Fang Zhiyi froze for a long while. Looking at his parents with their heads bowed in front of him, he called out cautiously, "Dad? Mom?"
Fang Shucai didn't dare to answer right away. He stared at his son for a moment, and only after seeing that his eyes had indeed returned to normal did he whisper, "Son?"
Fang Zhiyi nodded. "I really didn't do it. Grandpa told me to do it. He said otherwise these people would always think I'm a pushover... I also thought it wasn't good, but I couldn't just ignore Grandpa's words..."
Fang Shucai lowered his head and nodded after a moment. "Listen to your grandpa. After all, he is your grandpa, and my dad."
Only Li Qingmei remembered what Fang Zhiyi had said earlier. "Son, when you helped them out before, they didn't even give you a sip of water?"
Fang Zhiyi bit his lip and smiled foolishly. "Not exactly, Grandpa was exaggerating. I did drink some water. It's mainly that I hurried back right after helping out."
Li Qingmei, after all, wasn't Fang Shucai. Her expression turned ugly. "And they call themselves relatives. You helped them, and not only did they not keep you for a meal, they didn't even offer you a sip of water. Fang Shucai, are these the relatives you talk about?"
Fang Shucai muttered, "I didn't know either... Son, why didn't you say anything before?"
Fang Zhiyi's voice was a bit quiet. "I thought it wasn't a big deal. If I said it, it would make our family look petty."
"These bastards, do they really think our family is easy to bully?" Li Qingmei exploded. She was an honest woman, but she wouldn't just sit in silence watching her son get bullied.
When the relatives called again, Li Qingmei directly snatched the phone. "No time! Not going! Doesn't your family have sons and daughters? Can't you do it yourselves?"
Looking at his mother's state, Fang Zhiyi was a bit dazed. So his parents would stand up for him too?
"See that? When you are wronged, you have to speak up, not just work foolishly. That little bit of face you care about is worth jack shit," his grandpa's voice rang out.
Fang Zhiyi nodded gently.
What he didn't expect even more was that his usually honest father went out right after dinner that day, and when he returned, he was holding a few hundred yuan, which he slapped directly into Fang Zhiyi's hand.
"Dad? What is this?" Fang Zhiyi was very confused.
"The wages for helping your cousin last time! I went straight to their house to ask for it! Hiring a worker costs several hundred a day, but when it comes to you, they use the 'relative' excuse? On what grounds? Does our family eat their food or wear their clothes?" The flush on Fang Shucai's face hadn't faded, showing how agitated he had been. "But don't blame your uncle's family. Your uncle just found out about this too. When I left, he had already kicked your cousin to his knees."
Fang Zhiyi's eyes reddened slightly as he clutched the money in his hand.
"You... hurry up and go back to work tomorrow."
Fang Zhiyi's feelings of being touched were abruptly halted. "Why?"
"Damn it, when I look at you now, I don't know whether to call you son or dad!" Fang Shucai looked incredibly aggrieved. During dinner, he had wanted to show some care for his son, but as soon as he opened his mouth, Fang Zhiyi had roasted him, making him too scared to even utter a word. "Is your grandpa still there?"
Seeing Fang Zhiyi nod, Fang Shucai put on a miserable face. "Dad, pah, son, pah... well, ah! I've done everything I should do now, shouldn't you let your grandson off the hook?"
Fang Zhiyi stared blankly at his dad. After a long while, he said, "Dad, Grandpa says... says..."
"Says what?"
"None of your damn business."
Fang Shucai almost passed out from anger.
Fang Zhiyi really left the next day, practically pushed out the door by the Fang couple. They had learned that Fang Zhiyi wouldn't harm his grandson; he was just worried and wanted to take a look. They figured they might as well let Fang Zhiyi take his grandpa to his workplace to have a look. Maybe once the old man was satisfied, he would leave on his own.
"Grandpa, this is great. Now I can't even go home," Fang Zhiyi said, feeling a bit melancholy.
"None of my damn business. Don't just stay at home all day. Go out, eat, drink, and have fun!"
Fang Zhiyi returned to his rented apartment, waiting to report to his new company tomorrow. Thinking about changing environments, he felt inexplicably nervous. Fortunately, he could communicate with his grandpa in his mind. Listening to his grandpa's arrangements, Fang Zhiyi gradually calmed down and unknowingly fell asleep.
"Looking at it this way, not everyone in the Fang family is a bastard," Fang Zhiyi sighed emotionally as he watched the grandson he had randomly acknowledged fall asleep.
Little Hei said, "They never were all bad. In fact, there are quite a few good people around this kid. It's just that he always tends to overthink things and get stuck in a rut, and he always manages to run into those scumbags who take advantage of him. It's like his personality is especially prone to attracting bad people."
"Not gonna lie, it's pretty relaxing this time. I don't have to do a lot of things myself," Fang Zhiyi felt inexplicably satisfied.
"I never expected you to pretend to be someone else's grandpa. If the real one knew, he would probably crawl out of his grave to fight you to the death."
"When you're out and about, you give yourself your own identity," Fang Zhiyi didn't feel he was in the wrong at all.
Fang Zhiyi was still very honest. On his first day of work, his honest aura attracted the department supervisor. Zhao Qian placed a stack of materials that needed organizing on his desk. "You're new here, so you need to do a bit more. That way you can get the hang of things faster later on, understand?"
Fang Zhiyi nodded, his face full of smiles. "Okay, Supervisor."
After Zhao Qian left satisfied, the person next to Fang Zhiyi said, "Buddy, if I were you, I'd run. The last guy who sat here was driven away just like this."
"Why is that?"
"What do you mean why? She doesn't do a damn thing herself and throws all her work to the newcomers, but she takes all the credit. Tsk tsk, I advise you to start thinking about jumping ship as soon as possible." The man looked at Fang Zhiyi with some sympathy.
Unexpectedly, Fang Zhiyi just gave an honest and simple smile. "It's fine. I'm not very familiar with it anyway, so doing a bit more is fine."
Seeing him like this, the colleague just shook his head and went back to slacking off.
He watched as Fang Zhiyi began to frown and process those documents. He had previously only done factory work and wasn't very familiar with computers, so right now he could only do it slowly, bit by bit.
By the time work ended, Zhao Qian appeared in front of him again. "Are you done?"
Fang Zhiyi felt a bit embarrassed. "Supervisor, I'm not quite familiar with this, so I'm a bit slow..." Seeing Zhao Qian's expression turn ugly, Fang Zhiyi hurriedly promised, "I'll work overtime and finish it in a bit!"
Zhao Qian looked at his sincere expression and slowly nodded.
"You're not going to intervene?" Little Hei was full of doubts.
"No. He really isn't familiar with it, so just treat it as practice." Fang Zhiyi watched his grandson struggling to compare lines of data. "Although this kid doesn't have any special talents, his strength lies in being grounded and willing to work hard. If he wants to stand out and succeed, he has to eat the bitterness he's supposed to eat."
Little Hei nodded.
Fang Zhiyi gradually settled down in the company. He focused wholeheartedly on completing his work, and he gradually became proficient at processing those data files. Since he arrived, Zhao Qian's job had become increasingly leisurely, and at the same time, she didn't forget to keep stringing Fang Zhiyi along with empty promises.
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
