Chapter 28: Eyes Smeared with Filth

Although Ou Jinju had no idea what was inside the little scented sachet Ou Xinlai had given him, he was sure of one thing: Ou Xinya, who had set her sights on his life, had been injured by that small item Ou Xinlai had prepared. At this thought, Ou Jinju felt an inexplicable sense of satisfaction. It had always been Ou Xinya lording over them, her head held high as she looked down upon everyone else. No matter how kind and gentle Ou Xinya pretended to be, Ou Jinju could always sense her pride and sense of superiority. Now, Ou Xinya was the one wounded, sitting on the ground—looking down on others from above was indeed a fine feeling.

“Ou Jinju, no matter what, I am still your elder sister. Is this really how you treat me?” Ou Xinya seethed with fury. In truth, her father’s illness had not yet fully healed—she should not have been the one to provoke Ou Xinlai in the first place.

But how could she have anticipated that Ou Xinlai would have equipped Ou Jinju with something like this? The memory of Ou Xinlai’s strange pranks made Ou Xinya’s scalp tingle. Once, when she had a stomachache, she took some medicine from Ou Xinlai and ended up passing gas for seven days straight, hiding herself away in her room, not daring to step outside.

Now, she had no idea what kind of trick she had fallen victim to this time.

“Little brother?” Ou Jinju sneered coldly, “I used to think you didn’t know about this, but it turns out you did.” In the past, he had approached Ou Xinya because she was his elder sister!

Ou Chendong had married a wife who turned out to be barren, but she was a formidable woman who would not allow him to take a concubine. Ou Chendong, not particularly driven by matters of the heart, eventually came up with the idea of surrogacy.

Ou Xinya was the first child born to Ou Chendong and a surrogate from the Ou family, and Ou Jinju was the second. Originally, Ou Chendong had intended to acknowledge him as his son, but then a visiting fortune-teller proclaimed that he was destined never to awaken any abilities, and that his birth date clashed with Ou Chendong’s.

If Ou Chendong accepted him, the fortune-teller warned, misfortune would follow. Because of such nonsense, he became a child without a father. When he turned ten, he still hadn’t manifested any abilities, which made Ou Chendong’s disdain for him even greater.

Had he not happened to overhear his mother sobbing late one night, he would never have learned the truth about his origins. He despised Ou Chendong, but he did not resent Ou Xinya. Even though he felt that Ou Xinya always acted superior around him, he had endured it.

But after overhearing Ou Xinya’s “usefulness theory,” he finally gave up any thought of being close to this so-called “sister.” At first, he thought Ou Xinya didn’t know they were truly related by blood, and that was why she treated him that way. That was difficult enough to accept, but when he realized she had known all along and still acted thus, all hope he had for her was extinguished.

“Jinju, you are my brother; you ought to help me. What is so special about Ou Xinlai? She’s even a year younger than you. You’re a grown man, yet you spend your days trailing after a little girl—don’t you find that shameful? Jinju, you are always my brother. I’ll definitely find a way to help you. As long as I gain the clan leader’s favor, I will beg him to let you enter the Five Element Array, so you can finally awaken your abilities.”

Ou Xinya was all too aware that, in the entire Ou family, Ou Jinju was the only junio