Gambling scum deserve a horrible death!

Ye Xiao was utterly dazed. Why on earth was this happening?!

[Brother Lu did this mainly because...]

The moment he heard the key words, Ye Xiao switched to turtle-speed mode and strained his ears.

Go on, go on!

"Sigh." Beside her, Yu Yuan let out a barely audible sigh, immediately drawing Ye Xunzhi's attention.

"What's wrong? Is something bothering you?" Ye Xunzhi asked in confusion.

Yu Yuan looked up at his friend's retreating back and said somewhat helplessly, "I'm just a little worried about your brother."

Ye Xiao: "..."

Okay, I know you're worried now, but hold off on worrying. I was just about to hear the reason!

Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry!!!

However, the two behind him had no idea how frantic the person ahead of them was.

"Worried?" Ye Xunzhi first tilted her head in puzzlement, then recalled what had just happened and suddenly caught on to something important. She asked curiously:

"Speaking of which, what was that bet you were talking about?"

"Well..." Yu Yuan looked at Ye Xiao hesitantly, unsure whether he could tell her what had really happened.

"It's nothing, just a motorcycle race." Ye Xiao, on the other hand, had none of his reservations and shrugged casually.

"At eight tonight, Lu Nan and I are having a showdown of speed and passion on the mountain road. Whoever loses has to serve the other tea and water and be his lackey for a month."

[Having him serve tea and water whenever he likes? Isn't that exactly how my fifth brother will be treated in the future? All it takes is a word, and Brother Lu will happily bring it over.]

Ye Xiao: There's a deal that good?!

Yu Yuan was still a little uneasy. "But the mountain road is pretty dangerous. Can't you race somewhere else?"

Ye Xiao raised an eyebrow. At the mention of the activity he loved, he became positively radiant, his smile revealing his little canine teeth.

"You still don't trust my skills? Relax. Forget the mountain road-even eighteen winding mountain bends wouldn't stop me. All right, all right, don't worry."

After saying that, he turned his attention back to Ye Xunzhi and asked:

"Are you going home tonight, or staying at my villa?"

Although Ningde High School's senior division operated as a boarding school, students could actually attend as day students too. The school provided dorm rooms anyway, and as long as it didn't affect their grades, whether they stayed there was up to them.

To carry out his plan of secretly working harder and then stunning everyone, Ye Xiao had bought a villa near the school.

Not only was the villa fully furnished so he could move in whenever he wanted, but its garage also housed all his beloved motorcycles.

Ye Xunzhi didn't know why, but the bet on the mountain road kept bothering her, so she immediately said she wanted to go to the villa with him.

Ye Xiao had already requested leave in advance, and he had no objection, taking her along.

But the moment he opened the door, he regretted it, because he had forgotten.

Ye Xunzhi admired the sticky notes of key English vocabulary covering an entire wall and smiled as though she saw through everything:

"Fifth Brother, you really do love studying."

[This is what they call easy to spot when they compete openly, hard to guard against when they study secretly. So you have to watch out for everyone who keeps telling you they're going to give up and slack off.]

[Because they might be brainwashing you, then secretly working hard somewhere no one knows about. If you take them seriously, you lose!]

Ye Xiao couldn't even argue. His mind was filled with all the threats and inducements his eldest brother and the old man had used to make him establish a good image.

He nodded tearfully. "Yes, you should learn from my spirit of striving to improve too."

By then, Ye Xunzhi had already strolled over to the calendar with her hands behind her back.

That pose was commonly seen among elderly men taking a stroll with birdcages in Beijing's parks in the morning.

It kept giving Ye Xiao the urge to hand her a walking stick, and his mouth twitched.

Having had little experience interacting with girls growing up, he figured that since they were both students anyway, perhaps he should invite his little sister to work through practice questions with him.

The more he thought about it, the more fitting it seemed. An older brother patiently teaching his younger sister how to solve questions-what a harmonious, loving scene!

Standing before the calendar, Ye Xunzhi's expression grew increasingly serious, still unaware that disaster was already looming over her. She took out her phone. Today was November 18, 2023.

[November 18, 2023, the mountain road, Fifth Brother's bet...]

[I remember! Today, Fifth Brother will be seriously injured because of a motorcycle tire blowout, leaving both his legs disabled. From then on, he'll only be able to walk short distances and never do strenuous exercise again. He'll even spend two days in the ICU!]

Both legs disabled!

Just hearing that devastating outcome made Ye Xiao take a startled step back. Those few short sentences destroyed so much of his gentleness.

But that shouldn't happen. Ye Xiao immediately spotted a flaw.

His motorcycle used nothing but top-of-the-line components. Its tires couldn't blow out even if he rode over gravel.

Unless someone scattered nails on the road-but that didn't make sense either. If someone really did that, he couldn't be the only one who got hurt.

Besides, he checked his motorcycle before every ride, so there couldn't be anything wrong with the parts either.

[Someone installed miniature detonators inside Fifth Brother's motorcycle tires.]

Ye Xiao's pupils contracted. No one knew better than he did how terrifying the consequences would be if a vehicle's tires were suddenly detonated at high speed.

He couldn't help suspecting a conspiracy. Could it be that bastard Lu Nan? But that shouldn't be right. That guy isn't that underhanded.

Ye Xunzhi had no idea that her thoughts had already sent the person behind her through one upheaval after another-

[Who was the old bastard who installed them again? I can't quite remember.]

Ye Xunzhi rubbed her fingertips together, working her brain's CPU so hard it was practically overheating.

[I think it was some rich kid whose family was about to go bankrupt, one of Brother Lu's disreputable friends, more or less. To save his family, he set up a gambling operation behind Fifth Brother's and Brother Lu's backs.]

[He invited other rich kids and wastrels to place bets, acting as the small-time bookmaker himself.]

[He bet all his family's remaining money on Lu Nan winning. To achieve his goal, he somehow got hold of Fifth Brother's address, snuck into the garage, and replaced all his motorcycle tires.]

Ye Xiao kept smiling, but in truth, he was almost grinding his teeth to pieces.

Well, well, so something like that happened too. Gambling scum deserve a horrible death!

These details were already sufficient. Running an illegal gambling operation alone was enough to land that bastard whose name he didn't know in serious trouble.

I have to call the police!

Ye Xiao secretly made plans. Once the police arrested that guy, he would send that bastard Lu Nan a taunting message too.

Just look at the sort of trash he's making friends with.

[Because of this, after Brother Lu uncovered the truth, he kept feeling guilty after Fifth Brother's accident.]

[Even after our family went bankrupt, he never abandoned him and even said he could support Fifth Brother. After all, Fifth Brother had ended up like this because of the bet he himself had proposed back then.]

[Without that bet, perhaps none of it would have happened. Unfortunately, of my fifth brother's hundred jin of body weight, ninety-nine jin are pure defiance. He refused no matter what anyone said.]

[A bit of a shame...]

Ye Xiao: "..."

His little sister had started thinking about something utterly ridiculous again.