“Truly worthy of being a whore’s child. The moment his mother shows up, she starts seducing men—he’s no good either. Filthy, vicious mongrel. Who knows what that old hag is thinking, making the whole street sick.”

Foul words spilled from the woman’s mouth.

Ethan Brooks crouched on the ground, his back stiff and fragile, black hair falling to hide his expression. When the woman mentioned his mother, the boy’s fingers instantly clenched into fists. He looked up and roared like a trapped beast, “My mom did not!”

His outburst startled the woman. She stepped back and immediately raised her voice: “Look, look! This bastard raised by a whore is showing his true colors! He’s hitting people! He’s going to hit someone!”

Ethan Brooks gritted his teeth, as if about to stand up.

The woman shouted even louder: “The little brat is hitting people! Hitting people!”

The next second, a burly adult man stepped out from the crowd and kicked Ethan Brooks in the head.

“Animal!”

At this time, Ethan Brooks was fifteen, thin and frail. The kick sent him crashing into a nearby pillar, scraping his forehead and drawing blood.

The man stomped on Ethan Brooks’s hand. “You hit someone, and you still want to fight?”

The onlookers began to point and whisper.

“I used to feel sorry for him, but now I think, people who are pitiful must have something hateful about them.”

“If everyone hates you, maybe you should look for the reason in yourself.”

“He can even hit such a little kid—Ethan Brooks really is vicious.”

“Can that old woman send him away? He’s like a jinx. Nothing good ever happens when he’s around.”

The woman kept cursing: “He almost killed my child and still wants to hit me! Hopeless! Hopeless! Someone call the police! People like him should stay locked up forever, so they can’t hurt anyone else.”

William Carter had heard every word as he made his way over, pushing through the crowd to see the scene.

For Ethan Brooks, things like this happened countless times every day—slander, insults, beatings.

The original author kept repeating his tragic childhood, just to build up his incredibly fragile and sensitive heart, laying the groundwork for the romance plot. So that the first, second, and third love interests could soothe his wounds with words. Ridiculous. Just a few words, but for the deeply scarred Ethan Brooks, they were precious enough to make him give his all. Everyone in the book is messed up.

The adult man seemed to think he was righteous, smugly raising his hand to slap Ethan Brooks: “You’ve got no dad and no mom, so I’ll be your dad for a moment and teach you how to behave.”

William Carter picked up a few marbles from the ground and threw them straight at the man’s face.

One marble nearly hit his eye. The man screamed in fright, stepped back, and let go of Ethan Brooks’s hand.

“Who hit me?!”

Furious, he looked up and saw William Carter, seething: “You’re his classmate, aren’t you? I’ll teach you a lesson too!”

He rolled up his sleeves, menacingly striding over. The man was intimidating, but William Carter never even looked at him—he was making a phone call.

“Hello, 110? I want to report a crime.”

“Over here on Lianyun Street, there’s a fight. An adult man is bullying a high school student—he’s about to beat him to death! Hurry up and get here!”

The police on the other end seemed to be asking for more details.

William Carter shouted into the phone: “That high school student is me! Someone’s going to die—are you going to do something or not?”

Everyone: “……”

Beep.

He hung up and met the man’s gaze coldly.

His way of calling the police was so brazen it stunned the whole crowd. The man stood three steps away, frozen, his raised fist unable to come down.

William Carter couldn’t be bothered with him. He walked straight up to the mother and son, and said to the child hiding behind his mother, “Show me your hand.”

The woman guarded her child like a hen, shrieking, “What are you doing?!”

William Carter ignored her, pulled the child out, and opened his palm—a slingshot was clutched in his hand.

The woman’s face instantly went pale.

William Carter smiled. “Wow, not bad, kid. You’re pretty good at shooting marbles.” He tilted his head and said to the woman, “Auntie, you reap what you sow. I’ve called the police. Let’s see who ends up in detention.”

At that moment, the whole crowd fell silent. It was obvious that there was a clear marble mark on Ethan Brooks’s face, right under his eye—if he’d been a little less lucky, he might have been blinded.

The woman panicked. “What’s wrong with my kid playing with marbles? He’s only five—what could he possibly know?”

William Carter: “He might not know, but his mother always does.”

The child, frightened by William Carter’s expression and tone, suddenly burst into loud sobs.

As soon as he started crying, the woman seemed to regain her confidence and started cursing again: “You’re just in cahoots with that bastard raised by a whore! One of you hits people, the other comes over to twist the truth and bully me and my son. No wonder—people with no upbringing stick together, birds of a feather, all the same trash!”

“You’re a heartless, rotten scoundrel too!”

William Carter looked at her sharp, mean face and said coolly, “Save your strength to explain things to the police when they get here.”