BTMDY Chapter 117

Lin Wangye’s tearful attacks were, without a doubt, a killer move for Lin Shen—one that worked almost every single time.

 

Seeing the boy’s reddened eyes, even Lin Shen, furious as he was, couldn’t help feeling a flicker of pity.

 

Especially since this wasn’t the first time Lin Wangye had called him that.

 

But somehow, this time felt… different.

 

Yet, the strict, precise logic from just a moment ago had hit him so hard that, in the heat of the moment, he actually believed it. It made him feel like the other three people in the hospital room had all lost their minds, leaving him as the only sane one.

 

He stared wide-eyed at Lin Wangye, still with a trace of accusation on his face, but his tone had softened noticeably.

 

“Don’t think just calling me ‘Dad’ lets you off the hook! I’m seriously criticizing both of you!”

 

Then Lin Shen suddenly remembered something.

 

He turned to Shi Yuan and scolded him without distinction: “And you too! What weird stuff did you pick up in Sigwell? Open relationships aren’t popular back home—you can’t just spoil him like this with no principles or limits!”

 

Even though the interactions between Lin Wangye and Lu Chengxuan were bizarre, Lin Shen’s imagination made it even more detailed than reality.

 

But Shi Yuan wasn’t impulsive. He had his own judgment and trusted Lin Wangye completely; he wouldn’t believe something so ridiculous could actually happen.

 

He turned his gaze to Lin Wangye, who was coughing uncontrollably from Lin Shen’s explosive rant. Gently, he bent down and adjusted the head of the bed to just the right angle, then carefully wrapped his arms around Lin Wangye to help him sit up, placing a pillow behind him for support.

 

Once Lin Wangye could lean back in relative comfort, Shi Yuan picked up the thermos he had prepared earlier, brought the straw to his lips, and fed him water.

 

Lin Wangye had been getting most of his fluids through IVs these past few days, which was why his throat was so dry he could barely speak. He had been parched, but hadn’t reacted earlier because he was too overwhelmed.

 

As the warm water slid down his throat into his stomach, Lin Wangye felt reborn, sucking eagerly on the straw, not caring about anything else in the world.

 

Meanwhile, Lin Shen was still angry. Seeing the two of them completely ignoring his scolding, he immediately turned his attention to Lu Chengxuan, delivering his final ultimatum.

 

“You’ve got three minutes to explain!”

 

Explaining this in three minutes? Not even three days and nights would be enough.

 

Even someone as meticulous as Lu Chengxuan didn’t know where to start. After a moment of thought, he moved a chair from nearby behind Lin Shen, gave Lin Wangye a glance, and went straight to the point.

 

“He isn’t originally from this timeline. He’s your son—you raised him to eighteen, and he traveled here from nearly twenty years in the future.”

 

After hearing that, Lin Shen was left speechless.

 

Shi Yuan, sitting by the bed and feeding Lin Wangye water, suddenly loosened his grip, and the thermos nearly slipped to the floor. Lin Wangye choked a little on the water.

 

“My bad, slow down,” Shi Yuan said quickly, patting Lin Wangye’s back gently. Once he caught his breath, he carefully put the straw back into Lin Wangye’s mouth, glancing at Lu Chengxuan with a complicated expression.

 

After a long silence, Lin Shen laughed angrily and shot back at Lu Chengxuan:

 

“Do I look like an idiot to you?”

 

“Dad…” Lin Wangye, finally satisfied with his water, called softly, eyes wide and looking at him: “I really am your son.”

 

Lin Shen turned to Lin Wangye, his gaze flicking repeatedly between him and Lu Chengxuan. Seeing how serious both of them were, he didn’t hesitate to pull out his phone.

 

“You two must have gone crazy from poisoning in the fire. I’m calling a psychological expert to come right now. Don’t worry—I’ll spend every last penny to fix your brains if I have to.”

 

Before he could even find the contact, Lu Chengxuan grabbed his wrist and, with absolute seriousness, said:

 

“I also came back from the future, many years from now.”

 

Lin Shen’s hand froze mid-scroll on his phone. He looked up and stared at Lu Chengxuan. A few seconds later, he pressed the lock button, his face visibly darkening.

 

When true anger reached him, he didn’t shout or make a scene.

 

He took a deep breath, his tone dropping like ice into a pit, sending chills through the air:

 

“Lu Chengxuan, this is getting boring. You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, but there’s no need to make up such a ridiculous excuse and try to fool me.”

 

“I’m not lying…”

 

Lin Wangye knew Lu Chengxuan wasn’t good with words. He worried and thought hard but had no way to prove it convincingly since he wasn’t Lin Shen’s biological son. All he could do was try to speak up for him:

 

“If it weren’t true, why would we lie to you like this? It makes no sense.”

 

“Don’t speak,” Lin Shen warned Lin Wangye coldly, his eyes never leaving Lu Chengxuan.

 

Lu Chengxuan didn’t flinch. He met Lin Shen’s gaze steadily and said seriously:

 

“You’ve always had a hidden email account, right?”

 

Lin Shen’s pupils shrank, his expression changing instantly.

 

“After your parents passed, to prevent something sudden from happening to you like it did to your father, you prepared an email saved in that account, and you set it to send automatically at regular intervals. The email contained instructions to take care of your sister, and this time, it probably included Lin Wangye too. The attachment had Linhong’s share transfer certificate and your will.”

 

Lu Chengxuan paused slightly, then continued calmly:

 

“And that email… was sent to me.”

 

After he said that, Lin Shen almost forgot to breathe.

 

He did indeed have that email.

 

He had kept it completely secret so no one around him would worry, erasing every trace. He was probably the only person in the world who knew about it.

 

He stared at Lu Chengxuan, wide-eyed, almost questioning whether he had forgotten to adjust the automatic send time and accidentally sent the email.

 

Lin Wangye, just realizing that Lu Chengxuan came from the future like him, had already fainted. He hadn’t even had a chance to compare notes or know about this part at all.

 

In fact, the information he and Lu Chengxuan knew in their past lives was completely different.

 

Lu Chengxuan definitely knew far more than he did.

 

In a state of extreme shock, Lin Shen couldn’t think straight at all.

 

He pulled out his phone and logged into his email to check, and there it was—the carefully prepared email, sitting intact in the drafts folder, set to send seven days later, just as he had scheduled.

 

How could Lu Chengxuan possibly know this email even existed?

 

Could it be…

 

The whole thing was just too outrageous, too unbelievable. Lin Shen could hardly accept it.

 

But how could Lu Chengxuan have known it in advance?

 

The evidence was glaringly clear in front of him, completely inexplicable.

 

In fact, everything Lu Chengxuan said wasn’t without traces. If he traced everything back to the very beginning, Lin Wangye’s behavior after meeting him had always been socially unusual.

 

From the first encounter, the near-blind trust that developed between him and Lin Wangye was real—and no science could explain it.

 

Moreover, his life had truly begun to shift after meeting Lin Wangye, moving onto paths he had never anticipated.

 

Even he had to admit that much.

 

Assuming everything Lu Chengxuan said was true, Lin Shen traced events backward and quickly realized that Lin Wangye had often, whether intentionally or not, guided him—‘you should do this,’ ‘you shouldn’t do that.’

 

These moments were reflected in countless tiny details.

 

Too many to count, but they objectively existed.

 

The more Lin Shen thought about it, the more frightened he became. He couldn’t help but slump into the chair Lu Chengxuan had prepared, pressing a hand to his forehead and closing his eyes.

 

“Wait… give me a moment to catch my breath.”

 

Things like this were hard to accept in a short time. Lu Chengxuan understood that completely and gave him plenty of space without disturbing him.

 

Shi Yuan, however, reacted differently from Lin Shen.

 

Shock and disbelief were there, of course—but at the same time, he knew Lu Chengxuan would never make such an absurd joke.

 

And Lin Wangye would never lie to him.

 

While Lin Shen tried to collect his thoughts, Shi Yuan turned to Lin Wangye. At the moment their eyes met, he spoke quietly, seeking confirmation.

 

“Is it true?”

 

A flicker of guilt appeared in Lin Wangye’s eyes.

 

In love, the two of them should be honest with each other. Shi Yuan had trusted him completely from the start, spoiling him without limits, and yet he had been keeping things hidden.

 

“It’s true…” Lin Wangye lowered his head, pressing his lips together in fear that Shi Yuan would be angry. Then he looked up, speaking softly: “I didn’t mean to hide it… there were just so many things I didn’t know how to say… I didn’t want to…”

 

“It’s okay.”

 

The moment Shi Yuan heard that hoarse voice, his heart had already begun to soften. He quietly listened to Lin Wangye struggle to explain a few words, then quickly cut him off, his eyes gentle.

 

“I’m not angry. You have the right to keep your secrets.”

 

Those words struck Lin Shen like an ancient, heavy bell suddenly hit, its echo booming endlessly inside his chest.

 

He still hadn’t come out of the shock. Slowly lifting his head, he glanced at Lu Chengxuan, then looked toward Shi Yuan, stunned as he asked, “You… you just believe them? You don’t think this is insane? Two living people… how could that even be?”

 

Shi Yuan lowered his eyes, holding Lin Wangye’s gaze for a long time. His voice was calm, almost unnaturally so. “There are plenty of things science can’t explain. I believe Xiao Lin wouldn’t lie to me, no matter where he came from.”

 

As those words fell, a sudden light flickered in Lin Wangye’s eyes, like a river of stars spilling across the sky.

 

Red-eyed, he gripped Shi Yuan’s hand with all his strength.

 

It was impossible to digest all of this so quickly. Lin Shen’s mind stayed foggy, his temple pulsing as he stared at Lin Wangye for a long while, then looked again at Lu Chengxuan. After thinking for a long time, he asked hesitantly, “Technology’s advancing so fast… you’re telling me there’s a time machine in less than twenty years?”

 

Lu Chengxuan shook his head firmly. “That, I can’t explain. There’s no such machine.”

 

The amount of information behind all this was simply too massive. Right now, Lin Shen and Shi Yuan knew nothing, while in the previous life Lu Chengxuan and Lin Wangye had almost no overlap—their experiences were completely different.

 

Clearly, a few words would never be enough to explain.

 

Lin Wangye racked his brains and finally found the best way to begin the story. His throat bobbed as he cleared it lightly, then spoke softly:

 

“I don’t know what’s going on with Brother Lu, but I’m not an orphan. My real life was growing up in the Lin family, calling you Dad for more than ten years. At… the time point eighteen years from now, I was in a car accident. When I woke up, I was back twenty years earlier—two years ago from now. But I barely knew anyone in this time. The only thought I had was to find you—find the seventeen-year-old you from back then.”

 

At the last words, Lin Shen’s mind instantly jumped back to the internet cafe in Qingsen two years ago.

 

*

 

“Turns out you’ve played this game too.”

 

“I like that hero as well.”

 

*

 

Recalling that faint, half-forgotten conversation, Lin Shen realized just how wrong those words had been from the start.

 

He took a deep breath, his brain finally snapping back into gear and spinning fast.

 

“So… we didn’t meet by chance at all?”

 

“Definitely not.” Lin Wangye shook his head. “From the very beginning, I was the one who came to you. You’re my dad. Back then, in that completely unfamiliar environment, my first thought was of course to cling to you.”

 

Before Lin Shen could even react, Shi Yuan suddenly spoke.

 

“So, when we first met, the school rumor said you grew up in an orphanage, but you told me you weren’t an orphan and had a dad who loved you. The ‘dad’ you mentioned back then wasn’t the one from memories before the orphanage—it was Lin Shen.”

 

“Yes,” Lin Wangye nodded, looking at him with wide eyes and a pout: “I didn’t want to lie to you.”

 

Even though Shi Yuan didn’t know much of the information yet, it was like a thunderclap to his mind. Suddenly, many things that had never made sense clicked into place.

 

No wonder, before or after they were together, Lin Wangye always showed a different kind of closeness to Lin Shen.

 

Those gestures weren’t about romance—they came from a child’s natural dependence on his father.

 

From the very start, it had been pure.

 

Watching the two of them start exchanging looks again, Lin Shen felt his head spin. His brain, with only 1GB memory, was overheating from processing so much information. Abruptly, he interrupted.

 

“Wait a minute! Am I the only one in the dark here?!”

 

His face was pale, shocked, and flustered as he shouted.

 

“You knew all along? Am I really the only idiot among the four of us?!”

 

Shi Yuan shook his head gently. “No, I didn’t know. But Xiao Lin had told me many things, even before I understood why you two were so close. He said you were father and son. I just couldn’t connect it on this level before. That information was like a locked box—I only got the key today and finally understand what it truly means.”

 

The moment Lin Shen heard ‘Xiao Lin told me many things,’ he felt like someone had jabbed a needle in his lung. He glared furiously at Lu Chengxuan.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me anything?!”

 

Lu Chengxuan remained calm. “I’ll explain that to you later. First, listen to what your son has to say.”

 

“My son… I… wait, what? When did I secretly have a son?! How come I didn’t even know?!”

 

Lin Shen’s scalp tingled. He froze for a moment, then exploded again, glaring at Lin Wangye.

 

“Where did you even come from?!”

 

That question, by some twist of fate, actually hit the point.

 

Lin Wangye frowned unconsciously and sighed. “I don’t know… At first, I thought I was your real son. But later I found out that you had come out to your family, so I secretly went to get a DNA test using your hair… and we’re not biologically related.”

 

Hearing that, Lin Shen felt his vision go black, smoke seemed to rise from the back of his head—his CPU had completely fried.

 

For Lin Wangye, this revelation was almost a psychological nightmare.

 

Only the Lin Shen from the previous life likely knew his origin, and now there was no way to go back and confirm it.

 

“You were adopted,” Lu Chengxuan said suddenly.

 

“Ah!” Lin Wangye, who had thought his origins would remain an eternal mystery, jumped in shock and asked urgently, “What exactly happened?!”

 

“Before you came to this timeline, everything was on a normal trajectory. All the variables started appearing after you showed up.”

 

Saying this, Lu Chengxuan slowed his pace, worried that the others—especially Lin Shen—might not follow, and continued patiently.

 

As he spoke, the mystery of Lin Wangye’s origins finally began to unfold.

 

In the other timeline, before Lin Pengcheng passed away, he had been hospitalized multiple times due to serious illness. On one occasion, when Lin Shen received a notice to accompany him, he overheard something from a chatting nurse.

 

A maternity nurse had found a baby boy.

 

The child had been born prematurely by accident and, for some unknown reason, was abandoned by his mother in the bathroom. The hospital’s first response, of course, was to save the baby’s life, while simultaneously trying to locate his mother.

 

But two terrible pieces of news arrived.

 

First, the mother was found collapsed on the roadside, and due to excessive blood loss, she could not be saved.

 

Second, the baby was diagnosed with a severe lung infection and, just hours after birth, was put on a respirator and admitted to the NICU.

 

Soon after, he was diagnosed with sepsis.

 

Cases like this weren’t uncommon in hospitals.

 

After the mother died, the police couldn’t locate any family, and the father’s identity was completely unknown.

 

In this situation, the hospital faced a very real dilemma: should they save the child?

 

And if so, where would the money come from?

 

In such cases, the hospital could use internal charitable funds. But newborns’ immune systems are fragile, their physiological functions weak, and sepsis is a very serious infection—especially for a premature infant.

 

The disease itself wasn’t impossible to treat, but the process was extremely costly. Charitable funds alone wouldn’t be enough.

 

When Lin Shen first heard about the case, Lin Pengcheng was critically ill, and Lin Shen himself was dealing with countless troubles. He only caught fragments of the story at the time.

 

Not long after, Lin Pengcheng passed away.

 

Lin Shen wandered aimlessly through the hospital, and couldn’t help thinking of the baby. He went to the NICU and learned that the boy’s condition hadn’t improved even after using the hospital’s charitable fund. There was nothing more the hospital could do—they were forced to stop treatment.

 

Through the glass, he saw the tiny figure in the transparent incubator.

 

He asked the doctors how much it would cost to fully treat the child and was told 3.1 million yuan.

 

Even though the hospital couldn’t guarantee a 100% recovery, Lin Shen paid the medical fees.

 

Soon after, he faced a storm of business crises following his father’s death. Four months later, the hospital called to notify Lin Shen that the premature baby had successfully passed the critical period, with no major complications.

 

By then, Lin Shen had basically stabilized his situation.

 

He began trying to apply to the hospital to adopt the child.

 

But the requirements for adoption were extremely strict. Even for an orphan with no one to rely on, it wasn’t as simple as taking a child home. Lin Shen’s conditions were perfect in every way, yet his age fell far short of the standard.

 

Still, at the end of the day, it was Lin Shen who had saved this tiny life.

 

The key point was that the child had suffered too much at such a young age. His body was weaker than most kids, and only the most meticulous care could guarantee he would grow up healthy.

 

In other words, this was a young master’s life—there was no room for neglect.

 

Ordinary families or orphanages simply couldn’t provide the environment he needed. And for wealthy people, healthy, energetic kids were lined up for adoption, but a frail little one like this wouldn’t even make the list.

 

The hospital had compassion, though. Through coordinated efforts, Lin Shen successfully obtained custody of the child.

 

And so, one day, Lin Shen personally brought the boy home to the Lin family.

 

He didn’t tell anyone where the child had come from or who the mother was.

 

Even when Lin Qianqian asked, he simply said the boy was his biological son.

 

Lin Shen had the ability to erase any trace he didn’t want anyone to know—except for Lu Chengxuan.

 

After that first birthday party that shook the business world, Lu Chengxuan figured out almost effortlessly that the child wasn’t Lin Shen’s biological son, but adopted.

 

If this information got out, it would have a huge impact on Lin Shen and the child, because it involved serious inheritance issues within the Lin Corporation.

 

But Lu Chengxuan didn’t tell a soul.

 

Twenty years later, Lin Wangye finally learned his true origin. He wasn’t surprised—he had already guessed back when the parentage test results came in.

 

Not biological. Lin Shen must have adopted him through some means.

 

By now, Lin Wangye didn’t care about blood ties at all.

 

What he hadn’t expected was that, before Lin Shen brought him home, he had actually faced a life-threatening situation.

 

The maternity ward bathroom.

 

There was probably no harsher, more hellish beginning in the world.

 

His life hung by a thread—if any link had gone wrong, it would have been over.

 

In a daze, Lin Wangye almost saw Death standing outside the incubator, scythe in hand, ready to strike, gesturing toward the tiny him.

 

But his father arrived first.

 

In that moment, Lin Wangye suddenly recalled a line from the hero in ‘Heroes of Glory’, the game both he and Lin Shen loved:

 

‘Disasters always lag behind me by one step.’

 

After hearing Lu Chengxuan’s words, Shi Yuan couldn’t hide the tenderness in his expression, while Lin Shen spent even longer than anyone else processing everything, scratching his head in confusion.

 

“That’s not right… I’ve never heard any of this before.”

 

“So, it’s possible that this world has two different timelines,” Lu Chengxuan said, anticipating his doubt. “Everything I just told you happened in the future, in another dimension. Lin Wangye came from there too. And from the moment someone who doesn’t belong to this era appears, variables start occurring, and events begin moving along a different trajectory.”

 

Lin Shen stared blankly, utterly dumbfounded.

 

“…Parallel universe.”

 

Lu Chengxuan nodded. “Exactly.”

 

“I’m screwed…” Lin Shen gasped so sharply the air practically smoked in his throat. His head spun as he stared at Lin Wangye in disbelief. “This is ridiculous. Honestly, I’d rather you two were just joking with me right now.”

 

“You should now understand why I went to the casino alone.”

 

Seeing that Lin Shen finally accepted reality, Lu Chengxuan continued his explanation. “My information comes from another timeline, but many events in that timeline contradict this one. I can only speculate where Lin Wangye might appear; I can’t be certain.”

 

Thinking carefully about the matter, Lin Shen frowned suddenly.

 

“Xiao Lin came here because of a car accident… so Hu Haoyang succeeded in the other timeline.”

 

At those words, Lin Wangye felt Shi Yuan’s hand tighten around his, their fingers interlaced until the joints ached faintly.

 

“Yes,” Lu Chengxuan confirmed. “That’s what I later discovered.”

 

Thinking of how Lin Wangye had been harmed in his previous life, Lin Shen ground his teeth, burning with rage. He wanted to drag Hu Haoyang out of the police station and beat him senseless.

 

“What the hell was that bastard thinking?! This time he kidnapped the wrong person! Last time, even without Xiao Lin, there was no way I would have let the Lin family fall into their hands… has he gone insane?!”

 

At this, Lin Wangye pursed his lips and turned his face slightly toward Shi Yuan.

 

Putting together all the clues, Shi Yuan quickly connected the dots, his expression suddenly frozen.

 

Lu Chengxuan watched Lin Shen quietly for a moment, then said in a low voice:

 

“Do you know how I found out that email existed?”

 

Lin Shen’s pupils contracted. His mind went completely blank, and his heartbeat thudded so loudly it felt louder than an earthquake.

 

In truth, he still didn’t know what had happened in the other timeline.

 

But if his suspicion at this moment was correct… he didn’t even know what to feel. He would rather have spent twenty years adjusting the email’s scheduled send time than be honest with the other person.

 

He couldn’t even imagine…

 

What Lu Chengxuan must have felt when he received that email.

 

*

 

I have always believed that a person can live simply and innocently only because countless others around them protect that life at a far greater cost.

 

—The Little Prince

 

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