Run! He Pursues! There's No Escape for Either of Them!

"Yan Ci!"

"Is that any way to speak to your eldest brother!"

The stern, scolding voice woke Yan Xianjue up.

[Huh?]

Yan Xianjue pressed his throbbing temples.

Taking in the tense atmosphere in the living room, he quickly collected himself.

Ten minutes ago, he was just a bright, innocent, and pure high school boy.

His biggest daily worry was how hard his physics homework was.

Just a moment ago, the memories of his past life had suddenly awakened.

*

In his past life, he lived in an era of relentless, grueling competition where everyone vied fiercely wherever they went.

Hailing from an orphanage with the fewest resources, he had to fight tooth and nail just to survive.

Only then could he barely scrape by and eke out a living.

In the end, he successfully worked himself to death.

Yan Xianjue sincerely hoped that his sudden death right there at his thesis defense hadn't frightened his teachers and classmates.

And, he still hadn't finished paying off his student loans.

The awakening of these memories seemed to bring the exhaustion from the depths of his soul along with it.

Before Yan Xianjue could ponder it further, he fell fast asleep.

*

"Ha!" A younger voice let out a mocking snort.

The man slammed the folder in his hand onto the coffee table.

It produced a crisp, loud bang.

Yan Xianjue, who had just woken up, jolted in fright.

He looked up and down at the man, whose neck veins were bulging visibly.

Yan Xianjue remembered why he and his parents were sitting here.

Today was Sunday, and Yan Xianjue had spent the entire morning making up homework.

Writing it had left him dizzy.

During lunch, he heard his parents telling him that the second older brother had called back.

Saying he had something to discuss with them.

And telling them not to leave the house.

After finishing lunch, Yan Xianjue sat on the sofa downstairs, lazily yawning while waiting for them.

Instead of the second brother, the eldest brother had returned first.

[What's going on? Eldest brother isn't working overtime today?]

His eldest brother was an absolute workaholic; placed in his past life's era, he probably would have been a master of the grind.

[Didn't the eldest brother buy a large flat near the company just to save on commute time?]

The second brother actually managed to make this workaholic come home too?

Yan Xianjue instinctively straightened his posture, growing interested in what the second brother wanted to talk about.

*

The moment the second brother strode through the doorway, looking travel-worn.

Yan Xianjue's memories were like a preset switch that had been flipped, gushing out all at once.

Following that, before he even had a chance to listen to the second brother speak, he uncontrollably fell unconscious.

So, what had happened during this middle period?

The second brother let out a grief-stricken and indignant low roar from his throat: "Dad, all you know how to do is favor the eldest brother!"

"He's just an adopted son, yet now he's practically pocketed nearly half of the Yan Household! Don't you guys even care?!"

Yan Xianjue turned his head away and rolled his eyes.

[What kind of madness is the second brother spouting now?]

*

Facing his second younger brother's accusations, Yan Yi'an's expression did not change.

Instead, he looked at Yan Xianjue, who was sitting on the single-person sofa opposite him.

Before Yan Ci came back, he had already felt that something was a bit off.

He and Yan Xianjue sat facing each other, separated by a long coffee table.

During this year's physical exam, his vision was still an excellent 5.0.

He saw things very clearly, and the possibility of mistaking what he saw did not exist.

The results of his physical exam from not long ago also did not indicate that he was under enough mental stress to hallucinate.

Therefore, Yan Xianjue genuinely had not made any mouth-moving actions just a moment ago.

He cast a stingy glance at the folder Yan Ci had slammed onto the coffee table, then quickly withdrew his gaze.

Regarding his own background, the Yan patriarch had already made it crystal clear to him on the night he turned eighteen.

He had a clear conscience and didn't condescend to explain anything.

Right now, he was much more interested in Yan Xianjue.

For instance, where did that voice come from?

*

As the youngest of the Yan Household, Yan Xianjue was far inferior to the first four children, each of whom possessed their own unique talents.

When he was born, the Yan matriarch was already of advanced maternal age.

To ease the physical burden on her, Yan Xianjue was born prematurely via a C-section on a doctor's recommendation.

Precisely because of this, the Yan patriarch and matriarch always held a sense of guilt toward him.

Their demands of him were also far lower than those for the older children.

Yan Yi'an wasn't very close with this younger brother who had such a large age gap.

What was interesting was this.

After Yan Ci brought up the fact that he wasn't the biological son of the Yan patriarch and matriarch.

Yan Xianjue's first reaction wasn't shock at all.

Instead, he felt like Yan Ci was losing his mind?

*

Yan Ci clenched his fists tightly.

He glared fiercely at Yan Xianjue.

Threatening: "Shut up!"

The Yan patriarch frowned: "Who are you telling to shut up?"

He felt genuine, heartfelt confusion.

Yet Yan Ci only believed this was yet another instance of the Yan patriarch favoring Yan Xianjue!

Yan Xianjue was equally clueless as to why he was being targeted.

He saw it clearly: Yan Ci's gaze and anger were directed squarely at him.

He glared right back with an equally fierce look.

[Did Yan Ci eat gunpowder today?]

Yan Ci desperately wanted to yell at the top of his lungs and tell him to shut up.

Yet he felt that today's priority was the matter concerning the eldest brother, and he couldn't let Yan Xianjue disrupt things.

Once he exposed the eldest brother's wolfish ambitions to their parents.

That useless little good-for-nothing Yan Xianjue, who only knew how to drag people down, wouldn't be able to stir up any trouble.

Comforting himself with these thoughts in his mind.

Yan Ci let out a heavy snort toward Yan Xianjue and stopped paying attention to him.

*

The Yan patriarch picked up the folder on the coffee table and flipped through a few pages briefly.

He closed it with a sharp smack.

"Just this?" The Yan patriarch placed the folder back onto the coffee table and asked with an ambiguous tone.

Yan Ci felt that his attitude was somewhat wrong.

But since everyone was already here, he saw no need to hide it and nodded in admission.

The Yan patriarch said in a deep voice: "Your eldest brother's background, your mother and I are more than clear on it."

"Even if we need to give an explanation to someone, that person should be your eldest brother, not you."

"Now, apologize to your eldest brother!"

Yan Ci pressed his pale lips together and stubbornly stood in place without saying a word.

Stiffening his neck, he resolutely waited for the Yan patriarch to give him an explanation.

Although Yan Xianjue did not hear what Yan Ci said earlier.

Yet the key words in these two sentences from Old Master Yan pointed far too clearly.

He quickly rummaged through the memories he had just awakened with to fish out this painfully familiar scene.

Good news: in this life his reincarnation skills were quite good, making him the youngest son of the wealthy Yan Household in Shenzhen.

Everyone in his family except him was an industry titan.

He could lie flat at home for a lifetime and never starve to death.

Bad news: this was a world fused from several dog-blood romance novels.

The titans in his family were all reserve villains.

And the scene right before his eyes.

Was precisely the plot of his second older brother's first appearance as a vicious male supporting character and villain.

After Marrying a Rich Old Man by Contract was a dog-blood romance novel disguised as a business war story.

She flees!

He chases!

Neither of them can fly away!

Because it was published on a certain free novel website, it had won Yan Xianjue's deep affection.

What cost no money was simply the best!

At most he sent free gifts from the app to show his support for the author.

Such trashy plebeian literature was his most favored genre.

The plot was dog-blood, cliché, and mindless, a bit too naive for high schoolers.

Yet for a college student like him.

Who had been forced to become an early corporate wage slave just to earn living expenses before even graduating, it was just right!

The novel's plot could not be considered all that complicated.

The female lead and the male lead were in a typical commercial arranged marriage.

With no emotional foundation between them, the female lead fled on the day of their engagement.

And then kicked off a series of nesting-doll behaviors of her fleeing, him catching her, her fleeing again, and him catching her again.

Yan Xianjue thought it felt very satisfying when he read the novel.

Yet he never expected that the cheap family members he got in this life would become a part of their play!

Yan Xianjue looked with a heart as dead as ashes at the oldest brother sitting across from him.

The oldest brother's gaze was somewhat complicated.

However, it did not matter, for Yan Xianjue felt that the way he was looking at the oldest brother right now was about the same level of complicated.

The male lead was precisely that rich old man from the novel's title.

If he remembered correctly, this male lead was the exact same age as his oldest brother.

Yan Xianjue even felt a sense of grievance on behalf of Yan Yi'an.

Single since birth for twenty-eight years without even having dated yet, and he was already classified among the ranks of old men!

If you could say his second older brother Yan Ci was merely a minor villain and a vicious male supporting character.

Then the oldest brother Yan Yi'an was the biggest villain in this novel.

As for himself, he completely lacked a name in the novel.

He ought to be just one of those background extras with hardly any ink spent on them.

Horray!

His past life was too exhausting!

In this life he wanted to be a salted fish that did not even need to flip over!

Yan Xianjue ticked things off on his fingers as he calculated.

How many steps in total did it take to be a well-fed and well-clothed extra with no worries about food or clothing in a novel world?

His gaze shifted back and forth between Father Yan, Mother Yan, and the oldest brother.

As for such a massive second older brother, he directly ignored him.

The second older brother had an impatient personality and was prone to impulse.

All of his intelligence points had been added to playing e-sports.

In the novel, the second older brother was exploited by others multiple times.

He stabbed the oldest brother in the back when the Yan Household was beset by internal and external troubles amid a precarious storm.

Therefore, the second older brother was completely out of the question to rely on.

As long as he did not hold them back, that would already be helping out.

Thinking of this, Yan Xianjue suddenly gave a full-body shudder:

[No way! I have to warn the oldest brother and absolutely not let the second older brother enter the company!]