Chapter 1

When summer break started, my relatives didn't want to deal with their kids, so they dumped the burden on me.

No phone call, no text, nothing. They just dropped the kids off at my place and took off.

That night I was slammed at work, and I still had a dinner to attend to talk over a project.

By the time I got home in the middle of the night, my apartment looked like it had been robbed.

The front door hung wide open, and everything of any value was gone.

My face went white, and before I could even come to my senses to call 911, someone started hitting me over the head.

I thought it was a burglar. Turned out it was my little cousin.

"Cousin, what took you so long to get home! Hurry up and make me something to eat."

Then he started ordering me around like he owned the place.

It was the security footage that told me the truth. No thief had cleaned me out. My aunt and uncle had.

They couldn't get the door open, so they called a locksmith to pry it. And the person who let them do it was my own mother.

The two rotten kids in front of me had simply been dumped on me to raise.

……

1

"Hey! Are you deaf?"

"My sister and I haven't eaten all day, we're starving to death, and you still won't go cook."

I set my phone down and stared at the two kids at my feet, my face blank.

The older one was only twelve, the younger one just eight.

How much nerve did their parents have to leave them here at my place and bolt like that?

If they'd been snatched by child traffickers, who would have answered for it?

Me? I hadn't known a thing.

But set the law aside and go by how people actually judge these things, and the blame lands on me.

The kids went missing on my watch. The thought of it sent a strange rush of anger up through me.

"Who told you to come here? Why didn't anyone tell me before you showed up?"

There was fire in my voice, and rage all over my face.

The rare orchids in my apartment, the Tang dynasty landscape painting hanging on the wall, the designer clothes and watches in my room, all of it my uncle's family had taken without asking.

How was that any different from thieves? And on top of it, they didn't want to raise their own kids, afraid the kids would get in their way.

So they played the hands-off boss out of pure selfishness and dumped the burden on me.

I'd have to be a saint to keep my temper now, and I'm no saint.

I didn't expect my anger would set the two of them off crying.

"WAAAAAAAH!!!!"

The shrill wailing bounced through the whole apartment and woke the neighbors too.

"The hell! Who's carrying on like this in the middle of the night when people are trying to sleep!"

"Been crying ten minutes straight and still won't stop. Where are your manners?"

"Stop it or I'm calling the cops."

"Damn it, I've got an early morning."

The one thing I dread is a complaint, so I lowered my voice and hissed at them to stop crying.

But I don't know how to soothe a kid. I'm a grown man who's never raised one, and I had no idea how to calm them down.

So the two of them, brother and sister, only cried louder, one smashing things to vent, the other bawling with everything he had.

By the look of it, their aunt had coached them at home.

The moment they weren't happy, they'd throw a fit and cry until I gave in.

My uncle's whole family were selfish operators. Back at family dinners, they'd never missed a chance to teach their kids to squeeze favors out of the adults.

I clenched my fists tight. I had never felt this humiliated and helpless.

"Stop crying. I'm so worn out I haven't even had a sip of water, and here you are crying and crying. Isn't it enough already."

For a second my shout stunned them, and they finally went quiet.

But the next second, a crowd showed up at my door.

Their faces held nothing but anger, and more anger.

I knew they hadn't come to be friendly, and I knew what they'd come to do.

"Was that you two carrying on like that just now?"