Ji Xi had heard people say before that children were their parents' accidents.
He had never expected that he himself really was such an accident.
But Ji Zhi quickly gave him a reason.
"Your father came from the underworld."
Ji Xi's eyes widened. He could not imagine that his always gentle mother had anything to do with the underworld.
Ji Zhi took great malicious pleasure in admiring her son's rare change of expression for a moment.
Only then did she slowly say, "We had known each other since we were very young."
"Before that vagrant died."
Ji Xi's heart tightened.
Yet Ji Zhi could already speak of that past in an even tone.
"Your grandmother really found me an exceptionally awful adoptive father."
Ji Zhi skipped over the more detailed parts.
She said calmly, "But before he left, he still left us with something we could rely on to survive."
"Like what?" Ji Xi asked hoarsely.
Ji Zhi smiled, though the smile did not reach her eyes. "Like a way into the underworld."
"He used to be a minor underworld boss. Later, he offended someone he should not have, which was why he became a vagrant."
The underworld was not somewhere one could simply drift into.
Without someone to show the way, at most one would be a street thug.
"Perhaps your father was naturally suited for the underworld. He was expelled in middle school because of fighting."
Ji Zhi shrugged. "Then he spent the first few years getting beaten up, and the following years beating others up."
With his suspicions confirmed, Ji Xi's expression suddenly turned extremely ugly.
He now felt that the punishment Ji the Old Madam had received was nowhere near enough.
"You can probably guess what came later. Life in the underworld was precarious."
"We had