Chapter 1308: Chapter 1307: How to Choose—That Is the Question
The opening speech was simple but not simplistic, and those ten thousand one‑dollar bills spiraling slowly down from above pushed the atmosphere to a climax from the very first second of the show.
Someone loudly asked the host whether the money they grabbed could be taken home, or if it was all just props.
Of course, even if it was props, they would still stash some away; nobody was naive enough to tell the truth.
What none of them expected was that the host actually told them that as long as the money made it into their pockets, they could take it home!
Harry looked at the cash around him, then quietly crouched down and started picking it up.
Some of the contestants followed his lead and began picking up money too, but there were also people who didn’t move at all.
This segment wouldn’t be cut out; a large number of cameras were trained on those faces with their exaggerated, vivid expressions.
That was the hunger for money, the greed for Wealth!
Those expressions fit the atmosphere this show needed better than any on‑site set design!
Once most of the money on the floor had been picked up, the show officially began.
The host looked around, then finally turned to the main camera. "Before this show aired, we conducted a survey. Out of one million questionnaires, more than 74.91% of respondents believed that a wealthy person is someone who owns over one million in assets."
"So we adopted that common view and raised our prize pool to one million!"
"As long as you clear all the questions and all the stages and are the one standing at the finish line, you’ll get that one million!"
At the same time, a piece of velvet hanging from the ceiling of the studio was pulled away. Inside a glass box, countless twenty‑dollar bills were tumbling non‑stop in the blast of a blower!
It was as if the entire glass box had been filled solid with cash!
One million!
Many people go their whole life without seeing one million laid out in front of them all at once, but in this moment, they suddenly had some real sense of what a million looked like.
Everyone’s gaze was different. Even when the host looked up at the cash box, he couldn’t suppress a flicker of...desire!
So this is how the rich play?
Once everyone understood what Lynch’s "Wealth Maker" really meant, the shock inside them was beyond words.
The stages would be hard, the questions would be hard, but the rewards were real.
That meant someone really could walk out of here with one million!
A lot of people’s breathing turned heavy, and some even blurted out on the spot asking if their family members could participate.
Lynch’s answer was that they could, but they had to follow the process and draw for that chance together with the sixty million Federation citizens in each episode!
One million...
The host let out a soft sigh. "This is our ultimate grand prize. It’s enough to make someone a true wealthy person!"
"Next, please welcome our challengers!"
Right now Harry was staring up, his brain filled with a high‑pitched ringing. His eyes were completely locked onto the one million in cash inside the glass box!
That was money!
With one million...he could change his fate, change his family’s fate!
At this point, the promise of fifty bucks for just showing up and leaving no longer existed in Harry’s mind. The only thing he wanted was that one million!
When the host introduced Harry, it took him a while to snap back to himself.
But his gaze had become especially firm.
The cameras captured this material perfectly: from dazed, casual, to a determined look—people would enjoy watching that change.
People in the Federation are like this; they love to stand in the place of the Lord and look down at others!
The lineup for the first episode had been carefully chosen: there was a poor teenager from the Lower City, a girl who survived on protein handouts from kind strangers and needed help, and a social operator who’d lived for years by mooching off various shows and conferences.
There was also a PE teacher, a cleaner, a Plumber, and even an ordinary factory worker!
They were all regular people, living right beside everyone else, woven into everyday life!
Only people like this can trigger mass empathy!
The host showed the first envelope to the camera, completely intact and sealed with wax.
"This is the answer card personally prepared by Mr. Lynch. It contains the questions and answers, and other than him, no one knows what’s written on it."
"I’ll open it now!"
The host tore open the envelope, explaining the game rules as he did.
"The first round is a buzzer round. Each of you has a red button in front of you. When one of you presses it, everyone else’s button will be disabled."
"The contestant whose light comes on will answer first. If you answer correctly, you’ll earn a cumulative prize of one thousand dollars."
"If you answer wrong and you already have prize money, one thousand will be deducted."
"If you don’t have any, there will be no penalty."
"At the same time, in this round we’re going to eliminate the three contestants with the least prize money."
"If there are more than three contestants tied for the lowest amount, then the contestant with the most prize money will decide who stays!"
"In the first round, there will be a total of twenty questions."
The host held the first card and said with a smile, "Good luck, ladies and gentlemen!"
Everyone tensed up, and a huge buzz rose from the audience. They hadn’t expected... the show to actually go this hard.
The people who had originally just come to freeload some benefits also started to feel nervous. They were actually accumulating experience; they swore they would sign up their whole family for the next season—if there was a next season.
But thinking about it carefully, if it was Mr. Lynch, he wasn’t going to go bankrupt over a million, and that made the show feel a lot more reliable in people’s minds.
"First question: the three feathers on the head of a female Dodo-chicken are respectively what colors..."
The audience, who had thought they’d be facing some kind of hard science questions, were instantly dumbfounded. Dodo-chickens, while not exactly everywhere, could be found in any zoo with animals, and in decent numbers too.
Some restaurants also used Dodo-chicken as an ingredient, but no one had ever paid attention to what colors the three feathers on a female Dodo-chicken’s head were!
There was a few seconds of silence in the studio. It was everyone’s first time taking part in this kind of show, and they still very politely held to the idea of "think first, then buzz."
But under these conditions, that mindset probably wouldn’t last long.
For money, people will do anything!
Harry instinctively pressed his button. His heartbeat instantly grew heavier, thump, thump, each beat like a heavy hammer slamming into his chest!
He licked his lips. "They’re gray, white, and silver respectively!"
The man next to him also hit his button, but he was a second too late. He raised his hand and said, "He’s wrong. They’re purple, blue, and red. I just went to the zoo last week!"
But the host ignored him. "Contestant Harry is correct. As for this gentleman, he is not. Female Dodo-chickens are not conspicuous; zoos usually display the males."
Then a staffer pushed out a display board, with detailed explanations of the differences between male and female Dodo-chickens!
"Contestant Harry’s accumulated prize money goes up by one thousand!"
The pretty girl standing by his podium flipped a card. The board in front of him went from all zeros to one thousand bucks!
That made Harry’s heart beat even faster. He’d only answered one question and he’d already earned a thousand bucks...
The speed of making money like this was way too thrilling!
Everyone’s eyes went red, but they had no idea that this money wasn’t so easy to take.
Just because you earned it didn’t mean you could walk away with it, because there were still many questions ahead that would test humanity, courage, and overall knowledge reserves.
When picking the questions, Lynch had decided they shouldn’t require any special expertise, and definitely not questions that even research scientists couldn’t answer—that wouldn’t be fair.
He wanted the questions simple, something everyone had access to the answer for, but might not remember.
They had to be fun, varied, the kind where once you heard the answer you’d slap your thigh and curse yourself for your lousy memory!
The twenty questions went by quickly. Harry got three right—his youth was a big advantage.
Young people react faster and understand things more quickly; these were all edges he had.
Sometimes some of the older contestants clearly knew the answer but were just a bit too slow to react.
The twenty questions were soon finished. The top contestant had answered five correctly, while the lowest... hadn’t gotten a single one right.
What surprised people was that the one with the highest accuracy turned out to be that girl who needed help from kind-hearted people. It probably had something to do with her job.
Her job was to receive all kinds of "assistance" in a cramped room. She had no time or space to rest; the only way she could kill time was by reading.
There was no contradiction in that.
She had read a lot of books—not world-famous classics or anything, but all kinds of magazines and miscellaneous paperbacks, the kind you could buy at a newsstand.
That also let her store up a bunch of random, all-over-the-place knowledge!
Her cheeks were flushed. When the host announced the end of the first round, she pumped her fist.
"Next is the elimination stage. There are six people who didn’t get a single question right, but only three can stay."
"Miss, you may choose three people to stay. Please give your answer in one minute!"
The girl didn’t use the whole minute. She wasn’t the kind of girl who’d stayed in school studying quietly and froze up when she had to make a decision.
She’d received all kinds of clients, every type you could imagine. She knew how to deal properly with this world.
She gave her answer, and three people left the stage cursing under their breath, holding fifty bucks each and some of the loose money they’d picked up, though they didn’t leave the studio.
They also wanted to know who would ultimately win that one million!
"Now we will enter the second round. There will be thirty-six questions in total, and the question assignment will be based on the results of the first round."
"Everyone has the right to assign one question to the contestant behind them, and this cannot be changed or transferred."
"If someone has already been assigned three questions, then they no longer need to choose."
"We’ll start with this young lady..."
