Chapter 1

When I blinked again, that string of golden numbers was already gone.

But I knew it wasn’t an illusion.

Last night, I pulled an all-nighter for the project, while he sat there watching Hachimi videos on his phone, laughing so hard he nearly fell over.

Today, my project went down in flames, and he was still grinning as he told me cringe jokes to cheer me up.

My life always seemed to be under a dark cloud. Whatever I invested in, I lost money. I was still young, yet already buried in debt.

But my brother was like he’d been possessed by the God of Wealth. Winning a small lottery prize was practically an everyday thing for him.

He’d never worked a single day in his thirty years, yet he lived better than anyone, always cheerful and carefree.

Relatives all said his fortune was being siphoned off from me.

Back then, I defended him to the death and refused to believe it, thinking I was just incompetent myself.

But the “+50,000 yuan” on that digital watch had matched the exact amount of performance pay deducted from me.

The “+3,000 yuan” also lined up perfectly with the money that had mysteriously vanished from my bank account.

Now, I had no choice but to believe them.

I also noticed a pattern: every time money disappeared, it happened after I laughed with him.

I stared at him, trying to find even a hint of guilt on that ever-smiling face.

But there wasn’t any.

He only looked at me with concern. “Ethan, are you okay? Don’t take it too hard.”

Too hard? Of course I was upset.

But what I wanted to know even more was, exactly how much glory had I traded to make him shine?

“Come with me to the car dealership.”

My brother suddenly grabbed my hand and pointed at the 4S store not far away.

“You’ve been wanting to change cars forever, right? I’m in a good mood today. I’ll buy you one.”

Since we were kids, he’d always been like this.

Whenever I got unhappy, he’d do everything he could to make me feel better.

So I went with him. He browsed the showroom with great enthusiasm, while I took the chance to pull out my phone and arrange the follow-up work with my subordinates.

In the end, he picked the newest sports car.

When it came time to pay, I was about to take out my own card.

But he beat me to it and casually handed over his black card.

He patted my shoulder, grinning brightly.

“Little brother, don’t be sad. The old one’s gone, the new one’s here!

See? You lost that crappy project, but didn’t you get a brand-new sports car out of it? Cheer up!”

He handed me the car keys and told me another one of his treasured cringe jokes.

I was torn between laughing and crying, and the exhaustion and frustration of the past few days eased up quite a bit.

Looking at his sincere face, I couldn’t help wondering.

Had I really been overthinking this?

But just as we walked out of the 4S store, my phone started ringing nonstop.

“Director Davis, bad news! Our company servers have been hacked, and all the data is down!”

Then came the stockbroker.

“Mr. Davis, the stocks you hold have suddenly hit limit-down across the board. We suspect someone is deliberately shorting them!”

What kind of day was this? Why was everything falling apart?

I was about to lose it.

Then suddenly, my brother gently wrapped an arm around my shoulder from behind and said with a grin,

“Come on, it’s no big deal. Even if the sky falls, your brother’s here to hold it up for you!”

His warm palm landed on my back.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of that digital watch on his wrist again.

On the screen, a blinding line of gold text was scrolling by.

【Making little brother laugh with genuine joy, +1,000,000 yuan.】

I froze on the spot.

One million... That was exactly the loss from the stocks that had just hit limit-down.

Sure enough, all my earlier guesses were right.

He was stealing my fortune by telling cringe jokes!