The Real Young Master is Entangled by the Paranoid Fake Young Master - Chapter 40

“How can you be like this! Don’t you know that Brother Zhaoqing risked everything to save you” Xiao Heng, seeing how the stranger was shouting at Zhaoqing, spoke up indignantly.

Zhaoqing simply looked at the boy and said, “Xiao Heng, go outside for a bit. I need to speak with him alone. Thank you.”

“But—” Xiao Heng looked at Song Yuening, who appeared dejected, crazed, and frail, yet radiated a sharp, aggressive energy. He didn’t dare leave Zhaoqing alone with him. The room was full of bottles and jars; what if this man lashed out and hurt his brother Zhaoqing?

Xiao Heng liked the elegant, brave, and knowledgeable Zhaoqing. Compared to this arrogant “mad dog” who had constantly called out Zhaoqing’s name while unconscious but woke up only to act like a beast, Xiao Heng prioritized Zhaoqing’s safety.

“It’s fine, Xiao Heng. I know what I’m doing. Go check if the medicine on the stove is ready,” Zhaoqing said calmly.

Xiao Heng looked at the strange tension between the two and eventually let out a helpless sigh, turning to leave. He truly couldn’t understand why Brother Zhaoqing was being so gentle. In his mind, a couple of slaps to wake the man up would have been more appropriate.

The Confession of a Villain

“You must be quite proud of yourself now,” Yuening sneered.

“You knew from the start that the Song family only coveted your inheritance. You even knew I was part of it, yet you watched me approach you as if you were watching a play.”

“And now? Now that I’m blind, a cripple, a piece of trash, you must be thrilled. Zhao-zhao, stop acting. We’ve been enemies from the very beginning.”

“You can laugh out loud now. Or just kill me. You probably don’t even know why the Songs hate you so much, do you?”

“It’s because I bribed the Master that Old Mrs. Song trusts most. I had him tell them you were a ‘star of calamity’ who would bring ruin to everyone in the family. I had Lin Qi exaggerate your ‘vulgarity’ to Song Shicheng. Shicheng loathes anything unrefined; once he heard that, he naturally felt a deep distaste for you.” Yuening spoke with a reckless abandon, as if the world were ending tomorrow.

“Yes, and you also permitted Butler Yu to insult me,” Zhaoqing picked up the thread, his tone so calm it was almost mocking. “You told Song Lili that if I stayed, you wouldn’t be able to remain in the family, using her innocence to give me a cold shoulder. If it weren’t for the car accident, you probably would have framed me for poisoning you. You would have made me look like a fool at a banquet just so you could gracefully play the piano and save the day. Perhaps at No. 1 High School, you would have let Fu Lansheng and the others bully me just to make me ‘know my place.'”

“Some of these things happened, and some haven’t. But I believe you would have done them all, because I never placed any hope in you to begin with. I’m not that narcissistic.”

Zhaoqing lied. In his past life, he truly had believed in those illusions.

“So, why did you save me?” Yuening demanded. “If I died, it would only be what I deserved, wouldn’t it?”

“Why not kill me now? I’m blind. The Songs won’t want a useless person. I’ve lost my value. You’ve won. Even if you kill me, you won’t get in trouble, no one can even say for sure where I died.”

“Come here and kill me. Shouldn’t you hate me? Hate me for all I’ve done!”

Yuening lunged toward the source of Zhaoqing’s voice, knocking over bottles and jars with a deafening crash. Outside, Xiao Heng started to rush back in, but Zhaoqing called out, “I’m fine, Xiao Heng.”

Zhaoqing remained steady, even as he felt Yuening’s hands groping for his throat.

“But you saved me in the end, didn’t you?” Zhaoqing said. “And more than once.”

“Once, in the explosion. Twice, when Song Zhiyuan was about to hit me. Three times, when Ren Wei tried to hurt me. Four times, when Tao Jiang wanted my life.”

“If you hate me and planned to frame me, why did you save me?”

The Scars of the “Perfect” Son

Yuening’s fingers finally tightened around Zhaoqing’s neck.

“That’s right. I regret saving you. And now, you should regret saving me, too,” Yuening hissed. “If you won’t kill me, then I’ll kill you. Zhao-zhao, you’re too merciful. Don’t you know the world is cruel? In a single moment, you can go from the butcher to the meat on the block.”

As he tightened his grip, Zhaoqing’s breathing became labored. Outside, the storm seemed to wail in sympathy with Yuening’s tragic fate.

“Do you really think the Songs loved me naturally? Loved me so much they protected me even though I wasn’t their flesh and blood?”

“Do you know that when I was five, I was denied food for three days just because I played one wrong note in a piano piece? Old Mrs. Song said any flaw was ‘ugly’ and ‘lowly.’ She twisted my face and asked if I wanted to be a lowly brat.”

“When I was nine, I accidentally broke a dish. Song Shicheng sent me to a ‘correction center’ for three months to learn manners. He said I couldn’t come out until my every movement was elegant. But do you know? The director was a pervert. He’d wake the children at midnight for endless training. We slept four hours a day. If you faltered from exhaustion, they’d whip your shins with rattan. If you cried, they’d add ten more lashes. I forced myself to learn as fast as possible, and it still took three months for them to fetch me.”

“Because of that, my legs throb with bone-deep pain every time it rains. Every time it happens, I want to kill someone. When I was small, I dreamed of burning the Song house to the ground. I didn’t want to live another day like that.”

“But I survived. Not because I love the world, but because I didn’t want those people to die so easily! It’s strange—love didn’t keep me alive, but hatred did.”

“You’ve never seen the heavy brass-and-sandalwood rod they used for ‘family discipline.’ You don’t know how many scars it ‘gifted’ my back. It wasn’t until I grew older and did everything perfectly, until I brought them glory, that the neurotic Old Matron, the cold Shicheng, and the hypocritical Zhiyuan finally placed me on a pedestal.”

“But I knew. The higher they put me, the harder they would throw me away the moment I showed a flaw or lost my utility. Do you call that love? Do you still think I had a good life?”

“I realized that some people are born lazy, stupid, or prone to escape, and they will never win in the cruel competition of the future. I endured that pain and put in a hundred times the effort because I didn’t want it to be for nothing. A person without love has to cling to hate, don’t they?”

“Zhao-zhao, the Song family isn’t a warm home. It’s a jungle where wolves and tigers tear each other apart.”

The Reality Check

Zhaoqing listened to the entire story in silence. Then, he delivered a stinging slap to Yuening’s face.

“You’re tragic? You’re pitiable? You’ve lived in luxury, enjoyed countless resources, and now that you’ve met a small setback, you’re wallowing in self-pity and abandonment? You don’t even have the courage to commit suicide, so you try to provoke someone else to do it for you. What right do you have to feel pitiable?”

“Do you want to know what real misery looks like?”

“Yes, I grew up in a chaotic slum. My neighbor’s sister was sold by her drug-addicted parents to an old bachelor before she was fifteen. She was forced to bear three children before she was nineteen and died in childbirth with the last one. Her husband sold the newborn immediately so he could buy a new wife.”

“The boy upstairs, A-Mao, was beaten to death like a stray dog at thirteen over a few dozen yuan. His family couldn’t scrape the money together. His mother was gravely ill and needed that money for medicine. He stole out of desperation. Do you know why they didn’t have the money? Because his older brother gambled it all away. When the brother was thrown out with his limbs hacked off, A-Mao, a mere child, carried him, buried him, and took on the burden of the family. Yet he was always optimistic and kind. He was smiling every time I saw him, even in his final moments.”

“Then there’s old Granny Chen who collects trash, and little Xiao Chi with the crippled leg. Countless people whose lives are far harder than yours. I never wanted to take anything from you, but I will not allow you to mock ordinary people, people whose births weren’t as ‘noble’ as yours, by calling them stupid or cowardly.”

“Do you know how many years Xiao Chi’s leg has been rotting? Do you know Granny Chen has terminal cancer? Yet they want to live. They struggle with every fiber of their being until the moment fate takes them.”

“How easy it is for you to talk of death! You enjoy wealth and glory, but the moment you face failure, your mind twists, and you want to die. How ‘noble’ of you! Killing someone like you would only stain my hands.”

“If you’re so capable, show me. Show me how powerful the real Song Yuening is. Show me his resilience. But then again, you truly do deserve to die. You’ve enjoyed so much and yet remained so cowardly. If you die, it would at least be a contribution to the world’s resources.”

As Zhaoqing finished, Yuening lunged at him like a wild animal. He caught Zhaoqing’s good hand and bit down hard on the webbing between the thumb and forefinger.

The sensation of porcelain-white teeth grinding into his flesh was agonizing, but Yuening refused to let go, venting his rage and frustration. Zhaoqing cursed him as a “little beast” in his heart, but despite the pain, he didn’t push him away.

Zhaoqing knew that, at least in this moment, Yuening didn’t hate him. He hated his own powerlessness.

Let him hate, Zhaoqing thought. It was time for Yuening to shatter the jungle laws the Songs had beaten into him and embrace a real life. His pain was caused by the Songs, yet his current mindset was no different from theirs, the weak drawing a blade against the even weaker.

Zhaoqing had wanted to say these words even in his past life. Yuening’s arrogance made it seem as though anyone of humble birth who lived with dignity was naturally beneath him. He had the intellect to change things but chose only to fight for power. He had the best education but chose to wallow in resentment.

“I don’t know much about grand philosophies,” Zhaoqing said, his voice sounding older than his years, like a soul speaking across a thousand-year-old bamboo scroll. “But since you once told me a story, I will return the favor with one of my own.”