Who was Zou Rong?
At first, Ye Zhou didn’t react when he heard the name. It was only after the police officer mentioned it that he finally connected it to a character from the original novel.
Strictly speaking, Zou Rong could not even be considered a supporting character in the book since his scenes were pathetically few, even less than Ye Zhou’s original cannon fodder role.
His name barely appeared, so when Ye Zhou first heard it now, it took him a moment to place it. But even with such fleeting scenes, if Ye Zhou’s guess was right, then the things Zou Rong did were truly horrifying.
Zou Rong was Cheng Ran’s half-brother from a different mother. The reason for their different surnames stemmed from Cheng Ran’s father, Cheng Wen. Cheng Wen was a stereotypical Phoenix Man. After graduating from university, in order to stay in City A, he married his college classmate Zou Qing, who had a registered residence in City A and had a good family background. After marriage, they had a son who took the mother’s surname Zou, named Zou Rong.
Zou Qing had a strong personality. When they first got married, Cheng Wen was very considerate and obedient to Zou Qing. He was the model husband. The two complemented each other well. But over time, Cheng Wen felt oppressed and stifled by his wife.
In the fifth year of their marriage, Cheng Wen had an affair. The other woman was Cheng Ran’s mother. For some reason, not only did Cheng Wen not make Cheng Ran’s mother get an abortion, but he secretly rented an apartment for her to give birth to the child under his surname.
At the time, Cheng Ran’s mother did not know Cheng Wen already had a family. She basked in his sweet nothings as she lived in the rental, peacefully nurturing the unborn baby. But such days did not last long. When Cheng Ran’s mother was over eight months pregnant, the truth came out, and Cheng Wen’s affair was discovered by his wife Zou Qing.
Zou Qing went to confront Cheng Ran’s mother, and a fierce argument ensued, resulting in the heavily pregnant Cheng’s mother bleeding profusely and being rushed to the hospital.
After emergency treatment, the premature baby survived, but Cheng Ran’s mother did not, having lost too much blood.
With the mother dead but the child alive, no matter how much Zou Qing hated Cheng Wen and Cheng Ran’s mother, she could not bring herself to harm a newborn. Zou Qing had originally wanted a divorce, but seeing her young son crying and refusing to leave his father, the marriage ultimately remained intact. However, she demanded Cheng Wen get rid of the child, absolutely refusing to see him.
Left with no choice, Cheng Wen sent the newborn Cheng Ran to live with his elderly parents in the countryside. He wired money for living expenses every month for them to raise Cheng Ran. And so, Cheng Ran grew up with his grandparents from a young age. As a small child, he did have a brief period of happiness, but it did not last. When Cheng Ran was 10, his grandmother passed away from illness.
After many twists and turns, Cheng Ran returned to live with Cheng Wen, who finally brought him home after repeated coaxing. At first, Cheng Ran still held some hope for this father. However, Cheng Wen did not actually have much paternal love for a son who grew up apart from him since birth. His original affection for Cheng Ran’s mother was partly due to the thrill of having an affair and partly a desire to have a son carrying his surname.
When Cheng Ran first arrived, Cheng Wen treated this namesake son quite well. But soon, he realized whenever he showed Cheng Ran any affection, it would anger Zou Qing, and his eldest son, Zou Rong, would also be furious. Over time, Cheng Wen’s paternal feelings faded.
Zou Rong had inherited his mother’s personality and was spoiled rotten by his parents since childhood, allowed to run wild. Suddenly he got a younger brother. This younger brother always made his mother angry and took away his father’s love. The consequences could be imagined.
Cheng Ran’s life in the Zou family was extremely difficult. He was beaten almost daily by Zou Rong, who didn’t know his own strength as a child. Cheng Ran’s skin was always mottled with bruises that never had a chance to heal.
The exclusion from his stepbrother, the cold eyes of his stepmother, and the disregard from his biological father – all cast a deep, gloomy shadow over Cheng Ran’s childhood.
Fortunately, his stepbrother was a poor student. After finishing middle school, he didn’t test into high school. His grades didn’t even meet the lowest score requirements. With no other choice, Zou Qing could only send him to the local vocational school.
During the time Zou Rong was not at home, Cheng Ran finally had a rare respite. But summer and winter breaks that were holidays for other children became torment for Cheng Ran.
Living in this environment, Cheng Ran learned to hide his thoughts, trying to carve out a little space to survive through feigned weakness and pretending to be pitiful.
It had to be said that this was quite effective. Whenever Cheng Ran was bullied until on the verge of tears, that lunatic Zou Rong would miraculously stop, brewing a startling storm in his eyes.
After some back and forth, Cheng Ran tasted the sweetness and became increasingly adept at it. Although life was still difficult, it was so much better than before.
This lifestyle continued until Cheng Ran graduated high school in his third year, finally bringing a complete turning point.
Through his own diligent efforts, he tested into the city’s top university. His father and stepmother were unwilling to pay his tuition, so Cheng Ran worked part-time jobs to earn it himself. He worked several jobs over the summer before finally saving enough for tuition fees before the school term started.
Later on, during one part-time job, Cheng Ran met Jiang Yu. After confirming their relationship, his days finally started getting better.
After getting to know Jiang Yu, Cheng Ran completely severed all contact with that family, which had brought him endless pain, and began his new life.
If the plot ended here, Ye Zhou might not necessarily have remembered this passerby character Zou Rong. But as it happened…
After hearing this name, it was like a voice in Ye Zhou’s mind telling him this Zou Rong very likely was the intermediary between the protagonist couple and the original Ye Zhou later on, conveying messages for the protagonist couple to the original.
And it was this person who first appeared by the original’s side, constantly goading him to take revenge on Jiang Tingyuan, making the original drive his car into Jiang Tingyuan’s.
Including that car the original finally drove to crash Jiang Tingyuan – all of it was personally prepared by this intermediary, completely absolving the protagonist couple.
The book actually didn’t describe much about Cheng Ran’s half-brother. This information was brought up when Cheng Ran mentioned his birth family after getting together with Jiang Yu.
Aside from that, Zou Rong wasn’t mentioned again in the rest of the plot, even when it progressed to the protagonist couple preparing to manipulate the original to kill Jiang Tingyuan. Zou Rong’s identity was vaguely glossed over with a codename.
With an inexplicable intuition, the instant Ye Zhou heard this name, he overlaid its image with that of the person who contacted the original on the protagonist couple’s behalf in the book.
He wasn’t certain whether his guess was right or wrong, which was why he wanted Boss Jiang’s help to thoroughly investigate this person.
If it really was him, then that meant…the relationship between the protagonist shou and this half-brother perhaps wasn’t as bad as written in the book.
For Zou Rong to even be willing to take such huge risks to goad the original into murder for the protagonist shou’s sake, their relationship definitely couldn’t be that simple.
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