Chapter 65: Do You Happen to Have a Split Personality?

Without waiting for Pei Qiaonian to give any instructions, Wei Zhichen placed himself right in the path where Pei Qiaonian’s luxury car had to pass. Assistant Gao, seeing this, stopped the car and waited for Wei Zhichen to get into the back seat.

Wei Zhichen, holding his briefcase, noticed Pei Qiaonian watching a livestream on his tablet and couldn't help but chuckle. “Is this the woman who saved your life? You really can’t put her down for a second, can you?”

Pei Qiaonian glanced at him. “I like it. Do you have a problem with that?”

Wei Zhichen noticed Assistant Gao was present and didn’t want to expose him, so he just laughed lightly. “No problem at all.”

Remembering how Xu Yunzhu had complained that before the switch, Wei Zhichen used to stare at her all the time, Pei Qiaonian snorted, “Mind your own business. Instead of worrying about me, you’d better sort out your family first. I hear your stepmother is sending people after you again, your good-for-nothing brother has already taken a small share of the Wei family’s stock, and you’re still clinging to that worthless company of yours. This isn’t a long-term plan.”

Wei Zhichen’s usually cool eyes widened in disbelief as he stared at Pei Qiaonian. “Qiao… Qiao-ge? You’re Qiao-ge?”

Pei Qiaonian closed his eyes lazily. “Who else? Your father?”

Wei Zhichen: "..."

666.

This was more like the Pei Qiaonian he knew. The man from a few days ago seemed like a different person. He’d even wondered if the real Pei Qiaonian had been murdered and replaced with an impostor wearing his skin.

Thinking of this, Wei Zhichen’s expression turned strange. “You—you don’t happen to have a split personality, do you?”

Pei Qiaonian couldn’t be bothered to deny it. “Think whatever you like. Sometimes the main personality gets tired and the secondary one comes out for a breath.”

Wei Zhichen: "..."

Assistant Gao: "..."

Was that even possible?

Wei Zhichen asked a few questions only the two of them would know. Although Pei Qiaonian was impatient, he answered them all.

Only then did Wei Zhichen relax. Lowering his voice with some hesitation, he said, “Qiao-ge, according to my sources, that person is coming back to the country. You’d better be careful—they’re probably coming for you.”

Pei Qiaonian opened his eyes, a cold light flashing in his phoenix-shaped gaze, fierce killing intent barely contained.

At last, he closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, his expression was calm. “Let them come. It’s been twelve years. It’s about time they returned.”

Wei Zhichen let out a soft sigh. He had known Pei Qiaonian for seventeen years.

They had met when they were both ten years old.

Back then, Pei Qiaonian had not yet been taken in by the Pei family; he was still a street thug, fighting and brawling in the roughest, most run-down part of a backwards town on the outskirts of the capital. His mother ran a small, shabby hair salon there, which was out of place in the red-light district. Because of her beauty, many men often visited, and sometimes angry wives would drag Pei Qiaonian’s mother out and give her a beating.

His mother was timid and accustomed to swallowing her grievances. When slandered, she couldn’t defend herself; all she could do was endure the abuse of those shrews. Lacking any means of self-defense, young Pei Qiaonian was often beaten black and blue as he drove off the lecherous men eyeing his mother and the women who falsely accused her.

When Wei Zhichen was ten, his stepmother deliberately abandoned him on the street. Kidnappers took him, but he managed to escape, wandering into Pei Qiaonian’s town, lost, thirsty, and hungry.

With no food, he searched for water. Dressed like a little prince, passersby only spared him a glance, and his upbringing made it impossible for him to beg for food.

In the end, he had no choice but to rummage through trash bins for leftovers and empty water bottles.

It was after a few days of wandering that he met Pei Qiaonian by a trash bin. He had gotten into a fight over a bottle—he’d found it first, but someone else snatched it away. In the end, he won it back at the cost of a broken tooth, spitting out bloody saliva with a cold, indifferent look as he tossed the bottle into his plastic sack.

When their eyes met, Wei Zhichen, pale with fright, handed him a bottle of mineral water, afraid he’d be beaten too.

Pei Qiaonian took the bottle and quietly said, “Thank you.”

Then he turned and walked away.

Wei Zhichen, watching his departing figure, followed almost against his will.

He was driven away.

But he had nowhere to go.

After his mother died of illness, his father remarried, bringing in a stepmother and a younger brother only a year his junior. Even at a young age, he knew his stepmother hated him. She’d smile at him in public but curse him to die in private, often pinching him hard enough to bruise, forbidding him from approaching his brother or touching anything that belonged to him.

In that house, he felt like the outsider.

That’s why his stepmother plotted to have him kidnapped—he was in the way of her son’s inheritance.

Even though he was the heir recognized by his grandfather and the entire Wei family.

A month after his grandfather’s death, his stepmother had him taken away.

Thinking of that home, Wei Zhichen didn’t want to return. Even if he did, all that awaited him was endless scheming and betrayal. With his grandparents all gone, there was no one left to trust.

So he clung to Pei Qiaonian.

Wherever Pei Qiaonian went, he followed.

Even when Pei Qiaonian told him to get lost or beat him, he stubbornly stayed outside his door.

The day Pei Qiaonian accepted him was the day he helped chase off some thugs trying to harass his mother.

Though he was just a child, the look in his eyes was murderous.

He won Pei Qiaonian’s trust by taking a brick to the head.

From then on, they ate and lived together. He called Pei Qiaonian’s mother his godmother, and together they protected her, went to school, picked up bottles, and collected scrap to earn money. Life was poor, but it was fulfilling.

He thought he’d spend his whole life with Pei Qiaonian, until everything changed when they were fifteen.

Pei Qiaonian’s mother, unable to endure the hardship and fear, took him to the Pei family to claim kinship.

Pei Qiaonian’s arrival was like a stone thrown into a pond, causing endless ripples.

His father was famous for loving his wife. He had a wife and a child of his own.

So Pei Qiaonian’s mother became the homewrecker who broke up their family.

The wife divorced Pei Qiaonian’s father without hesitation, taking her son abroad with nothing but determination.

His father, unable to win her back, blamed everything on Pei Qiaonian.

Once, drunk, he nearly killed him.

After that, his father disappeared.

Pei Qiaonian and his mother were accepted into the Pei family.

It was also then that Wei Zhichen returned to the Wei family. With the means to protect himself, he no longer feared his venomous stepmother.

However weak he might be, he hoped that someday he could help Pei Qiaonian.

But now, it was said that the original wife’s son was coming back.

Wei Zhichen was deeply worried that Pei Qiaonian’s position in the Pei family would be threatened.