Chapter 22 — TVF Chapter 22

The Unlucky One in a Crematorium-Style Novel (3) It was basically certain that by now, the male lead Jiang Ruitong had already joined forces with his current uncle-by-marriage, Weng Zhenghe.

Weng Zhenghe’s motive for dealing with the original owner was obvious enough. But Jiang Ruitong was the novel’s male lead—he should at least have the dignity befitting that role. To go so hard just for the sake of a former uncle who lived off women…

Qin Jingzhou glanced at the blonde beauty who was genuinely unconscious and felt that cultivating a truly loyal lover was no easy task. Explaining it away with a single sentence like “the male lead has to give his current uncle face” didn’t really hold up.

That meant there was a conflict of interests.

The system promptly added, “The male lead Jiang Ruitong has terrible character, but he rarely—if ever—does things that don’t involve his interests” Qin Jingzhou turned his gaze to the middle-aged man and asked in English, “Who are your enemies?”

As a local tyrant, the man’s intelligence was beyond question. Having already seen through the fact that his lover had been bought off to assassinate him at an opportune moment, he readily rattled off several names.

Qin Jingzhou had the system “follow the map,” and they quickly uncovered the threads.

After the novel’s plot concluded, the male lead Jiang Ruitong had been personally sent to prison by the female lead, who had gathered all the evidence herself. In the end, he received his just deserts—a bullet to the head. That being said, even someone like Jiang Ruitong, who had dabbled in serious crimes, would have to worry about his own personal safety, conscience or not.

The novel contained no description of the middle-aged man, but it did mention that Jiang Ruitong’s bodyguards were all brimming with killing intent. Anyone with eyes could tell they had seen blood before.

Qin Jingzhou took a drag of his cigarette. “He’s got a private mercenary unit in his hands.” He smiled leisurely. “He’s not helping his uncle at all. He’s just taking contracts to kill. Someone put out a hit on this big shot—perfect timing. Two orders rolled into one. One stone, two birds. Good money, and he gets a favor for free.” The system chuckled. “Other than the female lead, being ruthless to everyone is the male lead’s standard character setting this time.” Qin Jingzhou nodded. He exchanged contact information with the middle-aged man, agreeing to share any leads immediately. Watching the bodyguards peel the blonde beauty off the ground and shove her viciously into the car, he kindly reminded them, “Don’t forget the one in my house.”

The bodyguards froze for a moment. Reading his expression, they carried the assassin out—chair and all—and tossed him into the modified Hummer at the back. The three vehicles sped off efficiently.

Qin Jingzhou stubbed out his cigarette. “Am I really that scary?” “Yes.” The system was extremely serious. “They saw it with their own eyes—firearms were useless against you, and when you strike, there’s no warning at all. Forgive my bluntness, but ever since you transmigrated… no matter how beautiful you look, you just give off a ‘keep strangers away’ aura. Extremely hard to get along with.” “Forget it.” Qin Jingzhou went back inside and started packing. “Let’s go back to the country first.” The original owner had divorced Miss Jiang more than ten years ago. Back then, he received twenty million in cash and a school-district apartment in the capital as compensation.

Though the original owner was ignorant and incompetent, he did have a bit of luck. The stocks and funds he bought had all made money over the years, and the apartment’s value had increased considerably over the decade. Unfortunately, while following the eldest miss, his horizons and abilities never improved—only his standard of living skyrocketed. The money he earned over the years still wasn’t enough to support his reckless spending…

The funny thing was that the original owner truly treated living off women as a profession. Outside of that, he didn’t have many worldly desires. For example, he liked watching livestreams—but all his large donations went to male game streamers…

So at most, the original owner lacked exercise. His foundation was actually quite decent.

From digging through the original owner’s memories, Qin Jingzhou learned that his current savings were less than ten million. That was why the original owner had grown anxious, wanting to squeeze out one last big haul before his looks completely faded.

The original owner’s original target had been a globally famous, rich, fair-skinned beauty who was vacationing here. The reason he had gotten involved with the blonde beauty earlier was because she claimed she could give him an opportunity and had a way to bring people to that heiress’s party.

Even the middle-aged man needed to make an appointment in advance to meet that heiress. A mistress who couldn’t even rank properly claiming she could bring someone to meet her… the original owner’s intelligence was truly a fatal flaw.

After packing, Qin Jingzhou bought a plane ticket and contacted the landlord to terminate the lease.

That night, he boarded the flight home. The following evening, dragging his suitcase, he walked out of the capital’s airport.

Back at the apartment his ex-wife had given him—where the original owner had lived for many years—Qin Jingzhou took a shower, then skillfully ordered takeout. While waiting, he lounged on the sofa and began browsing property listings.

Seeing the host constantly selecting storefronts, the system grew curious. “Have you decided which career path you’re taking?” Qin Jingzhou replied, “Originally, I planned to rely on foreknowledge of the plot and my calculation ability to moonlight as a metaphysics master—high status, fast money. But when I threw that kitchen knife and saw their reactions… it was pretty much the same as when I used brute force to create miracles in my last world. Shocked, stunned—but not to the point of questioning reality.”

He guessed this world had some fragmented ancient martial arts inheritance. After a quick search, sure enough, there were quite a few martial arts halls in the capital. “I’ve lived a long time, so I know a bit of everything, but I’m not truly proficient in anything—except fighting. Opening a martial arts hall is more reliable than pretending to be a metaphysics master.”

The system said quietly, “You’re being far too modest.” I’m certain you’re a proper all-rounder. That’s why I shamelessly insisted on signing you—otherwise, do we systems not need dignity?

Qin Jingzhou smiled. “Now that I know Jiang Ruitong is completely unhinged and willing to do anything to achieve his goals, I have to teach my cheap son some legitimate combat skills. If he runs into an ambush orchestrated by the male lead, he needs at least some ability to protect himself—at minimum, the ability to hold on until I arrive to save him.”

Since he was already here, how could he just watch the male lead follow the plot—abusing the female lead again and again, incidentally harming his cheap son, and committing countless crimes while amassing wealth and power? And then have Qin Jingzhou outsmart him step by step according to the storyline?

Of course not.

The right move was to seize the opportunity, gather evidence as quickly as possible, and send the male lead to prison.

Even though Qin Jingzhou wouldn’t mind personally sending the male lead to the afterlife… living in a society governed by law meant he had to do as the locals do and follow the rules as much as possible.

Over the next few days, he stayed busy choosing a property and registering as a martial artist. Official restrictions on unregistered martial arts halls weren’t strict—mainly because the vast majority of “martial arts halls” were basically… gyms.

In reality, the number of halls that were officially registered and possessed a true lineage was extremely limited. Every such hall had to have at least one registered martial artist in residence.

At the martial artist registration office, Qin Jingzhou performed a self-created sword form in front of several judges. With eyes shining, they unanimously approved him.

That very day, he received his martial artist certificate and was officially entered into the government registry—along with his not-yet-opened “Go-With-the-Flow Martial Arts Hall.”

Incidentally, martial artists in this world were indeed powerful and had a certain level of influence. After all, practicing martial arts strengthened the body and extended one’s lifespan. But in a modern society with advanced technology, martial artists were far from capable of disrupting order. No matter how strong, a single concentrated volley would take them down.

As a result, the authorities were usually quite lenient toward orthodox martial artists.

The sword form Qin Jingzhou demonstrated happened to be balanced and upright, so it was no surprise that the paperwork went so smoothly.

The location he chose for the martial arts hall was on the first floor of an office building across from his apartment—not street-facing.

On the two glass doors, eight A4 sheets were pasted up, each reading: “Go-With-the-Flow Martial Arts Hall—Everything Goes with the Flow.” The empty, echoing lobby was visible at a glance. Combined with Qin Jingzhou—slender, devastatingly handsome—sitting by the door in a rocking chair, the entire place radiated unreliability.

On top of that, access to the martial artist registry required fairly high clearance, so not everyone could check it. As a result, five days after opening, not a single customer had come through the door. No one even stopped to ask.

At five in the afternoon, Qin Jingzhou locked up the hall and strolled home leisurely. It had been five or six days already. The male lead Jiang Ruitong surely knew his plan had failed, and Miss Jiang’s current husband, Weng Zhenghe, must also know that he had returned to the country. Giving up halfway didn’t suit their personalities.

The follow-up probing and schemes should be coming soon.

As he walked out of the supermarket carrying a shopping bag, his phone rang.

The original owner had been in dozens of group chats across major messaging apps. Qin Jingzhou found it annoying and muted them all as soon as he got the phone. This was the first time since returning that someone had privately messaged him.

The person who contacted him was one of the game streamers the original owner used to donate to. “Brother Zhou, haven’t seen you talk in ages. What big thing have you been busy with lately?”

Qin Jingzhou replied concisely: “Opening a shop.”

The other party followed up. “What kind of shop?”

“Martial arts hall.”

The other side sent a line of ellipses. “Need me to help promote it?”

“No need.”

The streamer sent several awkward emojis. “Then I won’t bother you, Brother Zhou. This humble one takes his leave.”

Qin Jingzhou casually searched up the streamer who had reached out. Hmm—recently, this streamer had been duo-gaming with a newly popular internet celebrity.

The system promptly added, “That influencer is your cheap son’s current girlfriend. She deliberately got cosmetic work done to resemble the female lead by five or six parts—after makeup, she looks even more similar. As for whether she altered her face for the male lead or for your cheap son, the plot doesn’t say. Oh, right—your relationship with your biological son wasn’t very good. From the revelation of his identity until now, five years have passed, and father and son have met fewer than five times. Under deliberate provocation by interested parties, your cheap son’s impression of his biological father is that of a lecherous, overreaching, greedy, incompetent man who lives off women.” Qin Jingzhou lowered his head and glanced at the heavily filtered photo of the influencer on his phone. “I think I know how they plan to deal with me.”

Everything unfolded exactly as Qin Jingzhou expected.

The next evening, on his way home… he was “accidentally” blocked by the sunglasses-wearing influencer.

Miss Influencer showed a brief flash of surprise, then professionally entered collision-scam posing mode.

Qin Jingzhou just stood there. Only when she exaggeratedly clutched her chest did he speak. “Social media exposure? No—that’s not right. You’re just taking money to do a job. You’ll edit the photos and send them to your nominal boyfriend, Jiang Bowu, to provoke him as much as possible. You don’t want to take this to social media and ruin your own reputation. That costs extra, doesn’t it?” His cheap son was named Jiang Bowu—yes, after being switched back, he didn’t change his given name, only his surname. Naturally, he took his mother’s surname.

After saying that, Qin Jingzhou carried his shopping bag home as if nothing had happened.

Miss Influencer was so angry her nose nearly twisted out of place. She complained to the “photographer” not far away, “Didn’t you say he was lecherous and stupid?”

The photographer stared at the photos on the camera and said nothing.

However, no matter how furious Miss Influencer became, the edited photos were still delivered to Jiang Bowu as planned.

As for the content of the photos—use your imagination. In any case, they were enough to make Jiang Bowu fly overnight from Haishi to the capital to confront his biological father.

The next day, when Qin Jingzhou set out for the martial arts hall on time, he saw a business van parked across the street at the entrance of his residential complex.

His cheap son was sitting inside, staring at him through the window with a gloomy expression.

Suddenly, a small truck burst out from the street corner and slammed straight into the van his son was in. Qin Jingzhou watched helplessly as both vehicles went up in flames.

Qin Jingzhou: …damn it.

He sprinted forward, reached through the open window, and grabbed his son’s shoulder with all his strength, yanking him out—

Only then did he realize that his cheap son’s left leg was still in a cast.

At that moment, both the driver of his son’s van and the driver of the truck opened their doors and fled.

Qin Jingzhou let out a cold laugh, hoisted his son, and ran across the street. “I just registered as a martial artist, and you’re already jumping the wall like a cornered dog?”