Making this decision had not been easy for Fang Youcheng.
Only he knew what a storm had raged inside him before he said, "I can help a little."
In truth, when his mother revealed that horrifying truth, Fang Youcheng's first reaction had been disbelief, followed by overwhelming fear and... a shameful flicker of hesitation. For one moment, a selfish, cowardly thought had almost escaped his lips: Mom, stop! What will we do without Dad?!
He could almost see the hardship and desperate circumstances he and his mother might face without Ji Cheng's protection.
He had grown accustomed to a comfortable life. Even if that life came with a measure of repression and moral compromise, the fear of suddenly losing his support was real and powerful. Almost instinctively, he wanted to keep things as they were, even though that life was already teetering on the brink, riddled with cracks.
But when he raised his eyes and saw his mother's swollen, tear-reddened eyes, filled with fear and pain yet carrying the desperate resolve of someone staking everything on one last chance... when his mind involuntarily flashed back to that night, when his father had slapped him in a fury simply because he refused to frame Ji Yunhuai, then taken his anger out on his mother and shoved her, making her cry out as her lower back struck the corner of a table... that shameful hesitation collapsed like a balloon punctured by a needle.
A cold clarity suddenly pierced through him.
Yes, Dad... Ji Cheng could already hurt us so easily, even when he "didn't mean to" or was blinded by rage.
His love... if it could even be called love, was conditional, so fragile and easily broken.
*Now he was capable of killing his own father. Just how twisted and deranged had