Getting "Punished" (Arc 2)

Feng Yongrui looked at the butler's incredulous expression and chuckled inside his heart.

"Host, what are you doing?" the System asked in shock.

Feng Yongrui chuckled lightly and flew to the bottom of the stairs. He positioned himself and began screaming.

"Argh! Ouch! Someone, help! The butler pushed meee!" Feng Yongrui yelled at the top of his lungs.

The butler was stunned and hurriedly rushed over to Feng Yongrui's side.

"You! W-what nonsense are you saying?!" he hissed angrily.

Feng Yongrui ignored the butler and roared in pain again.

He heard the sound of footsteps and smiled. Heh, it would be over for the butler.

Servants burst into the room, along with the nanny and Yin Longshen. When he saw his older brother, Feng Yongrui quickly put on a pitiful expression and began to cry.

"G-gege... The... The butler pushed me... Waa~" Feng Yongrui burst into tears.

Yin Longshen moved to Feng Yongrui's side and hugged him.

"Ding~ The protagonist's blackening value has increased to 15%~" Feng Yongrui heard the System's notification.

"Ding~ You have received your punishment," the System added after some time.

Feng Yongrui smiled sneakily. It turns out he could cheat the System like this... how nice.

At first, Feng Yongrui thought that he had to obey the System and receive his punishment without complaints. However, after mulling over the matter for some time, Feng Yongrui felt that something was amiss.

The purpose of the punishment wasn't really to punish him, it was to force things to go "back on track". The System said that the protagonist had to blacken on his tenth birthday, but it never mentioned how much the protagonist blackened, right?

So... as long as Feng Yongrui "fell down the stairs" and the protagonist blackened, wouldn't this be considered as complete?

Feng Yongrui didn't really need to suffer and fall down the stairs for real, right?

This was what Feng Yongrui surmised from the System's words. He didn't know if he was right or wrong, but he was taking a gamble here.

Thankfully, his sudden plan worked, and his punishment was considered complete. Well, the System seemed unhappy, but Feng Yongrui didn't really care.

He successfully evaded his punishment (he didn't have to fall down the stairs for real again), and the protagonist's blackening value had risen to 12%. It was like hitting two birds with one stone.

The butler was quickly apprehended by several servants, and Feng Yongrui told them that the butler had pushed him down the stairs.

The butler was taken away to be interrogated by Yin Qiushan or Zhao Baozhai later.

The servants, the nanny, and even Yin Longshen were fussing over Feng Yongrui, checking him all over to make sure that he was fine.

Yin Longshen even went to great lengths, telling the nanny that they had to call a doctor.

Of course, Feng Yongrui had to continue acting like he was in shock. He continued to cry and give pitiful glances at his older brother, whose face was filled with distress.

When the doctor came and checked on him, Feng Yongrui pursed his lips. Actually, he didn't feel hurt anywhere. After all, he didn't really fall down... but, when the doctor told Yin Longshen and the nanny that he was okay, the other two didn't believe him.

"Doctor, there must be something wrong with my little brother. Are you sure he's okay?" Yin Longshen asked worriedly.

"Yes... You need to make sure our Young Master is healthy. If there's something wrong with him, the Yin family won't let you go!" the nanny threatened.

The doctor broke out in cold sweat and proceeded to check on Feng Yongrui again.

Feng Yongrui: "..."

Fine, he was the one who started pretending. Since he did it already, he might as well do it until the end.

When the day ended, Feng Yongrui was thoroughly exhausted, and he didn't have the energy to do anything anymore.

"Hey, System," Feng Yongrui called out wearily.

"Host, be quiet. I'm mad at you," the System replied angrily.

Feng Yongrui rolled his eyes. How many times did the System bully him? Now, he bullied the System once, but it was getting so angry like this...

"What a sore loser," Feng Yongrui muttered.

In any case, Feng Yongrui had confirmed something. Yin Longshen really treasured him, so Yin Longshen's blackening value would rise if something bad happened to him (Feng Yongrui).

With that in mind, Feng Yongrui could use this to his advantage...

Feng Yongrui turned his attention to two things:

1) He had to start planning to hurt himself and make Yin Longshen blacken.

2) He had to make sure that the protagonist started becoming a business tycoon from now.

After listening to the System's words regarding "world balance" and "punishments", Feng Yongrui realized that even if he wanted to complete this task with his own method, he couldn't ignore the original timeline.

There were certain things that had to be done the same way as in the original timeline.

Feng Yongrui skimmed through the background information regarding this world and noted down several important points.

The protagonist blackened when he was ten years old, because the butler pushed him down the stairs and he became crippled...

For one year, the protagonist could not stand it and fell into depression, he didn't even want to go to school. When he turned eleven years old, though, the protagonist got a computer and somehow stumbled upon a coding class.

Within two years, the protagonist had become an expert at software making and he was a good hacker as well. As for the process... It wasn't mentioned on how he learned to hack and code stuff.

The point was, he became an IT professional at 13 years old.

Feng Yongrui wanted to gnash his teeth when he read this information. When he was 13 years old, what was he doing? Probably playing video games or writing love letters.

As expected, he was nowhere near a protagonist.

Feng Yongrui continued reading the information that he had.

The protagonist didn't go to formal school at all. By this point, he was like a hermit. He stayed in his room all day, and only went out of his room to eat from time to time.

The servants in the house neglected him, and sometimes, they even forgot that he existed. Zhao Baozhai was naturally pleased with this. She had no idea that Yin Longshen was secretly learning by himself.

By the time he turned fourteen years old, the protagonist had made friends in the coding community. He met a person with the username [daylily900], who was like his mentor and best friend.

The person [daylily900] was actually the 20 year old Peng Hui, from the Peng family.

Speaking about the Peng family, this was a rich and affluent family that was more powerful than the Yin family. This family, though, had a complicated relationship with the Yin family.

During Yin Qiushan's generation, his older brother, Yin Xianliang, had fallen in love with the Peng family's youngest daughter, Peng Ruolan.

At first, Peng Ruolan did not like Yin Xianliang. Over time, though, his persistence melted her heart, and she fell in love with him.

Yin Xianliang and Peng Ruolan got married without their elders' knowledge. At that time, Yin Xianliang and Yin Qiushan were in the middle of a fierce battle for succession.

Both of them wanted to become the heir to the Yin family, but neither was willing to back down.

Yin Qiushan knew that, in terms of business acuity, he was inferior to his older brother, so he used some dirty tricks.

Yin Qiushan searched for Yin Xianliang's weakness, and found out that his older brother had married the daughter of the Peng family.

When he found out about this, Yin Qiushan was afraid. He was afraid that his older brother would gain the support of the Peng family and win over him.

Yin Qiushan ordered some people to kidnap Peng Ruolan and force Yin Xinliang to give up the fight for succession.

When Peng Ruolan was kidnapped, the Peng family found out about it. Yin Xinliang also found out about it, and he was enraged.

The Peng family sent people to rescue Peng Ruolan, and Yin Xinliang also went to rescue her.

One of the people who was sent to rescue Peng Ruolan was her older brother, Peng Wencheng. When he arrived at the location, Peng Wencheng saw Yin Xinliang having a face off with Yin Qiushan.

Yin Qiushan was threatening Peng Ruolan with a knife and forcing Yin Xinliang to give up the fight for succession. Unfortunately, Yin Xinliang had a change of heart -- he claimed that he would never give up the fight for succession, even if Peng Ruolan got hurt.

When Peng Wencheng saw this, he was furious. A fight ensued, with Peng Wencheng trying to rescue his younger sister. Unfortunately, Peng Wencheng was accidentally stabbed with the knife and died.

Peng Ruolan survived the ordeal, but her mental state was terrible. Her husband (Yin Xinliang) had betrayed her, and her older brother (Peng Wencheng) was dead. How could she be okay?

Naturally, this incident ended very badly.

***

Feng Yongrui: I smell dog blood here.

***

You and your brother are fighting to become the family's heir. You...

a) Fight fairly. You are an honest person.

b) Threaten your opponent using his wife's life. Anything is allowed in war.

c) Give up. You don't want to fight your family.

Comment below~