The Scum Gong Villain Returns to Work - Chapter 1

Las Vegas, MGM Grand. A magic performance was drawing to its final moments.

Magicians capable of performing here were the absolute pinnacle of their industry. With sleight-of-hand that defied comprehension, they delivered the purest visual spectacles to their audiences, earning worldwide applause and cheers and tickets were invariably impossible to procure.

Not to mention, the show being held today did not welcome ordinary tourists: only guests who had received a personal invitation from the magician himself were qualified to attend.

Reaching such heights in a service industry as thoroughly mainstream as stage magic was the ultimate dream of every peer in the field. Unfortunately, for this magician named Yu Sui standing on stage, his success was completely unreplicable.

At this moment, all the spotlights on the stage converged toward the center. A flock of white doves, wings fluttering, flew out from a black top hat placed on the floor. They wove and circled together, converging to outline a tall, slender figure.

As the drumbeats of the music grew increasingly dense and reached their climax, the very instant the final drumstick fell, the flock of doves scattered in all directions. The magician, dressed in a sharp suit, appeared in the center of the stage with a smile. He picked up the top hat from the floor and bowed gracefully.

The number of white doves was neither too many nor too few just enough to hover beside every single guest for a brief moment before gently landing upon the backs of their chairs. The magician straightened up and buttoned the lower end of his suit jacket, revealing a lean, slender waistline. He spoke with a smile:

“Ordinarily, the performance should end here, but because today is the birthday of a very important guest, I have prepared a small encore for everyone, as a way to wish him a happy birthday.”

Yu Sui snapped his fingers lightly. The stage lights dimmed for less than a second before springing back on. The white doves that had previously perched on the chair backs suddenly vanished without a single sound of beating wings, leaving behind only a tiny rose and a pristine white dove feather resting on each guest’s shoulder.

Then, they flew out from the shadows in all directions, every single dove holding a tiny gift in its beak, swirling around the young man seated dead center in the front row.

Yu Sui moved alongside the white circle of light cast down upon the stage. He walked to the edge of the platform, then crouched down and extended a hand toward the young man.

With just a flick of his wrist, an enormous bouquet of roses materialized right into the arms of the person before him.

“Happy birthday, Yu Baihua.”

All the stage lights fell upon him, making him the sole burst of bright color within the darkness, yet he never reached the reflection in Yu Baihua’s eyes.

The reason Yu Sui’s success was unreplicable stemmed not merely from innate talents like his unpredictable sleight-of-hand and his breathtaking stage presence, but far more from the capital and power backing him or rather, from a single person.

The Yu family’s young master, Yu Baihua.

Yu Baihua was someone who, despite belonging to the Yu family, was pampered to excess by his elders: arbitrary, willful, and lawless. Yu Sui possessed a striking appearance; otherwise, he wouldn’t have drawn the adulation of so many. Yet regardless of background, status, or chronology, he had long since been bound inextricably to the name Yu Baihua.

At the very beginning, everyone assumed he was merely a plaything for Yu Baihua, a slightly special canary. But later on, public opinion shifted; people began to think the young master Yu was likely to fall hard for him, and could not help marveling at Yu Sui’s brilliant methods.

It was only a pity that no one could have anticipated the final outcome.

Yu Baihua, along with his family a colossal entity coiled deep within the darkness—were ultimately destroyed entirely at the hands of someone like Yu Sui.

Some said Yu Sui was a genius magician in the truest sense of the word, for in every conceivable meaning, he had achieved the impossible.

“Alright, just how many times are you going to replay the footage from the last mission?”

Inside the dim room, sticky with the damp, heavy moisture of the returning southern spring hui nan tian, the oppressive air slowed one’s breathing.

The young man speaking leaned lazily against the edge of the desk, his fingertips toying with a scattering of silver coins. Within his slender, powerful hands, the silver coins previously disordered in sequence appeared and vanished at all sorts of peculiar angles. For a moment, nothing could be seen except the flashing gleam of silver flying across his fingertips.

There was no one else in the room save for a desk lamp, which vaguely illuminated the pair of affectionate, drooping eyes he lowered with casual indifference, and the black hair swept away from his neck and tied up behind him with a prop elastic band.

“I’m just worried about you.”

System 058, having turned off the projection, manifested its physical form a slightly irregular sphere and sat upon his desk, fretting aloud:

“We’ve been through so many mission worlds; how did this one of all places end up running into trouble?”

As everyone knew, being a villain was rigorous technical work. If you were assigned a role with a family background and social standing equivalent to the protagonist’s, or an original Dragon-Sovereign-Jack-Sue identity, success wasn’t guaranteed after all, protagonist plot armor wasn’t just for show. You had to be able to crush the protagonist in the early stages, gracefully exit in a manner that had the audience cheering when the protagonist activated their cheats in the later stages, and balance mission efficiency and time all at once. For any task runner, it was a difficulty stacked upon difficulty.

Fortunately, everyone in the Villain Department consisted of top-tier heavyweights yet even for Yu Sui, when he was first assigned to this world and this identity, he had agonized for quite a while.

The protagonist of this world, Yu Baihua, was far more than just a pampered young master living in luxury. The family backing him involved far more than mere, straightforward commerce. Meanwhile, Yu Sui in this world was merely an ordinary, unmotivated student; forget going toe-to-toe with Yu Baihua, simply getting to know him in the first place had been a challenge.

In his previous life, Yu Sui had exercised immense patience to approach Yu Baihua, ensuring he was kept by his side at every single moment. He lay low for seven years before finally completing the mission.

Originally, according to 058’s script, after being betrayed and deceived by Yu Sui, Yu Baihua should have turned over a new leaf, chosen to participate in his family’s business, completely overhauled his past habits, revitalized his family, and ultimately become a powerful overlord capable of shaking the region in order to exact his revenge…

Yet right when 058 possessed absolute faith in Yu Sui’s professional competence and was lounging comfortably in the system space playing mahjong with its avatars, Yu Baihua died.

058 hadn’t turned on its recording function at the time and had no idea what on earth had transpired; it had simply been forced to make a hasty, compulsory departure from the place alongside Yu Sui, rushing blindly onward to the next world.

When it asked Yu Sui about it afterward, Yu Sui merely brushed it off with: “Guess?”

Consequently, in 058’s mind, this world remained the highest-difficulty and most uncertain world of all. At this moment, it sighed long and pressed its round body against Yu Sui’s finger, rolling back and forth:

“In his past life, Yu Baihua never became a supreme boss all the way until his death, but the moment he transmigrated back in this lifetime, he wiped out his own father and seized absolute power… Yu Sui, the minor world has rebooted without clearing the protagonist’s memories. I have a hunch that he might charge straight over here to flay your skin off.”

058 paused for a fraction of a second, steeling its resolve: “If you can’t handle this mission, let’s just drop it. At worst, we’ll go back and take a pay cut keeping our lives comes first.”

Yu Sui closed his eyes, listening to 058’s nagging for ages until he leaned back against his chair and was practically on the verge of falling asleep. Hearing those words, he finally offered some reaction.

He unhurriedly massaged the slightly awkward, prickly sphere with his hand, replying indifferently:

“Don’t worry, Yu Baihua won’t come over to flay my skin.”

He curved the corners of his lips into a light smile: “Right now, he’s definitely scheming to torture me in far more entertaining ways. Don’t worry.”

Hearing that, 058 felt that whether it worried or not, it had no choice left but to worry.

Yu Baihua was having a nightmare again.

He dreamed of that birthday, the time he held the flowers Yu Sui had sent him and returned to the hotel with him.

That night, together, they stood upon the observation deck of the Pinnacle Hotel, admiring the panoramic view of the “Sin City,” taking in the full vistas of the Las Vegas Strip, the Las Vegas Valley, and the surrounding regions at a single glance. As the evening breeze swept past, neither of them spoke a word.

In the end, it was Yu Baihua who broke the silence.

He knew that deep within Yu Sui’s flesh and blood lay a yearning for power and worldly splendor; this intoxicated, hedonistic earthly paradise was precisely what Yu Sui pursued. And Yu Baihua had nothing else in abundance, but possessed money, status, and desires in excess.

“Yu Sui,” he said softly, “stay with me, and everything you desire will come true.”

Yu Baihua had originally expected Yu Sui to accept without hesitation. Instead, Yu Sui turned his head and stared at him in silence for a long moment. His long hair was whipped apart by the wind, obscuring the expression on his face beneath the gilded neon lights. One could only see his excessively pale and lean jawline, plated with a thin layer of gold by the city lights.

Yu Baihua only heard Yu Sui say to him indifferently:

“Yu Baihua, don’t unwrap the gift I gave you just yet.”

“Wait until the next time you’re sad or angry… and open it then.”

Yu Baihua hadn’t understood at the time.

And now, waking up with a start from his nightmare, Yu Baihua understood.

“So, starting all the way back then…”

The man sitting up from the bed suddenly began to laugh in a low murmur. His laughter carried a distinctly morbid edge, triggering a fit of coughing so violent he finally had to use a hand with bulging veins to clamp down around his own windpipe in order to halt his own ridiculous display.

Not until the agony of impending suffocation washed over him did he lower his hand.

The corners of his eyes flushed a vivid, damp red, making the tears shaken loose look far more like the tears of unhinged hysteria.

“Yu Sui…” he hissed out the name through gritted teeth.

“Yu Sui… this time, what poisonous gift will you bring me?”