This actor is full of tricks.

At 7 p.m., Lin Jue returned home. His home was a small three-bedroom apartment in an old neighborhood. Although it was not large, it was decorated very warmly. The furniture in the house was all added little by little by his mother before she passed away.

This house was the only memento his parents left him. No matter how hard life got, Lin Jue never thought of selling anything from the house.

He tore off the overdue electricity bill from the door, took out his key, and opened the door.

The room was pitch black and lifeless. In the past, when he came home from school, he could always smell the aroma of his mother cooking in the kitchen, and his father would be sitting on the sofa watching the evening news, along with his younger brother.
younger brother?

Do I have a younger brother?
Lin Jue stopped in his tracks, standing there blankly. He clearly didn't have a younger brother, so why did the word "younger brother" suddenly pop into his mind?

"I've been acting really strange lately, always having these inexplicable thoughts. It seems like I've been under too much pressure. I'll just read for three hours tonight; I can't stay up late anymore." Lin Jue made excuses for himself in his mind, took a candle from the shoe cabinet next to him, lit it, and the dim candlelight slowly filled the room.

A family photo hangs on the TV wall in the living room. His parents are sitting in front with smiles on their faces, while Lin Jue stands behind his mother and puts his arm around her neck.

Lin Jue stopped in front of the family photo, looking at the large blank space next to him in the picture. It seemed that there should have been someone in that spot.

"I don't have a younger brother, Yan Hui, what's wrong with you!" Lin Jue rubbed his nose, forcing himself to look away, and walked into the kitchen with a candle in his hand.

After leaving school, he went to the street to find a part-time job for an hour, and he still hasn't eaten.

Fortunately, although the power was out, the water and gas were still running. Lin Jue lit the gas stove with a lighter, boiled a pot of water, and cooked himself a bowl of instant noodles with pickled pepper beef flavor.

"Why isn't this spicy at all? Is it really pickled pepper flavor?" Lin Jue took a bite and didn't feel any spiciness. He added a whole spoonful of chili peppers, but still felt the flavor wasn't enough, so he simply poured the remaining half bottle of chili peppers into the bowl.

The noodles finally tasted spicy, and the spiciness made his eyes water and his nose run. The pain on his tongue finally cheered him up a bit.

He devoured the noodles, even drinking the broth clean, and planned to use this burst of energy to study for three hours straight.

However, as soon as he opened the book, he heard the sound of frantic typing coming from next door, accompanied by a man's angry roars.

"Why is this guy so noisy every day?" Lin Jue covered his ears. His neighbor was a game streamer who did nothing but stay at home all day, sponging off his parents and playing games. He made a lot of noise every day, and often played games all night long, which often interrupted Lin Jue's thoughts when he was reading.

He had tolerated it before, but tonight, the guy next door was getting louder and louder, even swearing. It seemed like he was arguing with the viewers in the live chat.

As the cursing from next door grew louder, Lin Jue felt as if the words in the book had come to life, like monstrous snakes twisting and crawling, mocking him wantonly.

"Damn it! Can you keep it down!" Lin Jue couldn't take it anymore and kicked the wall.

The noise from next door paused for a moment, but soon resumed with even more vulgar and louder insults.

Lin Jue took a deep breath, walked out of the door, went to the door of the next room, and started banging on the door.

The door opened quickly, and a delinquent youth with brightly colored dyed hair and wearing slippers opened the door, a cigarette dangling from his mouth: "What do you want, kid?"

"Could you please lower your voice a little? This is already disturbing the peace." Lin Jue exhaled the breath he had been holding in, trying to make his voice sound as calm as possible.

"Tsk." The young man scoffed. "If you think it's noisy, you can move out. Did I ask you to stay here?"

Seeing that Lin Jue remained silent, the young man became even more emboldened and blew a puff of smoke directly into Lin Jue's face: "You poor wretch, a wild child without a mother or father!" After saying that, he prepared to close the door.

Lin Jue suddenly reached out and grabbed the door, flung it open, and kicked the young man directly in the stomach.

"You fucking dare to hit me! You want to die, huh?!" The young man was so badly kicked that he almost couldn't catch his breath. He had just opened his mouth to curse when Lin Jue threw another punch at him.

"You fucking have a death wish."

The young man was no pushover either, and he got into a fight with Lin Jue. Although Lin Jue was younger, he was still an adult. The two were about the same size, and the young man, who stayed home playing games all day, wasn't much stronger than him. So the two fought back and forth, neither able to gain the upper hand, and both ended up with bruises.

"Stop fighting! Stop fighting!"

An elderly woman with white hair ran out from the inner room. This was the young man's mother. Lin Jue had met her a few times. The old woman was also a pitiful person. She originally had three children. The young man was the youngest son. The first two children died in strange events, so the old woman doted on her only remaining son.

This has led to young people becoming increasingly arrogant and selfish.

The old man desperately tried to pull the young man away, saying, "Young man, fighting is bad, let's not fight."

Lin Jue was panting heavily. He had already stopped when he saw the old man, but the young man was blinded by anger. When he couldn't break free from the old man, he even tried to hit his own mother. Fortunately, a neighbor who heard the commotion came over and held the young man down.

Even so, the old man couldn't bear to blame his son and kept pleading for him.

"Auntie, don't worry about him! He doesn't consider you his mother at all. He's just a bloodsucker, clinging to you and sucking your blood. Sooner or later, he'll want to kill you!"

Looking at the old man's pitiful appearance, Lin Jue felt a tightness in his chest and shouted, but as soon as he finished shouting, his breath hitched.

Why did I say such a thing? Why did I think the young man would want to kill my mother in the future?

Even if this young man is a scoundrel, he wouldn't do something so beastly.

"I must have been out of my mind with anger, after all, this guy even tried to lay a hand on his mother just now..." Lin Jue suddenly felt a little disheartened. He sighed and left the farce behind.

The young man's angry roars continued from behind, taunting him to wait and see.

Lin Jue returned to his home and shut out the outside noise with the door. He turned to look at the full-length mirror in the entryway. In the mirror, he looked exhausted, with bruises on his thin cheeks.

He seemed to see his face in the mirror transform into Zhou Yue's, then into Li Ge's, and then into a series of familiar yet unfamiliar faces, each with a different appearance and expression, before finally settling on his own weary face.

The person in the mirror opened their mouth and said, "So tired."

"I want to sleep so much, I want to sleep for a very long time."

(End of this chapter)