The Hearthfire

Evan Ye thought, even if he died in the next minute he would have no regrets.

He had just achieved another goal. He had earned 10 billion last month.

And just a few days earlier, a group of senior officers from the Banking Union had invited him for dinner, begging him not to initiate another worldwide economic crisis.

A few minutes before, he had dumped his girlfriend, the girl he grew up with and had been dating for years. He did not just dump her. He had insulted her viciously before telling her he never wanted to see her again.

"Dude! Hey! Come on, wake up! We are closing. Here is your bill."

In a greasy store by the roadside, the owner poked Evan on his arm a few times, trying to wake him. Judging from the shells of crayfish on the table, Evan Ye, seemed to have either been starving for months or did not intend to waste even a single drop of the sauce.

Evan didn't feel well at all. Why was there always such a huge a gap between dreams and reality? All he wanted was to take a nap after dinner and have a nice dream without being disturbed. People didn't usually get what they wanted, that's just what happened in the real world

"Well, here's your bill. That will be 101 in total. I saw you get dumped by your girlfriend. I'm really sorry. How about I make it an even 100?."

The owner said as he placed the bill before Evan. Evan, however, still seemed tipsy. 'He doesn't look like a cheeky man, ' the owner thought to himself, 'Dumped and drunk at midnight. What a poor soul.'

"Right. Hmm. I...er...I think I need something to help me sober up. Do you have anything? If none, coke will do."

Evan managed to sit up and grumble. The owner vaguely saw Evan's tear stains in the dim light before he wiped his face bitterly.

"Right, we do have coke. Here you are."

The owner's wife had already started cleaning the restaurant. Evan was the only customer left. She fetched a bottle of coke from the freezer and handed it to Evan. Standing near the table, she glanced over and muttered, "Such a handsome lad. Could've been quite a catch with just a little more money. That girl was such a snob. Come on, young man. Girls these days are all the same. They don't care who you are. They just care whether you are rich or not."

"What are you blubbering? Go back inside."

The man glared at his wife. Then he looked at the bottle on the table and sighed. 'What a waste!'

The woman smiled embarrassingly back at him. The owner turned to Evan, "Young man, it is 100. The coke is on the house."

After taking a gulp of the free coke, Evan took a note out of his wallet and placed it on the table. He grabbed his new briefcase and the bottle with shaky hands and staggered out of the restaurant.

"Come on. Let's clean this up and go home."

The man urged his wife hastily as soon as Evan left. There were hardly any customers at this hour. The street lamps gleamed dimly. Still a little drunk, Evan tottered along the street like a ghost.

"Promises, relationships. That's all bullshit!"

Normally, Evan was a reserved man. He barely cursed, let alone act violently. But drunk and angry, he was emotionally unstable. Growling loudly at the empty street, he raised his hand high in the air and tried to smash the bottle to the ground when he suddenly realized it was still half full. Hesitantly, he sighed and dropped his arm weakly.

"It's true, I'm neither rich nor eminent. So what? Blame my dad for not leaving me a fortune! I just graduated a few months ago, I'm starting from scratch on my own. What else do you expect? Tell you what. My day will come. You just wait and see."

"We can be only friends with benefits, huh? And you never felt a thing for me? You told me to be more realistic, didn't you? Damn it! Am I not realistic enough?"

"I've spent every penny I have on you. I pinched and scraped. I took as many part-time jobs as I could. For what? I just wanted to buy you an iPhone as a gift! And what did you say to me in the end? You said no one uses iPhone 6 anymore and you wanted a 7! Oh, you also told me to keep the antique for my grandmother. What the hell!"

"You'd rather cry in a BMW than laugh on my bike. Well, good luck crying your eyes out!"

Having hiccuped all his grievance, Evan finally felt better. Meanwhile, he felt pathetic for holding on too tightly to a relationship. 'She's worthless.' Evan tried to console himself.

But his brain clearly thought otherwise. Each and every scrap of their sweet memories were lurking around every corner of his mind. All the moments they had spent together were flashing through his mind, repeating over and over again. He knew he should stop thinking about her, but he just couldn't.

"How did I become so sentimental. Am I crying again?"

Evan sighed bitterly. They had after all, been together for years. He couldn't just break up with Celia Xin and move on like nothing happened. He was not as cold-blooded as she was.

When Evan approached a crossroad, a figure came from no where suddenly dashed forward and ran into him.

Crack——

Evan heard the sound as they bumped into each other. He stepped back and looked down at the ground in front of him. There was a small broken statue.

"Good heavens! That's my heirloom! It has been passed down in my family for generations! You evil bastard! How dare you break it! You have to pay me, or I swear my ancestors will haunt you until your last breath!"

The man cried out loudly. Startled by the dramatic turn, Evan shivered and immediately sobered up. Glancing between the bawling man and the broken statue, Evan was still trying to figure out what had happened. His mouth opened but he failed to say a word.

The man dragged Evan's arm while shouting at him. Ignoring the pain from his arm, Evan once again looked down at the statue. It was a black Yama. The pedestal had fallen off and broken into pieces. Though it was a lifelike sculpture, it seemed more of a small trinket from the flea market than an invaluable heirloom.

"Come on, mate. Don't mess with me. I just got dumped by my girlfriend. Apparently I'm far more miserable than you are."

Noticing the man had no intentions of letting go of him, Evan explained again, "You are the one who bumped into me. It's clearly not my fault."

"I bumped into you? Nonsense! I was walking and you, a shameless drunk, ran into me. Don't try to deny it. Ah, I know what's going on here. Are you trying to bully me because I'm on my own and have no witnesses?"

'I'm bullying you?'

Evan stared at the man before him. He was at least 6 ft tall and strong as a horse. Evan, on the other hand was a skinny man barely 5.5 ft tall. 'Who the hell was more likely to be a bully?' Evan thought to himself.