Is there something wrong with your head?

Jiang Changping rubbed his temples. He had just come home from the office and had not even had time to change before Liu Wanying stopped him in the entryway, sobbing.

"Changping, look, Xiao Yu lost two front teeth! How is he supposed to face anyone now?"

Jiang Changping's brows knitted tightly.

"Jiang Xun, did you hit him?"

"Yes." Jiang Xun admitted it without hesitation. "He called me a bastard, so I kicked him once. Perfectly fair."

"Listen to him! Just listen!" Liu Wanying's sobbing instantly rose half a pitch. "He hit someone and still thinks he's in the right! If word gets out, how will our family ever show our faces?"

"Changping, this child spent seventeen years running wild out there. His character is already set. It's not that we don't want to teach him, it's just..."

"Enough." Jiang Changping cut her off impatiently and got up to head upstairs. "As long as he's all right. Teeth can be fixed. Jiang Xun, don't hit people again. Talk things out."

That was it?

Liu Wanying froze for a moment, a trace of disbelief flickering through her eyes, but she covered it up almost immediately.

Jiang Xun chuckled, tossed the apple core in his hand into the trash, clapped his hands clean, and turned to go upstairs.

He had barely taken two steps when hurried footsteps sounded behind him.

"Xiao Yu!"

Jiang Changping's second son, Jiang Yanchu, came striding over from the far end of the living room, a fine sheen of sweat on his temples.

He had clearly rushed back from school as soon as he heard the news.

He crouched in front of Jiang Yu and cupped his face, examining it from side to side with his brows drawn tight. "Does it hurt? Has the doctor been here? Why didn't you take him straight to the hospital?"

The moment Jiang Yu saw Jiang Yanchu, he sobbed so hard he could barely breathe, tears and snot smeared all over his face. "Yanchu, he hit me!"

Jiang Yanchu drew him into his arms and gently patted his back, his eyes full of distress.

Only after soothing Jiang Yu for quite a while did he look up at Jiang Xun on the stairs, his gaze complicated.

"Xiao Xun, how could you hit him? Even if he said something nasty, you can't beat him up like this. He's your older brother!"

Jiang Xun leaned against the banister and looked down at the scene, suddenly finding it utterly laughable.

He was the younger brother actually related to Jiang Yanchu by blood.

When he had just been brought back from the orphanage and Jiang Yu humiliated him, Jiang Yanchu had hidden in his room and never shown his face. Now that Jiang Yu had lost two teeth, he was practically frantic with distress.

"Older brother?" The corners of Jiang Xun's lips lifted slightly.

"Didn't Mom only have three children? Where did another older brother come from? Yanchu, don't you know perfectly well what surname the one in your arms should have?"

Jiang Yanchu's expression changed. "Jiang Xun, don't be so nasty. Xiao Yu grew up in our family..."

"Growing up in your family makes him your biological brother?" Jiang Xun interrupted with a sneer. "Then since my own mother carried me for ten months and gave birth to me, shouldn't I get to do whatever I want in this house?"

"How come I, a genuine blood descendant of the Jiang family, am the outsider, while an illegitimate child with another surname is your precious darling? Is there something wrong with your head?"

The living room was so quiet that a pin dropping could have been heard.

Liu Wanying's expression was beyond ugly. The gentle, gracious mask she had painstakingly maintained for over a decade had been torn to shreds by those few words from Jiang Xun.

Jiang Xun's words had not just humiliated Jiang Yu, but her as well, dragging every last bit of her murky past out into the open.

Jiang Yanchu was left speechless. His lips moved a few times, but in the end, he merely held Jiang Yu a little tighter and said quietly, "You're too extreme."

Jiang Xun scoffed, not bothering to waste any more words on him.

Extreme? Ever since he could remember, he had fought others for food in the orphanage. If he had not been extreme, he would never have survived until today.

He turned and headed upstairs, pausing briefly as he passed the corner on the second floor.

Someone stood in the shadows at the end of the hallway.

Jiang Huaixiao, the Jiang family's eldest son, had returned at some point. There was no telling how long he had been standing there, either.

He wore a black shirt and was like a length of sunken timber submerged in deep water, utterly silent, radiating a chill that warned strangers to keep their distance.

From the first day Jiang Xun had stepped into this house, Jiang Huaixiao had not spoken a single word to him.

When they occasionally met in the hallway, Jiang Huaixiao's gaze passed over him no differently than it would a piece of furniture.

Jiang Xun did not care. He had never been the type to fawn over someone who gave him the cold shoulder. He never spared a second glance for anyone who ignored him.

Yet as they passed each other, Jiang Huaixiao suddenly spoke in a low voice.

"Next time you hit someone, don't do it in the living room."

Jiang Xun turned his head and cast Jiang Huaixiao a sidelong glance.

Jiang Huaixiao paid it no heed and turned into his study.

The door closed with an extremely soft click, as though those words had merely been Jiang Xun's imagination.

Jiang Xun raised his eyebrows and continued toward his room.

After shutting the door, he flung himself onto the bed and stared at the crystal chandelier overhead, expensive enough to feed every child in the orphanage for years. He tugged at the corner of his mouth.

This family just got more interesting with each person.

Jiang Changping was a master of smoothing things over, pretending not to understand when he knew perfectly well. Liu Wanying was a sly old fox with a thousand years of practice. Jiang Yu was a fool who thought himself untouchable because he had someone backing him. Jiang Yanchu was an idiot who did not even realize that mother and son were using him as their weapon.

So much for a wealthy family.

Just a bunch of dumbfucks and one endless mess.

Early the next morning, Jiang Xun was woken by a commotion downstairs.

Frowning, he rolled over, pulled his phone from under his pillow, and checked it.

7:03 a.m.

Jiang Xun had never slept soundly. He had tossed and turned until two or three in the morning before finally falling asleep last night. Being woken now left him so irritable he could practically blow the roof off.

With a cold expression, he yanked open his bedroom door.

Several servants stood in the hallway, all craning their necks toward the stairs and whispering to each other with barely concealed glee.

"What's all the noise?" Jiang Xun raked a hand through his messy hair, his voice still hoarse from sleep.

The young maid closest to him was so startled that she instinctively stepped back, stammering, "Y-young master, downstairs... some of Young Master Jiang Yu's friends are here. They said they've come to settle the score with you!"