1 Ding!

Wen Yu strode along the bustling streets of City M happily. He'd managed to escape the nosy Wen family bodyguards and was proud of his achievement, albeit small.

The proud young master laughed as he walked along, almost bumping into a lady hawking candied hawthorns. Although he managed to throw the guards off his back, he'd somehow ended up in a rowdy market.

As someone who had been closed off all his life, the crowded place with people shouting over each other as they bargained was quite uncomfortable for him.

With a deepening frown, Wen Yu tugged on the collar of his brand name T-shirt and looked around. Tsk! How unlucky. He'd chosen now of all times to get lost.

"Lao Yi!"

Wen Yu slowed down at that and looked to the side to see an old lady standing in front of a stall selling live fish in a bucket. He blinked in curiosity.

The stall owner, who he assumed was 'Lao Yi' was an old man and he eyed the old lady warily.

The old lady frowned immediately. "What's that look for? Is this how you treat your customers?!"

Lao Yi sighed pitifully. He didn't want to frown either but anytime this woman came to his stall, he always made little profit. She bargained too fiercely!

The two people got down to business and began exchanging prices at the top of their voices. Wen Yu was so invested that when the old lady finally won, he clapped happily and laughed out loud, His earlier bad mood was completely gone.

His laughter caused a bunch of people to look over and when they set eyes on the breathtaking young man with a beautiful smile, they subconsciously looked to the old lady and smiled too.

The old lady grabbed her purchase, glared at Wen Yu and walked away with a humph.

That didn't bother Wen Yu one bit. In a much relaxed mood, he began to stroll aimlessly around the market. When he finally found the entrance, he came face to face with three men in crisp black suits. His eyes widened.

"Young master!"

"Shit." Wen Yu muttered under his breath and immediately sprinted away. He absolutely couldn't let them catch him.

In truth, Wen Yu was the third child of three but when he was two, both of his elder brothers had lost their lives in a brutal accident on their way home from school.

They'd both been seven and ten at the time and due to the trauma of that experience, his parents began to restrict his movements from then.

He was rarely allowed outside, he'd been homeschooled all his life. He was quite intelligent so had gotten into university early.

He'd been so excited back then, thinking that would've been his big break. Too bad... even his University education had been done online!

At nineteen, things weren't getting better and he was a little fed up. He didn't have any friends growing up but lately, he'd made friends with someone.

Qi San.

Qi San was an illegitimate child of the Qi family. He felt bad for him sometimes because Qi San's father was an unreliable scum who only knew how to spread his seed.

The Qi family had over ten illegitimate children and that was only the ones they were aware of. Qi San's family status didn't bother Wen Yu though. The young man was his first friend ever and he'd been sneaking out to meet him.

Until he was caught three days ago and grounded by his parents.

Wen Yu scoffed as he increased his speed. What was the use of grounding him like it was some sort of punishment? That was clearly how he'd lived all his life!

That thought managed to renew his vigour and he ran even harder. After five minutes of running, he burst into a different street and found a handsome young man in a dark blue suit standing by a Bentley. His eyes brightened. "Qi San!"

Qi San took one look behind him and smiled. "A' Yu, over here!" He opened the door, got in and waved. "Quickly get in, hurry!"

Wen Yu laughed as he dove into the car, almost in time for the guards to catch up with him. The car drove off immediately.

"Ah, Qi San, what wonderful timing!" He laughed again as he looked back to see the constipated faces of the guards.

Qi San's eyes lingered on Wen Yu's face and he laughed too. "Yes." The Wen famil's young master was quite handsome. Too bad he wasn't his type.

He preferred shorter, more effeminate men. Wen Yu was over 6ft. Besides.... A sinister glint flashed through Qi San's eyes and his smile became deeper. "I know a place we could go to have fun this time. You'd like it very much Wen Yu."

Wen Yu's smile became even brighter. "Really? Then let's go." He didn't actually care about the place. He just enjoyed the feeling of hangout with someone his age outside.

The two engaged in small talk for a while before turning quite and enjoying the view as the car drove on.

Over thirty minutes later, the car finally drove into the underground parking lot of a high end casino.

The second they walked in, Wen Yu frowned in discomfort. "Qi San..."

Qi San smiled and nudged him with his shoulder. "Relax~ You're a young master don't tell me you're scared of a mere casino?"

Wen Yu looked around as they got down from the car. "Qi San I'm nineteen." The legal age for gambling was twenty-one.

Even if he'd been sneaking a lot lately and had been pulling pranks on people, he never really did anything that went against the law!

"Qi San, I really don't think this is a good idea."

Qi San chuckled. "You have me here. What's there to be scared of? Besides we're not really doing anything, we're just going to watch."

They got to the door and Qi San waved a platinum card. The security guy let them in.

Wen Yu followed behind with his heart in his throat. 'How did Qi San stumble upon a place like this?' He wondered as he looked around the lavish interior curiously.

Qi San took him around, introducing him to people. After a while, they got to the gambling table.

It went from just watching to Qi San trying a few games to Qi San convincing Wen Yu to try a few games. It didn't take long for Wen Yu to get addicted to the thrill of winning so many chips and he laughed as he showed off his exploits to Qi San.

Qi San said nothing but kept smiling with a weird glint in his eyes.

After that day, Wen Yu was 'grounded' at home but he became more creative with sneaking out and became a frequent visitor to the casino.

Mr. And Mrs. Wen felt guilty about restricting him all his life so they began to go easy on him bit soon enough, they began to notice the peculiarity of their son's behaviour and after investigation, they was furious.

Wen Yu was locked up at home and no matter how he pled, no one let him out.

He finally managed to escape and ran over to Qi San who conveniently took him back to the gambling house. He had no money and wished to borrow from Qi San but how could Qi San give in?

Qi San 'helpfully' introduced his 'dear friend' to a bunch of loan sharks and watched on as Wen Yu practically spent all his time living in the casino and hiding from his parents.

No matter how hard the Wen family tried, they could not find him. Mostly because he had help from Qi San to cover him up.

When the Wen family didn't succeed in finding him, they proceeded to send word to the casinos around to refuse him entrance and report him on sight.

Wen Yu scoffed. Trying to use this method to make him bend? He left the city. The Wen family's influence wasn't that strong outside of City M.

He continued on in his ways until he squandered all the money and couldn't repay the loan sharks.

At this point, he tried reaching out to Qi San but couldn't get through. He finally decided to swallow his pride and called his family but before he could succeed, he was captured by the loan sharks.

The young master of the Wen family screamed all sorts of profanities, telling them which family he belonged to but what answered him was their unimpressed chuckles. The Wen family really had no influence outside of City M so they weren't scared.

Wen Yu soon realized something was wrong when they wouldn't even let him call his family to get the money even though they knew his family could afford it.

He gave in to despair. He was finished.

On a particular morning, Wen Yu heard the sounds of footsteps outside his cell door. He paid no mind.

Soon enough, two pairs of shiny black boots appeared before his eyes. He slowly looked up and his eyes sparkled with hope immediately.

One of the owners of the boots was Qi San whilst the other one was his distant cousin Wen Ao. He'd only met this cousin of his once when he was much younger since their family lived in a different country.

He stood up quickly. "Qi San, Wen Ao, save me! They wouldn't let me go. Please call parents, call my dad~!" He rambled on for a while and when he tried to hold Qi San, the man scoffed and moved sideways, staring at him in disgust.

"Why should I help you? Do you still see yourself as the third young master of the Wen family? How ridiculous."

Wen Yu's eyes shook in fear, he hardly recognized the Qi San before him. "Qi San what are you saying? We're best friends we..."

"Friends? Ha. What makes you think I wanted to be friends with a spoiled young master like you?"

Wen Yu froze and slowly looked to Wen Ao. The man in question was staring at him with mocking eyes and a cold smile.

Suddenly Wen Yu lowered his head as tears sprung from his eyes. He wasn't stupid and even when the signs were clear much earlier, he chose to ignore them because he was desperate for a friend.

He felt so suffocated in his life that he turned a blind eye to all the warning flags because he craved what he felt was normalcy.

How stupid.

Wen Ao watched the grieving Wen Yu with a smile. His uncle's family was very rich but they mostly kept to themselves. With the amount of money they had, getting into the top families was a piece of cake but they just didn't care and that angered him a lot.

If it was his own family that had that much wealth, who knew how many elites would be fawning over him! But no, his father had to be a worthless gambler who was kicked out of the Wen company because he kept squandering money!

Wen Ao clenched his fists in jealousy. His uncle had one child. Wen Yu. If Wen Yu was out of the way then his uncle would have no other choice but to will his inheritance to the closest family member.

So he came up with a plan and roped Qi San in with the promise that he'd help him gain a foothold in the Qi family.

Beside Wen Ao, Qi San looked down on Wen Yu with a cruel smile. "Don't blame me. You can only blame yourself for being so gullible. Besides~ I humiliated myself to fawn over you so just think of this as your compensation to me."

A low laugh sounded in the moldy room and Wen Yu pinned Qi San with a condescending sneer. " I never forced you though. Don't you think it's too hypocritical of you to act wronged when you're the one who has always harbored ill intentions?"

His only regret was meeting and trusting someone like Qi San. His parents were already traumatized from losing his older siblings. They did not deserve this. He was so stupid.

Qi San's face twisted into an ugly sneer and Wen Ao pat his shoulder. "Don't bother arguing with a dead man." He glared at Wen Yu. "If you weren't the young master of an influential family do you think A'San would run around trying to curry favour with you?"

Wen Yu was dumbfounded. How stupid. "So is it my fault that I was born in a wealthy home? If it was that easy why didn't you become the son of my parents then?"

Wen Ao grit his teeth but Wen Yu didn't stop. "It's a skill to reincarnate well. You're the one who had the bad luck of being born to a useless father!"

Wen Ao's face finally turned red from anger and he quickly grabbed a gun from a nearby thug.

Wen Yu froze.

"What's wrong young master? What happened to your loose tongue? Why are you so quiet?" Qi San laughed happily as Wen Ao moved closer to Wen Yu with a sinister smile.

Wen Yu remained quiet and paid close attention to Wen Ao's movements. Thankfully, he wasn't tied up so he was waiting for an opportunity.

The second Wen Ao got close enough, Wen Yu swiftly reached forward and grabbed the gun. Without giving himself an opportunity to think twice and get scared, he pulled the trigger.

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

Three gunshots sounded in the room and both Wen Ao's and Qi San's lifeless bodies fell to the ground.

Wen Yu stared at the gun that fell out of Qi San's hands before looking down at the bleeding hole in his own chest and smiling bitterly.

It hurt so much.

He slowly dipped a shaky finger in his own blood and slowly wrote on the ground, [Mom, Dad, I'm sorry.] And then he closed his eyes.

DING!

A crackling electronic sound reverberated in his ears before his consciousness was completely lost. He was dead.