“Wake up, you useless piece of shit!”

[Bang! Crack!]

A loud shout resounded in a dark room, followed by the harsh sound of glass cracking and someone crashing on the floor.

In the room stood a tall, middle-aged man looking down on a young man who had been pulled out of his bed and thrown onto the cold, hard floor. Under the elbow of the young man lay a ruined smartphone with a freshly cracked display.

As the man watched the writhing youth on the ground groggily open his eyes a smug grin appeared on his face. And when he saw the cracked phone still under the youth’s elbow sustain more damage due to the youth’s uncoordinated movements, it only added to the man’s glee.

Seeing that his goal had been achieved, and the younger one was awake now, the middle-aged man turned around and walked towards the door of the room. Before leaving, the middle-aged man snidely remarked, “Piece of shit, you are already twenty-two, and yet I still have to wake you up every morning! Get your ass to work on time today, trash.”

[Bang!]

With that, the middle-aged man finally left the room while smashing the door close.

……

As Feng Tian groggily opened his eyes, he saw the blurry back of someone walking away from him. The next moment, he heard the person say some strange words while hurling an abuse at him, followed by him smashing a door before the back disappeared and all that remained in front of him was a closed door.

Unable to make sense of what was happening, he tried to push against the floor to get on his feet, but his disoriented mind made him fall back down. His memories were as blurred as his vision, and he couldn’t even form a complete word when he opened his mouth to say something.

Instinctively giving up on his quest to get up, he lay back down on the floor which had stolen a bit of his body-heat. Although the cold ground wasn’t the best place to enjoy himself on, it still helped reorient his mind that was in a complete mess.

As his thought-process cleared, so did his vision and Feng Tian could better see the darkness and empty ceiling above him. It wasn’t long before he fully regained his consciousness and tried pushing against the floor to stand up. This time, he didn’t fail and successfully stood up.

‘Where is this?’ Feng Tian thought to himself as he looked around the room. Although he was still having trouble with his balance, it was still bearable and he reckoned that he would be good to go in a few minutes.

There was barely any light in the dark room, and from the sole window connecting the room to the outside world, Feng Tian could tell that it was still nighttime. He estimated that there was still time before the dawn broke out.

But more than that, the fact that he couldn’t see a single star adoring the night sky gave him a strange feeling as certain memories buried in the deepest pits of his soul surfaced into his mind ― sickening memories he believed he would never remember.

As the memories surfaced one-by-one, Feng Tian’s stomach churned and he immediately looked at his surroundings to distract himself. But as soon as his gaze fell upon the mostly empty room, the memories surfaced even faster and Feng Tian felt as if he would retch just from remembering all that he went through when he was young-

“Huh!”

As soon as the thought about his youth crossed his mind, Feng Tian looked down on his body and what he saw stunned him to the point that even his stomach stopped churning.

What he saw was a scrawny body with the upper half covered by a black t-shirt with small tears on various places, while the lower half was covered in heavy-duty camouflage trousers. His malnourished hands pulled onto the t-shirts that felt as if it would rip apart with a moderate tug.

Feng Tian couldn’t believe his senses. No, he didn’t want to believe his senses for what they conveyed was something impossible. He, who was supposed to be dead, had somehow survived. Damn, he had even felt his body and soul disintegrate at that time. But, the miracle didn’t stop at that, and he found himself back in his room when he was a young man.

Either the Universe had gone insane or he had already died and all of this was an illusion. If everything was reality, then… A tear slid down Feng Tian’s cheek as he imagined all the possibilities, suffering, and regrets he couldn’t let go of even when his soul slowly perished into the oblivion.

He hoped that everything was real!

Oh! How he was willing to pay any price to have all this be real!

He couldn’t care less about the cause, all he wanted was for the effect to be a reality.

[Bang!]

As Feng Tian fell deeper and deeper into his thoughts, a loud bang splashed a bucket of water over his head, bringing him back to his senses. Out of instinct, he turned around to see the source of the noise. As soon as his eyes fell upon the face of the person standing at the door, and the words from that person fell into his ears, immeasurable fury rose from the depths of his heart.

“Motherfucker, what are you doing standing there like a goddamn pole? Didn’t I tell you to wake up and get your damned ass to the construction site? Do you think money grows on the trees? If you don’t bring the full payment of the day today, see if I won’t sell you off, you piece of shit!”

If there was one person in the Universe Feng Tian hated from the depths of his heart, it had to be the man standing in front of him, Feng Xiao. Feng Tian ground his teeth as he recalled everything Feng Xiao, his biological father, had made him go through. Before Feng Xiao could walk three steps towards Feng Tian, Feng Tian rushed forward and jumped at Feng Xiao while shouting, “Fuck your grandmother, you son-of-a-bitch, Feng Xiao! Your father, I, won’t rest if I don’t end your bitch-life today, you bastard!”

“What?” the sudden assault by the scrawny brat who always got pushed around by him surprised Feng Xiao, but surprise was all that brat’s attack invoked as Feng Xiao immediately threw a punch towards the malnourished weakling, “Eat this punch, you little bitch!”

[Bang! Crack!]