Toilet Duel!

After the anomalous spacetime event, Yuan Zhu continued his journey uneventfully, encountering no further strange occurrences, and arrived safely at his apartment building.

He looked up at the four-story red brick building, familiar yet somewhat alien. The architectural style resembled the Khrushchev buildings of the former Soviet Union, with a cramped layout and countless windows from which clotheslines with iron wires extended.

His home was on the third floor. Entering the dark stairwell, a damp, unpleasant odor immediately assaulted his nostrils. Ascending the stairs, the walls were mottled and peeling, covered in moss. Entering the crowded, narrow corridor, the walls and ceiling were covered in black oily smoke stains from cooking.

Several foraging rats, startled, scurried into a corner, secretly eyeing their relatives hanging on the door. Why do they smell so good, while we are hunted down by everyone? Someone, hang me up there too.

Yuan Zhu shook his head. The living environment was terrible; this dilapidated place was barely better than a slum. And to think, I'm a high school graduate, living in a place like this? Where did all the money go? Following his memory and instinct, he identified his apartment door. He pulled out a loose brick from the wall, retrieved the spare key from inside, and successfully unlocked the door. His hand then groped along the doorframe for a hanging light cord and pulled it sharply.

Snap! The limited interior space was immediately illuminated by a dim yellow light. In the small living room, there was a table, a few chairs, a shelf, and the rest of the space was filled with everyday items and metal mechanical parts, mostly defective products Yuan Zhu had brought back from the factory.

Hanging from the center of the ceiling was a light furnace the size of a basketball. The upper hemisphere was a complex metal structure, and the lower hemisphere was a transparent glass cover. Alchemical elements were injected inside the container, which could release light and heat through the filament.

It only costs 1 yuan to fill it up, and it lasts about a month. The steam factory where Yuan Zhu worked produced these things.

The apartment was small, with two bedrooms and a living room, totaling just over thirty square meters. There was no toilet, kitchen, or balcony... Cooking was done in the corridor, and washing and relieving oneself were done in the water room. In winter, they used their own stove.

As a result, the probability of fire and winter CO poisoning was very high. He had moved twice, both times because his neighbors or the downstairs apartment had caught fire. Then there was no need to panic, just pack up valuables and jump out the window, since it wouldn't kill you anyway.

"Brother?"

The young man resting inside was startled, rubbed his eyes, pushed open the door, and looked at Yuan Zhu, who was wearing ill-fitting clothes. He asked with concern, "Why are you back so late? Did you run into any trouble?"

The young man's name was Yuan Su, also taking his mother's surname. He was his half-brother. He was 14 years old this year, but he looked like he was 15 or 16.

He had short black hair, wine-red pupils, fair skin, a slender build, delicate features, a gentle personality, and excellent grades. He was very popular with the female students, and often bold young girls would come to his door to give him food. He was the epitome of someone else's orphan.

Yuan Su had shown academic potential from a young age, with an introverted and gentle personality, stable emotions, and proficiency in household chores. He had excellent interpersonal relationships at school and received scholarships every year. It wouldn't be strange if he had a different gender.

From a young age, Yuan Zhu had focused on investing in and cultivating him to become a college student. Yuan Zhu, on the other hand, differed from his brother in every way except for their shared surname and eye color.

He was 187cm tall and weighed 85kg, tall and healthy, a head taller than his slender brother. One punch from him could make his brother cry for a long time.

Yuan Su's appearance was soft and handsome, while Yuan Zhu had shoulder-length black seaweed-like curly hair, a straight and prominent nose, raised brow bones, deep-set eyes, and thin lips. He looked wild and had the air of an eagle and wolf, which overshadowed his otherwise decent looks.

Whenever he made eye contact with people, it was seen as a provocative gaze, leading to physical altercations. Over time, he became accustomed to this way of making friends. So he practiced boxing from a young age, because it helped with communication and allowed the other person to feel his moral standards. (Subduing people with virtue)

After becoming an adult, he seamlessly transitioned into the underground black boxing business to earn extra money. This was a typical case of appearance determining fate: because of his sharp and outstanding gaze from a young age, he passively developed an 'aggressive friendly personality', eventually embarking on the path of an underground part-time martial artist.

His grades were somewhat uneven, not as all-around as his brother's, but he respected knowledge and always paid for both of their high tuition fees. Unfortunately, in the last semester of high school, he was expelled for having a fair fight with the principal in the toilet, forcing him to drop out early.

As an aside, the principal was hospitalized with a concussion and fractures, then backstabbed by the director of education who took the credit, and left in dismay, eventually returning to his hometown to raise Tasmanian devils.

Afterward, the director of education not only gave Yuan Zhu a unique, belated graduation red envelope, but also helped him contact his current steam factory, where he became a senior technician.

In terms of personality, Yuan Zhu was positive, optimistic, and cheerful from a young age. Because he single-handedly shouldered the responsibility of raising his brother, he was particularly outgoing and had a strong desire to improve himself. He deeply craved wealth, power, status... eventually developing the personality of a workaholic.

Because he didn't plan to go to college (tuition was too expensive), he simply accepted the director of education's underground employment in advance, getting a very good job + compensation.

In order to get an extra 0.5 salary, he took on three jobs at the factory.

Wanting more income, he worked part-time in the underground boxing world, and occasionally threw fights, with questionable professional ethics.

Wanting to come into contact with extraordinary power and become a superior person, he actively joined the Fire Fang, rushing to the sacrificial venue on weekends to deliver himself as cannon fodder.

The reason why the two brothers worked so hard was that their mother, before her death, had tirelessly instilled in them the brainwashing instruction that 'Our Yuan family is a prominent aristocratic family, with a distinguished lineage and a tradition of scholarship and etiquette. Now that we are stranded in a foreign land and our family fortune has declined, you brothers must strive to rise up, bring honor to our ancestors, revitalize the family business, and let your mother live a good life.'

Unfortunately, their mother was not ambitious, greedy for wealth and glory, and unwilling to find a reliable man to marry. After her second failed marriage, she contracted a disease but insisted on traveling to a foreign land to compete for inheritance, eventually dying on the road.

Although he became an orphan after the age of 10, the decade-long brainwashing had also imprinted Yuan Zhu with the idea of 'bringing honor to his ancestors and revitalizing the family business', gradually turning him into the workaholic he was today, and he enjoyed it.

Facing his brother's concerned gaze, Yuan Zhu waved his hand casually: "It's nothing, I ran into a little problem, but it's been taken care of. I came back late today, what did you have for dinner?"

Yuan Su: "I made it myself, and I saved some for you."

"Good. Here's 20 yuan, take it for living expenses. For the next few days, I have some private matters to deal with, and my return home will be irregular. Eat outside yourself, don't wait for me."

Saying that, he took out a genuine leather wallet left behind by a certain believer, opened it to reveal a stack of paper money of various sizes, and then pulled out four 5-yuan notes. This was already a normal adult's hard-earned week's salary, more than enough to use as living expenses.

Seeing the bloodstains on the banknotes that seemed not yet dry, Yuan Su looked worried: "Brother, where did you get this money? How come there's so much, and I've never seen this wallet before. You wouldn't have found your job too tiring, so you're engaged in some illegal occupation, are you?"

"Get out of here! Although I do think my job is too tiring and I don't earn enough, this money came cleanly and honestly. Even the Security Bureau can't do anything to me, it's just a little bloodstain. Haven't I seen enough blood? Take it and use it boldly, your brother has had a dragon field enlightenment, a sudden epiphany, and plans to change his way of life. Our brothers' good days are yet to come, you just need to study hard. Don't worry about anything else."

Looking at his brother, whose temperament and mental state were obviously abnormal, Yuan Su nodded helplessly and stopped asking, but put the money away. At the same time, he also kept his brother's changes in mind, worried that he had encountered some accident during the day that had caused such a drastic change in his mentality.

That thick stack of banknotes in the unfamiliar wallet might be the root of the problem. Could his brother really have joined some criminal gang? He vaguely remembered that someone had hinted at recruiting his brother to take on some underground employment. Even the fact that his brother had a duel with the principal in the toilet had allowed him to spend his middle school years smoothly, without a single school bully daring to provoke him.

His brother had a criminal record! Could it be that he finally couldn't stand the life of earning wealth through hard work? Was the White Harbor Fist he had painstakingly practiced for many years finally going to be used in the wrong area? At this moment, his brother Yuan Su was full of worry.

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