"Special flash news: Half an hour ago, Mr. Ye Chen, Chairman of Tenglong Group, passed away due to illness at the age of eighty-nine! Mr. Ye Chen had no wife and no children, and previously left a will donating all of his four hundred billion personal wealth to charitable foundations..."
————
"Hmm?"
Inside a shabby two-bedroom rented apartment.
Ye Chen slowly opened his eyes.
"Where is this?"
As Ye Chen cried out in astonishment,
he instinctively swept his gaze around.
The living room, less than fifteen square meters in size,
was littered with cheap wine bottles and cigarette butts everywhere.
Foul-smelling instant noodle cups mingled with the stench of alcohol and tobacco,
making the place look sloppier and more cluttered than a dog kennel!
"Isn't this the rental apartment I lived in sixty years ago?"
Everything familiar awakened the lingering, painful memories that had haunted Ye Chen throughout those past sixty years.
Instinctively remembering the weeping sounds by his deathbed, he thought his soul had somehow retraced its steps back to his life sixty years prior.
Before he could dwell on it further,
"Clatter!"
The front door of the apartment was pushed open from the outside.
"Daddy!"
A childish, crisp voice rang out.
A little girl of four or five years old skipped in through the door,
completely ignoring the filth and stench inside,
and completely disregarding his unkempt, disheveled state.
She ran straight over to him and tightly hugged his leg.
"Wuwu, Daddy, Youyou missed you so much! Will you stop fighting with Mommy from now on, please? Will you stop making Mommy take Youyou to Grandma's house?"
Youyou!
In an instant,
Ye Chen felt as though he had been struck by lightning.
Feeling the warmth of his daughter hugging his leg,
feeling his daughter Youyou's tears soaking through his pants,
Ye Chen's mind went completely blank.
Was this not a backtracking of the soul?
Had he actually been reborn back to sixty years ago?
"Youyou, come back!"
An angry scolding interrupted Ye Chen's train of thoughts.
A woman wearing a dress, pretty in appearance and intellectual in temperament, yet exuding an aura of exhaustion and haggardness all over, came into Ye Chen's view.
Chen Yinuo!
The woman who had appeared in his dreams countless times over the past sixty years, the woman who had caused him to wake up crying from those dreams countless times.
He had lived to be eighty-nine in his past life, yet he had carried a full sixty years of guilt.
If not for his scoundrel ways,
his wife Chen Yinuo and daughter Ye Youyou would not have died.
It was him; he was the one who single-handedly ruined his own family and sent his wife and daughter to their bitter graves!
And what made him even more of a scoundrel was that even years after his wife's death, he still resented her betrayal, resented Chen Yinuo for dragging their daughter to die with her.
It wasn't until half a year later, after learning the whole truth,
that he went to his wife's grave to pay his respects for the very first time.
That time, he cried for three whole days and nights,
without eating a single grain of rice or drinking a single drop of water.
In the end, if not for the cemetery patrol guards discovering him, he probably would have reunited with his wife and daughter in the netherworld right then and there.
Yet never did he expect
that the heavens would actually grant him such an unimaginable chance,
letting him be reborn back to sixty years ago!
"Y-, Yinuo!"
Looking at Chen Yinuo, whose voice and smile had accompanied him in his dreams countless times over the past sixty years,
Ye Chen choked up, his voice turning hoarse.
"Ye Chen, exactly how do you intend to torture our mother and daughter before you'll call it quits!"
Seeing the room that he had meticulously cleaned five days ago turned once again into the scene of her recurring nightmare,
Chen Yinuo cried out in a breakdown.
As she spoke, she reached out and pulled Ye Youyou back to her side.
"Ye Chen, I'm begging you, please agree to sign the divorce papers, okay? I've had enough. If this goes on any longer, I'm going to go crazy—I really am going to go crazy. I already need sleeping pills just to fall asleep. Will you please show some mercy and sign the divorce, just consider it letting our mother and daughter go!"
Gathering her emotions, Chen Yinuo half-raised her hands, shaking her head as she forced herself to accept the filth and clutter that she seemed long accustomed to, using almost a pleading tone.
She had once thought she found her destined partner, the person worthy of entrusting her entire life to.
For his sake, she ignored her family's objections,
giving up those wealthy and handsome suitors with superior conditions,
and resolutely chose Ye Chen because she believed Ye Chen would work together with her to create a wonderful life they built for themselves.
Because of that choice, she even had a falling out with her family and cut off contact, only repairing the relationship with her maternal family after Ye Youyou was born.
Yet she never imagined that the destined partner she chose would undergo a complete personality change after a business failure, turning into a heavy drinker and compulsive gambler, losing all drive, settling into a state of lethargy, and even transforming into an abusive brute who beat and kicked her at the slightest dissatisfaction!
Chen Yinuo had given him chances countless times, hoping to reawaken his life and spirit.
Yet what she got in return was him doubling down on his behavior after every bout of remorse.
The top student from back then had become a hopeless good-for-nothing and a demon!
Everything in the house that could be sold had been sold off by him at a fraction of its value to fund his gambling,
leaving almost nothing short of selling her and their daughter Ye Youyou.
And the crisscrossing new and old scars hidden beneath her clothes were all beaten into her by his brutal, merciless hands.
In Chen Yinuo's eyes, this so-called husband had long since become a demon, her waking nightmare.
"Yinuo, I—I know I've failed you both. I don't dare expect a few words to make you forgive me, but give me a chance, I'll change, I'll change for the better, okay!"
Ye Chen's voice trembled as he spoke.
"You'll change? What are you going to change with? How are you going to change? Can a dog stop eating shit? You can't, you will never change! Haven't you said things like this to me a hundred times already? But after which time didn't you just get worse? Enough, I've had enough!"
They say that nothing is deadlier than a broken heart.
Chen Yinuo, whose heart had already died completely, calmed down.
She shook her head with a dull, rippleless gaze and let out a cold laugh.
The moment her voice trailed off,
stomp stomp stomp—!
A flurry of heavy footsteps suddenly echoed from the stairwell.
Immediately following that,
more than a dozen tattooed men who clearly looked like trouble barged directly into the narrow apartment.
The man in the lead offered a playful smile.
"Well, well, the whole family is all neatly gathered here!"
"What kind of people are you?"
Seeing these menacing intruders,
Chen Yinuo pulled Ye Youyou behind her at once and asked with a frown.
"If I said we were the God of Wealth sending out cash, would you believe it?"
The leading man looked Chen Yinuo up and down and smiled playfully.
"Are you here for Ye Chen?"
Under the man's gaze, Chen Yinuo involuntarily took a step back.
The leading man did not answer.
He sneered and looked toward Ye Chen, "Top student, did you think we wouldn't be able to find you just by ignoring our calls? You're already a full week overdue. Twenty-seven thousand, principal and interest combined—isn't it about time to pay up?"
"He owes you twenty-seven thousand?"
Chen Yinuo pointed at Ye Chen in disbelief and demanded of the men.
"That's right, you're his wife, aren't you? What, shouldn't a wife share the burden for her husband?"
The leading man looked at Chen Yinuo with an evil charm and stepped forward as if to walk over toward her.
"A person takes responsibility for his own actions. If you dare drag my wife into this, I'll risk my life to kill you!"
Seeing the other party make a threatening move toward Chen Yinuo,
Ye Chen grabbed a wine bottle from the floor and roared hoarsely.
At that moment,
memories of his past life rapidly pieced themselves together and replayed in his mind.
In his past life, it was this exact encounter of loan sharks coming to collect debts that completely drew back the curtain on his dark life.
On this very day in his past life, he had stood there like a dead dog watching Chen Yinuo get harassed, not daring to utter a single syllable from beginning to end.
In the end, beaten bloody and kneeling on the ground, he had begged bitterly before finally being granted another week's extension by the creditors.
After these debt collectors left,
he—who had threatened everything and stubbornly refused to divorce—finally signed his name on the divorce agreement brought out by Chen Yinuo.
Yet facing twenty-seven thousand in usury, let alone a single week, even if given a hundred more weeks, he couldn't have scraped it together.
The week passed in a flash, and before he could even pack his things while preparing to run away and hide from the debts, he was cornered by the debt collectors.
What baffled him for half a year afterward was that, after being severely beaten up, those loan sharks actually let him go.
Not long after, Chen Yinuo also took Ye Youyou and remarried, wedding a bald, middle-aged executive of a company.
This made Ye Chen fiercely resent Chen Yinuo, believing that her persistent desire for a divorce was because she had long been hooking up with a wealthy man outside!
It wasn't until half a year after Chen Yinuo and Ye Youyou met their tragic end together with that bald, middle-aged executive
that he learned the whole story: the reason he had been let off by those loan sharks back then was because they had called Chen Yinuo and threatened to kill Ye Chen if she didn't pay up!
To save him, a desperate and panicked Chen Yinuo had no choice but to borrow money from the bald executive who had been persistently courting her to help pay off Ye Chen's debt, with the price being her agreement to marry him!
And after the remarriage, that bald executive's demonic nature gradually revealed itself. With his paranoid need for control and domestic violence at the slightest disagreement, even four-or-five-year-old Ye Youyou was eventually dragged into it and brutally beaten.
Driven to a complete breakdown under unbearable torment, Chen Yinuo poured sleeping pills into the man's drinking water one night, then set a fire and died together with Ye Youyou in the sea of flames!
It wasn't until a full half-year after the tragedy befell Chen Yinuo and Ye Youyou that he, Ye Chen, learned the ins and outs of it all.
It was only then that he realized the ones who destroyed Chen Yinuo and Ye Youyou were him—him, this accursed wretch!
If not to save him, Chen Yinuo would never have borrowed money from that bald executive.
Without that loan, Chen Yinuo would never have married him.
Without the marriage, such a human tragedy naturally would never have happened!
It was him; he was the one who destroyed his wife and daughter!
Now, the heavens had allowed him to return to his past life, back to before those tragedies.
He must not let those events repeat themselves, absolutely not!
"Who are you trying to scare by waving a beer bottle and shouting nonsense? Did you seriously think the debtor is the boss?"
The leading man stopped his advance toward Chen Yinuo.
Seething with rage, he strode heavily toward Ye Chen.
"Beat him! Before we talk about the money, teach this bastard how to behave first!"
At the leading man's fierce command,
the mob of thugs immediately swarmed Ye Chen with punches and kicks!
Although the Ye Chen of his past life had forged an impressive combat skill after making his fortune—making it difficult even for military experts to get close to him, let alone a group of ordinary people—
his physical body at this current stage had long since been hollowed out by self-abandonment. No matter how many combat techniques he possessed, his frail physique simply couldn't execute them.
"Don't hit my daddy, wuwu, bad guys, you bad guys are not allowed to hit my daddy!"
Seeing Ye Chen subjected to a vicious group beating,
little Youyou cried heart-rendingly.
Had she not been held tightly by Chen Yinuo, the little girl would have run right over.
As for Chen Yinuo, a series of cold sneers hung on her face.
Instead of feeling heartache over Ye Chen's beating, she felt an incomparable sense of gratification!
A scum like him—he deserved it, deserved it, deserved it!!!
Crack—!
Bang!!!
Abruptly,
Ye Chen, caught in the middle of the beating, smashed the glass bottle he had been gripping tightly all along.
Grasping the broken half of the bottle in his hand, bruised and battered, he mustered all his physical strength, gritted his teeth, and lunged at the leading man!
With one arm locked around the man's neck, he pressed the jagged half of the bottle flush against the man's carotid artery.
"Stop, everyone stop right the fuck now!"
In an instant,
the leading man, held hostage by Ye Chen with the glass, shouted in terror.
"Top student, Ye Chen, Brother Ye, can't we talk this over nicely? Don't be rash, please don't be rash! This is a society ruled by law, killing people is a capital offense. Calm down, please calm down!"
Those wandering in the streets understood the logic of a cornered dog better than anyone else.
The leading debt collector was genuinely terrified—genuinely terrified that a desperate Ye Chen would actually stab him!
As for the so-called rule of law and paying for a life with a life,
Ye Chen turned a deaf ear.
Disregarding the blood streaming down from his head past his eyes,
he said, "Give me another week. One week from now, I will pay you back in full, principal and interest combined!"
"Put down the bottle first, and then we can talk properly, okay? Okay?!" demanded the usurer being held hostage.
"I said, give me another week!" Ye Chen exerted slight pressure with his hand, and the glass immediately pierced the man's skin tissue, a tiny trace of blood seeping out.
"Okay, okay, one week! I'll give you another week, deal, I agree!" yelled the leader of the debt collectors.
Hearing this,
Ye Chen finally loosened his grip and let the man go.
Although these were merely verbal promises,
given Ye Chen's understanding of these street thugs, he chose to trust them!
"Brother Biao!"
"Brother Biao!"
"Brother Biao!"
The next moment, those thugs immediately swarmed around the leading usurer.
"Get lost!"
Pressing one hand against the slight, non-threatening wound on his neck,
and swatting away the thugs trying to pounce on him with his other hand,
the head usurer pointed at Ye Chen and said through gritted teeth, "You've got guts, you really fucking have guts! I misjudged you. One week—I'll give you just one more week. If I don't see the money a week from now, not even the Jade Emperor himself will save you!"
"Let's go!!!"
With a wave of his large hand,
these usurer thugs came fast and left just as quickly.
Inside the apartment,
there remained only Ye Chen with blood still flowing from his head, Chen Yinuo with her icy expression, and the weeping little Youyou!
"Mommy, Daddy is bleeding, Daddy is bleeding!"
Held back tightly by Chen Yinuo, little Youyou pointed at Ye Chen and cried cutely, "Daddy, I want to go to Daddy!"
Yet Chen Yinuo remained unmoved and utterly refused to let her step forward.
"Be a good girl, Youyou, don't cry. Daddy's fine!"
Ye Chen held the wound on his head, looking across the room at his daughter as he spoke with incomparable bitterness.
Yet he did not step forward either.
"Ye Chen, oh Ye Chen, I only knew you were damned, but I never imagined you were damned enough to dare borrow usury! My wedding ring was sold by you, the computer I use for work was sold by you, my grandmother's hairpin was also sold off by you for pennies. Look at this—look and see what else there is in this house that can be sold, go on, take it all!"
Looking at Ye Chen, who was covered in blood and looked terrifyingly gruesome, Chen Yinuo sneered derisively.
"Wife..."
"Don't call me wife, hearing it makes me sick! I don't know what kind of sin I committed in my past life to choose to believe you and marry you!"
Refusing to give Ye Chen a chance to continue, Chen Yinuo shouted.
"Twenty-seven thousand in usury, twenty-seven thousand in usury—heha, go ahead and wreck things. If you're still human, then sign this divorce agreement. Consider it me begging you. If this drags on any longer, the one you're hurting isn't me, it's Youyou!"
With that, Chen Yinuo pulled a divorce agreement out of her cheap handbag bought from a street stall.
In his past life,
because Ye Chen had been too spineless to even utter a sound when Chen Yinuo was being harassed, he had chosen to sign the divorce agreement.
In this life, the heavens had given him a chance to return to the past, and what he wanted to do was make amends—how could he possibly sign this divorce agreement again?
"O-old Yinuo, give me one more chance, just one last chance, okay!" Ye Chen struggled to say.
"A chance? One last chance? How many times have you said that? Do you think there's any possibility I'll believe you anymore? Heh,
if you still won't sign, you're just dragging me and Youyou down to die with you!" Chen Yinuo laughed bitterly.
"Yinuo, that twenty-seven thousand we owe—one week from now, I will pay it back in full with interest. From now on, I will never gamble again, and I'll never do anything to let you down. Trust me, just this once, can you trust me this one last time?" Ye Chen begged.
"You don't even blush when you boast now, do you? Twenty-seven thousand, one week—what are you going to use to pay it back? Go gamble again and get rich overnight in a casino? In your current state where you're better off dead than alive, let alone twenty-seven thousand, you couldn't even scrape together twenty-seven! Fine, saying all this is completely meaningless. Just sign it!" Chen Yinuo said.
As for Ye Chen, she no longer harbored any shred of sympathy.
Because her heart had already been shattered, pierced through, and killed entirely!
Time and again she had chosen to forgive, time and again she had chosen to deceive herself.
Yet what she got in return was this brute stepping up his lies and deceit over and over again!
The word 'disappointment' was long insufficient to describe what Chen Yinuo felt in her heart.
She knew that if this went on, she would go crazy—truly go crazy—and die, truly die!
"Give me a month. If you still can't see any change in me after a month, if your view of me still hasn't changed after a month, then if you still insist on a divorce, I'll sign it!"
Ye Chen shook his head, his gaze resolute.
A month?
Chen Yinuo laughed!
It wasn't that she looked down on Ye Chen, but that this fellow simply couldn't change; at most three days, and he would show his true colors again!
"Do you think there's any point?" Chen Yinuo asked.
"Yes!"