Chapter 4#

Ji Zhonglin was the younger version of Ji Yansong.#

Yet not quite as ruthless as Ji Yansong. He was the successor nurtured across two generations, hoisted aloft by countless hands, carrying a gravity that had no business on a face his age.

He was undeniably good-looking.

No wonder his CP with Ji Chengyi was just as perpetually popular.

“Still unrequited?” A flicker of absurdity passed through Ji Zhonglin’s eyes, followed by a baffled look. “I’m talking to you. Why are you staring at me like that?”

Ji Yang fabricated an excuse. “Seeing Big Brother’s majestic bearing, I was curious what my future sister-in-law looks like.”

He couldn’t exactly say: I’m just more curious what this demigod looks like—the one the whole internet is losing its mind over, buzzing with excitement about his restraint, waving banners for his sudden enlightenment, screaming “chase the wife to the crematorium,” and doing true-cest with such earth-shattering devotion.

The point was: he’d thrown all his money into it and ended up with neither the money nor the man.

After the Ji family fell, this Big Brother had attempted a comeback. But Ji Chengyi had long since caught wind of his elder brother’s peculiar feelings toward him, and shied away as from a viper—refusing even to show his face.

The readers gnashed their teeth, feeling he had finally paid the price for his past indulgence of Ji Yang, that villain.

A lifetime spent loving without being loved in return.

It was just that his awakening had only begun; the ripple effects were limited, and his remaining deterrent was far too weak.

The next morning, Ji Yang was jolted awake by his alarm clock while sprawled on the bed.

Thinking of how he was originally supposed to experience abandonment and humiliation yesterday—and then, in just half a year, completely degenerate into a crawling, venomous villain skulking in the dark—opening his eyes now gave Ji Yang the sensation of having survived a catastrophe.

After all, the tangled grudges of wealthy families and projects worth hundreds of millions were still far too distant from him.

Essentially, he was just an ordinary user of Earth Online—an actor in games, a boost-for-hire freelancer, who, after gaining a little fame, even shot borderline content to spoil his fans, and then got treated like a internet porn star and harassed for a full six months.

Those things that looked like dark history but were actually brimming with the mundane texture of daily life—that was his real life.

So when he stood in the room, before the full-length mirror used for mirror therapy to alleviate phantom limb pain, and carefully observed this body from head to toe for the very first time, his immediate reaction was: What a waste.

This body looked very similar to his own original one. Extremely similar.

Except the hair was longer, the legs long, the waist slim, and the proportions were just right.

Even the way the flat belly’s navel stretched into a narrow line was identical.

The point was: after being covered up for two years, the skin was absurdly fair.

That whiteness was partly constitutional. After all, even the severed plane of his right leg hadn’t left any particularly conspicuous raised scars, and prolonged contact with the prosthetic socket hadn’t roughened the skin—it was even faintly pinkish.

With this condition, what can’t you do? he thought. Why on earth did you have to be so thick-headed as to play the villain.

Now look at this—transmigrating in and mysteriously losing a leg. If one day he really couldn’t go on living, forget about going back to his old trade and making “adult content”—he couldn’t even crawl two li.

Ji Yang didn’t even feel like complaining anymore.

Then there was the walk-in closet in the original owner’s room: an entire wall of neatly arranged glass cabinets displaying various prosthetic limbs.

At least thirty-some of them.

When Ji Yang saw them last night, he’d actually suspected the original owner had been collecting prosthetics as some kind of curated collection. At first glance, it was genuinely unsettling.

This morning, he picked out one that seemed relatively lightweight. He fiddled with it for half an hour—and it fell off before he even got his foot up.

So when someone knocked on the door, Ji Yang, sitting on the floor, said without missing a beat: “Trouble you—can someone find me a wheelchair? Thanks.”

Then he watched, wide-eyed, as the person at the door burst into tears.

Ji Yang: “………………”

This woman had cared for the original owner since childhood and had never once gotten a kind look from him. She seemed to be an extraordinarily kind-hearted person. Now pushing fifty, slightly plump, tears streaming down her face, she came in, gripped Ji Yang under the arms, lifted him clean off the ground, and set him down at the foot of the bed.

Ji Yang was dumbfounded.

Shocked, baffled, and drowning in an indescribable awkwardness.

“It’s Aunt Mo who’s useless.” The woman sounded heartbroken.

“N-no, no,” Ji Yang waved his hands hastily. “You’re very useful, really. You’re strong.”

He was, after all, at least 174 centimeters tall, and the woman was clearly someone accustomed to handling the original owner’s daily care.

The room before him hadn’t been retrofitted to heights accessible for a disabled person, and how he had shown such unyielding fortitude last night to complete every pre-sleep grooming task—Ji Yang genuinely did not want to be reminded.

But being carried around like this was even less appealing.

Mo Qiu went ahead and opened the wardrobe for him. Sorting through clothes as she spoke: “The young master has finally come around. You wouldn’t even let the word ‘wheelchair’ near your ears before. Next time I won’t take leave. I’d barely been gone a day, and so much has already gone wrong.” She trailed off, a hint of sadness creeping in. “I heard you fell asleep right in the living room yesterday afternoon, Young Master. Don’t think Aunt Mo is nagging, but your body isn’t what it used to be. Listen to me—take less of that medicine if you can.”

Ji Yang finally remembered.

The original owner’s increasingly volatile temper and his body being devoured from the inside were largely due to his severe dependency on medication.

Yesterday when the servant brought it to him, he hadn’t thought much of it either.

He’d just wanted to stop the pain first.

Now, thinking carefully, the original owner’s phantom limb pain didn’t flare up that frequently—compared to those who suffered daily, it only struck once every week or two. Yet for two years he’d been taking those pills like an addict. It seemed the Ji family had plenty of people who’d rather he just died sooner.

“Don’t worry, Aunt Mo. I understand everything.” Ji Yang said.

His compliance caught even the brisk and nimble Mo Qiu off guard—her hands paused mid-motion.

Ji Yang looked at her and was reminded of the auntie who had rented a room to him in his previous life. Seeing him alone every holiday, she would regularly send over homemade food. Short and plump, very warm.

As for Mo Qiu, after the original owner died, the author hadn’t bothered to explain what became of such a minor character.

But in the original book, Mo Qiu was portrayed as a malicious old maid who egged Ji Yang on. Her fate, he imagined, couldn’t have been good.

Mo Qiu: “Don’t lose heart, Young Master. We got through that terrible car accident two years ago. Everything will go smoothly from here on out.”

She added: “A bastard is a bastard. No way they’ll ever climb above you.”

And also: “Your father is a hopeless philanderer. If it weren’t for the mess he created, how could the first wife’s side have let a promiscuous woman seize the advantage? And you, Young Master, wouldn’t have had to suffer all this.”

Justifying all the original owner’s behavior and motivations, calling the protagonist a bastard, and even labeling that tragic first love as promiscuous—some of these remarks were rather lacking in decorum for a household servant. She was indeed not a character readers favored.

But Ji Yang liked her.

He sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed and smiled.

“All right then, I’ll take your good wishes.”

Ji Yang said: “One of these days when you’re holding your great-grandchild, Aunt Mo, I’ll definitely gift you a big golden lock.”

Aunt Mo’s face instantly blossomed into a flower of smiles, and she let out several delighted little exclamations.

Ten minutes later, Ji Yang had changed into a crisp all-white casual shirt and headed downstairs in his wheelchair.

May morning, teetering between spring and summer. The continuous rain from the day before had passed, and the air carried a thread of post-rain freshness.

There was hardly anyone left in the dining room.

But Ji Mingyue and an unfamiliar-looking man were still there.

“Who’s that?” Ji Yang, not yet versed in wheelchair maneuvering, steered into the seat beside Ji Mingyue. On arrival, he thudded into the leg of her chair.

Ji Mingyue turned her head. She gave him a once-over, then glanced at his wheelchair.

“Yesterday you were on crutches. Is this your new attention-grabbing entrance method?”

Ji Yang told it straight. “Prosthetics are too much hassle. I’m in a hurry.”

“In a hurry?”

At this, the other man at the table spoke up.

He looked to be twenty-five or six, dressed quite maturely in a full suit—though an air of frivolity hung between his brows.

He smiled. “Fourth Young Master, what’s the rush?”

Ji Yang accepted breakfast from a servant: “Going to work.”

“Going to work?!” The man reacted as if he’d heard the joke of the century. “Oh come on. Who doesn’t know about all those laughable stunts you pulled at the Ji Corporation? I heard your big brother handed the Regional Deputy VP position you originally held over to Ji Chengyi, and now you’re just sitting pretty with a figurehead title as New Media Department Manager—the entire department’s been benched. One of these days the whole thing might get axed. What’s the point of going to work?”

There was no point.

But he was counting on coincidence.

This had been a thought circulating in Ji Yang’s mind ever since he woke up.

Back then, the circumstances were special—Nie Xu was naturally ranked first.

But he couldn’t put all his bets on that one horse.

The workplace was where Ji Chengyi shone, yes—but it was also where Ji Yang had been marginalized, the starting point that had driven him toward extremism. Being too passive was bad enough, and the feeling of passivity was terrible. But here was the thing: this so-called New Media Department was the only department that had swiftly carved itself free and declared independence after the Ji Corporation’s collapse.

Its director was an internet savant who, with first-hand insider information, had raked in an absolute fortune.

Being transmigrated into a book did have its perks.

Some information could be captured in advance.

Ji Yang thought: Perfect. I’m a living, breathing internet personality myself.

Those who wanted him to fade into obscurity, to vanish without a trace—he’d do no such thing.

Fame could very well serve as leverage.

Who knew? What if it worked?

Ji Yang tilted his head, asked Ji Mingyue beside him: “So noisy. Did I just hear a dog barking nonstop?”

“Who are you calling a dog?!”

“Qi Yiming, that’s enough.” Ji Mingyue cut him off. “Do you have business here or not? If not, leave early.”

Qi Yiming straightened his suit, recovering a measure of composure. “Mingyue, I know you mind those gossip columns about me, but I promise you, everything’s cut off clean from now on. I came to pick you up today on someone’s orders. How about we go shopping together later?”

Ji Yang speared a dumpling from his plate with his fork.

“Whose orders?” Ji Yang said lazily. “Heaven’s orders?”

He continued, unhurried: “Heaven also says—a person should know their own place. A subpar defect that crawled out of a sewer—don’t you know what you are?”

The man shot to his feet, pointing at him.

“Ji Yang! What exactly is your problem?!”

In a second, Ji Yang seized Ji Mingyue’s arm and ducked behind her. He slowly raised his eyes to look at Qi Yiming, voice soft: “Mingyue, your fiancé is so… scary.”

He let go. “He frightened me.”

Qi Yiming was fuming with rage, suspecting the Ji Fourth he’d met today was an impostor!

He roared: “What exactly are you playing at?!”

“Oh, so you can tell after all,” Ji Yang remarked coolly. “I thought you were blind.”