Chapter 5#
The Self-Deceiving Liar#
When Lin Xiaodong returned home, Lin Xiamian, who had been temporarily ordered to go home and reflect, was already waiting for him in the living room.
The young man stood at the door, staring at him fixedly for a while.
Lin Xiamian’s eyes slowly turned red.
“Brother, don’t be like this,” he said with a sob, “I know I was wrong! Hit me…”
But Lin Xiaodong didn’t fly into a rage at him as Lin Xiamian expected.
Instead, the young man crouched down in front of him and gently rubbed his head.
“Tell me,” Lin Xiaodong asked calmly, after all, one must have patience when dealing with fools, “why are you short of money?”
Lin Xiamian’s tears instantly broke loose.
He tightly hugged the young man’s waist, burying his head in Lin Xiaodong’s chest, like a person dying of thirst in the desert discovering an oasis. He said incoherently: “I’m sorry, Brother, I, I just wanted to help you lighten some of the burden. Last time you didn’t tell me anything, I was really scared alone at school, always thinking wild thoughts…”
In a place Lin Xiamian didn’t notice, Lin Xiaodong looked down at the whorl of hair on the boy’s head, the corners of his lips curling slightly.
“I was wondering why this kid agreed to live on campus so readily,” he even had the heart to chat with the system, “Turns out he was setting a trap here waiting for me.”
System: …So you call “crying, making a scene, and threatening suicide” “readily”?
Back then, Lin Xiamian almost tore the roof off!
“So he did it on purpose?” The system finally realized, “Just to not live on campus?”
“Not living on campus is just a means; tying me to his side forever is Lin Xiamian’s goal,” Lin Xiaodong said leisurely, “Now I finally understand why he didn’t mind my identity as a small-time hoodlum at all.”
“Why?”
Lin Xiaodong smiled happily: “Because, of course, my dear brother doesn’t want me to have a normal social life at all.”
System: “…………”
Although it was just a high-level AI composed of a bunch of programs, it still felt a hint of coldness from the truth behind these words.
While it was silent, Lin Xiaodong was still dutifully playing his role as a good brother.
He said softly to Lin Xiamian: “But you’re already in your third year of high school, and your studies are so intense. Why neglect the fundamentals for the incidentals? And of all the places to work part-time, why did you have to go to Wanxiao? Don’t you know what kind of place that is?”
“I know,” Lin Xiamian sniffled, “but I only have time at night, and Wanxiao pays higher wages.”
Lin Xiaodong: “That’s not right. A club of Wanxiao’s level doesn’t recruit externally at all. Most people have no way in. Where did a high school student like you get the connection?”
Lin Xiamian said in a low voice: “Teacher Zhao told me. He said he knows Wanxiao’s manager and could get me a job inside. When there aren’t many guests, I can even do my homework in the private booths, and the wages are settled daily.”
Lin Xiaodong frowned: “The Teacher Zhao from your competition team?”
Lin Xiamian nodded silently.
Something’s not right, Lin Xiaodong thought, he must have overlooked something.
The young man pondered for a while, and suddenly thought of a possibility.
“Have you seen these people in Wanxiao?” He immediately took out his phone and showed Lin Xiamian photos of Qi Jianghe and Qi Huaishui. “Did they talk to your Teacher Zhao or the manager of Wanxiao?”
Lin Xiamian shook his head.
“But our manager has a friend he often hangs out with. On my first day at Wanxiao, he chatted with Teacher Zhao for a bit,” Lin Xiamian tried hard to recall, “I remember, he seemed to be called… Zheng Li.”
Lin Xiaodong showed a “just as I thought” expression.
Very good, he thought, now all the clues are connected.
Zheng Li was Qi Jianghe’s lackey; he worked for the Qi family. The business with those brothers of the bald guy earlier was probably also his doing. He couldn’t find Lin Xiaodong’s weakness, so he used indirect means to take revenge on Lin Xiamian’s head.
He sighed and said to Lin Xiamian: “Lin Xiamian, swear to me that from now on, you will never step into that hellhole again. Go back to school and attend your evening self-study properly. I’ll handle the rest.”
As soon as Lin Xiamian heard that he still wouldn’t let him move out of the dorm, his expression immediately turned sour.
“Brother, I…”
“Don’t say anything more,” Lin Xiaodong “gently” wiped the tear stains from his cheeks, but his gaze revealed a dangerous warning, “Xiamian, you’re an obedient good brother, right?”
Lin Xiamian shuddered for some reason.
He swallowed his saliva and nodded silently, not daring to speak up again.
But there was one more thing Lin Xiaodong didn’t tell Lin Xiamian: since Zheng Li had set a trap, he certainly wouldn’t let him crawl out so easily.
The one who would pay the price for him in the end would surely be himself.
Until this point, the system finally noticed something was wrong: “Why do I feel like you’re not acting like a good person, but more like you’ve taken a tragic script and are going further and further down the road of self-sacrifice as a ‘brother-protecting devil’?”
Lin Xiaodong: “Oh, you found out?”
System: …Big problem.
Lin Xiaodong was still playing dumb: “Oh, you’re so annoying. I’m truly kind, don’t talk nonsense.”
System: “Barf.”
To this end, Lin Xiaodong also considerately helped the system read two articles on precautions for pregnant women during pregnancy, successfully annoying the system into muting itself.
He went to bed contentedly and closed his eyes to sleep.
There was a hard battle to fight tomorrow.
The next day, he personally sent Lin Xiamian to school.
After pressuring the kid to repeatedly apologize and give guarantees to the dean, Lin Xiaodong came to Wanxiao’s territory alone.
…And then he was stopped by the impartial security guards.
“I’m looking for your manager,” Lin Xiaodong said seriously, “I have serious business with him, I’m really not here to cause trouble… Hey, hey, hey, Big Brother, don’t grab my collar, I’m not a hoodlum!”
But looking at his “Left Green Dragon, Right White Tiger” (though they were all fake tattoo stickers), his wildly uninhibited yellow-green hair in a postmodern art style, and his T-shirt and flip-flops that made him look like a stereotypical “spiritual youth,” the security guard sneered, didn’t listen to his explanation at all, and directly called for backup using his walkie-talkie.
“Don’t look down on people. People wearing flip-flops aren’t necessarily hoodlums; they might be landlords!”
Lin Xiaodong shouted loudly.
“Oh, then how many buildings do you have?” the security guard asked him with a side-eye.
Lin Xiaodong held it in for a long time, his face turning red, but he couldn’t lie in front of so many people.
He felt that his skills in maintaining a persona weren’t profound enough, so he changed to a more lyrical approach. He gathered his breath and recited to the security guard with deep emotion:
“Thirty years on the east side of the river, thirty years on the west side… Do not bully the young for being poor!”
System: “Dear, you’ve switched channels.”
After some twists and turns, Lin Xiaodong finally succeeded in meeting the manager of Wanxiao.
The manager’s surname was Hu, a man in his thirties, slightly chubby, with a smiling face that made people feel good at first sight.
But Lin Xiaodong was on high alert from the first moment he saw him—
This man’s entire body, every pore, seemed to be screaming the words “smiling tiger.”
“You are Lin Xiamian’s brother?”
Manager Hu didn’t show any expression of looking down on him, but just smiled and took out a contract from his office drawer. “I understand your desire to protect your brother, but look, Lin Xiamian already turned 18 this July. It’s written in black and white on the contract, and he also signed it voluntarily. So, logically speaking, the ones who should be suing are us.”
Lin Xiaodong scanned the contract quickly.
When they were getting their household registration, their cheap mother had changed Lin Xiamian’s age to be one year older so he could start school earlier.
But just as this Manager Hu said, the law only recognizes the age on the ID card.
“Regardless of whether my brother is an adult or not, he’s still a student attending high school,” Lin Xiaodong curled his lip and tore the contract into pieces in front of him, “This matter blowing up won’t benefit anyone. Manager Hu, tell that grandson Zheng Li to come straight at me next time if he has anything, and don’t use those underhanded methods, got it?”
Manager Hu clapped twice for his courage: “Alright, Lin Xiaodong, you’ve got guts.”
He glanced at the paper scraps all over the table and smiled: “Since you’ve said so, I’m not someone who doesn’t talk about the ‘rules of the road.’ To be frank with you, your brother is very aloof. Just a few days after arriving, he broke a bottle of wine worth eighty thousand yuan and almost caused trouble by refusing to drink with a guest. The reason he’s been able to stay comfortably here during this time is all thanks to a ‘benefactor’ who lent a helping hand.”
“Benefactor?”
He blurted out: “It couldn’t be Gu Xi, could it?”
Manager Hu looked at him in surprise: “You know?”
Lin Xiaodong: “…What’s the sentence for this according to our country’s criminal law?”
Lin Xiamian was only seventeen!
He was an adult! If there’s anything, come at him!
The system fell silent.
It knew it shouldn’t have reminded Lin Xiaodong that the man he saw at the entrance of Wanxiao before was Gu Xi.
Manager Hu quickly said: “Don’t get excited yet. President Gu didn’t do anything to Lin Xiamian. We are a legitimate business establishment.”
He spent a long time barely making Lin Xiaodong believe that they wouldn’t provide “that kind” of service to guests, but Lin Xiaodong himself was someone from the underworld, so he naturally knew that the private booths of Wanxiao late at night were full of hostesses and hosts accompanying guests to drink.
Moreover, if things couldn’t be done in the booth, wouldn’t things be just as heated if they turned left and went to a hotel?
“Is this the reason you’re unwilling to let him go?” Lin Xiaodong was also tired of haggling with him and asked directly, “Speak up, I can pay the money, but how do you plan to settle this?”
“I actually quite admire you,” Manager Hu said, “There’s no need to pay back the money. It’s mainly that things are more difficult to handle on President Gu’s side.”
He pondered for a moment and suddenly had a whim: “Right, you and your brother look so much alike. Why don’t you take his place?”
Lin Xiaodong: “…………”
He never expected it.
This magical dog-blood “substitute for the white moonlight” plot actually took a 180-degree turn and came back!
System: “Isn’t this exactly what you wanted?”
“Cough,” Lin Xiaodong coughed, “I’m not someone who only looks at faces.”
The system didn’t believe it: “Really?”
“Really,” Lin Xiaodong said seriously, “Body shape is also very important.”
System: It shouldn’t have asked.
Seeing him in a daze, Manager Hu thought Lin Xiaodong was planning to refuse, so he started the routine of intimidation and bribery: “You don’t want this matter to be blown up, do you? If I report this to the Bureau of Education, whether the school expels him or not, he’ll definitely get a major demerit recorded. At that time, forget about going to university, it’ll be a question if your brother can even finish high school!”
While he was speaking, the young man kept his head down, his hands hanging by his sides clenched into fists and trembling slightly, as if this talk had really hit his weak spot.
After a long time, he raised his head with red eyes and said in a low voice: “I’ll do it. But you have to guarantee that from now on, your people will never appear in front of my brother again.”
Manager Hu interlaced his fingers and leaned back in his chair, smiling with satisfaction.
“Deal.” He agreed readily. After all, the person Zheng Li wanted him to deal with in the first place was Lin Xiaodong.
Still young after all, he thought triumphantly, so easy to trick.
And at the same time, Lin Xiaodong was also sighing to the system in his heart.
“There are so many fools these days,” he lamented, “I barely even acted and he believed it. So easy to trick.”
System: “…………”