house? Or perhaps she should just stash the gold away and wait for its value to rise? The upward trend of gold prices had been quite fierce lately, after all.
Just as Wendy was mulling over how to spend her soon-to-be-acquired wealth, her midnight alarm went off right on the dot. Her spirits lifted. She expertly paused her video and switched over to her email interface.
[You have a new email, an email from the future]
Wearing a confident smile, Wendy could already guess the contents of the email. She impatiently clicked it open.
The very next moment, her smile froze.
[You have a letter from October 2, 2025]
[The company benefits are genuinely amazing—an Alienware laptop, an iPhone 17 Pro, and three 100-gram gold bars.]
[It’s just a pity that I only drew a 100-yuan consolation prize.]
[The winning numbers for the three gold bars are actually 1, 2, and 3.]
[Whoever assigned the raffle numbers in the Admin department definitely has a sick sense of humor.]
[With an eight-day mini-vacation in total, what on earth should I do?]
The contents of the email had indeed changed, but not to say she had won the grand prize. Instead, her prize money had dropped from the original 1,000 yuan to a pitiful 100 yuan. Wait, it wasn’t just about the change in prize money. She had clearly decided to go early and swipe in, which logically meant she should have easily secured the first three numbers.
A wave of frustration surged in Wendy’s heart. She immediately recalled what Carmen had said in the breakroom that afternoon: "I’m telling you, stop dreaming! Those grand prizes are definitely rigged in advance for people with connections."
She wondered if the gold bar grand prize was truly rigged.
That was wrong! In the next instant, Wendy completely rejected her own assumption. The reason was simple: the winning numbers for the three gold bars hadn’t changed. They were still 1, 2, and 3.
With just a little thought, Wendy sorted out the timeline of events. The winning numbers were the same, but she hadn’t gotten the grand prize, and her cash reward had shrunk from 1,000 to 100. From this, it was easy to deduce that the future had indeed changed. She and Shirley had still gone early, but they simply hadn’t managed to secure the first three numbers.