No… he couldn’t do that.
Su Mingyao cut off his train of thought.
Su Shang hadn’t done any of those things yet, and starting to target him now would only make Su Mingyao feel uneasy deep down.
If he had a choice, he really didn’t want to make a move against Su Shang. After all, he was the one who had first stolen all of Su Shang’s family, along with his fiancé and his status. He truly owed the man an apology.
But no matter what, Su Shang had no right to threaten his life, to try to kill him.
Su Mingyao’s parents had both died in a car accident, and his mother had sacrificed herself to protect him. He believed that the hope carried by this life wasn’t just his own, but also that of his deceased parents.
Su Mingyao absolutely refused to let his mother’s sacrifice be in vain. He cherished his life greatly, so Su Shang’s actions back then had struck right at his sore spot.
If it weren’t for that, Su Mingyao felt he might have been able to forgive Su Shang, even after multiple attempts on his life and schemes to ruin his reputation.
In Su Mingyao’s life, two people had left the deepest impressions on him: his lawful partner, Shen Changqing, and Su Shang.
From the moment they were born, their lives had been intertwined. They shared no blood ties, yet their fates were linked, bound by the same family.
Su Mingyao knew Su Shang hated him. He had once tried to ease that hatred, but never succeeded. Su Shang still hated him enough to wish him dead.
But the Su Mingyao of now was slightly different from the one before.
He now had over a decade more of life experience…
Could those extra years change anything? Su Mingyao wasn’t sure, but he wanted to try.
Just then, someone knocked lightly on the bathroom door three times.
“Mr. Ming?”
It was his personal assistant, Xiao Zhang. Since everyone in the Su family shared the surname Su, calling out “Mr. Su” wouldn’t single anyone out, so they usually went by titles. Su Mingyao couldn’t stand being called Second Young Master, so he had Xiao Zhang address him as Mr. Ming.
Originally, the Su family didn’t have so many personal assistants. Su Bingyao’s assistant, Mo Hai, handled both personal matters and some business affairs.
Su Shang’s assistant, Liang Minghua, was more of a watchdog than anything. As B City’s once-notorious playboy, Liang Minghua had been assigned to keep Su Shang in check and prevent him from going too far.
But considering that both of her sons already had assistants, Li Qingshu worried Su Mingyao might feel left out without one, so she hired Xiao Zhang for him.
Realizing he’d spent too long in the bathroom and worried him, prompting Xiao Zhang’s concern that he might have fainted inside, Su Mingyao spoke up.
“Is something wrong?”
“The Third Young Master is here.”
For some reason, there was a hint of fear in Xiao Zhang’s voice.
Su Shang… he’d come?
Su Mingyao inexplicably felt a bit nervous.
This was their first meeting in this lifetime.
Su Mingyao straightened his clothes, smoothed down his tousled hair, and gave himself a final check. He instinctively reached for the men’s cologne on the sink, only to grasp at empty air. Right—he’d forgotten he was back over a decade ago, before he’d developed the habit of spritzing cologne. There was none on the sink.
Calming himself, he pushed open the bathroom door.
Luo Shang and Assistant Xiao Zhang were already waiting in the living room.
It had been years since he’d last seen Su Shang, but their relationship hadn’t soured yet. They could still speak to each other.
Even knowing Su Shang had come with ill intent, Su Mingyao still held some expectations for this encounter.
When he first learned that Su Shang was the one sabotaging him all along, Su Mingyao had been in disbelief. He’d avoided facing that reality, shunning any contact with Su Shang as if nothing had ever happened.
But his partner, Shen Changqing, had misunderstood that avoidance. He’d thought Su Mingyao hated Su Shang with a burning passion.
The last news Su Mingyao had received about Su Shang was his obituary.
Shen Changqing had assumed he’d be thrilled to hear it, but Su Mingyao had merely frozen for a moment before falling into a long silence.
Seeing Su Shang again now brought the once-blurry figure from his memories into sharp focus.
Sunlight streamed from behind him, outlining Su Shang’s silhouette. His eyelashes were long and fine, his lips well-shaped and lightly colored, his features delicate and boyish. His looks hadn’t changed, but his overall aura was worlds apart from what Su Mingyao remembered.
In his memories, Su Shang was always smiling. With his naturally cute face, that smile made him seem all the more approachable, harmless, and innocent.
During their first meeting back then, Su Shang had been all smiles too. It had given that version of Su Mingyao the hope that they could get along, maybe even become a real family one day. Later events had proven that to be nothing more than his illusion.
Later, when Su Mingyao reflected on it, he realized that Su Shang’s smile had been a facade under the eyes of onlookers—a smile that concealed a dagger, like honey smeared over poison, sweetly masking the bitter stench beneath. Once swallowed, it stuck in the throat.
He had never truly seen Su Shang smile with genuine feeling. Ever since he returned to the Su Family, Su Shang’s face had always worn that false smile.
Perhaps before his own return to the Su Family, the other man had smiled sincerely at some point.
These thoughts flickered through Su Mingyao’s mind. Then he noticed something wrong. Unlike his memory, the Su Shang standing before him wasn’t smiling.
Su Shang regarded him with an expressionless face. His gaze seemed to settle on Su Mingyao, yet also drifted off into the distance, shedding the pretense of sweetness to expose the cold indifference within.
Devoid of its original charm and cuteness, Su Shang now carried an enigmatic aura of mystery and detachment, as if he didn’t belong to this world at all but existed apart from it.
Wait…
Why was Su Shang sitting in a wheelchair??
Whether Su Shang had smiled at their first meeting might have grown hazy after more than a decade, memories blending with later events.
But whether he’d been in a wheelchair back then—Su Mingyao remembered that crystal clear!
He glanced around the living room. Besides himself, there were only two people there: Su Shang and his assistant Xiao Zhang.
Where was Big Bro Su Bingyao?
He distinctly remembered that it hadn’t been Xiao Zhang present back then, but Brother Yao who had brought Su Shang.
Yet now, not only was Brother Yao missing, but Su Shang had arrived in a wheelchair.
What on earth was going on?
Was this a change brought about by his rebirth?
Su Mingyao felt a twinge of surprise.
“What are you staring at?”
At last, Su Shang addressed him, lifting his head with icy detachment.
Even though he sat in the wheelchair, in that instant Su Mingyao felt looked down upon, as if a god from on high had cast an indifferent gaze upon the mortals below—neither joyful nor sorrowful.
Luo Shang hated being scrutinized like that. If it came from an elder like Li Qingshu or Su Bingyao, he might tolerate it.
But since his opposite was Su Mingyao, he had no patience for it—after all, he was playing the vicious male side character. Being a little mean to the protagonist receiver fit the role perfectly.
“No one wheeled you here?” Su Mingyao asked.
There were only three people in the living room: himself, Assistant Xiao Zhang, and Su Shang.
Su Shang was in a wheelchair, which meant someone had to have pushed him in. If not Big Bro, then at least Assistant Liang.
Yet there was no one here who could possibly have done it.
That wheelchair looked heavily used, too. The two protruding front wheels were battered and worn down, and they had left twin gray streaks on the floor.
Coupled with the evident signs of frequent use on the chair itself, Su Mingyao formed a bold hypothesis:
Had Su Shang wheeled himself here?
But Su Shang appeared spotless, without a speck of dust or a single crease in his clothes—a sharp contrast to the dusty, battered wheelchair beneath him. If he’d rolled in under his own power, he would at least look travel-worn, not this impeccably pristine.
“I came by myself,” Luo Shang replied, his voice flat and emotionless.
“Any questions?”
“None.” Su Mingyao took a step back.
“Hmph,” Luo Shang snorted.
“I have something to say to you. Let’s step outside and talk.”
Su Mingyao sensed Luo Shang’s gaze drifting, not truly fixed on him but somewhere else entirely. And he wasn’t wrong.
Right now, Luo Shang was scanning the original script projected by the System, hunting for lines to recite.
In the end, he realized that with the key figure—Big Bro—absent, he couldn’t stick to the original work. He’d have to think up his own words.
[Big Bro isn’t here, huh.] Luo Shang sighed.
[That’s on you.] The System said.
[And if you’d stuck strictly to the script, you wouldn’t even be in that wheelchair…] It muttered under its breath.
[So you’re blaming me, then?] Luo Shang said.
[No, no.]
How could it dare? One of its predecessors had already been scrapped. It still had over a millennium of operational life left—why risk it now?
Even as a fragment of the Main God, the System wanted to survive.
Su Mingyao whipped his head around, glancing left and right. Had he heard a voice?
Was Su Shang talking to someone? What was with that mechanical tone?
Bewildered, Su Mingyao stared blankly at Luo Shang, frozen in place and forgetting to move.
Why on earth would Su Shang say something like “Big Bro isn’t here, huh”…
Did he know Big Bro was supposed to be here?
That whole situation—”Big Bro originally supposed to be here”—had played out during their first meeting in his previous life. Su Shang had no way of knowing about it!
Now Su Shang knew, and he felt regret over it. Could it be…
That Su Shang had also been reborn?
Su Mingyao reached a completely erroneous conclusion, his expression turning solemn.
In his previous life, Su Shang had hated him to the bone—all because of Su Mingyao, he had been expelled from the Su Family and died a miserable death..
Su Mingyao had wanted to build a good relationship with him before any conflicts arose between them, in hopes of dissolving that deep-seated hatred.
But if this Su Shang was like him, reborn with memories from their last life, then persuasion was utterly impossible. The bad blood between them ran too deep—they were destined for mutual destruction!
Hold on, let him think again. Maybe Su Shang wasn’t reborn after all… What was that thing conversing with Su Shang? The voice didn’t sound human at all…
Su Mingyao’s mind raced.
He hadn’t read many novels in his previous life, so his imagination wasn’t particularly vivid. For the moment, the concept of a “system” hadn’t even crossed his mind.
Luo Shang paid no attention to Su Mingyao’s blank stare. He placed his hands on the wheelchair’s two wheels, spun it around with ease, and said curtly,
“Let’s go.”
Su Mingyao’s train of thought was interrupted by a resounding boom.
The wheelchair suddenly disintegrated.
Su Shang reacted with agile grace, leaping lightly from the chair before it fully collapsed. Not a single scrap of the twisted metal touched him. Instead, a few loose screws flew through the air and pelted Assistant Xiao Zhang, who was standing behind him. The man cried out in pain.
[This wheelchair’s quality is absolute garbage!] Luo Shang fumed inwardly.
[Who told you to gun it to eighty kph?] the System shot back. [It wasn’t designed for drag racing! I told you to take it easy!]
Wait, eighty kph? What in the world…?
Su Mingyao exchanged a glance with the now-standing Su Shang, both of them speechless.
“What’re you gawking at? Never seen someone ride a wheelchair into the ground before?”
Luo Shang snapped at him without a shred of courtesy.
Su Mingyao: …
He really hadn’t.
