I Can't Imagine How Well Yan Ci Usually Eats

Night fell.

Yan Ci lay on the large bed in the base dormitory.

His phone, with its screen still glowing, was casually tossed to one side.

It teetered precariously, almost sliding off the mattress.

Yan Yi'an was usually a man of few words, and the final message spanning several paragraphs clearly did not match his personality.

Yan Ci covered his eyes with one hand, letting himself review the beginning and end of this matter.

Finally, every word from the message surfaced in his mind.

Those details about his eldest brother's background, and the real reason why they had not been told.

The hidden danger lurking behind it all.

Even though he had vaguely caught a glimpse of it through Yan Xianjue's inner voice.

When it was truly laid out bare in front of him, Yan Ci still inevitably felt panic.

And his eldest brother, as the person directly involved, patiently explained it to him word by word.

It was like explaining to a toddler just learning to walk how to walk both fast and steadily.

At that moment, he suddenly felt that although Yan Xianjue had a sharp tongue at times.

He was not entirely without merits.

How could he have lost his mind like that and believed Li Yang's bullshit?

Or was this the so-called power of the plot?

Able to manipulate his actions and make him behave in a way completely different from usual.

Yan Ci shook his head, dismissing this absurd conjecture.

He did not feel controlled or forced.

It was his own subconscious distrust of his family and eldest brother that had caused all of this.

Yan Ci was not someone accustomed to shirking his own mistakes.

Although Yan Xianjue had always insisted with absolute certainty that he was an e-sports genius.

His current skills and game sense were both hard-earned through solid, grueling practice.

He had not put in any less effort than anyone else.

Throughout his career as a professional e-sports player, the first thing he learned was not how to enjoy glory.

It was how to lose.

Losing meant reviewing the match, starting over again day after day, which shaped the person he was today.

Li Yang was detestable for unearthing that tiny shred of deep-seated distrust within him.

Then using his own experiences to insinuate, amplify, and make him feel a sense of shared empathy.

Yet at the end of the day, it was still his own fault.

Yan Ci suddenly grabbed his phone and sat up with a start.

Yan Xianjue had eaten too much that evening.

He had just finished drinking a cup of digestion-boosting hawthorn tea brewed by the family chef.

Lazily hugging a throw pillow, he curled up in his own lazy sofa.

This sofa was custom-made for him by his mother based on his height.

Neither too big nor too small, it was just right for a young man over six feet tall to curl up inside.

His fingers nimbly kept swiping across the screen.

"Yan bro, save me!" Zhou Ye's voice blared from the phone, mixed with his teammates' curses.

"Not saving you!" Yan Xianjue said ruthlessly.

"Save me, save me! Last time! I'll share new gossip with you tomorrow," Zhou Ye promised.

Only a fool would believe his bullshit.

"You just said last time, and yet no sooner had I picked you up than you died again before even leaving that room!"

"Are you even capable of anything?"

If not for their childhood friendship.

Yan Xianjue truly didn't want to play games with someone like Zhou Ye, whose skills were terrible yet whose addiction was huge.

Zhou Ye had been a gaming black hole since childhood, and Yan Ci had once played a single game with him.

After it ended that day, Yan Ci had looked at him with a complex expression.

Thinking he must have some kind of dirt on Zhou Ye.

That was the only reason he would be willing to play games with him, even gently reminding him that the Yan family members didn't need to wrong themselves like that.

Yan Xianjue said viciously, "Last match, we're sleeping after this."

"Fine, fine, fine. For the sake of it being the last match, hurry up and fish me out," Zhou Ye said in an urgent tone.

Reluctantly, Yan Xianjue ran back. "You're about to enter the poison zone, can't you run out of that house?"

His tone, full of distrust, instantly provoked Zhou Ye's rebellious spirit. "Underestimating people, aren't you? Just wait and see, I can definitely run out."

Yan Xianjue had no idea what there was for him to be proud of.

While carefully listening for footsteps to prevent a sudden sneak attack from capsizing his boat in a gutter.

He tossed bandages near Zhou Ye's character avatar.

Expertly ignoring the random teammate's complaints.

The moment Yan Xianjue helped Zhou Ye up, he heard a burst of footsteps.

Then a grenade was thrown precisely at him.

"Crap!" Yan Xianjue cursed, a rare occurrence for him.

He had sensed it the moment the grenade was thrown.

Without a moment's hesitation, he dropped Zhou Ye and prepared to jump out the window and run.

Right then, two notifications popped up on his phone screen.

His fleeing character clearly paused for a fraction of a second, changing from jumping out the window to shielding Zhou Ye instead.

If not for his full health bar, he would have bitten the dust right then and there.

"What's wrong?" Zhou Ye asked with concern.

Hearing Yan Xianjue swear was uncommon; this guy was so emotionally stable he didn't seem like his peers at all.

By which he meant someone who would deal with troublemakers with a cold expression.

Yan Xianjue cursed as he grumbled, "Who knows who texted me this late at night? People are here and you still aren't raising your gun, are you planning to keep them to breed?"

"Got it!" Zhou Ye obediently took orders.

Looking at the magnified over on the screen, Yan Xianjue covered his eyes in mental exhaustion.

How could he ever trust the skills of a gaming black hole?

He might as well have let Zhou Ye hold a frying pan; at least that wouldn't have resulted in friendly fire killing him.

"Yan bro, are you alright?" Zhou Ye asked cautiously on the other end of the call.

A fake smile hung on the corners of Yan Xianjue's mouth. "Fine."

Zhou Ye felt that this tone didn't sound fine at all.

Laughing it off, he said, "Let's call it a night here. I'm getting ready to sleep too, I still have classes tomorrow."

Yan Xianjue gave him a couple of perfunctory brush-offs.

As he exited the game to see who had texted him so late and turned him into an unjust ghost under Zhou Ye's gun.

The first thing that caught his eye was a transfer notification.

He repeatedly confirmed it several times: "Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, hundred thousands, millions!"

The higher he counted, the louder his voice got, and the more excited he became.

[Second brother actually transferred two million to me this late!]

[What kind of fairy-tale second brother is this?]

For a moment, the corners of Yan Xianjue's mouth were harder to suppress than an AK.

Yan's father and mother had just lain down when they heard Yan Xianjue's melodramatic inner voice transmission.

Rolling their eyes, they immediately knew why Yan Ci had transferred money to Yan Xianjue.

Father and Mother Yan found it somewhat amusing; they had never deprived him of anything or left him short.

Why was he so obsessed with money?

At this moment, he completely forgot how he had previously ridiculed Yan Ci for being foolish enough to be brainwashed.

The continuous stream of inner monologue gave Mother Yan a headache.

Mother Yan rubbed her temples. "Why is this child still awake so late?"

Father Yan chuckled. "Must be uncomfortable sleeping right after eating too much."

Mother Yan scolded playfully, "How old is he, and still lacking self-control with food."

"You can't entirely blame Xianjue for that; Fatty Bro's cooking is genuinely good."

"Yan Ci really knows how to enjoy life."

They didn't dare imagine how well Yan Ci usually ate.

That restaurant was so close to Yan Ci; if they lived nearby, they'd go eat there every day too.

Mother Yan sighed. "Fortunately, high school seniors have a regular routine, otherwise Xianjue's abrupt outbursts would be too much of a nuisance to the neighbors."

Father Yan: "When he goes to university, we'll buy him an apartment near campus and make him move out."

"That won't do." Mother Yan immediately objected.

Just meeting Father Yan's teasing gaze.

Disregarding her elegant image, Mother Yan rolled her eyes. "Who knows if this incident will leave any emotional scars on Xianjue? I certainly can't trust him to live out on his own yet."

Father Yan laughed merrily. "Didn't the family doctor check him over? Aside from eating too much tonight, our Xianjue is as healthy as can be."

He didn't even have the insomnia common among high school seniors, sleeping soundly every day.

Yan Xianjue, whose bedroom was quite far down the hall, remained oblivious to the tangled mix of worry and relief his parents were experiencing at that moment.

He stared at the text message from his second brother that immediately followed, a conflicted look on his face.

He had thought this was hush money from his second brother, or ransom for his dark history.

To his surprise, the message contained only three bold, sweeping characters: 'Pocket money'.

This was the first time he had ever received pocket money from his second brother!

Shocking! Second brother was only two years older than him!

Yan Xianjue suddenly felt that his money-making plan was extremely urgent.

He turned out to be the only person in the house with nothing to do!

After a long while, Yan Xianjue picked out a 'Thanks boss' sticker from his numerous emojis and sent it.

Putting away his phone, he began to calculate his little treasury.

Having saved nearly a million since childhood, plus the five million from his eldest brother and the two million from his second brother.

He had a full eight million in savings!

Influenced by the subtle teachings of his parents, Yan Xianjue had no intention of letting those eight million sit idly in the bank.

He was going to use those eight million to make even more money.