It's a really dog blooded story. MC's dad comes across as very pitiful, and crazy (in the skeevy, ultra-slag kinda way). Spoiler: dogblood 时行瑞 = Shi Xingrui (MC's dad) 简进文 = Jian Jinwen (his white moonlight) So Shi Xingrui came from large rural family; he was a genius and very ambitious kid, but he and his parents were suppressed by the extended family. When he was still in elementary school, he was already getting articles published in the local newspaper. Jian Jinwen is the adopted son of the local newspaper editor. He admired the articles Xingrui wrote and they became penpals. This guy has a warm and kind personality, and he helped Xingrui through some tough times in his life (mother's death, breaking away from family, getting into high school, etc.) with both financial help and by providing encouragement. Now, there was a misunderstanding, since when these kids had swapped photos before, they were still young, and Jinwen's kid pic looked very androgynous. Coupled that with his girly handwriting, Xingrui probably thought he was a girl all this time, and thought he fell in love. During high school, when they organized a face to face meeting, Jinwen thought that Xingrui never showed up to the meeting, when actually he did show up, but just was shocked that instead of a girl, his crush is actually a chubby boy. Anyway, Xingrui cut off communications for a year or so, before finally resuming communications with some excuses. They remained friends (at least on Jinwen's side, who knows what Xingrui was thinking...). At 19, Jinwen was hospitalized with late stage cancer. Xingrui found out a bit later after he had started up his new company and was doing increasingly well at business, and he had decided maybe he was willing to try out a gay relationship with Jinwen. But of course that wasn't happening now, especially after Jinwen's dad yelled at him for playing around with Jinwen's feelings and worsening his condition during high school. So instead, Xingrui arranged his personal lawyer, Xu Chuan, to approach the Jinwen's dad, pretending to represent a charity organization offering better medical care. In actuality, this was all funded by Xingrui, who had Jinwen moved into a private hospital he owned, and provided the best care possible. But money can't cure cancer, so eventually Jinwen still died. He became the white moonlight of not only Xingrui, but also the lawyer Xu Chuan who had been acting as middle man for his care, who had come to have a crush on him over the course of their short association. Possibly Xingrui sensed this, and afterwards started excluding Xu Chuan from his personal business. Xu Chuan was from the cadet branch of the Xu Family. The main family was in decline and wanted to use upcoming business tycoon Xingrui to rise back into prominence. Xu Chuan refused to help them since the main family often suppressed his branch family. But the daughter of the main family Xu Jie took advantage of his business trip to lie about being Xu Chuan's close cousin, and get hired as Xingrui's personal secretary. Then she used the typical alcohol & drugs tactic to get into Xingrui's bed, and luckily got pregnant from the one night stand (resulting in MC's eldest brother). Xingrui at that point was considering whether starting a new family might help him get over the grief over Jinwen, so he didn't immediately kick Xu Jie out, but rather moved in with her and provided resources for her family. Though he didn't marry her either... probably because he saw how ambitious she was and didn't want to give her power. However, all of this provoked Xu Chuan, who felt he was defiling Jinwen's memories and he can't stand to see the main Xu family benefit at his expense. So he found a woman whose side profile bore a little resemblance to Jinwen, and arrange for her to cross paths with Xingrui. Sure enough, Xingrui immediately abandoned his lover and infant son (though he still financed them). He researched this lookalike woman, and then came to her with a business contract, where he would provide money and backing for her family, and she would bear him a son. This repeated several times with different women, resulting in MC's second through fourth brothers. The fifth woman looked like Jinwen not just in a few characteristics, but could pass for a sister. She was also a young college girl. Instead of arranging for a business contract, Xingrui outright just wooed and seduced her. But after her son was born and seeing that the kid didn't resemble her much, Xingrui lost interest in her and left. This caused the woman to go a little crazy, because she was honestly in love, and she took it out on her son before eventually committing suicide, causing him to be a little...touched in the head. This is also why MC's fifth brother actually had treated him with some killing intent, though it's complicated since he knows intellectually MC is not at fault for what happened to him. Now, the reason that Xingrui lost interest after his fifth son was because he had found Jinwen's biological sister, who was like, just 8 years old at the time. She's also an orphan, and he secretly arranged for her to be moved to an orphanage under his control, arranged for her to be renamed Yunjin (云进), and as soon as she was of legal age, arranged for himself to cross paths with her and wooed/seduced another innocent girl into his clutches. He started to ignore his other kids and babymoms and shower her with money. This was the final straw for Xu Jie, who was angry enough all all the other women he had kids with, but now it looked like he's going to actually marry this one. So she arranged for Yunjin to learn the ugly truth during her post-birth depression period, resulting in Yunjin committing suicide. Of course, Xu Jie got one thing wrong though. Yunjin wasn't the replacement for Xingrui's white moonlight. Her son was. When MC (时进) was born, he had the (bad???) luck to look a lot like his mom...and his uncle. When growing up, even though it looked like he enjoyed all the best benefits of being a rich tycoon's favored son, he was actually strictly controlled. He wasn't fat because he liked eating; but because his dad controlled his diet so that he'd resemble the chubby teenage Jinwen. He had no friends outside of his brothers because his dad arranged it so he didn't have any chance to get close to anyone else...god knows why. It's all very creepy and I get the feeling that MC is lucky his dad died before he got to legal age...
1. So what's MC relationship with all his brothers in the end? 2. What did they think/reacts to the people who's out there to get the MC? (e.g., to kill and torture him?) 3. How did the ML react? Thank you for all the great spoilers! Dog blooded indeed, what pain would MC not have to go through if his dad really did live past his legal age I can't even imagine... and wasn't MC's dad waaaay older than his mom?
Just finished this. Really worth the read. Spoiler 1. They get along in the end and all the brother dotes on MC. It was not easy as MC have to get through his brothers emotional or mental issue and his own. 2. They are protective towards MC. Even have a fight among themselves when they learn of what MC went through in his first life. 3. Protective and help MC to get through it
1. How did they to know what MC went through in his first life? Or do you mean that the villains in this life-time tried to exact the same revenge on him? Hence, the brothers knew. 2. What did the MC do when the brothers started to fight? 3. What are the brother's opinion of ML? 4. Any brother complex moments? Thanks you so much!
In the epilogue chapters, the brothers were sleeping over for the holidays, and they had all had a dream about MC's original life. The next day, MC came back from seeing some other friends away to find his brothers all fighting in the living room, with ML just looking on from the sidelines. He broke up the fight and then went with ML to the kitchen for breakfast. The brothers were a little too incoherent at why they were fighting and the whole thing was kind of glossed over (at least, MC didn't realize that they knew about his original life). At first they didn't approve, given ML's health and occupation. But in the end they can't control who MC's loves and they really have no right to control MC's life.
Aaah i love this novel so much, finished mtl ing a long time ago *sigh* i wish to see more story at the end bcs i feel that the ending is a bit rushed. But well it's quite satisfying so no complain here~ For me i think this novel is the best system based novel that i've ever read. Not that i don't like QWTFOD or other similar novel, i like it bcs the system is so cute and so human, i'm so happy they reunited again in the end
Spoiler: Continuing from the spoiler from charysa (long spoiler) To continue on from this spoilers for the brothers dream. After they finish fighting and fifth brother, the Doctor, was going to leave. When the brothers asked where he was going, he said (this is what I got from MTL) "“Leave here... I have no face to stay here and enjoy the care of Xiaojin” Everyone heard the silence, and Fei Yujing (Laywer brother) suddenly climbed up. He pressed the wound on the corner of his mouth and said, "I am leaving." Rong Zhou (Actor brother) snorted and climbed up. "Do you want to escape again?" Asking Ao Ting (Military brother) with anger and asking for a fist, it seems that he still wants to slap them again. "You have to wait for Xiaojin to pull you out? What are you doing?" The three people who walked forward stopped at the same time. "If you want to go, please say goodbye, don't let Xiaojin worry." Shi Wei Chong (First brother) also opened his mouth and said that he got up and turned and walked toward the villa. At least this time, he will never leave Xiaojin alone. Looking at his back to the court (Military brother), his fists were released, and he got up and followed.” At night time, the ML made every brother drink together with him because he wanted to be better than all five of MC brother (jealous~). So when the MC woke up in the middle of the night to pee, all the brothers where laying all over the place (lol). Only the military brother, fourth brother, was awake to help put everybody asleep on the sofa. While washing his face he asked if the MC remember the dream that he had told him at the military camp(?), and if it was really just a dream? It took awhile for the MC to remember but when he did he pretend to it was just a dream. Fourth brother obviously noticed that the MC was uncomfortable and unwilling to mention it and tightened his fist. He said "You were right at the time. The things in those dreams are very likely to happen... Xiaojin, let me say to you in the dream. Sorry, the fourth brother is doing something wrong, and he is very wrong. In that case, nothing can be the reason for his brother to drop his brother." Redemption came so fast that the MC was unprepared and asked how did he- Fourth brother interrupted the MC and told him to go to sleep and those who are guilty let him clean up. Guilty? MC look back onto his brothers in the living room and remember their weird action from this morning and their drunk-ness and the words of the fourth brother, and slowly realized something. Looking at fourth brother gentle gaze, without thinking he asked “Do you regret it?” He did not know why he asked this question? Or what answer to look forward to? Maybe he was drunk too. But from the soul he wanted to find an answer. Regrets, pain, and understanding? Even if it just a dream, he stills wants to find an answer. Fourth brother replyed, (MTL) "Repent, everyone regrets, Xiaojin, you can go home." After saying that there was crying sound from the living room, MC smiled and left, not bothering to look at the people on the sofa. That night the MC had a dream, he dreamed that after the funeral all the brothers were waiting for him and said that it was time to go home. The chubby MC held onto his fourth brother hand. In then in the third view of a person, he saw the chubby MC running towards his brothers. After the MC woke up he covered himself with the quilt and wonder if this was the most hopeful thing in his heart? Is there such an ending? Suddenly he was hugged from behind and saw the gentle face of the ML. He got into the arms of the ML and cry, shaking his head. He did not want such an ending. He want to meet the ML, and endure bitterness. It does not matter, he just wants to be with the ML. He told the ML he had a nightmare but decide to forget it. The ML hugged the MC tighter. The next morning as the brothers where leaving the MC said that they can come and visit again and as the brothers where all reaching there cars the MC shouted out loud that it just a dream out and all the brothers freezed for a second then the MC closed the door, and one by one the brothers left.
These two are so precious. I'll just throw in some teaser moments here, I haven't read that far in but these are some of them: MC got kidnapped by doctor bro. ML and subordinates were frantically searching for him. When found at the cemetery, ML stood up from his wheelchair, walked to MC and took him away. The Doctor who betrayed ML and abolished his legs was thrown into the sea. It was chaotic with gang fights, MC saved the doctor coz he holds the clue to curing ML but they're stuck at sea. The meds, foods were given to the doctor to make sure he survived the ordeal. When ML found them, he climbed down the helicopters's ladder himself, walked to MC and hugged him tight. MC was delirious, feverish but glad that ML found him and lost consciousness soon after. ML hugged him, assuring himself MC is in his arms and showered him with kisses. MC sent doctor bro New Year wantan(?) coz he promised him such while he was kidnapped. MC was recovering from his ordeal and was paralyzed in ML's bed, can't get up but he urgently needed to pee. He shouted at system to think of some ways, would it have the heart to let its beautiful darling's eyes be tainted with him peeing but system retorted that he have the heart while silently saying darling would probably be happy seeing little MC. ML did helped him pee after that. Awkward moments lol Highlight these...ML's lines while he helped MC lol ML: Don't hold back, relieve yourself. I won't look.
Oh god the father was/is so disgusting. Preying on a 8 year old? Wtf and i‘m 100% sure that he would have even raped MC, his own son, once he became full of age How did the brothers react when they heard this? Or did they never find out?
MC told his brothers the results of his investigation, though his primary goal was to point suspicion on his eldest brother's mom as the person who's trying to harm him, and wanting to who's side the brothers would take. The brothers already resented their dad before this, since they were never treated by him as sons. So just adding more disgust on top of that doesn't really change much.
Ah I finished this novel and absolutely loved it! I loved the complex relationships between MC and his brothers, and MC had such a sweet and cute romance with ML. I cried like a baby at the grief and pain that Shi Jin had gone through in his original life. For some additional clarifications/details/spoilers.... It’s revealed in the final arc of the novel that MC... is actually the original host, who suffered that absolutely horrible fate. The System/Xiao Si picked him up as a rebirth candidate due to everything he went through. After he died, the system/Xiao Si wanted to give him a rebirth, but then realized Shi Jin would have a quite gosh darn hard time just coping with all that psychological trauma alone. It therefore erased his memories and gave him a happy family and normal life in an alternate world, so he could take that inner strength to endure the terrible beginnings of rebirth. Over the course of the novel, MC starts to unlock vivid memories of that original life as “dreams”, with their associated strong emotions. Ex: 4th brother Xiang Aoting is probably the most intrinsically decent one out of the five brothers, the one who actually saved Shi Jin from the initial kidnapping. Shi Jin saw him as his hero. But after saving Shi Jin that one time, he disappeared for the remainder of Shi Jin’s cruel life, leaving him forever wondering whether his 4th brother really did care about him. In this life, Shi Jin asks Xiang Aoting that hypothetically if that situation happened, why would Xiang Aoting abandon him after saving him? Xiang Aoting has no idea what he’s talking about, but he theorizes that to rescue Shi Jin, he would have likely had to desert his post and was probably confined/punished as a result, preventing him from meeting Shi Jin later. Ex: 5th brother Li Jiuzheng is described as being pure and childlike. Unfortunately, like in any child, that innocence can manifest as cruelty. Last life he basically hovered over the dying Shi Jin making constant creepy threats like “You can’t die here, you can only die under my hands” and “You shouldn’t have been born as our younger brother”, as well as threatening him with a scalpel and making attempts to pull his life support. The original Shi Jin chose to give up on life to avoid being tormented by this devil any longer. This life Shi Jin does realize that Li Jiuzheng was/is mentally unstable and didn’t actually want him to die. He becomes probably the most attached/openly sticky brother to Shi Jin in this life. Ex: 3rd brother Rong Zhouzhong has a naturally poisonous mouth, and last life he was the one who most openly mocked and insulted Shi Jin. “You’re about to die, I can’t wait, hurry up and die already.” “I hate you, we all hate you. In fact, you’re probably not a child of the Shi family, just look at you, so fat and ugly, you damn fatty.” He was saying this stuff when the poor disfigured kid was on life support stuck in a hospital bed at the end of his life... like wtfffff Jesus Christ no wonder the original Shi Jin’s last wish was to get revenge on his brothers. In this life, Shi Jin receives this memory with the associated emotions. He almost goes crazy with the pent-up resentment and grief, because he’s the only one who knows what these brothers had done to him last life. He forces a confused and guilty Rong Zhouzhong to say those same words in this life and then briefly beats him up to relieve his emotions. This scene had so much catharsis, I loved it. Heck all the catharsis in this novel is soooo good. Ex: 2nd brother Fei Yujing is naturally cold-blooded in that he thinks of all emotional interactions like a transaction from which each party gains certain benefits. In their last life, he basically ditched Shi Jin and ignored his existence. The original Shi Jin has a vivid memory: as he was losing all hope, he bumped into Fei Yujing on the street and tried to chase after him, but Fei Yujing only said “I don’t know him, drive him away.” That was the last straw that basically killed all light in the original Shi Jin’s eyes. This life he gets closer to Shi Jin but still doesn’t know actually know how to build that emotional bond without making everything sound like a transaction. In the end he and Shi Jin have a heart-to-heart talk about how what Shi Jin truly wants is for Fei Yujing to care for him, to be invested in him, instead of being able to ruthlessly walk away at any time. To receive, you must first give. People have previously mentioned that at the very end of the novel, the five brothers have a collective dream with vivid details of Shi Jin’s past life. And yep, I cried like a goddamn baby every time little Shi Jin cried. Throughout the whole process, he kept asking “Why?” None of all the shit that happened was his goddamn fault. It’s all because everyone was too cowardly to get their revenge directly on Shi Xingrui, so they vented their anger on this unfortunate innocent kid whose only “crime” was being born into this world. When he asked why, they would all say shit like “It’s your fault for being born Shi Xingrui’s son” “In your next life remember to not reincarnate into our family again”... sigh this novel made me legitimately super angry and sad at times. (Screw all those pieces of shit in the parents’ generation in particular.) Even in this life, their guilt makes them do weird things. During the venting conversation with the 3rd brother, Shi Jin says something along the lines of “All of you are devils, devils who couldn’t stand the sight of a brother who was actually human. You all want me to hate you, to become a devil too so you can finally say ‘see, even though he was raised to be simple and pure by Shi Xingrui, he’s actually a cruel and vengeful devil just like us, he’s not special any longer.’” Thankfully, all of the brothers do undergo the difficult process of reconciliation. And it was really difficult, which made it all the more satisfying when they do become a true family with Shi Jin at their center. Looking back, I really liked the foreshadowing about our Shi Jin being the same person as the original Shi Jin. It’s the little things: Shi Jin’s brothers comment that his silly/stupid smile is the same as when he was a child. Or how Xiao Si said the original life’s memories were getting “unlocked”, instead of something like “received”.
@Attica I cry the whole time when the brothers were dreaming about the MC past life!!! (More like I cry then stop, then cry again, and it repeats over and over again)
@Attica @Pachia me too but I love that extra, and that it was not rushed or packed into just one chapter. To add more context for those who doesn't get how it happened, all the brothers stayed over at MC's house after drinking themselves to sleep and had the same dream, while lying in different rooms. They experienced the original life from the original's POV. They can see, hear, and feel everything the original gone through but they can't do anything about it. That meant, they saw when the original happily waited and "play house" with the brothers, the funeral when all the original wanted was his brother, the phone calls that never got through, the torture original suffered, the agony when original was paralyzed at the hospital etc I like that the first brother is that close to groveling to the MC for forgiveness. I like that he wants MC to see him as a brother again. I like that he had to lose MC's trust when before it was revealed of their "play house" act, MC was pretty much the closest and trusted him the most of the brothers. I like that the 3rd brother felt so regretful and tried to fix his relationship with MC even with his tsundere ways. I forgot about it or I skipped it, but didn't he told MC to watch his New Year program but MC didn't watch it because the act was revealed among other things. I wonder why he was pushing for MC to watch it. I liked how he felt guilt watching original hugging the pillow he gave when he failed to contact any of his brothers. I liked how he kept mocking/teasing MC by calling him 'small bunny' but by the dream extra, when he asked MC who he is he firmly said 'he's big bunny'. I liked how the dreams ended with the brothers waking up to MC shouting at them to wake up. I liked how MC had the dream about a different funeral (father's) with his brothers all there for him. I liked how MC shouted to his brothers that dreams are just dreams and that he's happy. I love that dream extra a lot I skipped everything just to read it. And now I think I want to read more of redemption and grovelling novels.
Bruh there is no better description of the cycle of weeping that inevitably occurs when I read the two chapters about that dream. And @LaDyViL I totally agree that these types of redemption novels are the absolute best, I wish there were more of them.
What about the lawyer Xu Chuan Does he later find out why MC's father treated him differently and what's his reaction And MC's Eldest Brother what happens when he finds out about his mum's plans
He's a little crazy and in denial and in jail so we don't see him at all except that once or twice MC went to try and squeeze info from him. Also a little bit in denial, lol. He brings his mom over and makes her apologize to MC and swear not to try and harm him anymore. I don't think anyone believed her except him who's in denial. MC and ML certainly didn't, and they set up a trap to let everyone see her true face. Basically they were in cahoots with the mercs that she hired to kidnap MC. Then MC was wearing a wire while she was provoked into saying all these awful things about him and also about how she'll go after all the other brothers next. The other brothers got to listen to this villainess exposition in the car before they rushed in to "rescue" MC. Afterwards, MC told his brother that he won't have her thrown into jail, but she gets placed into an asylum that's owned by ML's organization. The brother also hands over the dad's company (he'd gotten the stock shares from the other brothers in addition to his own split) to MC, and goes on "vacation" at the asylum because he needs some time to reconsider his life. MC still makes him do a lot of the management work for the company from remote since he has no idea how to run a company, just without any position/title and I guess without pay. Then at the very end of the main story, after MC had finished reconciling with all his other brothers regarding his original life's traumatic memories, he goes to visit the eldest brother last. There he on purpose goes to provoke the mom again, showing the brother that she was only pretending to get reformed, but was still harboring murderous intentions. I think he also kills her in self defense. But his eldest brother didn't have it in him to say that he's wrong to do so, and I guess they sort of reconcile? Anyway, then ML finally comes back after being missing for a long time (need to go establish a new id after imploding his merc organization) and he's not too impressed with either of them.