Chapter 9 – Running away (3)

The stepmother committed many sinister acts on the male lead’s path to a grown up, vile acts that one could only imagine, but she was no doubt an excellent mother to her own son. Even during the male lead’s recount, he mentioned that his stepmother did not marry his father for love, she married him so his son could have the best education and stand on the top of the world.

Ever since the mother and son had entered their house, they pulled all sorts of stunts to compete with him for his father’s attention. The stepmother always pretended to be tender and submissive in front of other people and that she was madly in love with his father, and even nice to his son because of that.

Her son did an even better job than her. He had always pretended to be a good son and a good brother in front of his father and the father bought into it all and was closer to him than even his own son. Ever since he had graduated college, the father made him a senior manager at the headquarters right away – even though the male lead joined the company before his stepbrother, he joined under a different name and started at the grunt level. The entire company knew of the “Young Master” but nobody knew that the true young master was right among them.

Ever since he was a child, the male lead had lived under the shadow of his stepbrother. Up until he found out that everything that his father did was to hone his character, he had been envious and even jealous at how his father and his stepbrother had gotten along with each other. To the point that even after his stepbrother had brought about his own demise, and he understood why his father acted the way that he did, he still couldn’t get over everything that had happened to him in his childhood. Specifically, even after villain Zhou Yuanjia died completely, the male lead would still dreamt about how his stepbrother was setting him up and his father would side with the stepbrother instead of him. One could tell that it had a lasting effect on the male lead.

Zhou Yuanjia’s presence was more than just to hone the male lead’s character. Even after his death, his negative impact on the male lead could still be seen all over the place. All the way until the male lead had finally met the female lead and his fragile heart was finally softened by the female lead’s warmth and love, before he was able to put everything aside and reconcile with his father.

All in all, Zhou Yuanji was the real villain of the book, along with the most tragic ending. Compared to him, the villainess stepmother’s ending was still not too bad. The male lead had more or less completely forgotten about her ever since she went to jail. With his power, he could easily have someone “take care” of her when she was in jail, but he didn’t do that. Which was to say that if she truly tried to make up for her past behavior, there were still hopes out there for her.

And as the best villain, Zhou Yuanjia died during the climax of the fight over the inheritance. He died in the car that had been altered, the one that him and his mother had prepared for the male lead. In the end, the male lead was able to avoid it, but Zhou Yuanjia died in the car, without even an intact body, much like his own father.

Yan Yushu hugged the small and warm body. Thinking about what would happen in 20 years, she couldn’t help but feel bad for him, which had further solidified her determination that she must deviate from the script.