Chapter 4

Feeling the heartfelt sincerity of his friends, Weng Shao lowered his head with a smile, though his eyes stung slightly.

In his previous life, it had been these roommates he saw every day, along with his teachers, who had counseled and comforted him. Unfortunately, Weng Shao had been completely unable to listen back then. Swept along by malicious public opinion and bound by the moral shackles of people who talked without knowing his pain, he had trapped himself in a cocoon and found fault wherever he turned. It was only many years later, under Pei Xingze's deliberate seduction, that he slowly emerged from it.

There was no denying that Pei Xingze's original intention in seducing him had likely been to use Weng Shao's hand to destroy the Weng Group. But Pei Xingze had also successfully awakened the savagery and desire Weng Shao had buried in the deepest part of his heart, transforming him from a battered trapped beast into a predator with razor-sharp fangs.

The two of them used each other and colluded in wrongdoing. They claimed to work together seamlessly, yet secretly guarded against the other stabbing them in the back. For a long time, Weng Shao could not determine what exactly their relationship was. Not until Pei Xingze died before his eyes—

Weng Shao closed his eyes. Everything from his past life flashed before him like a slideshow, finally freezing on Pei Xingze's blood-covered face. "I told you long ago. The fortune-teller said you were a lone star of calamity, with shallow family ties, destined to be betrayed by everyone sooner or later... But the fortune-teller never said you'd bring disaster upon your husband too... You really got me killed. Luckily, the beneficiary in my will... is you..."

"Don't you dare use my money to keep some pretty boy... Otherwise, even as a ghost, I—I won't... let... you... off..."

Author's Note:

Chapter 4

The moment he accidentally thought of Pei Xingze, Weng Shao's mind, which had been racing at high speed, suddenly stalled. His normally cold, hardened heart actually felt a faint, dense ache.

Weng Shao smiled mockingly. He thought that perhaps he truly was what everyone said he was: a heartless, ungrateful man with a wolf's heart and a dog's lungs.

After Pei Xingze died, Weng Shao had accepted his kindness, so naturally he obeyed the will and did not use Pei Xingze's money to keep a pretty boy—though Weng Shao had no idea why Pei Xingze had written his name in the will. Still, trading a lifetime of celibacy for such an enormous fortune did not seem like a bad deal to Weng Shao. After all, even unrelated outsiders knew that Weng Shao was insatiably greedy and had loved nothing but money his entire life.

Weng Shao guessed that Pei Xingze had left his estate to him because he wanted him to have something to remember him by. Unfortunately, the eldest young master of the Pei family had misjudged his lover's heart of stone. After Pei Xingze's death, Weng Shao had never once thought of him on his own initiative. Only in the dead of night, Pei Xingze, who had always loved opposing him, would barge into his dreams without permission, continuing to pester him endlessly even after death. Before long, he would not even spare him during the day.

Whether Weng Shao was in a meeting or reviewing documents, Pei Xingze would casually plop himself down nearby. For a time, Weng Shao could not tell whether Pei Xingze had truly died or had simply come up with some crooked scheme to torment him again.

News of Weng Shao's mental state was quickly spread by people with ulterior motives. The Weng family, who had been waiting for an opportunity to turn things around, struck first. They wanted to use Weng Shao's supposed schizophrenia as an excuse to lock him in a sanatorium. Naturally, Weng Shao would not sit still and wait to be killed.

He first found evidence and sent Weng Zhen, the mastermind behind the kidnapping, to prison. Weng Yingjie and his wife even tried to have a lawyer argue that Weng Zhen was not guilty because of his history of mental illness. Weng Shao used the same excuse to send Weng Yingjie and his wife to a sanatorium. After all, once he had acquired the Weng Group and inherited Pei Xingze's estate, he had more money than he could spend. He could keep Weng Yingjie and his wife in that sanatorium until the end of time—this could also be considered his filial duty as their son.

Because of this, rumors ran rampant outside. They all said Weng Shao had lost his mind, committed every kind of evil, and would not even spare his biological parents and full brother. Everyone pointed at Weng Shao's back and cursed him, but fortunately, Weng Shao had long since gotten over it. Those people had never thought highly of him when he was poor and destitute. Now that he had money and power, why should he care about their barking?

"Weng Shao? Weng Shao?"

Weng Shao came back to himself. A hand was waving wildly before his eyes. Zhang Chang looked at the Weng Shao whose gaze had suddenly gone vacant and asked worriedly, "Are you okay?"

Though everyone urged Weng Shao not to take it to heart, after something like this happened, who could truly not care at all about gossip and rumors? They had not lived through it themselves and could not completely empathize with him. All they could do was comfort their friend with words.

Yet many times, words were the palest and most powerless thing in the face of reality.

"I'm fine." Weng Shao gently touched his violently pounding heart. It suddenly occurred to him that at this point in time, Pei Xingze was not yet dead, and his family was still alive and well. The eldest young master of the Pei family, whom people called dissolute and unruly, was at that very moment living vividly somewhere on Earth, dressed in finery and riding a spirited horse.

He could breathe, had body heat, could run and jump, could speak and deceive him, and could kiss him with lingering tenderness.

How will we meet again this time? Weng Shao thought. He needed to prepare thoroughly. He absolutely could not be as hurried and disheveled as he had been during their last farewell.

However, before Weng Shao could carefully plan his first meeting with Pei Xingze, a bucket of cold water was dumped over his head.

—On the second day after returning to school, the city's senior-year students held their second mock examination. Weng Shao performed poorly. When the results came out, his total score was more than two hundred points lower than in the first mock exam. Weng Shao, who had remained first in his grade throughout all three years of high school, had fallen out of the top three hundred for the first time. The entire school was in an uproar.

His sudden drop in scores caught the teachers' attention. His homeroom teacher, Teacher Chen, called Weng Shao into the office for a talk and earnestly advised him to focus on his studies. "...There are only two months left until the National College Entrance Examination. This is the second major turning point in life. If being born did not make you superior to others, you can still change your life through your own hard work. I believe the latter is clearly more fulfilling."

The matter of Weng Shao recognizing his family had caused a huge stir, and Teacher Chen had heard about it as well. Unlike the small number of students who took pleasure in his misfortune, the teachers at City No. 1 High School all felt deeply saddened. They had watched helplessly as an outstanding child in both character and academics was crushed into a sorry state by the burdens of life, then, because of one mistaken decision, was cursed to his face by his biological parents and became notorious overnight.

"If you do not want to accept Jinghai Normal University's guaranteed admission offer, you can also study hard and get into Jinghai University. Our country has student loan policies. After you get into university, you can keep working hard and earn scholarships to cover your living expenses. I believe you are fully capable of it." Teacher Chen patiently counseled Weng Shao.

In truth, after what had happened to Weng Shao, it was already impossible for him to receive the school's guaranteed admission quota. Their school had received complaints from several parents, who believed that a student with such corrupt morals as Weng Shao was unqualified to occupy a guaranteed admission spot.

Teacher Chen did not want to argue with those parents, but as Weng Shao's homeroom teacher, she had to take responsibility for her student.

"The adult world is complicated, but do not overthink it. You are still a student now, and a student's duty is to study."

"Only by studying hard will you have the chance to leap out of this pond before you and enter a wider world. Do not let the hardships in front of you frighten you. You must believe that setbacks are only temporary. So long as you persevere and keep moving forward, one day you will discover that the road ahead stretches long and bright, and your little boat has already passed ten thousand mountains."

After that day, everyone discovered that Weng Shao had once again entered a state of total immersion in studying.

No matter how others mocked him, or even stood in front of him, pointed at his nose, and cursed him for forgetting kindness, having a wolf's heart and dog's lungs, and being such a flawed person that even his parents did not love him, Weng Shao remained unmoved.

There were only twenty-four hours in a day. Aside from the four hours he spent sleeping each night, Weng Shao used every moment to review his high school material. Day and night, he forgot food and sleep.

But the more Weng Shao acted as though nothing had happened, the more some people could not stand him, envied him, and intensified their abuse. They wanted to shatter the icy mask on Weng Shao's face. They wanted to see him panic, become disheveled, or even reveal shame and self-loathing. They wanted to drag that lofty favored son of heaven off his pedestal, have everyone point at his back, and trample him beneath their feet. Unfortunately, no one could do it.

Faced with the increasingly heated accusations and condemnations at school, Weng Shao never spoke. He did not argue with anyone or trade insults with them. It seemed that no person, no event, and no words could shake Weng Shao's determination to study.

Weng Shao truly did not care about those rumors. Across two lifetimes, he had heard those words so often that his ears had grown calluses. They were all the same tired clichés, repeated over and over without the slightest originality.

When eighteen-year-old Weng Shao heard those accusations and curses, he would feel hurt and angry. He would feel guilty and afraid, and even wonder whether he was really as terrible as they claimed. But when Weng Shao, twenty years later, heard those words again, he only felt that the repetitive curses had less bite than the more than two hundred points he had lost on the second mock exam.

Rather than argue with those malicious parrots who could not bear to see others succeed, Weng Shao would rather devote all his energy to studying. His time was precious—he had to adjust himself as quickly as possible, then step by step, walk until he stood before Pei Xingze.

Author's Note:

Chapter 5

Being reborn at this point in time was fortunate for Weng Shao.

In his previous life, Weng Shao had been affected by rumors and gossip. During the final sprint of his senior year, he had failed to review properly, which ultimately led to a poor National College Entrance Examination result. He had only gotten into one of Jinghai City's lowest-ranked Project 985 universities. But he had been reborn on Qingming Festival. Though there were only a little over two months left before the National College Entrance Examination, less than seventy days in total; though Weng Shao had not touched a textbook for a full ten years before his rebirth—his mind had long been crammed with industry news and big data, leaving no room for high school knowledge from a decade ago—his foundation was there. Even taking the second mock exam in such haste, his score was only a little over two hundred points lower than in the first mock exam.

Most of that gap of more than two hundred points was in Chinese and the three science subjects.

Having graduated too long ago, Weng Shao had long forgotten the Chinese curriculum points that required memorizing entire texts, as well as the problem-solving formulas and chemical molecular formulas for the three science subjects. Fortunately, after years of work, his mathematical foundation had not declined, and his English was even more proficient. Two months was short, but for Weng Shao, who was accustomed to systematic review and quickly absorbing and mastering new information, it was enough.