But he never thought that it would be ruined by a single phone call in the morning.

As his phone was buzzing on the bedside table, Yan Shou slowly reached out to pick it up. Because he already knew that today would be a free day for him, he had studied until late at night and went to bed late. He was still half asleep when he answered the phone without looking at the caller ID.

“Hello~” he said in a hoarse and drowsy voice. 

The other side of the line stayed silent for what felt like a whole decade before Yan Shou decided to look at the caller ID. He rubbed his eyes and adjusted them to the light of the phone screen. When he finally looked at the caller ID, he flinched and bolted up from the bed, and suddenly there was no drowsiness surrounding him anymore. He was now completely wide awake.

“Hello?” he said again, but this time there was no trace of sleep in his voice.

“Come to the house,” the other side said simply, and then hung up the call. Yan Shou looked at the phone screen and then tossed the phone onto the bed. He lay back down and put a hand over his forehead.

Just when he thought he was going to have some peaceful time, that was exactly when these people decided to ruin it. Even though he was unwilling, he still got up from the bed and walked straight toward the bathroom.

He brushed his teeth with a sour expression, then took a bath and got dressed.

He grabbed his room key and exited the room. After taking a bus and going through a fifteen-minute journey—which he had originally wished could have lasted longer, but ended all too quickly—he finally arrived at the place.

So now, he was currently standing right in front of the house that he never wanted to visit ever again.

He took a deep breath and entered the gate of the house. All the way inside, every passing servant looked at him from head to toe like they were looking at some unknown creature on display at the zoo. Yan Shou just wanted to roll his eyes at each and every one of them, but he decided to keep his composure and enter the house.

As he reached the living room, he could see Yan Kun sitting on the sofa with a teacup in his hand, and right next to him was Fang Huilian, who was luxuriously sipping her coffee. Haotian was playing games, and Feifei was polishing her nails and taking pictures of them.

They really did look like a perfectly good family.

‘Peh! Peh! Just look at them enjoying their lives like they have nothing to fear. But they don't know that their peaceful, happy days are over, hahaha,’ Yan Shou thought internally, laughing an evil laugh in his mind.

He slowly approached them, and after hearing his footsteps, Fang Huilian and Yan Kun looked up at him. As soon as Yan Shou took a few more steps toward them, Yan Kun threw the teacup in his hand straight at him. But Yan Shou didn't even need to dodge, because it fell far away from him anyway.

‘That old man has a terrible aim. He can't even hit someone standing right in front of him,’ Yan Shou thought to himself, before he was suddenly interrupted.

“You dare to dodge that!” Fang Huilian shouted at him.

‘And now this old woman shows she has really bad eyesight, because she can't even see clearly. That cup could have barely hit me—unless I was some kind of psycho who wanted to get hit by it on purpose,’ Yan Shou complained internally. 

He took a deep breath then looked at them. ‘Here comes the other one,’ he thought as he dodged the coffee cup that Fang Huilian just threw at him. ‘This old woman has a better aim than her ‘no good aim’ husband.’

As he felt their gaze on him, he pretended to fall to the ground near the broken and scattered pieces of the cups. He made some pitiful eyes and looked up at them.

“Dad, what have I done wrong that you've treated me like this this time?” Yan Shou asked in a pitiful voice, acting like a total green tea bitch.

Yan Kun was about to say something before Fang Huilian yelled at Yan Shou. “You dare to ask that!! Don't you know what you have done!!” 

“You refused to give your brother your lunch card,” Yan Kun roared. “Is that how a brother should treat his brother!”

At the word ‘brother,’ Yan Shou wanted to laugh out loud. The same ‘brother’ who had just fought him in front of the whole cafeteria for that lunch card, and whose friends were making fun of him and disgracing him right in front of his face. But he had just stood there, and on the contrary, he even laughed at Yan Shou's miserable state.

Yan Shou might have taken this a little lighter, until they started dragging his mother into the matter—that was where they crossed a line they never should have.

Yan Shou glanced at Haotian and Feifei, who were sitting on the sofa completely unbothered by the whole situation. Yan Shou gritted his teeth and then took a slow breath.  

"Don't look at them with those filthy eyes!" Fang Huilian hissed, noticing his glance toward her precious children.

Yan Shou turned his face away then secretly put some eye drops in his eyes. Squeezing out a few fake tears, he kept his head low so they couldn't see the evil smile on his face.

"Dad, it's not that I didn't want to give it to him. Haotian came with all his friends and demanded it in front of the whole cafeteria. If I just handed it over, everyone would think the Yan family's second young master is a beggar who can't even afford his own lunch."

Hearing this, Yan Kun's face stiffened and he choked on his own words. Yan Shou knew that he was a man who cared about his reputation and face above everything else. Yan Kun turned his sharp gaze toward Haotian, who felt the stare upon him and looked up from his game. Suddenly stopping his game, Haotian's face started to turn pale.

"Is this true, Haotian?" Yan Kun asked, his voice dropping to a dangerous level.

Fang Huilian quickly tried to intervene and smooth out the situation. But looking at the shifting situation, Yan Shou couldn't be more satisfied. His internal laugh was already echoing in his mind. 'Go on, keep digging your own graves, you brainless fools,' he thought to himself.

Before Yan Kun could roar again, Feifei finally looked up from her phone, rolling her eyes in annoyance.

"Dad, stop wasting time on him. He's just a country bumpkin who doesn't understand our status anyway, and I can assure you that it must be his fault that he didn't give the lunch card to brother before.

But forget it for now. We need to talk about the grand party at the hotel this weekend. I need a bigger budget to match Lu Weian's presence. If I go there looking all beautiful and gorgeous, Lu Weian will surely be impressed by me and instantly fall for me."

Yan Kun’s angry expression instantly softened when he looked at his daughter, his anger at Yan Haotian temporarily forgotten. "Ah, right. The event at the high-end hotel. Have you secured the proper invitations, Feifei?"

Yan Shou stayed there, watching this ridiculous display of favoritism. That was when he suddenly remembered how Lin XiaoXi had already given him a special invitation to that exact same event. There was a strong possibility that Feifei was talking about the very same event.

But Yan Shou wasn't scared, on the contrary, he was thrilled about the situation. If they were all going to the exact same event, then it was definitely going to be a lot of fun.

Feifei puffed out her chest proudly, tossing a glittering, silver-trimmed envelope onto the glass coffee table. "Of course, Dad. It took so much effort to get a regular VIP pass, but for someone as gorgeous as me, it was worth it. However, the budget for my dress needs to be doubled if I want to stand out near Lu Weian."

Yan Kun picked up the envelope as if it was a rare treasure to his success, his eyes sparkling with excitement. "Good! Excellent! If you can catch Young Master Lu's eye, our family’s status in the business world will rise instantly. We cannot let a single mistake happen.”

“But we still need to think about that big budget of yours,” Yan Kun said as he waved away the weight of the situation.

"A bigger budget..." Yan Kun muttered, tapping his fingers against the sofa as he calculated the family expenses. His eyes suddenly flicked back down toward Yan Shou, something crossed his mind and he smiled.

“Yan Shou,” he called out loudly.

"Since you care so much about the Yan family's reputation, you should contribute to your sister's success," Yan Kun ordered coldly. "Hand over whatever money you've been gathering from your little part-time jobs. Feifei needs a premium designer gown for this weekend, and every single penny counts."

Fang Huilian smirked, crossing her arms as she looked down at him. "Your father is right. It's about time you made yourself useful to this family instead of just wasting our food."

Yan Shou knew they would drop this on him. He clenched his fists against the floor, a wave of rage flashing through his mind before he forced his 'pitiful' expression back onto his face. He would never let them have his money. Never again.