“There are still a few meat pies left.”

“Okay, okay, give them to me, give them to me.”

Karen carried the plate of meat pies to the doorway. Uncle Mason, dressed in pajamas, took the plate and immediately picked up a pie, taking a big bite. The way he wolfed it down made it clear he was starving.

“Uncle, you…”

Uncle Mason said helplessly, “I fell while walking, and my butt still hurts a lot. I don’t know if I hurt the bone. I’ll lie down for a bit first, but it won’t delay tomorrow’s work at home.”

“Uncle, you really need to be more careful.”

“Sigh, for a family to have good luck, someone has to take on all the bad luck. As long as you’re all healthy, I’m happy to do it.”

Although Karen knew Uncle Mason was just “talking nonsense,”

he still gave a “polite” and “moved” smile.

Carrying the plate, Uncle Mason limped back to his bedroom, not forgetting to instruct Karen as he went:

“Close the door.”

“Okay, Uncle.”

Karen closed the door. Judging from Uncle Mason’s reaction that morning, Karen guessed that his uncle had probably been beaten by his father.

Well,

that’s normal, isn’t it?

Even though his uncle’s child is already grown, being beaten by his own father isn’t that hard to understand. After all, Dennis almost personally finished off his own “grandson” today.

Out of habit, he reached out his right hand and scratched the spot in front of his right eye—an old habit from his previous life—but ended up scratching at nothing;

“Karen” has good eyesight and doesn’t need glasses.

Karen mocked himself:

“Grandson…”

Then,

he emphasized it:

“Grand rascal.”

……

Karen didn’t go downstairs to help. After tidying up the dishes, he washed up and went to bed.

Drowsy, he slept and woke up over and over, each time only sleeping for half an hour.

He dawdled until late at night, and instead of getting sleepier, Karen found himself wide awake.

He glanced at his cousin Grant sleeping on the spring bed across from him.

Ever since he woke up and recovered, his cousin, who used to share a room with Grandpa, immediately moved back to share a room with him. It was easy to imagine how much pressure sharing a room with Grandpa had put on him.

Karen sat up in bed, turned on the desk lamp, and, following his memory, opened the drawer and took out a book.

The book was titled “Money, a Meaningless Thing,” an autobiography by a financial tycoon from Ruilan, the country where Karen lived.

Karen flipped through the pages, and inside were bills of “one hundred” lu each.

This was the money saved by the previous “Karen.” His pocket money was quite generous. Karen took it all out and counted—it was 6,000 lu.

At this stage, an ordinary worker’s monthly salary was just over 2,000 lu. Workers at more profitable factories could earn 2,500 lu a month.

The two family helpers, Paul and Ron, earned 3,000 lu a month, and today Paul even got a raise to 4,000, since moving corpses pays more.

So, these 6,000 lu were about three months’ wages for an ordinary worker. In fact, with family expenses, it would be hard for a regular worker to save that much in half a year.

When he first woke up, Karen found in his memories that “Karen” had always been planning to run away from home—he never liked this family.

But while 6,000 lu is a decent sum, even if he took it and left, what could he really do?

“‘Karen’, oh ‘Karen’, why did you drop out of school? You could have at least left me a high school diploma.”

But then again, at least he left him a “Leonardo DiCaprio” face, and not the water-gun-toting version;

He didn’t really have much reason to complain about “Karen.”

Now,

he had inherited this choice:

“Run away from home?”

“Stay at home?”

These two questions kept flashing through Karen’s mind, but thinking back on the events of the day, he couldn’t help but doubt whether running away would really be that easy.

It’s really not as simple as a kid grabbing some money and hopping on a train out of town.

It involves a kind of mystery, one that goes beyond his established worldview,

and,

the mystery is right in his own home!

“Woof… woof…”

Two barks came from the yard downstairs.

There had probably been some earlier, but Karen hadn’t noticed.

He put the money back in the book, closed it, and put the book back in the drawer. Karen stood up, opened the door, and happened to see Peter lying on the windowsill in the hallway.

The family’s black cat was watching the golden retriever “banished” to the yard below in a very “human-like” pose;

As if showing off: I’m inside, and you’re outside.

Karen glanced at the “lonely” golden retriever in the yard. The temperature was very low at night. He figured the dog probably wouldn’t freeze to death, but for a pet used to being by its owner’s side, the hardest thing to endure was actually loneliness.

Aunt Mary and the others probably hadn’t noticed the golden retriever, or maybe they just didn’t want to let it stay inside at night, figuring it was easier to leave it outside so it could take care of its business in the yard in the morning without needing someone to walk it.