CHAPTER 165: CHAPTER 125 HOW COULD I POSSIBLY GET MYSELF INTO TROUBLE IF I KNOW THE LAW?_2

This was a legitimate civil litigation right. During a civil lawsuit, if one’s own side had difficulty collecting evidence, they could apply for assistance from the prosecutor’s office.

Moreover, this industry, much like the previous shady intermediary sector, belonged to the public domain. According to the relevant procedural laws for the prosecutor’s office, for public sectors like this where individuals cannot obtain evidence themselves, the prosecutor’s office was obligated to intervene and collect evidence!

If the prosecutor’s office could intervene to gather evidence and investigate the ownership of the fourth-prize ticket, the actual purchaser would soon be discovered. This would rule out the possibility that Qin Mu was the purchaser. The other party’s lie about issuing the wrong ticket would then be exposed!

Simultaneously, records for the first-prize ticket he purchased, including the serial number and issuance time, were also in the lottery center’s backend data. By comparing this with the time he stated he entered the store, it wouldn’t be difficult to determine the actual ownership of the first-prize ticket!

After preparing the statement of claim, Qin Mu muttered to himself, "He said he graduated with a law degree, but why do I get the feeling... things aren’t that simple?"

If the other party were truly proficient in civil procedure law and the civil code, he wouldn’t be unaware that the prosecutor’s office could get involved in collecting evidence. As the saying goes, "If you don’t want anyone to know, don’t do it." Unless he had other tricks up his sleeve, such as colluding with the actual purchaser of the fourth-prize ticket to commit perjury, or conspiring with the lottery center to tamper with the backend data... I just don’t know if he’d be ruthless enough to destroy all the evidence.

「Meanwhile, at the lottery shop.」

"Brother-in-law, you’re amazing!" Xie Lianqing exclaimed, looking at Chen Ping with utter admiration, incredibly excited. Qin Mu calling the police had genuinely scared him. Fortunately, Chen Ping had remained calm in the face of danger and skillfully navigated the crisis.

"That’s how it is with these civil cases," Chen Ping said with a smug smile. "As long as they don’t have any evidence against us, they can’t touch us!"

His four years of law school hadn’t been for nothing.

Then, he turned to Xie Lianqing and warned, "That Qin Mu fellow probably won’t give up. Don’t cash in the lottery ticket just yet."

Lottery tickets had an expiration date for claiming prizes. If the claim deadline passed—which was 60 days—this first-prize ticket would be worthless, no different from a blank piece of paper. This was a sensitive time. After the prize was claimed, the lottery center would definitely publicize it heavily, arranging all sorts of TV interviews, which could lead to unnecessary trouble.

"This is seven million, you know! Aren’t we going to claim it first?" Hearing this, Xie Lianqing looked a bit uneasy. Holding a ticket worth seven million and not cashing it in—he probably wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink.

"Claim it?" Chen Ping glared at him and snorted. "If you claim it and they investigate, they’ll find out you’re my brother-in-law. Then we’ll be exposed, won’t we?"

After a pause, he continued, "I’ll try to talk to him again tomorrow. See if we can settle this privately, maybe get a compensation agreement signed. If we can get that agreement signed, then things will finally be settled for good. And if it does go to court, I’ll have a huge advantage."

After giving these instructions, he closed the shop and hurried home. He told his wife, Xie Lili, about the seven-million-yuan lottery ticket.

"Seven million?" Xie Lili gasped, covering her mouth. For ordinary people, this was an astronomical sum.

Once she calmed down, Xie Lili asked with a worried expression, "But if you go through with this, will that person really give up?"

Chen Ping replied confidently, "Have you forgotten your husband is a law graduate? In this civil dispute, as long as the other side has no evidence, we won’t lose even if it goes to court!"

Xie Lili blinked and said doubtfully, "But I remember you were always near the bottom of your class, weren’t you?"

She had met Chen Ping in university and knew his academic performance very well. In his law exams, he was consistently among the bottom five in class. Without fail. That was also why, after graduation, while his classmates went into law, he ended up running a lottery shop.

His sore spot pricked, Chen Ping flushed with embarrassment. He retorted defensively, "That was only because I wasn’t studying seriously! But I’ve thoroughly researched civil disputes! Don’t worry! Seven million is within our grasp. That’s enough for us to buy two big houses in Jin City!"

Hearing this, Xie Lili’s eyes lit up, and she stopped trying to persuade him. Seven million was no small sum. It was possibly more money than they could earn in their entire lives.

「The next day.」

Qin Mu once again asked his supervisor for a morning off. The reason for the leave, naturally, was to file a lawsuit. He was the first "customer" when the court opened its doors that morning, and he went straight to the case filing center.

"You again...?" The staff member, Zhou Lin, blurted out instinctively upon seeing Qin Mu. This particular "customer"... not long ago, had brought considerable trouble to their case filing center by contributing to a sensational case that resulted in a twenty-year sentence!

"AHEM." Qin Mu’s lips twitched as he noticed the wary look in Zhou Lin’s eyes. "I’m not here to file a criminal case this time. It’s just an ordinary civil dispute."

He submitted his statement of claim along with a series of documents. These documents, of course, included the fourth-prize lottery ticket and records from WeChat showing he had asked Chen Ping to buy lottery tickets for him several times. To ensure the case would be accepted, his statement of claim primarily focused on the ownership dispute over the fourth-prize ticket and the first-prize ticket he had purchased.

"First prize?"