Gu Leizhou died at the age of thirty-nine.
But Gu Leizhou was unwilling to accept it!
In this life, he had been a beggar, pleaded for food, performed on the streets, learned acrobatics, told fortunes while knowing nothing, spent time in prison, and worked as a merchant. He appeared to have done every bad thing imaginable, and in truth, he really hadn’t done many good things either.
But after all his struggles, he finally opened a company with an annual income of millions and got his life on the right track. From time to time, out of a sudden burst of kindness, he would even donate some money to accumulate blessings for himself. And yet, he ended up being stabbed to death by a robber on a plane while traveling for business?
Even if he was meant to restart his life, couldn’t they let him enjoy some happiness in this one before he died? What made him even more unwilling was that at the moment the robber’s knife pierced his chest, he thought he heard something about a God of Wealth, some kind of System…
Regardless of whether it was a hallucination before death, Gu Leizhou felt those words had appeared far too late.
Moreover, if he had known the robber would actually go for the kill, if he had known his fate wasn’t that strong, if he had known… he wouldn’t have tried to be a hero and taken that hit for the pregnant woman behind him. He swore it!
【Soul purity qualified… Merit qualified… Target soul body detected. Do you wish to bind with this System and take over a Premium Life?】
Gu Leizhou: 【I do! I do!】
Of course he was willing to lead a Premium Life. It would be best if he was born into a large villa, given a house at age one, a car at age two, and shares in a major company by age three!
…
And so…
“Ow, it hurts so much!” Gu Leizhou felt this had to be a hallucination. Why did it feel like he was being brutally beaten? His head hurt, his stomach hurt, his legs hurt—everything hurt!
“Pay up! We’re giving you three days to pay back the money! If you don’t, we’ll chop off your fingers, believe it or not!”
Gu Leizhou’s head was buzzing. He instinctively curled up and rolled on the ground, clutching his head to minimize the damage.
Then he heard…
“Boss, this kid is ignoring us! He’s doing it on purpose!” Following that, another wave of pain erupted from his stomach.
You bastard! He wanted to respond, but he had to be able to speak first! Gu Leizhou cursed inwardly.
Finally, having no other choice, he gritted his teeth and forced the words out. “I’ll pay! I’ll pay it back!”
The group in front of him seemed to calm down slightly upon hearing his weak voice. They exchanged looks and gradually backed away.
Just as Gu Leizhou breathed a sigh of relief, he was roughly and forcefully hauled up by someone else.
The sudden movement made him grimace in pain; it hurt even more than the initial beating!
The rope breaks at its thinnest point; misfortune finds the miserable! Now it was just one thing after another. Gu Leizhou suspected he might have actually gone to hell.
But as he opened his eyes and looked closely, it didn’t quite look like hell. After all, the person in front of him looked quite decent.
“Gu Leizhou, I’ll give you five hundred thousand. This amount is enough to pay off your gambling debts. I only need you to do one simple thing for me.”
Gu Leizhou didn’t believe in “simple things.” He had spent years struggling in society; five hundred thousand was enough to buy several of his former lives if he were an ordinary person. As for why it didn’t include his later life, that was naturally because he had become wealthy at the age of thirty-seven!
He didn’t say a word. The man opposite him, dressed in a black suit and wearing a hat and mask that covered him completely, didn’t seem to care and continued, “As long as you can delete all of Gu Liao Chuan’s archived lyrics and compositions, you’ll get two hundred and fifty thousand. If you’re willing to step forward afterward and accuse him of plagiarism, you’ll get five hundred thousand.”
【Tasker, do not agree to him! He harbors ill intentions, is despicable and shameless, and is not a good person!】 A somewhat familiar voice echoed in his mind.
“At first you said one thing for five hundred thousand, but now it’s two things for five hundred thousand,” Gu Leizhou said weakly after a couple of coughs.
The man in the hat was clearly caught off guard by this response, but after a two-second daze, he laughed with utter disdain. “Fine, then I’ll give you a million! As long as you do what I tell you, I have plenty of money!”
With that, he turned to leave.
Seeing this, Gu Leizhou ignored his battered body and lunged forward to grab him. Even the man’s bodyguards didn’t react in time.
“Where’s the deposit?”
“What?”
“You expect someone to work without a deposit? You might as well just kill me then! That way, you’ll be the murderers.”
The man in the hat took a deep breath, frowning as he tried to shake off Gu Leizhou’s hand, but he found he couldn’t budge it at all.
“Let go, I’ll give it to you!” The man gritted his teeth, each word jumping out of his mouth.
He rummaged through his pockets and pulled out a card, hesitated for a moment, then put it back and exchanged it for another one. He held it between his middle and index fingers, tapped the air twice aggressively, and then threw it onto the ground. “Two hundred thousand! The deposit!”
He hadn’t intended to give that much, but Gu Leizhou was clearly obsessed with money; only by giving more could he be controlled. He wasn’t worried about Gu Leizhou running off with the two hundred thousand either, as he had people keeping an eye on him. After giving the money, he also left a phone number.
Once the series of actions was complete, he looked back at the bodyguards with impatience. “What are you standing there for? Do I need to invite you? Get in the car!”
Gu Leizhou had actually seen that the man had more than just that one card on him. One of them even shimmered brilliantly amidst the clutter; just seeing the material made it look incredibly valuable!
What a pity!
Pity there were so many bodyguards following him, and pity he had no strength right now! Otherwise…
【Does the Tasker wish to receive the memories of the Original Body?】
Before Gu Leizhou could think any further, he heard that familiar voice again.
It seemed he really had encountered a System this time. The problem was, he remembered hearing something about a God of Wealth and a Premium Life before he died. This current situation didn’t seem to match either of those at all.
Gu Leizhou picked up the card from the ground, tucked it into his pocket, and thought: 【Accept.】
The Original Body, by coincidence or some other reason, was also named Gu Leizhou.
He was born in a relatively remote village, the only son of his family and a late-born child for his parents. Thus, he had been pampered since childhood; he was allowed to do almost whatever he wanted.
Not to mention, he had been handsome since he was a child. Not just his parents, but even the other villagers loved to tease him, often saying he would definitely be successful when he grew up. They said it could be seen just from his looks. Indeed, he was exceptionally well-favored, looking like a little celestial child since he was small. Where else in the countryside would you find a child like that?
When he was in the first grade, he found a baby on the road. Logically, his family wasn’t wealthy to begin with. The right thing to do would have been to take the baby to the police station or give it to a childless family to raise. But how could the original host agree to give away something he had “found”? Thus, their family gained another child, named Gu Liao Chuan.
Although the parents hadn’t initially wanted to adopt the child, once they did, they treated Gu Liao Chuan no differently from their biological son. After all, once a choice is made, one must take responsibility for it.
But while the parents treated Gu Liao Chuan as their own, the Original Body never viewed him as a real brother.
To the Original Body, Gu Liao Chuan was merely a toy. Whatever he told his brother to do, his brother had to do.
The phrase Gu Leizhou said most often to Gu Liao Chuan was: “You have to thank me! If I hadn’t picked you up, you would have been carried off by stray dogs long ago. You wouldn’t even be alive today.”
Because Gu Leizhou had instilled this idea into Gu Liao Chuan since he was young, even though Gu Liao Chuan was six years younger than his brother, he was usually the one yielding to and coaxing his older brother.
The parents were usually busy working in the fields, and during the off-season, they would go to town to find work. They never realized this was how the two brothers interacted.
Of course, even if they had noticed, they probably would have just thought the two brothers had a great relationship—a level of harmony many families could only dream of.
Gu Leizhou didn’t get into university after graduating high school. He had been reasonably clever and okay at studying when he was young, but as he grew older, studying required more time. His mind was always on playing and having fun, so naturally, his grades slipped. Failing to get into university was only normal.
But could he blame his failure on his own lack of effort? Of course not!
Especially since he had lied at home after every exam, saying he had done very well and that his grades were among the best in the class or even the whole school. How embarrassing would it be if it turned out he didn’t get into university in the end!
So, he eventually blamed his failure to attend university on the claim that he simply didn’t want to go. And why didn’t he want to go? Naturally, it was because the family was too poor!
“Seeing Mom and Dad work so hard every day makes my heart ache. Let me go out and work so I can support my brother through university! The family can’t afford tuition for two people. I’m the older brother; I have to give way to my younger brother.”
And so, Gu Liao Chuan, who was then in the sixth grade, had another shackle placed upon him: the burden of his brother giving up his education for him.
But in truth, despite his words, once Gu Leizhou actually went out to work, he found that making money was very difficult! So, in the years he spent working, not only did he not bring home a single cent, but he often cried poverty to his family, reaching out to his parents for money and even taking Gu Liao Chuan’s living expenses while he was in school.
Under these circumstances, Gu Liao Chuan naturally developed the desire to make money—to make a lot of money.
So, when he was seventeen, there was an audition for a talent show. With the encouragement of his classmates, he participated. His classmates all said he was good-looking; even if he didn’t debut or become a star, if he was selected to appear in a few episodes, there would be no shortage of money. Not to mention, Gu Liao Chuan already liked singing and had taught himself songwriting and composing.
Even more unexpectedly, the seventeen-year-old Gu Liao Chuan, bolstered by his “top student” persona, his voice, his looks, and his status as an original singer, became an overnight sensation in the very first episode.
However, fame brings trouble, especially for those who rise to the top by chance, sparking jealousy. And so, Gu Liao Chuan was targeted. But this boy only had two things on his mind: besides wanting to make some money to ease the pressure on his parents and brother, he just wanted to study everything he loved!
Others simply couldn’t find any real dirt on him to use against him. A paparazzi followed him for three months; every day he was either practicing dancing or singing. Once, the paparazzi saw him secretly crouching in a corner, focused intently on his phone. He thought he’d caught something scandalous, but when he zoomed in with his camera, it turned out he was doing mock Gaokao exam questions!
But just because he had no dirt didn’t mean his relatives didn’t. Gu Liao Chuan, who was initially as impenetrable as an iron bucket, happened to have a brother who leaked like a sieve.