Sunlight streamed into the room, bright and beautiful. The strong scent of perfume in the air diluted the lingering traces of intimacy left behind by the chaos of the previous night.
Clothes, shoes, and a watch—Yu Zhi put them on one by one.
He fastened his collar tightly, barely managing to cover the faint red marks that could still be seen beneath his neck.
He walked up to the front desk, handed over his room card, and checked out.
“Hello, Sir. Your checkout is complete, and your deposit has been refunded. Please check to make sure you’ve received it. Also, the total bill for Room 1004 last night came to 40,165 yuan. Would you like to pay by card or scan the QR code?” the receptionist asked with a polite smile.
Yu Zhi took out his phone. “I’ll scan it, thank you.”
It was only after leaving the club that Yu Zhi checked the messages on his phone.
Dad: 【Xiao Zhi, Dad forgot that your college entrance exam ended yesterday. Have fun with your classmates, and when you have time, come home and see your older brother.】
Yu Wenwen: 【Ah-Yu, I’m sorry. Your confession came too suddenly for me. I always thought we were good friends, so I couldn’t accept it right away… Even though we’ve graduated, I hope our relationship will never change. You’ll always be my best friend.】
Xue Hai: 【Brother Yu, where did you disappear to? Did your confession succeed?】
Xue Hai: 【Brother Yu, what happened? I just saw Yu Wenwen kissing Jiang Yikai. Fucking bitch!】
Zou Qu: 【Brother Yu, on behalf of the whole class, thank you for treating us. We couldn’t find you, so we left first.】
Yu Zhi read through the messages one by one. Once he had finished, all the red notification dots disappeared.
By now, he had more or less sorted out the original owner’s relationships with the people around him.
Following the memories he had received, he took a taxi home.
As soon as he stepped through the door, he saw a woman sitting in the living room arranging flowers.
He called out, neither warmly nor coldly, “Mom.”
When the woman saw him, her beautiful eyes flashed with slight anger.
“Xiao Zhi, where did you go last night? Your older brother had an accident, and you didn’t even care? You even stayed out all night?”
If it had been the original owner, he would probably have been furious inside while deliberately pretending not to care, saying something like, Where I go is none of your business.
But Yu Zhi merely responded with a faint “Oh.”
“I had made plans with my classmates to get together after the exam yesterday. It got too late, so I just stayed out for the night.”
Yu Zhi’s mother froze.
She looked a little awkward.
“Your college entrance exam ended yesterday? Why didn’t you tell Mom beforehand?”
She was somewhat angry.
Her younger son never seemed to know how to communicate properly with her at home. He had not even told her that his college entrance examination was coming to an end, making her look as though she did not care about her youngest son at all.
She felt both embarrassed and annoyed.
Yu Zhi did not mention that the original owner had said it before. However, his mother, who spent all day concerned about her eldest son’s health, had simply forgotten.
He smiled casually. “I’m sorry. I’ll remember from now on.”
With that, he turned and went upstairs without sparing his mother another glance.
His mother watched his back as he walked away, but the irritation in her heart had yet to fade.
“What kind of attitude is that? Is he deliberately giving me the cold shoulder?”
Her younger son clearly had not spoken sarcastically or made any snide remarks like he usually did, yet she somehow felt that today’s version of her younger son was even more frustrating than before.
Sister Zhao, the housekeeper, grumbled inwardly. ‘When he gets angry, you say he’s immature. When he doesn’t get angry, you say he’s giving you attitude. So what exactly do you want? Do you have to make the child smile and flatter you while speaking to you before you’ll be happy?’
Her eldest son spent all day with a cold expression on his face, yet whenever she saw him, she was all smiles. When it came to her younger son, there was nothing she liked about him.
If someone didn’t know better, they would think he wasn’t even her biological son.
“Madam, the Young Master is home. Should I make a few extra dishes for dinner tonight?” Sister Zhao suppressed her complaints and asked with a smile.
Mother Yu finished arranging the flowers. As she adjusted them, she accidentally caught one of the flower stems against her hand, knocking a diamond off one of her manicured nails.
She frowned at the damaged nail and said unhappily, “You decide.”
As she spoke, she headed upstairs, muttering, “How much can he eat by himself? It’s not as if he won’t be living at home anymore. Why make anything special?”
Sister Zhao watched her walk upstairs and secretly rolled her eyes. ‘She even has to haggle over making a few extra dishes, and she calls herself a wealthy lady.’
Yu Zhi entered the original owner’s room and habitually locked the door.
He went to the wardrobe to find some clean clothes. After searching for quite a while among the ripped jeans and hip-hop clothes, he finally found a relatively normal T-shirt and a pair of casual pants before entering the bathroom to take a shower.
He took the things out of his trouser pockets.
Then, all of a sudden, he saw an unfamiliar ID card.
The name on it was unfamiliar, but the face was so familiar that he could not possibly mistake it.
It was unmistakably the man he had slept with the previous night, who had then run away.
Name: Lan Jingzhi
Age: 23
According to the plot, Lan Jingzhi would only live until the age of twenty-four.
In other words, he had only one year left.
Although Yu Zhi knew that the course of the story would change after his arrival, the thought of what would happen to Lan Jingzhi if he had not come still made his heart tighten.
Knock, knock!
There was a knock at the door.
Yu Zhi opened it and saw Sister Zhao standing outside. She smiled and asked, “Young Master, is there anything you’d like to eat tonight? Sister Zhao can make it for you.”
Sister Zhao had a son about the same age as Yu Zhi. On top of that, as an outsider looking in, she could see things more clearly than the people involved.
She felt quite sorry for Yu Zhi, so she was always much kinder toward him than the others were.
For the housekeeper who had shown the original owner so much concern, Yu Zhi treated her very well.
He smiled and said, “Thank you, Sister Zhao. Just make the usual dishes. You can decide what to cook.”
Sister Zhao smiled. “All right, I’ll go, then.”
She planned to make the cola chicken wings that Yu Zhi usually liked.
Yu Zhi closed the door and let out a soft laugh.
In this entire family, the person who knew the original owner’s preferences and cared about him the most was actually a housekeeper who was not related to him by blood.
It was both sad and ridiculous.
The original owner was the younger son of the family. He had an older brother who was ten years older than him.
Between the two brothers, their parents clearly loved their eldest son more.
But in Yu Zhi’s eyes, that was normal enough.
Even the ten fingers of one hand had different lengths. Even the affection between parents and children was not necessarily equal or evenly distributed.
Back then, the Yu family had managed to catch the tail end of the great wave of entrepreneurship and built their fortune in real estate.
Father Yu had started out as a construction contractor and worked his way up to become the owner of a real estate company and a billionaire with assets worth tens of billions of yuan.
His ability could hardly be called poor.
The original owner was their second child.
At the time, China had not yet fully implemented the two-child policy. Because of Mother Yu’s health, she could not have an abortion either, so she had no choice but to give birth to him.
The resulting fines consumed most of the family’s savings.
It was precisely because of this that Father Yu quit his secure government job and decided to strike out on his own and take a gamble.
That was how the Yu family came to be where they were today.
In the eyes of the Yu parents, their eldest son had gone through hard times with them and had spent ten more years by their side.
On the other hand, their younger son had once pushed the family into financial hardship. He had never suffered hardship from childhood onward.
Of course they would naturally feel more protective of their eldest son.
Yu Zhi felt that this way of thinking was understandable.
If it were him, he would not care about how the others treated him. He would make use of whatever limited resources were available to him, make himself stronger, and walk his own path.
But the original owner was not like that.
He was just an ordinary child.
Living under this kind of neglect year after year, the original owner gradually grew into someone without even a trace of brilliance.
His older brother was outstanding and obedient. No matter how hard the original owner tried, he could never surpass him.
So he began deliberately standing out in all the wrong ways, skipping school, getting into fights, dating while still young, and doing all sorts of other things in an attempt to attract his parents’ attention.
What he did not know was that his behavior achieved nothing except making his parents feel that he was an embarrassment, that he was useless, and that he really was inferior to their eldest son in every way.
He never received the attention he wanted.
Instead, he ruined his own life in the process.
The original owner accomplished nothing in his entire life and remained forever in his older brother’s shadow, leaving behind not even the slightest trace of his own name.
His wish was simply to become better than his older brother and make his parents value him more.
Yu Zhi was certainly capable of fulfilling that wish.
Even so, the original owner’s wish still made him shake his head and sigh.
The original owner had never understood the reality of his situation his entire life.
What he should have done was not compete with his older brother or fight for their parents’ attention.
He should have lived his own life.
But he never understood that.
Dinner was served in the dining room.
When Yu Zhi came downstairs, he was the only one there, aside from Sister Zhao, who was arranging the dishes, bowls, and chopsticks.
Only after Yu Zhi sat down did his mother come downstairs.
Her eyes were still slightly red. It looked as though she had gone to see her eldest son again.
“Give your father a call. Why hasn’t he come back yet?”
Yu Zhi took out his phone and went to the balcony to make the call.
A few minutes later, he returned and said, “He said there’s a traffic jam. He’ll be here soon.”
After thinking for a moment, he asked casually, as though it had only just occurred to him, “Mom, didn’t you say I was getting a brother-in-law? How come I haven’t seen him?”
Only then did Mother Yu seem to remember.
She glanced at the time.
“The driver who went to pick him up left an hour ago. He should be here soon.”
Yu Zhi pursed his lips.
His voice gave away no emotion.
“My brother wasn’t married before, was he? This brother-in-law… where exactly did he come from?”
Mother Yu answered casually, “He was your brother’s boyfriend before. Didn’t the master tell us? For your brother to wake up, he has to spend more time with the person he loves. Having him come here to take care of your brother while he’s in a vegetative state wouldn’t be appropriate, but we’re not treating him unfairly either. We gave him a proper status and arranged a marriage engagement. Once your brother wakes up, they’ll get married.”
Yu Zhi’s brows drew together for a moment before relaxing again.
“Didn’t you ever consider that he might be a fraud?”
In the original plot, that so-called master was nothing more than a con artist who made a living by deceiving people.
Later, the protagonist shou exposed him.
Because of this incident, Lan Jingzhi’s credit for awakening the protagonist gong disappeared as well, becoming the final straw that led to him being abandoned.
Yet everyone seemed to have forgotten something.
They had forgotten how Lan Jingzhi had once cared for the protagonist gong while he was in a vegetative state, as though those months of companionship had never existed.
They also forgot the reputation, time, and effort Lan Jingzhi had wasted and sacrificed, all of which had ultimately gone unrewarded.
Mother Yu shot him a cold look and angrily said, “What kind of thing are you saying? The master is extremely famous in his field. How could he possibly be a fraud?
“Are you happy that your brother became a vegetable? Do you think the family company will belong to you from now on? Is that why you don’t want your brother to wake up?”
Yu Zhi: “…”
If it had been the original owner, he probably would have been so angry by now that he would have kicked the chair aside, stormed off, and hidden in his room to cry.
But Yu Zhi did not.
He was neither angry nor did he say anything.
He simply looked steadily at his mother with a calm gaze.
He kept looking at her until she could not help but feel guilty and avert her eyes.
Only afterward did Mother Yu realize that she had said something she should not have.
But she could not bring herself to apologize to her son.
Besides, deep down, she felt that what she had just said was not entirely impossible. She simply thought that it was something she should not have said out loud.
So she fell silent and said nothing more.
Yu Zhi withdrew his gaze.
He now had a better understanding of how the original owner had developed his personality.
In Yu Zhi’s view, the original owner’s parents were responsible for most of it.
Mother Yu could casually say something so hurtful, which showed that she was probably used to speaking this way.
Perhaps it was an unintentional mistake.
Perhaps she simply spoke without thinking.
Perhaps the person saying those words had never taken them to heart at all…
But the person listening to them remembered every single word.
Little by little, those words accumulated until they crushed the original owner’s heart and feelings.
The silent and awkward atmosphere continued for quite a while.
It had only been a few minutes, yet every second seemed to last forever.
Then the doorbell rang.
Sister Zhao went to answer the door.
Mother Yu draped a silk scarf over her shoulders, put on a warm and gentle smile, and got up to walk toward the entrance.
“Is that Jingzhi? You finally made it. Auntie has been waiting for you for so long.”
“Sorry, Auntie. I took too long getting my things together. But they were all things related to Brother Yu Chen and me. They hold the memories of our love together, so they’re very important to me.”
The young man looked obedient and sweet, making him very easy to like.
When he mentioned Yu Chen, his eyes appropriately revealed a hint of longing and sadness.
In an instant, he won quite a bit of goodwill from Mother Yu, who was already deeply concerned about her eldest son.
She thought to herself that she really had not been mistaken about him.
This child genuinely loved her eldest son. According to what the master had said, he would definitely be able to make her eldest son wake up.
“How could Auntie blame you? I’m already so grateful that you’re willing to come and take care of Chenchen. Don’t worry. Auntie would never separate the two of you. Just bear with it for now. Once Chenchen wakes up, I’ll have the two of you get married.”
Lan Jingzhi lowered his eyes and forced a smile.
“I… I’m so different from Brother Yu Chen. He’s so outstanding, and I could never catch up to him. Auntie and Uncle not looking down on me or thinking that I’m not good enough for Brother Yu Chen already makes me very happy.”
Did Mother Yu really not look down on him?
Of course she did.
Her son had been an outstanding student who ranked among the top three from childhood through high school. He had graduated from a top-tier university in China, was outstanding in both appearance and character, and had exceptional ability after entering the family company.
He was a man who was one in a million.
Yet he had fallen for a man whose parents had died when he was young, who had graduated from only an ordinary university, and whose only job was as a yoga instructor.
Aside from his good looks, he had nothing going for him.
But right now, the most important thing was to wake her son up.
Everything else could be put aside for the time being.
“You young people really think too much. As long as you truly love each other, how could Auntie object? You and Chenchen actually kept it from us all this time. If Auntie hadn’t asked your friends, I’m afraid we still wouldn’t know about it. Once Chenchen wakes up, I’ll definitely make him explain everything to me properly.”
Hearing her mention Chenchen waking up again and again, a flicker passed through Lan Jingzhi’s lowered eyes.
He raised his head and smiled.
“Brother Yu Chen will definitely wake up. I’ll keep waiting. I’ll wait until the day he wakes up.”
Mother Yu was overjoyed.
She led Lan Jingzhi inside while smiling and saying, “Jingzhi, you’ve just arrived. Let Auntie introduce you to everyone. Your Uncle is still on his way home. The only one here is Chenchen’s younger brother. He just graduated from high school, and when he found out you were coming today, he made a special trip to meet you.”
Lan Jingzhi had heard Yu Chen mention that he had a younger brother.
However, Yu Chen’s attitude toward his younger brother had been rather ordinary. Whenever he talked about him, there was always a hint of disdain and faint dislike in his tone.
It seemed that the younger brother was not valued by the family and was not someone important.
But while the Yu family could consider him unimportant, Lan Jingzhi, as an outsider, could not say a single bad word about him.
That would be equivalent to disrespecting Yu Chen’s parents.
His tone was flattering and admiring.
“The younger brother must be just as outstanding as Brother Yu Chen, right? Auntie, you’re so beautiful, so he must be very handsome too, right?”
Mother Yu was in a good mood, but there was still a trace of disdain in her voice when she answered.
“Him? He’s only good-looking.”
“Xiao Zhi, what are you still sitting there for? Don’t you know you’re supposed to come over and say hello?”
Seeing her younger son sitting firmly in his chair with his back turned toward them, without even turning his head, Mother Yu could not help frowning in displeasure.
Lan Jingzhi blinked.
“It’s all right, Auntie. Little Brother must be hungry, right? I suppose I came at a bad time.”
Mother Yu was still unhappy.
“He’s simply been spoiled. He can’t focus on his studies all day and only knows how to cause trouble and get himself into trouble.”
“Sorry. I was just lost in thought.”
Yu Zhi turned around and faced the two of them directly.
Looking up at Lan Jingzhi, whose expression instantly stiffened, Yu Zhi curled his lips into a smile.
“I had a wonderful dream last night. I just remembered it and couldn’t help thinking about it for a while, so I didn’t hear Mom calling me.”
He got to his feet and walked a few steps closer.
“Mom, is this my brother’s boyfriend? He really is quite handsome.”
Lan Jingzhi’s thoughts were in complete turmoil.
He almost failed to keep his expression under control.
As he watched this man slowly approach, he nearly took a guilty step backward in fright.
Yu Zhi smiled.
Then, as though troubled by something, he said, “But why do I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere before, Brother? Have we met?”
Mother Yu thought nothing of it. She assumed that her younger son had probably seen Lan Jingzhi at his older brother’s place before.
But to Lan Jingzhi, those words meant something entirely different.
This man… clearly remembers what happened last night!
Looking at the smile on Yu Zhi’s face, Lan Jingzhi felt extremely guilty.
Yesterday, he had been in a good mood and invited some people to a club to drink.
But somehow, one of the people who was jealous that he might use this opportunity to get close to the Yu family had drugged him, intending to make him embarrass himself.
In his panic, Lan Jingzhi randomly entered a room whose door had been left unlocked.
There was someone inside.
When he woke up the next morning, he took advantage of the other person still being asleep and ran away ahead of time.
He had simply regarded it as getting bitten once and assumed that he would never see that person again.
Yet he never could have imagined that before even twenty-four hours had passed, the two of them would meet again.
And judging from the situation, they were going to be living under the same roof for a very long time in the future?!
A thousand horses seemed to be galloping through Lan Jingzhi’s heart.
Yet on the surface, he maintained a polite smile.
“People can look alike, and things can be similar. Since Little Brother thinks I look familiar, perhaps that’s simply fate. Just like you look familiar to me too. Since you are Brother Yu Chen’s younger brother, I suppose the two of you must look somewhat alike.”
By bringing up Yu Chen, he was reminding Yu Zhi, while also subtly warning him, that he was Yu Chen’s boyfriend and would be Yu Zhi’s future brother-in-law.
If he wanted to maintain harmony in the family, there were some things he could not say carelessly.
Yu Zhi understood the implication.
He merely responded with a faint “Oh,” then turned away as though nothing had happened and sat back down in his chair.
Lan Jingzhi felt uneasy.
Did he agree or not?
The three of them sat down.
Mother Yu chatted with Lan Jingzhi, while he did his best to suppress his nervous and complicated feelings and respond to her.
His obedient and flattering manner easily won Mother Yu’s favor.
Moreover, the Yu family was the one asking him for a favor now, so Mother Yu was naturally very polite toward him.
Even so, Lan Jingzhi understood perfectly well that if what happened between him and the Yu family’s younger son last night came to light, Yu Zhi would be fine.
However, he would definitely be thrown out of the Yu family.
How was he supposed to save himself?
A few more minutes passed before Father Yu finally returned.
Once everyone had arrived and exchanged greetings, they began dinner.
Father Yu was a very busy man and did not spend much time at home.
Especially now that his eldest son had fallen into a vegetative state, there were many matters at the company that required him to handle them personally, leaving him with little time to concern himself with the affairs of the household.
He had originally disagreed with the idea of having some person his son supposedly loved come and stay with him.
But his wife had insisted, so he could only agree.
Now that he had seen that the young man had come willingly, he felt somewhat relieved.
After dinner, Sister Zhao took Lan Jingzhi to see the room that had been prepared for him.
It was right next to Yu Chen’s room.
“Thank you, Sister Zhao!” Lan Jingzhi said obediently.
Then, as though asking casually, he said, “I wonder where Uncle, Auntie, and Little Brother’s rooms are?”
This was hardly some secret that could not be spoken about.
Sister Zhao smiled and said, “Sir and Madam are both on the third floor. The Young Master is on the second floor, right across from Mr. Lan’s room. If you ever get bored, Mr. Lan can always find the Young Master for a chat.”
Lan Jingzhi suppressed the urge to ask to change rooms and forced a smile.
“I understand. Sister Zhao, you should go get some rest too.”
After closing the door, Lan Jingzhi was just about to take a proper look around the room when he heard a knock.
He opened the door.
The moment he saw who was standing outside, he was so startled that he instinctively tried to close it again.
But the person outside stopped him.
“Let’s talk. For example, about where future brother-in-law was last night.”
Yu Zhi pursed his lips into a smile, his tone leisurely.
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Z On TTIG Chapter 35.2