Whenever he started sprinting, he couldn't stop.
"Go, Jianian, go!" His mind would yell at him.
His bodyguards would chase after him, gasping for breath, but they could never catch up. They couldn't even touch the dust kicked up by his feet.
His laughter rang through the estate, his eyes shining with excitement.
They can't catch me! They can't catch me! Haha… Hehehehe!"
He would dashed into the streets like nothing else mattered. Then, abruptly, without caution, he would turn straight onto the main road.
Stand right in the middle of the busy street, cars honking angrily as they swerved around him. Drivers yelling, "Get your ass off the road, you psycho!" as they sped past.
But he wouldn't care.
He would lift his face to the sky, arms spread wide, letting the wind sway them. And after taking several deep breaths, with eyes closed, he would exhale with a satisfied grin and yell at the top of his voice.
"Yes! Your King is back!"
Something did change that day though...
Rather than his usual display of just running around and screaming out his lungs, he felt the urge to let off a little steam.
It was a sunny day after all and after that sprint, he was sweating all over.
"Hah... so hot...".
Without thinking twice, he began unbuttoning his shirt, smiling like the madman he was. He didn't care about the people staring, their eyes wide with shock.
Passengers in buses and businesspeople at the bus stop raised their phones, recording him. To him, they were all just mere fans, watching his grand performance.
The more they stared, the more he enjoyed it. Button by button, his shirt opened wider, flapping in the wind.
"Hahaha! Be free!"
~Fwip!~
He ripped his shirt off, throwing it aside. His bare chest gleamed under the sun, his eyes wild with excitement.
By now, his bodyguards had finally caught up.
But the moment he saw them, he took off again, dashing between cars like a ghost, laughing like a demon. He yanked at his loose pajama pants as he ran.
The guards struggled to follow, dodging cars, too afraid of getting hit.
But Jianian?
Hell, death meant nothing to him.
He didn't even understand it, maybe that's why he had lived so long.
At least, until that day.
Because in the next second...
BAM!!
A speeding truck slammed into him.
The windshield cracked. His bones shattered. His flesh tore.
... Blood. Bruises. A broken spine. A brain bleeding inside his skull.
With hands on their heads as they watched this terrible sight before them, his bodyguards shivered as they ran in full force, securing his frail injured body with just one thought on their minds.
Their lives were over.
Oh, why? You ask?
Why would the lives of such healthy, sturdy, full grown individuals go down the drain all because of some sick paranoid lunatic?
Well, because that "sick paranoid lunatic" as you call him not only sat on the highest seat of wealth in the entire nation, he also sat the highest in the world of business.
Oh, and yes, he was mad.
How? Hmm...
Anyway, He was unconscious for six months.
Six months of the family seething in anger.
The bodyguards? Fired. Arrested. Locked up for the entire time he was in a coma.
Even if they gave silly excuses such as,
He was so fast Andwe couldn't catch up to him...
They were told they'd rot in prison if anything happened to the "mad master."
Yes, Jianian was useless. A disgrace. A lunatic. An embarrassment to the family name.
And yes, they all wanted him dead.
But, spoiler alert, they couldn't kill him.
Why?
Well, you see, this mad individual was the only key to this family's fortune and wealth. The wealth they so desperately longed for.
He was their old man's favourite before his demise.
And being that their old man loved him so much amongst his grandkids, the man signed his entire family's wealth to not even his son or any of his children, but to his mad grandson.
Talk about generations and generations of wealth written under the name of the family's youngest...
No one could touch his money without his permission. Everything, even to the littlest detail required his signature before an approval.
And worst of all? If he died in any suspicious way – out of murder, accident, or anything at all that wasn't natural... the entire fortune would go to orphanages.
They were trapped.
They couldn't kill him.
They couldn't cure him.
And now, after the accident?
It got worse.
Paralyzed. In a wheelchair. And even more violent.
The family doctor said, "Only family members can care for him now untill he recovers."
This made the entire family even more frustrated... They called for a meeting to discuss the way out of this "torture".
Lu Anya, the old man's second daughter, sneered. "Why don't we just kill him?"
The others sighed because they'd all thought the same thing.
But it was also stated in the will that under no circumstance should he be treated like a mad man or maltreated in anyway.
The will's curse kept them in check.
Lu Anna, Lu Gaoshin's heartless daughter, tugged at her hair.
"I'm going bald from stress! And where are Lu Quian and Lu Jiangxi? Off in another country, living like royalty!"
Lu Quian and Lu Jiangxi were Jianian's spoiled twin cousins. They hated him, pretending he didn't exist.
Lu Anya turned to Lu Jiangsu, Jianian's father and snapped,
"He's your son, Jiangsu! Chain him up or find a solution! My daughter isn't your slave!"
Lu Jiangsu sat silently, his father's last words echoing in his mind,
"That boy must be protected at all cost. He's the reason we stand with our heads high in society."
What did that mean?
Suddenly,
A thought struck him.
The old man's lawyers had secured the will with so much difficulty and made it in such a way that there was no loop hole, not a single way to penetrate without getting burned. But they left out a very tricky detail that was invisible to even them.
Because they didn't think that it could be possible. No one would believe or even think that a mad man would do anything of such.
Having a partner...
That's right,
It didn't state in the will that he couldn't get involved with anyone.
I mean, who would most likely want to get involved with a mad man?
And so because nothing of that sort was mentioned in the supposed will, they could bend it in their favor.
If he got his mad son legally involved with someone, they could come up with several tricks to get his signature and no one would get in the way.
If he couldn't get a dime out of his mad son, then he would get it from his future "daughter-in-law". Lu Jiangsu thought.
"How about marriage?" He spoke up suddenly and the room fell silent.
Lu Anya blinked. "Huh? Marriage?"
"How will it help in this situation?" She questioned, taking her eyes back to the others who just stared back at the eldest in silence.
His suggestion was rather odd, and it took a while before it hit home what he meant.
Lu Anya opened her eyes at that moment and slowly, her face accommodated a grin.
"... Wait you don't mean?" She gasped, still smiling, buying more and more into it before the words finally left her lips.
"You want... a wife slave?"
She muttered and the entire family present bursted out laughing. Their voices of mockery filled the large space they occupied. It was quite hilarious to them.
Lu Gaoshen Chuckled. "Who would marry him? Which family would give their precious daughter out to a person in his state? Look at him... he's a violently madman!"
Without uttering a word, Lu Jiangsu stood, picking up his jacket. A slow smile spread across his face.
He didn't say much, but the few words he managed meant everything.
"A desperate family," he answered.
---