2: The beginnings of a child prodigy

Lin Yu’s scrawny body seemed incredibly fragile under Brother Wang’s large hand.

“I said, when the day comes…”

“To hell with that day!” The tall, thin man behind Brother Wang also rushed up, grabbing Lin Yu’s collar, “Brothers, stop wasting words with him! Let’s teach him a lesson first!”

Just as he raised his hand, a clear, angry female voice came from the stairwell.

“What are you doing?!”

Brother Wang and the others froze, looking in the direction of the voice.

They saw a girl in a clean school uniform, carrying a backpack, standing not far away, holding a phone with the camera pointed at them.

“Which company are you from? Engaging in violent debt collection here, does your company know about this?”

The girl’s voice trembled slightly with anger, but her words were clear and logical.

“I’ve recorded all your actions! I’m calling the police right now!”

Brother Wang’s expression changed.

Their kind of shady business feared nothing more than tough opponents who left evidence, especially when the other party was a high school girl who clearly looked like a good student.

He spat, glaring fiercely at Lin Yu’s back.

“Damn it, you got lucky!”

He let go, giving a look to his two subordinates.

“Let’s go!”

The three of them cursed and turned, quickly leaving the dim corridor.

Only when their footsteps completely disappeared did the surroundings return to dead silence.

This was not a residential building at all.

It was an abandoned old factory area. What Lin Yu called his “rental room” was just a row of abandoned shipping containers in a corner of the factory.

The rusty iron exterior of the containers was spray-painted with red slogans like “Pay your debts” and “Shameless deadbeat.” Around them were piles of foul-smelling construction and domestic waste, clearly deliberately collected and dumped there, and on the adjacent wall were several dried and blackened stains of sewage.

These were all trophies of debt collection.

A gust of wind blew through, stirring up dust from the ground and a nauseating stench.

The girl quickly ran to the container door, and when she saw the scene inside, and the emaciated, out-of-shape back sitting at the table, tears instantly welled up.

She stood at the doorway, her lips moving, but she couldn’t utter a single word.

Lin Yu slowly turned around and saw her.

The numb, aloof expression on his face melted like ice and snow the moment he saw the girl.

He forced a pale smile, fine lines crinkling at the corners of his eyes.

“Whose little darling is this, coming to see big brother?”

The person who came was his younger sister, Lin Yao.

Lin Yao’s voice was tearful, like a little kitten drenched in rain.

“Brother…”

She rushed into the foul-smelling iron box, her tears uncontrollable, rolling in large drops from her eyes, tracing paths down her clean cheeks.

This was no place for a human to live.

This was clearly a garbage dump.

Lin Yu’s smile stiffened for a moment, then softened again. He reached out to wipe the tears from his sister’s face, but halfway, seeing the grime in his fingernails, he quietly withdrew his hand.

He just said softly, “Why are you crying? Isn’t your brother doing well?”

“Doing well?”

Lin Yao’s emotions instantly collapsed. She pointed at the dilapidated, bare room, at the glaring crimson spray paint on the walls, at the stack of useless gray cards on the corner of the table.

“This is what you call ‘doing well’?”

“Brother, please don’t be like this anymore. Can we go home?”

“The money you owe, we’ll figure it out together. Mom and Dad… I’ll talk to them! They’ll help, the family’s savings aren’t insufficient to pay it back!”

She choked up, barely able to continue.

“As long as you… as long as you don’t have these crazy fits anymore, we’ll go home, and everything will be alright…”

Home.

Such a warm, yet distant word.

The smile on Lin Yu’s face slowly faded, replaced by a calmness Lin Yao couldn’t understand at all, a nearly stubborn calmness.

He shook his head.

“Xiao Yao, you don’t understand.”

“I don’t understand? What is it that I don’t understand?” Lin Yao’s emotions became agitated, “All I know is that my brother is dying! Look at what you look like now! Have you looked in a mirror?!”

Lin Yu didn’t answer her question; he just turned around, sat back down in that chair, his back to her.

That familiar, isolated back.

“I’m playing a big game.”

His voice was very soft, yet it carried an undeniable certainty.

A big game?

Lin Yao was stunned.

She looked at that thin, seemingly flickering back and cried silently.

Tears blurred her vision, and blurred time.

She didn’t know when her Brother Lin Yu had started to become like this.

In her memory, Brother Lin Yu had always been light.

Since childhood, he was always that “child from another family” that adults talked about.

No, perhaps “child prodigy” would be a more accurate description.

No matter what he learned, he was always one step, no, ten steps ahead of his peers.

He was always so mature, so steady, so intelligent.

Elementary school Olympiad competitions, middle school physics modeling, high school mastery of all subjects. His life resume was paved with glittering awards and certificates. Being ranked first in the province for overall academic performance was not a goal for him, but a fixed, unchanging position.

Lin Yao still remembered one time in elementary school when she was bullied by older boys who stole her pocket money. She ran home crying, and her brother found those boys.

He just stood there, calmly reasoning with them, analyzing the pros and cons, from school rules to societal laws.

Of course, the prerequisite for this lecture was that those guys, even combined, had been beaten by her brother.

Those boys, who were a head taller than him, not only returned the money but also stammered out apologies.

They even became Lin Yu’s followers, almost to the point of being… civilized!

From that day on, Lin Yao’s eyes, when she looked at her brother, were always full of little stars.

Her brother was omnipotent.

Five years ago, on the Professional Awakening Day before the College Entrance Examination, was the highlight of Lin Yu’s life, and the most glorious day for the entire Lin family.

Across the entire Ninghai Province, among millions of graduating students, only one golden epic-level profession was awakened.

The Myriad Card Creator.

This name, through news and the internet, spread to every corner of the city.

Everyone felt that the Lin family was about to produce a dragon. With this unique epic profession, the Lin family might even achieve class ascension and enter Ninghai City’s upper society.

The school principal personally visited, the admissions offices of major top universities were practically overwhelmed with calls, and countless enterprises and financial groups extended olive branches, promising unimaginably generous conditions.

On that day, the Lin family’s home was bustling with visitors, and well-wishers were numerous.

On that day, Lin Yao, watching her brother surrounded by the crowd, proudly puffed out her little chest.