Ji Zhonglin was a younger version of Ji Yan Song.
He wasn’t quite as ruthless as the old master, but he was an heir who had been lifted into his position by countless people over two generations. He possessed a seriousness that someone his age shouldn’t have had.
He really was quite handsome.
No wonder his CP with Ji Chengyi was just as popular as ever.
“And you’re calling it an unrequited crush?” A look of absurdity flashed through Ji Zhonglin’s eyes. The next second, he looked inexplicably puzzled. “I’m talking about you. Why are you looking at me like that?”
Ji Yang made something up on the spot. “Seeing your magnificent and imposing figure, Big Brother, made me curious about what my future sister-in-law looks like.”
How could he possibly tell Ji Zhonglin that he was simply curious about what the legendary man looked like—the one who had inspired the entire internet to restrain their excitement, cheer for his sudden realization, and shout about the wife-chasing crematorium trope? What kind of extraordinary person could be so deeply in love that he would go as far as a full-blooded incestuous relationship?
The important part was that, by the end, he had neither the money nor the person he wanted.
After the Ji family fell, this eldest brother had planned to rebuild the family’s fortunes. Unfortunately, Ji Chengyi had already realized that his older brother harbored unusual feelings for him. He avoided Ji Zhonglin like a snake or a scorpion, refusing even to show his face.
Readers had lamented the outcome, feeling that Ji Zhonglin had finally paid the price for the indulgence he had once shown the villain Ji Yang.
For his entire life, he would love someone he could never have.
It was just that he had only begun to come to his senses now. The consequences were still limited, and his influence wasn’t yet enough to cause much damage.
Early the next morning, Ji Yang was sprawled across his bed when the alarm woke him.
Thinking about how, in the original story, he would have been abandoned and humiliated the previous day, then completely reduced to a vicious villain crawling miserably along the ground within just half a year, Ji Yang felt as though he had narrowly escaped death when he opened his eyes again.
When all was said and done, the complicated grudges of a wealthy family and business projects worth hundreds of millions were still far removed from him.
At heart, he was just an ordinary user of Earth Online who had once worked as an actor in video games, done power-leveling jobs, and, after gaining a little fame, even filmed suggestive videos to spoil his fans. He had also been harassed for half a year by people who mistook him for an adult-content creator.
Those things that looked like embarrassing past scandals were, in reality, the ordinary, mundane details of his life—the life he had originally lived.
So when he stood in his room before the full-length mirror used for mirror therapy to alleviate phantom limb pain, examining this body carefully from head to toe for the first time, his first thought was:
What a waste.
This body looked very much like his own from his previous life. Extremely similar.
The only differences were that its hair was longer, its legs were long, and its waist was slender, with proportions that were just right.
Even the curve of his flat stomach, where his navel stretched into a narrow line, was exactly the same.
Most importantly, after two years of being carefully covered up, the skin was almost excessively white.
Part of that whiteness was simply natural. After all, even the amputation site on his right leg had no particularly noticeable raised scars. Despite years of friction from wearing a prosthetic limb and fitting it into its socket, the skin hadn’t become rough. It was even tinged with a rosy pink.
With conditions like these, there were so many things he could have done. Why on earth had he insisted on becoming a vicious villain?
And now look at him. After transmigrating into this world, he had somehow lost a leg. If he ever reached the point where he couldn’t survive anymore, he wouldn’t even be able to crawl two li, let alone return to his old line of work and make suggestive content.
Ji Yang didn’t even feel like complaining anymore.
There was also an entire glass cabinet in the original owner’s walk-in closet, neatly arranged with all kinds of prosthetic limbs.
There had to be at least thirty of them.
When Ji Yang had seen it the previous night, he had even wondered whether the original owner collected prosthetic limbs as some kind of hobby. At first glance, the sight was honestly a little horrifying.
That morning, he had picked out one that seemed relatively lightweight and fiddled with it for half an hour.
He hadn’t even managed to lift his foot before it fell off.
So when he heard someone knocking on the door, Ji Yang’s first reaction, as he sat on the floor, was to say, “Sorry to trouble you, but could you get me a wheelchair? Thank you.”
Then he watched in disbelief as the person standing at the doorway began to cry.
Ji Yang: “………………”
The woman was the nanny who had looked after the original owner since childhood, despite rarely receiving even a kind word from him. She seemed like an exceptionally kind person. Now in her late forties, she was slightly plump. With tears streaming down her face, she walked in, slipped her arms under Ji Yang’s armpits, lifted him up in one swift motion, and set him down at the foot of the bed.
Ji Yang was completely dumbfounded.
Shock, confusion, and an indescribable awkwardness overwhelmed him.
“It’s Auntie Mo who’s useless,” the woman said, clearly heartbroken.
“…No, no, no.” Ji Yang hurriedly waved his hands. “You’re very useful, really. You’re strong.”
He was at least 174 centimeters tall, after all. The woman clearly had years of experience looking after the original owner’s daily needs.
This room hadn’t been adapted to accommodate someone with a disability. As for how Ji Yang had managed to complete all his bedtime washing-up routines the previous night despite his physical limitations, he really didn’t want to think about it.
But being carried around like this was even worse.
Mo Qiu busied herself opening his wardrobe and sorting through his clothes.
“The young master has finally come around. Before this, you couldn’t even stand hearing the word wheelchair.” As she spoke, she selected one outfit after another. “I won’t take leave next time. I’d only been gone for a single day, and so many things happened to you.”
As she continued, her voice grew a little sad.
“I even heard that you fell asleep in the living room yesterday afternoon. Young Master, don’t take this the wrong way. Auntie Mo isn’t trying to meddle, but your health isn’t what it used to be. Listen to me—if you can take less of that medication, you really should.”
Only then did Ji Yang remember.
The original owner’s increasingly violent temper and the way his body had been gradually worn down had a great deal to do with his severe dependence on medication.
When the servants had brought him the medicine yesterday, he hadn’t thought much about it.
He had simply wanted to relieve the pain first.
Now that he thought about it carefully, the original owner’s phantom limb pain didn’t occur particularly often. Compared with people who suffered from it every single day, his attacks came only once every week or two.
Yet over the past two years, he had been taking medication as if it were candy.
It seemed there were plenty of people in the Ji family who would be happy to see him die sooner rather than later.
“Don’t worry, Auntie Mo. I understand,” Ji Yang said.
His obedient response made even the nimble-handed Mo Qiu pause in the middle of what she was doing.
Looking at her, Ji Yang remembered the landlady from his previous life. She had noticed that he was always alone during holidays and festivals, so she would occasionally bring him delicious food she had cooked at home. She was short and plump, with a very gentle disposition.
As for Mo Qiu, after the original owner died, the author never explained what became of a minor character like her.
In the original novel, Mo Qiu was portrayed as a vicious old nanny who constantly encouraged Ji Yang’s worst impulses. Presumably, her ending hadn’t been particularly good either.
“Little Young Master, don’t lose heart. We got through the car accident two years ago, even though it was such a huge ordeal. Things will go smoothly from now on.”
Then she added, “A bastard is still a bastard. No matter what, he’ll never be able to climb above you.”
And then, “Your father has always been a womanizer. If he hadn’t caused all this trouble, how could that fickle woman have taken advantage of the main branch? You wouldn’t have had to suffer like this, Little Young Master.”
She glorified the motives behind all of the original owner’s actions, called the protagonist shou a bastard, and described his father’s tragic first love as a promiscuous woman. As a household servant, she certainly had little sense of what was appropriate to say. She was, indeed, the kind of character readers wouldn’t like.
But Ji Yang liked her.
Sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed, he smiled.
“Sure. I’ll take your blessing.”
Ji Yang said, “When you have great-grandchildren to hold someday, Auntie Mo, I’ll definitely give you a big gold lock for the baby.”
Auntie Mo immediately broke into a delighted smile, answering with a string of enthusiastic acknowledgments.
Ten minutes later, Ji Yang had changed into a pure white casual shirt and wheeled himself downstairs.
It was a May morning, right on the boundary between spring and summer. The relentless rain from the previous day had finally stopped, and the air carried the fresh, clean scent that always followed a rainfall.
There weren’t many people left in the dining room.
The only people left were Ji Mingyue, whom he had met yesterday, and an unfamiliar man.
“Who’s that?”
Ji Yang maneuvered the wheelchair with rather unpracticed movements and rolled over to the seat beside Ji Mingyue. When he arrived, he even bumped straight into the leg of her chair with a thump.
Ji Mingyue turned her head, first looking him up and down before shifting her gaze to his wheelchair.
“Weren’t you using crutches yesterday? Is this your new way of making an entrance to attract attention?”
Ji Yang answered honestly. “Putting on a prosthetic is too much trouble. I’m in a hurry.”
“In a hurry?”
The other man at the table spoke up.
He looked to be around twenty-five or twenty-six and was dressed quite maturely in a suit, though there was a frivolous air between his brows.
He smiled and said, “Fourth Young Master, what are you in such a hurry to do?”
Ji Yang accepted the breakfast a servant handed him. “Go to work.”
“Go to work?!”
The man looked as though he had just heard the funniest joke in the world.
“I’m telling you, stop trying to be funny. Who doesn’t know all the ridiculous things you did at the Ji Corporation? I heard your eldest brother gave your former position as regional deputy general manager to Ji Chengyi. Now you’re just nominally the manager of the New Media Department. The entire department has been left out in the cold, and it might get shut down in one fell swoop any day now. What’s the point of going to work at a place like that?”
There really wasn’t much point.
But the timing was just too convenient.
This had been on Ji Yang’s mind ever since he woke up.
Under the circumstances at the time, Nie Xu had naturally become his first choice.
But he couldn’t put all his bets on one person.
The workplace was where Ji Chengyi shone, but it was also where Ji Yang had been marginalized, setting him on the path toward becoming completely extreme. Ji Yang was far too passive at the moment, and he hated the feeling of having no control.
As it happened, however, this so-called New Media Department was the only department that had quickly completed its separation and established itself as an independent business after the Ji Corporation collapsed.
Its director was an internet genius who had made a fortune by taking advantage of insider information.
Being transmigrated into a book did have its advantages.
Some information could be picked up in advance.
Ji Yang thought that, as it happened, he was also someone who was very much alive on the internet.
Those who hoped he would fade into obscurity, who wanted him to disappear without a sound—he was determined not to give them what they wanted.
There was no reason his reputation couldn’t become a bargaining chip.
What if it worked?
Ji Yang twirled a finger around his ear and asked Ji Mingyue beside him, “It’s so noisy. Why do I feel like I can hear a dog barking nonstop?”
“Who the hell are you calling a dog?!”
“Qi Yiming, that’s enough.” Ji Mingyue cut him off. “Do you actually have anything to do here or not? If not, leave early.”
Qi Yiming straightened his suit and regained some of his composure.
“Mingyue, I know you’re upset about those scandals of mine, but I promise you I’ll cut off all those relationships completely from now on. I was specifically instructed to come pick you up today. How about we go shopping together later?”
Ji Yang speared a dumpling on his plate with his fork.
“Whose instructions? Heaven’s? Because Heaven’s instructions also tell you that a person should have some self-awareness. Don’t you know what kind of defective product crawled out of a sewer you are?”
The other man shot to his feet in fury and pointed at him.
“Ji Yang! What the hell are you getting at?”
Ji Yang immediately grabbed Ji Mingyue’s arm and hid behind her. Slowly raising his eyes to look at Qi Yiming, he said softly, “Mingyue, your fiancé is so, so, fierce.”
He let go of her arm.
“He scared me.”
Qi Yiming was so furious he was practically smoking. He suspected that the Fourth Young Master Ji he had met today was a fake!
He roared, “What the hell are you pretending to be?!”
“Oh, you figured it out?”
Ji Yang replied with cool sarcasm, “I thought you were blind.”