Not wanted

The so-called punishment room was a little dark room built specifically for the original owner of this body.

It hadn't existed before he came back. Once he returned, they built it!

When Yan Zhipeng was unhappy, he dragged him inside and beat him savagely.

When Yuan Qi was unhappy, she made him kneel inside day and night.

When Yan Zhen felt unwell, he could lock him in this room.

Even when the servants were unhappy, they could come in under the pretext of cleaning the room and pinch him all over.

It wasn't that he had never thought of telling his parents. The ridiculous thing was that they believed the servants, not him.

What followed was an even more vicious beating.

After the worst beating, Yan Ningke couldn't even feel his lower body. Only by twisting and crawling wildly across the floor had he managed to get his bones back into place.

Yan Ningke's pupils were so dark that the whites of his eyes were barely visible. He bent over, grabbed Yan Zhen's hair, and pulled upward with all his strength.

When it came out, he grabbed another handful.

Broken strands of hair littered the floor.

Yan Zhen writhed in pain, only to have a foot stomp hard on his lumbar spine, leaving him unable to get up no matter how he tried.

"Get up. Keep bullying me, huh? Why aren't you getting up? Can't get up? I'll help you!"

Yan Ningke gripped his hair tightly and pulled upward until it separated from his scalp.

His wretched howls rang throughout the villa.

Yuan Qi collapsed to the floor in fright, shaking her head incessantly. "No, let go of my Zhenzhen! You lunatic!"

Yan Zhipeng rushed forward to hit him, and Yan Ningke swung back with a punch.

Yan Zhipeng staggered, clutching his jaw, his eyes full of disbelief. "You dare hit me?"

"So what if I hit you? When you were beating me, did you ever think this day would come? You'll grow old, and I'll grow up!"

Yan Ningke let out two chuckles, staring straight at Yan Zhipeng as the expensive belt lashed Yan Zhen again and again.

"Do you like it? Isn't whipping people like this your favorite thing? Come on, join me. It really feels so wonderful, Father!"

Yan Zhipeng muttered, "You've gone mad. Mad..."

Yan Ningke stopped, an eerily alluring smile on his lips, his pupils unfocused, the corners of his eyes tinged with red and viciousness. "A lunatic? I went mad a long time ago!"

He walked toward him, step by step.

"I'd already gone mad when you beat me half to death. When you let your wife, your favorite son, and your servants humiliate me however they pleased, I went completely mad!"

Yan Zhipeng backed away several steps in terror. "What are you trying to do? I'm your father."

Fear had made him forget everything, forget that Yan Ningke had just brutalized his son with vicious methods.

Forget the belt he had swung at him and his wife without the slightest hesitation.

"Father?"

Yan Ningke sneered. "You think you're worthy?"

He turned his head to look over. "And you, my dear mother."

Yuan Qi shuddered uncontrollably, her feet scrabbling against the floor as she struggled backward. "You're not... you're not my son. You're not..."

"Of course I'm not."

Yan Zhipeng and Yuan Qi's eyes widened.

Yan Ningke slowly walked back and lashed the unconscious Yan Zhen hard. "Yan Ningke died long ago. He died at three and a half, in that little river that winter."

"Parents? You're just two of a kind. You really wished I'd died at three, because then no one would have discovered those dark faces of yours."

"After searching for three months, you didn't want to keep looking. One of you went off to have an affair, and the other got pregnant and had a child to keep her husband. Of course you didn't want me to come back. If I didn't, you could keep up appearances, along with the advantage of being pitied for losing your eldest son."

Yan Ningke looked at them, his voice icy. "But I came back. Oh, how awful! Those carefully concealed masks were torn away."

"Yes, why didn't you search a little longer? You couldn't wait to have an affair, to have a child! Every time you saw me, you had to revisit that disgusting, ugly experience again and again, and think of people gossiping behind your backs, robbing you of your respectability."

"So every time you beat me, you hoped I'd simply die."

"So every time someone gossiped behind your back, you made me kowtow in apology."

"And that darling son of yours!"

Yan Ningke walked up to Yan Zhen and stomped down hard on him. "If you hadn't told him every day that Mommy and Daddy loved him most, that everything in the house was his, if you hadn't abused me openly in front of him and shielded him, how would he have ended up like this today?"

A deathly silence filled the air.

Yan Ningke threw away the belt and shook the remaining hair off his hands, looking calm and cold.

"When I came back that year, I knew from a single glance that you weren't actually hoping for my return."

The punishment room had never been as lively as it was today.

Yan Ningke walked to the storage room doorway and silently stared at the things on the floor for a long time. In the end, he took nothing.

The other three were already stupefied with fear, staring blankly as he walked out the front door.

Only once he stood in the sunlight did Yan Ningke finally lose control, bracing himself against the wall and dry-heaving.

Behind him was a chaotic jumble of furious curses and sobbing.

He didn't call a car. He simply followed the road, walking on and on.

The sun sank in the west, and the sky darkened.

When he came back to his senses, he had reached an alley in the old part of the city.

There were many residential buildings nearby, a school at the intersection, and a crowd of food carts beside it.

After an afternoon of activity, the little food he'd eaten at noon had long since been digested.

Yan Ningke picked a stall selling noodle-sheet wraps and bought a deluxe one.

He looked around, found a corner to sit in, and thoroughly enjoyed his food.

"Go on, get out of here! Look somewhere else! Even if I had any, I wouldn't give it to you. Day after day, you little scrap of trash, you're driving away all my luck!"

At a small supermarket diagonally across from him, the plump proprietress pushed a filthy child out the door amid a barrage of shrill curses.

Chewing his noodle-sheet wrap, Yan Ningke craned his head for a look. The child had already gone some distance, dragging a large sack, but the proprietress was still cursing like a machine gun.

The gathered crowd gradually dispersed.

The streetlights came on, with a trace of light still lingering at the edge of the sky.

Yan Ningke looked up at the tiny insects circling the light and ate the last bite of his wrap.

A rustling sounded beside him, and he turned to look.

It was the little boy from earlier.

He sat blankly on a step not far away, an enormous urea sack at his feet.

Yan Ningke glanced at him a few times, but the boy remained motionless.

He got up and bought a savory crepe.

"Here."

The little boy's eyes shifted, and he reached out to take it.

Yan Ningke sat beside him without looking at him.

"Head out of here and turn left. There's a sports center two kilometers down."

A long silence followed.

The little boy said timidly, "Someone's already claimed that place."

Most people collecting scrap these days were elderly men and women who already received pensions.

Yan Ningke propped his chin on one hand. "You're a kid. Just stay inside and go wherever there are lots of bottles. He's old. He'll be too embarrassed."

Once he'd collected enough, he could go sell them, then come back afterward.

He was small, nimble, and quick. The old men and women could only stare helplessly.

The child glanced at him thoughtfully, his toes shifting a few times in his plastic slides.

The number of people on the road gradually dwindled.

Yan Ningke stood up to leave. Neither of them said goodbye.

After walking about seven or eight meters, he turned back. "Remember to wash yourself properly."