The System Forces Me to Be a Scumbag Male Lead [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 13

“Ge Jiabao, stop blocking the stairs. It’s almost ten o’clock. Hurry up and let your aunts and uncles go home. Tomorrow is a workday; everyone still has to go to job.”

Chen Huiju looked helplessly at Ge Jiabao, who was stubbornly blocking the second-floor stairwell, refusing to let anyone pass.

Ge Jiabao forced his lips into a strained grin, his eyes darting uncontrollably toward the window. Half an hour had already passed since Shen Siyang sent him the text. Why was there still no movement next door?

“Mom, you just got discharged from the hospital. I just wanted everyone to spend more time with you.”

“Even so, you can’t keep inviting people over to stay this late two nights in a row.” Although Chen Huiju spoke with a sigh, she felt a warm swell of gratitude in her heart for how thoughtful her son had been lately. “Now move aside and let everyone go home.”

Glancing at the guests in the living room who were visibly growing restless, Ge Jiabao wiped the cold sweat beads from his forehead. Ready to do whatever it took, he blurted out, “Uncles, aunts, let me perform a talent for you!”

The moment everyone heard this, their interest was instantly piqued.

“Jiabao has a talent? How come I’ve never heard Huiju mention it?”

“Xiao Jiabao, that’s impressive! Are you going to sing or dance?”

Chen Huiju looked just as surprised, whispering to her son, “Since when do you have a talent I don’t know about?”

She obviously didn’t know about it. In fact, even Ge Jiabao didn’t know what talent he possessed. But trapped in a corner, he could only brace himself and make something up on the spot. “I’ll do a split for everyone!”

Without waiting for their reaction, he yanked up his pant legs, ready to drop to the floor.

However, halfway down, his eyes caught the silhouette through the window of the house opposite theirs. He froze instantly. Projected onto the first-floor window next door were the distinct shadows of two figures.

One held what looked like a beer bottle high in the air, while the other was clinging tightly to the person holding the bottle. The person with the bottle was repeatedly throwing punches at the one holding him back.

Losing his footing, Ge Jiabao slipped directly onto the floor. Ignoring the sharp jolt of pain, he scrambled to his feet, grabbed his mother, and shrieked, “Mom! Mom! Someone’s getting killed! Quick! Go save them!”

Before deploying, Shen Siyang had explicitly warned the police that Luo Qifeng tended to conceal his violent behavior when outsiders were present. Consequently, the moment the police cruiser entered Xianxi Town, the officers turned off the siren.

The cruiser pulled up right outside the gate to Sang Xiaoshi’s yard.

The moment Shen Siyang stepped out of the car, he saw Ge Jiabao leading a massive crowd running over from next door. Ge Jiabao spearheaded the group, sprinting ahead while turning back to hiss at the adults behind him, “Shh! We have to go in quietly.”

As he turned his head, he spotted Shen Siyang. Right at that moment, the phone he had been clutching tightly in his hand began to vibrate.

Ge Jiabao rushed over to Shen Siyang, whispering in frantic urgency, “It’s Sang Xiaoshi calling! I was just on my second floor, and I saw someone in their house holding up a giant bottle! What do we do? Am I too late?”

Shen Siyang’s face darkened. Following the plan he had established with Sang Xiaoshi, he swiftly snatched the phone from Ge Jiabao’s hand, hung up the call, grabbed his copy of the key, and bolted toward the front door.

Standing by the cruiser, the lead officer had just finished confirming assignments with his team. When he turned around, he saw Shen Siyang already unlocking the door.

He immediately barked an order, “Kid, you can’t go in there!”

However, whatever Shen Siyang caught sight of the moment the door swung open left him no time to hesitate. Without looking back, he dove headfirst into the house.

Summoning every ounce of speed his body could muster, Shen Siyang arrived in the nick of time. In the split second before Luo Qifeng brought the beer bottle crashing down onto Sang Xiaoshi’s head, Shen Siyang shielded the younger boy, pulling him tightly into his embrace.

An unprecedented, agonizing burst of pain exploded across his back.

Luo Qifeng, his eyes blinded by bloodlust, stared at the broken, jagged neck of the beer bottle left in his hand. Without a second thought, he raised his arm to strike again.

But just as his hand went up, someone pinned his arms from behind.

The bottle was wrenched from his grip, and his body was slammed violently onto the floor. Struggling against the restraint, Luo Qifeng twisted his head, only to find the front door thrown wide open.

Blinding light poured into the room from outside. There were furious police officers, alongside an influx of neighbors shouting condemnations at him.

Dazed and disoriented by the sea of faces before him, Luo Qifeng finally registered the reality of his predicament. He thrashed wildly, turning back to glare at Shen Siyang and Sang Xiaoshi with eyes full of pure venom.

“You set me up? You fucking dare to set me up? You two hairless little brats, I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you both!”

Luo Qifeng’s wild curses, the sharp warnings from the officers, and the chaotic uproar of the crowd shattered the air inside the dim, cramped room.

Yet, in that exact moment, Sang Xiaoshi felt as if he had been isolated into a completely different world. Time stretched out and slowed to a crawl. He couldn’t hear the curses, the warnings, or the chaotic shouting. The only sound echoing in his ears was the rapid, pounding thud of Shen Siyang’s heartbeat.

It wasn’t until Shen Siyang leaned close to his ear and let out a soft, strained sigh that the temporal barrier shattered.

“I finally know how much it hurt for you that night.”

Sang Xiaoshi snapped back to reality. He peeked his head out from Shen Siyang’s embrace. Before he could even process the overwhelming number of faces swarming around them, his eyes caught a stark streak of crimson.

His mind went entirely blank once more—a long, agonizing void.

As if unable to believe what he was seeing, Sang Xiaoshi’s hands hovered trembling over Shen Siyang’s back for a long time. Tears spilled from his eyes without warning.

“B-Brother Siyang, I’m, I’m sorry. I, I shouldn’t have.”

“Shh,” Shen Siyang cut him off weakly. “Now isn’t the time for that. Quick, let me lean on you for a bit. It hurts like hell. My mom is definitely going to scold me when she sees this. I’ve really handed her a reason to lecture me this time.

You better help put in a few good words for me later.”

Sang Xiaoshi choked on his sobs, completely unable to speak as tears streamed uncontrollably down his face.

As the teardrops splattered onto the back of Shen Siyang’s hand, Shen Siyang found himself unable to lift his arm. Instead, he simply lowered his head and rubbed his face gently against the younger boy’s cheek to wipe them away. “Why are you crying? We should be happy right now. Didn’t I tell you? Someone would definitely come to save you. Look, everyone came to save you.”

The more Shen Siyang spoke, the harder it became for Sang Xiaoshi to catch his breath. He wanted to hold Shen Siyang, yet he didn’t dare to. He was terrified that touching him anywhere would cause him more pain. Ultimately, he could only clutch a tiny corner of Shen Siyang’s shirt. “Don’t, p-please don’t let anything happen to you.”

“Of course nothing’s going to happen to me. It’s just a scrape. The blood is nothing compared to how much you bled that night.” Seeing Sang Xiaoshi cry harder, Shen Siyang let out a helpless chuckle. “Don’t believe me? I should have brought a bowl that night to collect yours, just so I could bring it out to compare today.”

Sang Xiaoshi buried his head deeper and deeper. Only after a long pause did he manage to squeeze out his next words. “Don’t, don’t leave me. The ambulance, I’ll call, call the ambulance.”

Shen Siyang froze, a sudden memory flashing through his mind—the words Ge Jiabao had shared with him a few days ago.

—”Sang Xiaoshi said he was the one who called the ambulance when his parents got into that car accident.”

—”He was crying and calling out ‘Mommy’ while telling her that she’d be okay once the ambulance arrived.”

Shen Siyang forced himself to grab Sang Xiaoshi’s hand just as the boy was reaching for the phone. “Someone has already called the ambulance. I won’t leave you. Didn’t I say it before? I am your own limited edition. If I left you, where else would I go?”

Sang Xiaoshi couldn’t stop sobbing, but he lifted his head to look directly at Shen Siyang. “Is, is that really true?”

Shen Siyang offered a gentle smile. “Have I ever lied to you?”

“Daddy and Mommy, they never, never lied to me before either. But, but they said they wouldn’t leave me. Now they are, so so far away. I can’t, I can’t reach them.”

Shen Siyang fell into a brief silence, his grip on Sang Xiaoshi’s hand tightening instinctively. “Xiaoshi.”

Right at that moment, the wail of the approaching ambulance pierced the night.

Two nurses entered the house carrying a stretcher, cutting off the words Shen Siyang had yet to form.

They carefully lifted him onto the stretcher.

His eyes blurred with tears, Sang Xiaoshi gripped Shen Siyang’s hand tightly and stood up with him, terrified that the older boy would vanish the moment he let go.

Seeing a nurse step forward to reason with Sang Xiaoshi, Shen Siyang quickly spoke up, “Nurse, I’m okay. My little brother is just terrified. Please let him hold my hand and come with me in the ambulance.”

The nurse nodded at his words and offered him an encouraging word of praise.

As the stretcher was lifted, Sang Xiaoshi stumbled along, running alongside it toward the exit.

Outside, a chaotic mix of flashing lights illuminated the night as bright as day. There were police cruisers, ambulances, officers, doctors, and neighbors. These were the exact people Sang Xiaoshi had desperately wished for countless times over the past year, hoping they would appear to save him.

Yet, he could no longer see any of them.

The light and shadows weaving around him blurred into nothingness. In this drifting, surreal haze, only Shen Siyang on the stretcher and the firm grip on his hand existed as real things in his world.

This was the hand pulling him out of the darkness and into the light.

This was the person he needed to pursue.

And this time, he was determined to catch up.