Chapter 2[1.1]

Just when Jing Yang wanted to open his eyes, he heard the cell phone ring. Previously, every time he reincarnated he passed through to a baby and never had any memories, so he wouldn't feel strange. But this time he brought along his memories to pass through time and space, and also transmigrated into someone else's body, which made him a little unable to adapt.

He hadn't even had the time to understand everything about this body or this space-time when he got a headache from the ear-piercing rings from the cell phone. So he first picked up the call.

"Hello."

"Bro, the auction's going to begin really soon, have you left your house yet?"

"Auction?" Jing Yang frowned. For the time being he hadn't yet received this body's memory, so he didn't know what the auction that this person mentioned was.

"Did you drink too much again yesterday, and now you still haven't woken up from your hangover? Forget it, forget it, you wake up now and I'll come over to pick you up and go there together."

Jing Yang looked at the already hung up call on his phone, then threw it aside and looked around at the quite well decorated room. The air still smelled faintly of alcohol. Seems like this body really did drink a lot last night, no wonder he had a headache.

Launching the system in his brain, he opened the body control function and first eliminated his headache, then opened the memory inheritance function to understand this body's life experience.

Lu Jingyu, male, currently 22 years old, his maternal grandfather Lu Deyuan was a famous chef in China. His ancestors also served as royal chefs.

For his entire life Lu Deyuan deeply loved his first wife, but his first wife had an untimely death and only left a delicate daughter. However, he didn't want to marry again and brought up his daughter by himself.

Lu Deyuan was getting on in years and wanted to find a husband for his daughter, for one to help him take care of his daughter and second because his big family also needed someone to inherit and operate the business. When he received apprentices, he first looked at their character, and then looked at whether they could endure hardship, and lastly looked at their talent, so his several apprentices all had very good character.

He considered choosing a son-in-law from his apprentices, but his daughter Lu Xuexian actually fell in love with a common kitchen hand named Zheng Jianlin.

Zheng Jianlin's previous generations of ancestors were also cooks, and were well-regarded for a period of time, but because his grandfather and father didn't have enough talent and weren't diligent, they gradually declined.

Lu Deyuan and Zheng Jianlin's father could be considered to have a bit of friendship, and when their (ZJL) family had financial difficulties, Lu Deyuan would often give their family some financial aid. Later, when Zheng Jianlin's father died, Lu Deyuan let Zheng Jianlin work at their family's restaurant as a kitchen hand. Even though for his father's sake Lu Deyuan would give Zheng Jianlin some more care, he never wanted to let him become his son-in-law, only because since childhood that man was not of upright character.

When Lu Deyuan first found out that his daughter and Zheng Jianlin were in love, he didn't agree to them being together. But don't know what means Zheng Jianlin used to get Lu Xuexian dead set on being with him, Lu Deyuan still adamantly refused the marriage. Then Lu Deyuan, who had always carefully taken care of his daughter like holding her in the palm of his hand, was unable to bear his daughter's piteous begging, and added on Zheng Jianlin kneeling in front of him vowing that he would definitely treat Lu Xuexian well and never disappoint her, finally let him reluctantly agree to the two of them being together.

Thinking that in the future Zheng Jianlin would be his son-in-law and help him manage the family business that had been handed down for generations, Lu Deyuan put great care into rigorously instructing Zheng Jianlin, not only teaching him cooking, but also severely correcting his integrity, conduct, temperament, and character.

Zheng Jianlin's performance was also not bad, earnest and diligent, and no longer had those crooked thoughts. This let Lu Deyuan think that he had already thoroughly changed, and not until the time when he thought he could be relieved to pass his daughter and family business to him, Lu Deyuan finally found out that Zheng Jianlin's performance for those years were only because his acting was too good. Once he started acting then continued for over ten years, and in fact inside he was still that originally crooked and scheming person.

Lu Xuexian was born delicate, and dated Zheng Jianlin for several years before getting married. Only after getting married for several years did she finally conceive a child, and for the purpose of conceiving this child she constantly visited the doctor and took medicine, and suffered a lot of bitterness. But she never knew that from early on Zheng Jianlin already had a lover outside, and they already had a two year old child.

When Lu Deyuan first found out about this situation, he was almost angered to the extent of having a stroke. He was already getting old, his body gradually getting worse, even didn't know how long he could live, then at this time finally discovered this affair. This let him have no way to be relieved to leave, since once he's gone, his daughter would have no good life with that type of person.

When Zheng Jianlin saw that his lover and bastard son were found by his father-in-law, he was scared witless for a short time, since he felt that to marry into the Lu family, he had deviously worked for over ten years, so he definitely couldn't just end up with nothing in the end. He secretly switched out Lu Deyuan's medicine and when Lu Deyuan looked for him to negotiate, deliberately angered him to the point of stroke. Then, he deliberately delayed his emergency treatment, and by the time Lu Deyuan was being sent to the hospital, he had already died on the road.

Lu Xuexian grew up being pampered by Lu Deyuan, like a greenhouse lily that needs people to take good care of it, and never experienced any suffering. Even though she had poor health since childhood, she had a father who loved her and a husband who respected her, and she thought that she was already very satisfied, and if she lived an excessively perfect life, even God would be envious.

When her father suddenly died, this brought her a great shock, and her originally weak body became even worse. But for her newborn child, she brought out a never before seen strength and survived so that she could watch her child grow up.

Lu Xuexian thought that her home was quite blissful, since her child was very healthy, and even though Zheng Jianlin treated her more and more coldly, she thought that there would always be a day when love would turn into familial affection, and old couples didn't need to be as sweet as when they were young. Plus Zheng Jianlin managed their family business very well, so her father in the sky watching all this must be very gratified.

Until the time when Lu Jingyu became 5 years old, Zheng Jianlin brought back home a 7 year old child and told Lu Xuexian that this was his own son who had previously always been raised outside but now he intended to bring him back to recognize his ancestors and take his surname Zheng. He said that he knew he had let Lu Xuexian down, but the child was innocent, constantly raising him outside doesn't count as any good matter, so he would bring him back to teach him well, and later he would be the same as their own son.

Lu Xuexian's world seemed like it was crumbling, and she looked at the child who suddenly appeared like a monster. The Zheng Jianlin who stood in front of her suddenly became a stranger, she didn't dare to believe, and didn't want to believe, that all of this was true.

But the reality was that Zheng Jianlin indeed had betrayed her, betrayed their love. He found a lover outside and even had a son older than Jingyu by two years. How she wished that all this was just a nightmare, and that one day she would be able to wake up from the dream and find that everything wasn't real.

From then on, Lu Xuexian often would be in a trance, she really wanted to be able to wake up from the dream, and already started not being able to tell whether she was in a dream or reality. But ever since that child appeared he started living in their house, and Zheng Jianlin's lover, the child's mother, often came to their house to visit the child, and even often as Zheng Jianlin's assistant accompanied him to attend all kinds of events. It was like she was Zheng Jianlin's real wife, because she had given Zheng Jianlin his eldest son, and this son was also surnamed Zheng.

Lu Xuexian thought that for her child she could endure everything, that she would definitely be able to brace herself forward. It was not until she accidentally overheard Zheng Jianlin and his lover's conversation that she found out that he had caused her father's death.

Thinking of her previously insisting on being together with Zheng Jianlin, Lu Xuexian felt that she had really shown the wolf into the house, and caused her father's death. Adding on to her seeing the bastard son every day and occasionally seeing the mother of that illegitimate son, Lu Xuexian's spirit began becoming somewhat abnormal, and she began suffering from severe depression.

When Lu Jingyu was 15, after Lu Xuexian left her son one last farewell video, she jumped to her death.

The fifteen year old Lu Jingyu had not yet recovered from his grief when Zheng Jianlin already married his lover Sun Qiurong and she became the mistress of the family.

Lu Jingyu had no way to face the three people who had led his mother to suicide, so he moved out from the house to live by himself, and Zheng Jianlin also didn't stop him, letting him fend for himself.

Lu Jingyu's heart was full of oppressive sorrow, he no longer went to school, made a gang of bad friends, and abandoned himself to a wild life every day. Then suddenly one day he woke up to reality and thought that he must avenge his mother, and had to let the three people who had killed his mother pay the price.

Even though Lu Jingyu was determined, but his ability was limited, even if he exhausted all methods to fight against Zheng Junming, he was still unable to contend against him, and after suffering defeat again and again, he could only use heavy drinking to a stupor to escape the pain.

These were all what Jing Yang understood from Lu Jingyu's perspective on the situation, and Lu Jingyu, as this world's destined cannon fodder, being unable to contend with the other person is also inevitable.

But since he had come and replaced Lu Jingyu, since he has occupied this body, he would do his best to fulfill all of the desires of this body's original owner and reverse the current situation. Since he wanted revenge, he would help him revenge, he wanted success, so he would help him succeed. Now that he (JY) was him (LJY), so no matter whether it is for him (LJY) or for himself (JY), he would achieve the highest degree of perfection.

Following the so-called know yourself and know your enemy and you will never be defeated, after learning the information from this body's perspective, he needed to understand his opponent from this world's overall perspective.

Even though Zheng Junming was an illegitimate child before, yet he was Zheng Jianlin's favorite and the son he is most proud of, and he showed a talent in cooking since his youth. Zheng Jianlin took the cooking knowledge that he had learned from Lu Deyuan and personally taught them to Zheng Junming, yet never thought to teach these to Lu Jingyu.

Zheng Junming relied on his excellent appearance and outstanding cooking skills to frequently appear on all kinds of cooking programs, attracting large numbers of fans and some friends who completely supported him. Whenever he cooked on these programs, he would always intentionally unintentionally mention how difficult his childhood was in the Lu family, how hard it was for him learning to cook, how his father's previous wife would always look at him with eyes like looking at a monster, and if eyes could kill, he would definitely have already died thousands or hundreds of times.

Zheng Jianlin often mentioned in public that he married Lu Xuexian as a favor under his teacher's command, not because of love, and he felt that he had really let his current wife and eldest son down, forcing them to endure too much unknown sadness. Now, he would do his utmost to compensate them, whatever accusations or insults can all be given to him, but requested them not to hurt his wife and child.

Because every time Zheng Junming went on programs he would always implicitly reveal how much he suffered in his childhood, his fans never looked down on him for being an illegitimate son, and never accused him, but instead were distressed about his bitter experiences. After all, if he could have chosen, he would not have wanted himself to be an illegitimate child, and he would have wanted his loving parents to be able to be together in an aboveboard manner. So in this matter, regardless of who is right or wrong, he would always be the most innocent person.

Like Lu Xuexian this type of woman, even if you wanted her to do some type of malicious thing, she wouldn't be able to do it. So in reality besides the first time she saw Zheng Junming and showed eyes of horror and of looking at a monster, in the time afterwards, she would always do her utmost to ignore his presence. For this illegitimate child that her husband suddenly brought home, even if he was only an innocent child and she couldn't do anything to hurt him, she also had no way to bring herself to treat him well or even to care about him.

Every time as long as Lu Xuexian saw Zheng Junming was a great torment to her, but she could endure, and in fact did keep on enduring, until Sun Qiurong kept on appearing in front of her and reminding her again and again of the facts that she always wanted to forget. She finally couldn't keep on enduring and used suicide to seek a form of relief.

Lu Jingyu detested Zheng Junming this pair of mother and child, and Zheng Junming similarly loathed Lu Jingyu this pair of mother and child, because since he was small Zheng Jianlin imparted into him the notion that it was only because of Lu Deyuan that he couldn't be together with his parents in an aboveboard fashion. He carried the identity of an illegitimate son, all because Lu Deyuan forced his father to marry into the Lu family. His father and his mother were the real ones in love, and that unloved Lu Xuexian was really the third party between his parents.

Seeing this, Jing Yang thought this was somewhat ridiculous, Zheng Junming loathed the Lu family people so much, yet calmly enjoyed everything from the Lu family, just like his father, wanting to possess all of the Lu home's property and assets, this father and son were really similarly hypocritical and greedy.

Because Lu Jingyu would often go against Zheng Junming, this let some of Zheng Junming's friends despise him greatly, so much so that Zheng Junming didn't even need to act personally. As long as he complained to his friends, they would help him solve Lu Jingyu.

After he was framed by Zheng Junming and those friends of his, he became the abandoned villain to suffer the yells and hits of everyone. His end was very miserable, wandering around the streets like a street rat yet still being chased by people, which also had the handwriting of his own biological parent Zheng Jianlin. In order to avoid the people who framed and chased him, he could only disguise himself as a tramp, and in the end still died in the middle of a street brawl.

Translator Notes:

[1] Bro – 哥, slang for a friend, not an actual brother, so I changed it to bro

[2] doesn't count as any good matter – 不算回事情, really have no idea what to translate this to, guessed based on context…

[3] shown the wolf into the house – 引狼入室, idiom, meaning she took the initiative to bring back trouble

[4] left one last farewell video – 留下了最后一段影像, literally means left him last period of image, edited from "staying with him" after rereading chapter 4 and seeing the farewell video mentioned

[5] gang of bad friends – 狐朋狗友, idiom for a pack/gang of rogues/scoundrels

[6] abandoned himself to a wild life – 吃喝玩乐, idiom, literally means to eat, drink, and be merry

[7] drinking to a stupor – 醉生梦死, idiom, literally means drinking into a trance/dream

[8] inevitable – 理所当然, idiom, expected as a matter of course

[9] know yourself and know your enemy and you will never be defeated – 所谓知己知彼百战不殆, idiom, from Sunzi's Art of War

[10] most proud of – 引以为傲, idiom, being intensely proud of something

[11] abandoned – 自甘堕落, idiom, means to abandon oneself?

Random notes:

I really should track how long I've been spending on these. I always write things in one burst, so I would estimate I finished this in 2.5-3 hours? That's a significantly longer time than the first chapter. I'm not quite sure why. This one is 4k characters, to approx 3k words, but felt significantly longer both lengthwise and timewise than the first one. I think I've been actually translating rather than MTLing, directly reading the raws and supplementing with liberal use of MDBG dictionary. Bless the MDBG gods. It's all bc I'm pretty OCD about my writing. Really should learn to move past that so I can more efficiently use my time on more chapters.

Decided to translate this chapter today and post it up, since I'll probably not be able to translate for around a week. I'll leave you with all the backstory for the first arc then. Side note: the pronouns in this chapter were literally so confusing, usually it makes sense, but in a couple sentences I had to put initials in. Chinese is confusing. This author is also lazy with his pronouns, which definitely doesn't help. Also, so many run on sentences~

Thanks for all the support so far! This is one of my absolute favorite novels (I even like it more than FOD for this genre bc of more world variety), so I'm glad that more people can enjoy it! (￣▽￣)/