Chapter 7: Supporting a Useless Brother? Not Happening!
This year’s literary competition was sponsored by Hengrui Group, one of the top conglomerates in the world. With its vast business empire, the group naturally offered a generous prize pool.
In the novel, the male lead Qin Jiaming was the illegitimate son of a major shareholder in Hengrui. From birth, he had been the target of multiple assassination attempts. He had lived in several countries and cities, only to be tracked down each time.
Eventually, the shareholder took a counterintuitive approach—rather than hiding him in major developed areas, he stashed him away in this obscure little county. It was here that Qin Jiaming’s sweet yet heart-wrenching romance with Bai Ruyue began.
Several real estate projects currently under construction in the county were being developed by Hengrui Real Estate, and the lavish literary competition was likely a publicity stunt for the upcoming property launches.
“Today’s the last day to sign up,” Yang Xiaofang said. “I heard from a teacher that the youth division only has around five hundred participants. The young adult group has a bit more—over seven hundred.”
She admitted shyly that ever since registration began five days ago, she’d been coming every day to scout out the competition—just to mentally prepare herself.
“Someone from your class and mine both signed up. Oh, and your brother did too.”
“Huh? Xie Guibao?”
When Lin Zhifeng saw her nod, she couldn’t decide whether to snort in laughter or roll her eyes hard enough to see her brain.
Xie Guibao’s writing skills were so bad, anyone reading his work would probably shout, “What garbage is this?!” The boy only cared about playing video games and couldn’t care less about books or learning. What was he doing entering a competition like this?
“Your mom brought him on the very first day to sign up,” Yang Xiaofang added, aware that Lin Zhifeng didn’t get along with her family—otherwise, she would’ve heard about the contest earlier.
Lin Zhifeng was speechless after hearing that. Wang Tingmei must have water in her brain. Whether she was trying to win the prize money or save face, pinning her hopes on Xie Guibao was a lost cause.
And even if she insisted on doing that—would it have killed her to casually bring along her two daughters?
Xie Zhaodi and Xie Laidi were both in the top ten of their grade, and their essays had been used as model pieces more times than one could count. It’s not like Wang Tingmei didn’t know that. Sneaking her useless son over to sign up, like she was terrified her daughters might steal the spotlight—how disgusting.
Truly revolting.
“Don’t let it get to you. If you do, you’ll never stop being upset,” Yang Xiaofang said knowingly, patting her shoulder and sighing softly.
“You don’t know—my mom’s still going to spirit mediums to get fortunes told for my third brother. Lately she even brewed up some charm-infused water and tried to force me to drink it. Said it would transfer my brother’s madness onto me.”
“You’d better pour that stuff out when she’s not looking. Useless as it is, drinking it will definitely upset your stomach.” Lin Zhifeng understood all too well how terrifying superstition in the mortal world could be—and how much more terrifying the superstitious people were. “Your mom doing this again—did your third brother get worse?”
“Yeah. Lately he’s been saying he’s the reincarnation of a river god. The moment you look away, he’s trying to jump into a fish pond. At night, he sneaks off to the pigsty to meditate. Honestly… my third brother is kind of pitiful.”
Yang Xiaofang was studying in the county and staying with her eldest brother and sister-in-law, who both treated her kindly and never gave her a hard time.
But her mother kept coming in from the countryside to shove talismans at her. Once, she even brought a whole spiritual troupe to perform a ritual dance for disaster cleansing—trying to transfer her son’s bad luck onto Yang Xiaofang.
“With all that money spent on fortune tellers and spells, she might as well have taken him to the psychiatric hospital in the city. There’s at least a chance he could actually get treated,” Lin Zhifeng said firmly. In a world without gods, you had to rely on science. She wasn’t some ignorant deity.
“My parents keep insisting my third brother isn’t sick. My oldest brother is swamped with work, my second brother works out of town—neither of them can protect me. My sister-in-law wants to help, but she’s been splashed with dog’s blood more than once. Not figuratively—literally splashed with dog’s blood. It’s suffocating.”
Yang Xiaofang’s eyes turned red. They all came from the same womb—how could their fates be so different?
It was only with the equally unfortunate Xie sisters that she could speak freely about her pain.
If she tried telling other classmates, they’d either treat it like gossip and a joke, or look at her in disbelief, saying things like, “No way, no way—stuff like that still happens nowadays?”
“My mom recently borrowed a huge sum of money again. She said a newly found fortune-teller told her my third brother needs to get married to ward off his bad luck. As long as he marries his fated person, everything will be resolved in a flash. Tell me, does that even sound human? My third brother, the way he is—marrying someone would only ruin their life!”
Lin Zhifeng’s eyebrows furrowed. Something about this wasn’t right.
That night in the alley by the KTV, she’d overheard Xie Yaozu mutter, “No way the fool’s family won’t pay their debt, right?” The “fool,” Yang’s third brother, the rush to marry him for luck—everything lined up now.
“Zhaodi, why do you look even angrier than me? It’s okay, my mom won’t find anyone to marry him. Even Uncle Wu from the poorest household in the village wouldn’t throw his daughter under the bus like that.”
“I’m just angry on principle,” Lin Zhifeng replied casually. Then she asked, “Where’s that fortune-teller from? Conning people like this—aren’t they afraid of losing all their karma?”
“They said she came from the west, traveling around. She’s renting a courtyard on the mountain side—it used to be Grandpa Sun’s place.”
Yang Xiaofang didn’t notice her probing, still busy describing the fortune-teller she had seen one day.
“A woman in her sixties, painted her face ghostly white and her lips bright red—scared me half to death. And she was still chomping on sunflower seeds like that. After she left, I had to sweep for half an hour!”
Lin Zhifeng silently made a mental note—this fit perfectly into a new and improved plan she was forming.
At first, she had planned to use Aunt Bao to stir up a scandal, letting the gossip-hungry public rip Xie Yaozu apart with their words. With the pressure of both morality and the law, even if he wanted to sell his daughter, he wouldn’t be able to.
But that wouldn’t really hurt Xie Yaozu—it would just cost him a sum of money he hadn’t received yet, and maybe get him beaten up by the guy with the gold chain. That kind of result just wasn’t satisfying enough.
Now that she knew the buyer was the Yang family—and had even uncovered the involvement of the “great shaman”—getting revenge would be much easier.
Yang Xiaofang’s mother was infamous in the village for being a fierce woman. She had six sisters, and together they often formed a kind of “female militia,” charging at anyone who crossed them—men, women, young or old.
They weren’t just loud and aggressive—they were professional troublemakers. Once they latched onto someone, they wouldn’t stop until they’d stripped them of a layer of skin.
The two of them soon returned to the topic of the competition. Lin Zhifeng hadn’t forgotten to ask about the youth group’s situation. Yang Xiaofang, after five days of careful observation, remembered all the standout participants clearly.
“There are people from the newspaper and schoolteachers signing up. The youth division is really competitive. I overheard one of the registration teachers say that there are even insiders from Hengrui Group entering. In their words—‘there’s a lot going on behind the scenes.’”
The two sat in the shade chatting until nearly noon. They agreed to meet for breakfast at the fast food shop on August 8, then head together to the Cultural Center for the competition.
“I’m going home for lunch. Don’t forget—see you at 7 a.m. on the eighth.”
“Got it. See you on the eighth.”
Lin Zhifeng waved her off, then turned around to head back the way she came. As she walked, she summoned her previously sealed system.
“What are the essay prompts for the literature competition?”
“Host, cheating is wrong.”
Life was hard—even the system sighed. “Why can’t you act out of basic decency?”
Lin Zhifeng raised an eyebrow and said coldly, “Wrong answer. I’ll give you one more chance.”
Her tone was anything but kind. The system was doomed. After half a second of hesitation, its mechanical voice rang out, now without a shred of resistance:
“Junior division prompt: ‘Wish’. Minimum of 800 words. Any format allowed except poetry.
Youth division prompt: ‘The Ultimate Beauty in My Eyes’. Maximum of 2000 words. Any format allowed except poetry.”
“Got it.”
With her usual “use it and toss it” attitude, Lin Zhifeng sealed the system away once again.
