Chapter 2

Before Jack could even process what had just happened, he froze.

Matthew walked into the classroom surrounded by a few classmates, sighing dramatically. “Lily, I lost the bet. I really did not expect you to actually feed Jack laxatives. I now believe that you have no feelings for him whatsoever.”

As he spoke, he looked at Jack with a frustrating mix of disappointment and anger, scolding, “An entire bottle of laxatives! Could you not taste it? Are your taste buds messed up?”

Lily smirked. “Even if I fed him poison, he would swallow it like candy.”

Jack stiffened in absolute disbelief as an unbearable, twisting pain erupted in his stomach. Cold sweat instantly covered his body.

The mock examination was crucial. Yet, he spent the entire afternoon running to the bathroom in embarrassment. Those mocking eyes and the stern, reproachful gazes of the invigilators stripped him of his self-esteem.

By the end, he was so exhausted that he collapsed in the hallway on his way back to the classroom. Meanwhile, Lily leaned against the doorway of the classroom, watching him with a careless smile.

“You couldn’t even handle running to the bathroom twenty-seven times? Jack, you are truly useless.”

The girl’s voice sounded as if it were coming from very far away. At that moment, Jack finally realized that no matter how tough he was, it didn’t matter because it still hurt.

When he woke up again, it was already the next day. The nurse informed him that the laxatives had worsened his stomach ulcer.

Jack looked toward the doorway, dazed. Was it Lily who brought him here?

“By the way, it was your homeroom teacher who brought you here and paid the medical bill in advance for you. She asked me to remind you that you need to recover quickly so you don’t miss the college entrance exam.”

The tiny, pitiful glimmer of hope in his heart was crushed.

Indeed. Lily had fed him a whole bottle of laxatives and watched coldly as he suffered. How could she possibly care whether he lived or died?

His phone rang nonstop from the seniors’ group chat. Matthew had boastfully announced in the group chat, which had no teachers in it, that he was going to treat everyone to dinner before the college entrance exam to relax and to celebrate that he was no longer single. The attached image showed two hands with fingers interlaced.

At a single glance, Jack recognized the girl’s hand in the photo. On the skin between her thumb and index finger, there were two side-by-side black dots that looked like a snakebite. It was Lily’s hand, and the thought of it filled him with pain and resentment.

He could not understand it. He and Lily had known each other for eighteen years. Why had her attitude toward him changed so much after his one week away from school?

However, he could not get through to Lily on the phone. He had been blocked, and the messages he sent were also rejected.

He stared at the screen, his eyes dimming with sorrow. At that moment, a call from Mrs. Dunn, the Greer family’s housekeeper, came through.

“Mr. Jack, your mother brought a man home.”

Jack’s heart sank, and he rushed home immediately. However, never in a million years did he think he would see Matthew in his home!

“Jack, this is your stepfather, Quentin Fox, and his son, Matthew. From today on, the father and son will move in to live with us.”

Jack stared intently at his smiling mother and yelled, “Sarah, my father is not dead yet! Tell them to get out!”

The smile on Sarah White’s face froze, and her expression quickly darkened. “The chemotherapy has reduced your father to a shadow of himself. He should be glad that I haven’t divorced him!

“As for Quentin and Matthew, I won’t acknowledge them officially before your father dies. However, if you make a scene out of this, do not blame me for cutting your father’s chemotherapy fees!”

Jack could not believe it. He watched as Sarah and Quentin made their way upstairs, his blood running cold.

“Are you surprised, Jack?” Matthew leaned in close to him and challenged him with a smile. “Have you not noticed that the two of us look somewhat alike? I’m actually seventeen months older than you.”

Jack’s eyes widened as he snapped his gaze toward Matthew.

Matthew’s smile faded, and his eyes were filled with intense hatred. “You stole my mother and the love that I should’ve received since childhood, so it’s only fair that I take away everything you treasure, including your reputation and the Lily whom you love.”

Unable to hold it in any longer, Jack delivered Matthew a vicious kick.

“Ah! How dare you kick me!”

Furious and exasperated, Matthew raised his fist and charged forward.

“Do you know why Lily treats you differently now? It’s because I slept with her. I’m her first, so she naturally trusts me unconditionally. That is why she couldn’t even tell when I used an alternate account to impersonate you and made her think it was you who posted her mother’s affairs online as a joke– Ah!”

During the scuffle, Jack and Matthew lost their balance and crashed into a one-foot-tall antique porcelain vase, shattering it all over the floor with a loud crash. With Matthew and Jack falling onto the broken pieces, blood instantly covered their bodies.

Lily happened to witness that scene the moment she walked up to the door. She immediately rushed into the room, slapped Jack hard across the face, and shoved him back.

Jack stumbled back onto the cabinet, hitting his head. His vision turned dark, and blood trickled down his brow. Through his blood-stained vision, he watched as Lily helped Matthew up and looked at him like he was an enemy.

“Jack, I just got together with Matthew, and you couldn’t wait to lay such a heavy hand on him? He is your half-brother from the same mother!”

The words half-brother from the same mother tore Jack’s heart to pieces. Lily knew that Matthew was his mother’s illegitimate son?

Hearing the commotion, Sarah and Quentin rushed out of the room. Jack watched quietly as Lily and Sarah surrounded Matthew in a panic, caring about his wounds and calling an ambulance. Not a single person even glanced at him.

He suddenly burst out laughing. However, as he laughed, he felt as though he were being suffocated by a plastic bag, leaving him so breathless that he staggered and collapsed onto the floor.

It was not until the house fell silent again that he struggled to his feet, leaned against the wall, and dialed a number.

“Professor John, I will no longer take the college entrance exam to stay in the country. If the medical school where you teach still welcomes me, can you agree to one condition of mine?”