Chapter 2: The Third Brother, Zhou Chengxi

Pointless as it was to dwell on all this, he had one redeeming quality if nothing else: a high tolerance for stress.

Back in high school, he had been covered in acne and a bit overweight, so his classmates mocked him for three whole years.

Even so, he had remained optimistic. Anyone else would probably have developed mental health issues long ago.

Relying on oneself was better than relying on others. Enduring the pain racking his body, Chen Liyang forced himself up from the bed with great difficulty. Only then did he notice the blanket covering him, which was so filthy that its original color was entirely unrecognizable.

The original host of this body was really… hard to describe. How could anyone be so filthy?

Fighting back the urge to vomit, Chen Liyang staggered out of bed.

The room contained only a wardrobe, a table, and a single sofa, which was piled high with a heap of clothes, both washed and unwashed.

Though the room was mostly empty, it looked filthy and chaotic, as if it hadn’t been cleaned in hundreds of years.

Frankly, a pigsty was cleaner than this. If he weren’t aching all over, he would have loved to clean it up right now.

Trying his best not to curse, Chen Liyang was just about to leave the room when he saw a small head peek in from the doorway.

Their eyes met. Chen Liyang had never seen a child with such a terrible complexion. The boy’s little face was sallow, his lips devoid of color, with only his eyes showing any spark of life.

Although he couldn’t tell which child this was from the text in his mind, it was definitely one of his stepchildren.

Putting on what he thought was a kindly smile, he was just about to greet the boy and build some father-son rapport.

But before he could even open his mouth, the little boy showed a look of sheer terror, as though he had seen a ghost, and scampered off in a flash.

Chen Liyang twitched the corner of his mouth. Was he really that terrifying?

Still, considering the original host’s track record, where a smile from him invariably meant trouble, the child’s reaction was completely understandable.

It seemed changing his image from a villainous stepfather in their eyes would take a long, long time.

“B-Brother… it’s bad! He smiled… He’s definitely going to hit us again…” Zhou Chengbei ran into the kitchen, looking anxiously at his third brother who was washing tomatoes.

Overcome with fear, a large wet patch had spread across his trousers without him even realizing it.

Seeing his little brother trembling and looking so helpless, Zhou Chengxi’s eyes turned bloodshot. He wanted nothing more than to kill that man right now.

“Don’t be scared, don’t be scared. He’s hurt right now, he can’t beat us.” Zhou Chengxi held his younger brother in his arms, softly soothing him, though his eyes remained fixed on the kitchen doorway like a crouching wolf.

Still unaware of the incident in the kitchen, Chen Liyang poured himself a glass of water in the living room and gulped it down, finally feeling a bit better.

But his stomach was still aching with hunger. Hoping to find something to stave off his appetite, he realized there wasn’t a crumb of food in the living room.

Only then did he remember that the original host almost never bought food for the house. Any good food had been taken away by his parents to feed his elder brother’s kids.

The original host was a terrible person, but he was blindly filial. His marriage as a matrilocal son-in-law^[1] had been arranged by his parents in the first place.

Even though he knew full well his parents were outrageously biased, he still willingly showered them with devotion.

If Chen Liyang hadn’t read the novel, he would have thought the man was adopted.

In truth, he was indeed their biological son. It was truly hard to imagine such biased parents existing in the world.

When the children’s mother left for overseas, she left behind over three hundred thousand Yuan, two-thirds of which ended up being spent on his parents and his elder brother’s family.

Now that he was living in an urban village^[2], they didn’t think to help him out at all. Instead, like greedy parasites, they continued to squeeze every last drop out of him.

But he wasn’t the original host, so he certainly wasn’t going to indulge them anymore. Instead, he would find a way to make them spit back every cent that had been spent on them.

Right now, the only edible things left in the house were rice and a few vegetables.

The original host had set a rule that the daily food budget could not exceed twenty Yuan. If it went over, he would cut into the next day’s rations, forcing everyone to go hungry for the entire day.

In truth, they used to live in a large luxury apartment in the city center. But after the children’s mother left, he not only squandered the family fortune within six months, but also got scammed into investing in health supplements, losing everything.

Just like that, the house was taken to pay off debts, and they were forced to move into this urban village.

Normally, after such a disaster, the original host should have felt guilty. Far from admitting any fault, however, he believed the children’s mother had tricked him into marriage. Otherwise, why had she vanished without a trace after going abroad?

He believed she had made him a matrilocal son-in-law just to dump these five burdens on him so she could enjoy her freedom abroad.

And so, he transferred all that resentment onto the five children.

Ever since moving to the urban village, the five children had lived a dark, miserable existence.

Not only did they never have enough to eat, but they were also liable to be kicked around by their volatile stepfather at any moment.

That was why Zhou Chengbei feared his stepfather to the point of losing bladder control.

Once, simply because he was in a bad mood, he had beaten the innocent Zhou Chengbei until the boy wet himself.

If the eldest and third brothers hadn’t joined forces to stop him, the fourth brother might have been beaten to death back then.

It wasn’t that they hadn’t thought about calling the police, but Chen Liyang had warned them that if they dared to report it, he would kill them.

They weren’t afraid of dying themselves, but they couldn’t disregard the people around them. Chen Liyang was a lunatic who meant what he said, so they could only endure it all in silence.

Finding no food at home, Chen Liyang walked into the kitchen and saw the two brothers huddled together.

Zhou Chengxi saw him too, his expression immediately tensing up, though his hand continued to gently pat his younger brother’s back.

“Third Brother, he’s here to beat us,” Zhou Chengbei sobbed, his body shaking like a leaf as he stared at the man standing in the kitchen doorway like a fiend.

The moment Chen Liyang heard the words “Third Brother,” he felt a phantom ache in his kidneys.

No wonder that despite being just a child, his dark, sinister gaze sent a chill down one’s spine.

It turned out he was the story’s villainous third brother, Zhou Chengxi, the boss of a scam compound who had defrauded thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people.

Because of the abuse he suffered in his childhood, his personality was volatile and unpredictable. He might be smiling at you one second, and taking your life the next.

His methods for dealing with disobedient, unproductive workers in the compound were brutal enough to strike terror into anyone who heard of them.

And the original host had been tricked into the very compound under his management. There, under his watch, he had ordered his henchmen to carve out the host’s kidney while he was still alive.

Until the host was tortured to death, he remained in a state of wild, manic excitement throughout. As for why he hadn’t done the deed himself, in his own words, he was afraid of dirtying his hands.

It was fair to say he was the most unhinged lunatic in the entire book. Yet precisely because he was so completely crazy, he ironically earned a massive fan base.

His exit from the story came simply enough: the woman who had stayed by his side for years was actually an undercover police officer. She eventually coordinated with the police from the inside to wipe out the entire scam compound in one fell swoop, bringing the third brother’s story to an end.