Toilet Duel!

After the anomalous spacetime incident ended, Yuan Zhu traveled safely the rest of the way without encountering any more strange happenings, arriving smoothly beneath his apartment building.

He looked up at a four-story red-brick building, familiar yet carrying a faint sense of strangeness. Its architectural style resembled the former Soviet Union's Khrushchyovka apartments, cramped in layout, with densely packed windows extending clotheslines tied up with wire.

His home was on the third floor. Entering through the pitch-black stairwell, a damp, foul stench immediately rushed into his nose. He climbed the steps past walls that were mottled and peeling, covered in moss. Upon entering the cramped, narrow corridor, he saw that both the walls and ceiling were covered in black soot marks left behind by cooking fumes.

Several little living mice foraging for food were startled and hid in the corners, secretly eyeing their relatives hanging from the doors. Why did you all smell so nice, while we got chased and beaten in the streets? Someone, hang little Mousey up too.

Yuan Zhu shook his head at the sight. The living conditions were awful; this dump was barely any better than a slum. And he was supposedly a highly educated man with a high school diploma—yet he lived in a place like this? Where had all his money gone? Following his memories and instincts, he identified his own door. He pulled out a loose wall brick, dug out the spare key from inside, unlocked the door, then felt along the threshold until his hand found a dangling pull cord. He tugged it hard.

Snap! The cramped room was immediately illuminated by dim yellow light. In the small living room sat a table, several chairs, and a shelving cabinet. Every other space was piled with daily necessities and metal machine parts, most of them defective goods Yuan Zhu had brought back from the factory.

At the center of the ceiling hung a lamp furnace the size of a soccer ball. Its upper half was a complicated metal structure, while its lower half was a transparent glass cover. The container was filled with Alchemy Element, which released light and heat through a filament.

A single refill cost only one yuan and could last roughly a month. The steam factory where Yuan Zhu worked produced these things.

The apartment was small: two bedrooms and one living room, totaling just over thirty square meters. There was no toilet, kitchen, or balcony... Cooking was done in the corridor, washing up and relieving oneself happened in the washroom, and in winter they had to light their own stove.

As a result, the chances of fires and carbon monoxide poisoning in winter were both extremely high. Yuan Zhu had moved twice before, both times because neighbors or the floor below had caught fire. But there was no need to panic—just pack up the valuables, push open the window, and jump out. It was not as though they would die from the fall.

"Brother?"

The youth resting inside was startled awake. Rubbing his eyes, he pushed open the bedroom door and looked at Yuan Zhu, who wore a set of ill-fitting clothes. Concerned, he asked, "Why are you back so late? Did you run into some trouble?"

The youth was named Yuan Su. He also took their mother's surname and was Yuan Zhu's younger half-brother through their mother. He was fourteen this year, though he looked fifteen or sixteen.

He had short black hair, wine-red pupils, fair skin, a slender build, delicate features, a gentle personality, and excellent grades. He was extremely popular with female classmates, and bold little girls often came to his door to bring him food. He was every bit the model orphan from someone else's family.

Yuan Su had displayed the potential of a top student from an early age. Introverted and gentle, emotionally steady, and skilled at housework, he was exceptionally well-liked at school and received scholarships every year. Even if his gender were changed, nothing about him would feel out of place.

Ever since he was young, Yuan Zhu had invested heavily in raising him toward becoming a university student. Other than sharing the same surname and eye color as his younger brother, Yuan Zhu differed from him in every other respect.

He was 187 centimeters tall and weighed 85 kilograms, tall and healthy, standing a head and a half above his relatively skinny younger brother. One punch was enough to make Yuan Su cry for a long time.

Yuan Su's looks were soft and refined, while Yuan Zhu had black, waterweed-like curls that reached past his ears, a tall straight nose bridge, prominent brow bones, deep-set eyes, slightly narrow eyes, swordlike brows, and thin lips. He looked wildly untamed, with the gaze of a hawk and the wary bearing of a wolf, causing people to overlook his fairly good looks instead.

Whenever he made eye contact with someone, it was taken as a provocation, followed by a violent conflict. Over time, he grew used to this method of making friends. Thus, he started practicing boxing from a young age, because it helped communication and allowed others to feel the depth of his moral character. (Convincing people through virtue.)

After becoming an adult, he seamlessly entered the underground black-boxing business to earn extra money. This was a classic case of physiognomy determining fate: because his gaze had been sharp and striking since childhood, he had passively developed an "aggressively friendly personality," eventually setting foot on the path of a part-time underground martial artist.

Academically, he was somewhat lopsided and could not compare to his younger brother's all-around excellence. Still, he respected knowledge and had always borne the brothers' expensive tuition fees. Unfortunately, during his final semester of high school, he was expelled after engaging in a fair fight with the principal in the toilet and had no choice but to drop out early.

As an aside, the principal first ended up hospitalized with a concussion and fractures, then got stabbed in the back by the dean of students, who picked the peaches and took his position. The principal left in desolation and eventually returned to his hometown to raise Tasmanian devils.

Afterward, the dean of students not only gave Yuan Zhu a belated graduation gift envelope that no one else received, but also helped him get in touch with his current steam factory, where he became a senior technician.

Personality-wise, Yuan Zhu had been positive, optimistic, and cheerful from childhood. Since he had single-handedly taken on the responsibility of raising his younger brother, he became especially outgoing and possessed a fierce drive to rise. He deeply craved wealth, power, and status... eventually developing the personality of a grind-addicted striver.

Since he had no intention of attending university—tuition was too expensive—he simply accepted the dean of students' underground employment offer early and obtained a very decent job and pay.

To earn an extra 0.5 in wages, he took on three additional jobs at the factory.

Craving even more income, he worked part-time in underground boxing and occasionally threw fights, displaying deeply questionable professional ethics.

Wanting to come into contact with supernatural power and become a man above men, he voluntarily joined Fire Fang and fought to be the one sent to offer himself up at sacrifice sites on weekends.

The reason the two brothers worked so hard to forge ahead was that, while their mother was alive, she had tirelessly drilled the following brainwashing instruction into them from childhood: "Our Yuan family was once a distinguished noble house of the Great Rest, with bells and cauldrons, food and poetry, inherited rites and learning. Now that we have drifted to a foreign land and the family has fallen into decline, you brothers must strive and rise, bring glory to your ancestors, revive the family estate, and let your mother live a good life."

Unfortunately, their mother herself had failed to live up to expectations. She coveted glory and riches, yet refused to properly marry a dependable man. After her second marriage failed, she contracted an illness but insisted on traveling far away to fight over an inheritance in another land, ultimately dying of illness on the road.

Although he had become an orphan after the age of ten, a full decade of brainwashing had branded Yuan Zhu with the ideological seal of "bring glory to the ancestors and revive the family estate." Step by step, he had become the grind-addicted striver he was today—and he enjoyed every moment of it.

Facing his younger brother's concerned gaze, Yuan Zhu casually waved a hand. "It's nothing. I ran into a small problem, but it's already been dealt with. I came back late today. What did you do for dinner?"

Yuan Su said, "I made something myself. I saved some for you too."

"Good. Here's twenty yuan—take it for living expenses. I have personal matters to handle over the next few days, so I'll be coming home irregularly. Eat out by yourself. Don't wait for me."

As he spoke, he took out a genuine leather wallet left behind by one of the believers. Opening it revealed a thick stack of bills in various denominations, from which he pulled out four five-yuan notes. This was already the equivalent of an ordinary adult's wages for a hard week of work—more than enough for living expenses.

Seeing bloodstains on the bills that seemed as though they had not yet dried, Yuan Su looked worried. "Big Brother, where did this money come from? Why is there so much of it? I've never seen this wallet either. You didn't think working was too tiring, so you started doing something illegal, did you?"

"Get lost! I do think work is exhausting and pays too little, but this money came clean and aboveboard. Even the Security Bureau can't do anything to me. It just has a little blood on it, that's all. Have I had few days of seeing red? Take it and use it boldly. Your brother has now attained enlightenment at Dragon Field—one sudden realization, and the clouds have parted. I'm planning to live differently. The good days for us brothers are still ahead. Just study honestly and seriously. Don't meddle in anything else."

Seeing that his brother's temperament and mental state were clearly abnormal, Yuan Su nodded helplessly and did not press further, instead putting the money away. At the same time, he took note of his brother's changes, worried that something might have happened to him during the day to cause such a drastic shift in his mindset.

That thick stack of bills in the unfamiliar wallet might be the root of the problem. Could Big Brother really have joined some criminal gang? He vaguely remembered someone once hinting at recruiting his brother to take on underground employment. Even Big Brother's toilet duel with the principal had allowed him to pass peacefully through middle school, with no school bully daring to provoke him.

Big Brother had a prior record! Had he finally grown unable to endure a life of becoming wealthy through honest labor? Was the White Harbor Fist he had cultivated so painstakingly for years finally going to display its power in the wrong field? At this moment, Yuan Su was consumed with worry.

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