No, no, no! Bai Mingzhen absolutely couldn't take it back. All ten million belonged to him!
"It's only a matter of taking it back. It's not as though the money doesn't belong to him."
Bai Huan felt as though the sky had collapsed.
He shook off Bai Mingzhen's hand and stormed away.
Bai Mingzhen turned to look at the boy's furious retreating figure but didn't immediately follow him.
Instead, he turned his gaze back to Lu Hu'an.
With Bai Huan gone, Bai Mingzhen's entire aura instantly grew much colder.
A moment ago, he had seemed like a kind older brother. Now, he resembled a stern patriarch.
Lu Hu'an and his group had always been afraid of him. Bai Huan had been the only person who could ease the tension between them.
"Your awkward position within your family isn't Bai Huan's fault. If you have time to make trouble for him, you'd be better off reading a few more books. Not many people in the Lu family are particularly well educated. It shouldn't be difficult for you to distinguish yourself."
Lu Hu'an trembled with fury, his vision darkening.
Yet he didn't dare move a muscle, much less raise his eyes.
"From now on, you and your little group are to cut off all contact with Bai Huan. I don't want to see any of you in his social circle again. Understood?"
"Why?"
A trace of uneasiness and panic crept into Lu Hu'an's heart.
"But what if he insists on hanging out with us?"
"Then you can stay out of his way."
Lu Hu'an swallowed.
"Is that a reminder, or..."
Bai Mingzhen replied indifferently, "It's a warning."
Talking to children like these was no different from talking to pigs.
Bai Mingzhen didn't waste another moment. Surrounded by several staff members, he strode out of the competition hall.
Faint rumbles of thunder came from outside.
Everyone entering the building afterward carried the dampness of the rain with them.
The floor-to-ceiling windows were spattered with muddy water and raindrops, while the dark clouds hanging low in the sky resembled rotten century eggs that had been crushed into a pulp.
Carrying a long-handled umbrella, Bell hurried toward Bai Mingzhen, her high heels clicking rapidly against the floor.
"I just saw the young master leave."
Some of her hair had gotten wet, and the damp strands clung to her face like several cracks. Her expression was extremely unpleasant.
Bai Mingzhen could tell from her face that things weren't so simple.
He gestured for her to continue.
"When the young master came out, he ran into Wang Yitong and the others. Lawyer Bai, you know the young master has a driver's license. He forced all of them into a business van belonging to one of their families!"
"Who's driving?"
Bai Mingzhen had a terrible premonition.
Sure enough, Bell answered, "The young master."
Wang Yitong had already wet himself.
When Bai Huan started punching and kicking him, he fell to the ground, mainly because he was frightened out of his wits.
Then, when Bai Huan recklessly began stomping on his head and chest, Wang Yitong completely lost control of his bladder.
He urinated while screaming like a ghost, repeatedly shouting, "Grandpa, spare me! Grandpa, spare me!"
Although the other five had rushed forward to break up the fight, they had all taken punches as well.
Remembering that Bai Huan still had Bai Mingzhen backing him, they swallowed their anger and didn't dare fight back.
Just then, a beautiful young woman came over.
However, she had apparently come to deliver a weapon.
She raised an umbrella above Bai Huan's head and gently urged him to go back inside.
The boy's face remained as unmoved as that of a rakshasa.
He snatched the umbrella from the beautiful young woman's hand, turned around, and began viciously whipping the other five with it.
The umbrella's canopy tore apart.
Its ribs all snapped.
Only the central shaft remained.
Then even the shaft broke, leaving nothing but the handle.
Bai Huan shoved the handle into Jeans's mouth and casually snatched the car keys from another person.
Rain poured down in torrents.
Like a shepherd driving sheep into a pen, Bai Huan herded all of them into the vehicle.
He paid no attention to the rain soaking him from head to toe.
Climbing into the driver's seat, he inserted the key and immediately slammed his foot onto the accelerator.
The tires churned through puddles, sending water spraying in every direction.
The piercing screech of rubber against the ground overlapped with the rolling thunder, one sound answering another, as though the apocalypse itself had arrived.
"Bai Huan! Bai Huan! I'm sorry! I'm really sorry! I know I was wrong! Just let me out of the car! I'm begging you!"
Jeans squeezed forward from the back, clutching the seat and screaming at the top of his lungs.
Expressionless, Bai Huan turned the steering wheel and smoothly pulled the vehicle out of its parking space.
He didn't drive far.
Nor did he have any intention of doing so.
Instead, he drove in circles around the open area outside the club, throwing the people inside from side to side until they were crashing into everything and screaming for their parents.
This was Bai Huan's way of life.
Those he loved were fed honey. Those he hated were fed arsenic.
And those who went from being loved to being hated received a double dose of arsenic.
Lu Hu'an and the others had once treated other people in exactly the same way.
Now Bai Huan was punishing them using their own methods.
It was perfectly reasonable.
The sky was so dark that it seemed like nighttime.
The entrance to the club was packed with people, and the commotion was even greater than it had been in the competition hall.
Not far away, the business van was swinging back and forth across the open space like an axe hacking wildly in every direction.
Its movements were anything but smooth.
The occasional shriek of the brakes was so piercing that people instinctively covered their ears.
Beautiful flowers, vibrant patches of grass, exquisitely designed terraces...
Everything in its path was smashed and destroyed.
Finally, with one last stomp on the accelerator, the van crashed into a flowerbed constructed of cement and stone bricks.
An alarm began blaring.
Behind Bai Huan, the passengers were battered and bruised, their heads bleeding and their bodies aching as they groaned in pain.
Above the vehicle, blossoms from a goldenrain tree drifted down one by one, gently settling on the windshield.
"Bai Huan, this... this isn't over between us!"
LV Guy clutched his face, speaking in a voice that had gone hoarse from screaming.
Bai Huan slowly turned his head from the driver's seat.
He nodded in profound agreement.
"Next time, you won't be inside the car. I'll put you in front of it."
With that, the boy slammed the door and got out.
There was no road ahead of him, so he had no choice but to turn around and walk back.
Not far away, standing in front of the spectators who had gathered to watch the spectacle, was Bai Mingzhen.
He held an umbrella, his face as cold as ice.
All the warmth instantly drained from Bai Huan's body.
He had no choice but to walk over of his own accord.
When they finally stood face to face, raindrops fell one after another from his eyelashes.
The water obscured his vision, making him feel a little less afraid.
"Just now, I was possessed by a ghost."
Bai Huan cleared his throat as he spoke.
Bai Mingzhen, who had stood as motionless as a judge delivering a verdict, finally moved.
Bai Huan instinctively turned his head away.
He was certain he was going to be slapped this time.
But Bai Mingzhen merely removed his coat with one hand and tossed it into Bai Huan's arms.
"Put it on."
Bai Mingzhen took Bai Huan away from the club without further incident.
Bell was left responsible for handling all the subsequent compensation.
A week later, Bai Mingzhen was summoned back to the old family residence by a phone call.
There, Old Master Bai delivered two vigorous blows with his cane.
"I start school tomorrow. This is my school uniform."
"Brother, will you come with me to register?"
"Pitiful/Pitiful/Pitiful/"
When Bai Mingzhen received Bai Huan's messages, Old Master Bai's cane had only just come down on him.
A housekeeper hurried over to intervene.
Old Master Bai pressed a hand against his chest.
"That Taimi boy has a crooked temperament. His roots were rotten from the beginning. Now that he's already left the Bai family, you might as well sever all ties with him. You protected him so openly that day, and all the calls demanding accountability ended up coming to our family again. Do you think that makes things any easier for you?"
When his grandfather mentioned severing ties, Bai Mingzhen thought that if they really wanted to cut off their relationship, they would probably have to do it twice.
Irritation rose in his heart.
"You have more money than you could ever spend."
"That's still no reason to spend it on an outsider!"
The old man bristled, his eyes widening with anger.
Seeing that Bai Mingzhen wasn't responding, he sighed.
"How about this? Give him the five million he won in the match. The original stake was our money anyway. After that, don't have any more dealings with him."
Bai Mingzhen frowned.
"Five million won't last him even a month. You might as well throw that money into the river."
The old man was thoroughly confused.
He leaned sideways, bringing himself closer to his grandson.
"One moment you're being generous, and the next you're acting like a miser. What exactly are you trying to accomplish?"
Truthfully, Bai Xianrong didn't dislike Bai Huan, even though the boy had been born into another family.
Although his personality was somewhat extreme, there was usually a certain logic behind his actions.
But spending an enormous amount of money to support an outsider who offered absolutely no value in return left a bitter taste in the old man's mouth.
That was why Bai Xianrong would rather cut away a large piece of flesh now than continue cutting off pieces for the rest of his life.
"I'm his older brother. Disciplining him is my responsibility."
Bai Mingzhen lowered his eyes.
"Responsibility, is it? Then tell me, which page of the Chen family's household registration booklet has your name on it?"
"..."
Bai Xianrong was secretly delighted to have won a round.
He was just about to clasp his hands behind his back and bask in his triumph when, the very next second, his beloved eldest grandson spoke.
"I can have another page added to the Chen family's household registration booklet. It's just that yours will end up with one page fewer."
"..."
The grandfather and grandson argued for almost the entire morning.
By noon, they had finally managed to reach a reluctant agreement.
As long as Bai Huan stopped causing trouble serious enough to become public knowledge, Bai Xianrong would refrain from interfering in how the two brothers maintained their relationship.
However, if another incident like the one at the club occurred, Bai Xianrong would have Bai Huan's entire biological family driven out of Nancheng.
Furthermore, Bai Mingzhen would never be able to find him again.
Bai Mingzhen was convinced that nothing similar would happen again.
So he agreed.
After accompanying Bai Xianrong for lunch, Bai Mingzhen left the old family residence.
The driver noticed the dark bruise on the man's forehead in the rearview mirror and gently advised him.
"Lawyer Bai, about the injury on your forehead... Would you like to have a doctor take a look at it first?"
Bai Mingzhen shook his head.
"No need."
He gazed out the window, contemplating his younger brother's upbringing and the problem of his own penile erections in response to his younger brother.
"When we were having lunch at the old residence just now, didn't you say you were going to accompany the young master to school tomorrow to register? Looking at the state you're in, if the young master finds out how you got injured, I'm afraid he'll go looking for trouble with the old master..."
"Take me to the hospital first," Bai Mingzhen said in a deep voice.