The Protagonist and the Villain Are Both My Brothers

MengNet Help: What should I do when my two best friends turn against each other?

Lu Chen: Thanks for the invite. I punched them both and dragged them home.

MengNet Help: My longtime friend has a birthday coming up. I'm a student with a limited allowance. What's a suitable gift?

Lu Chen: Thanks for the invite. Personally, I think a gift is about the thought, not the price. These are the gifts I got from Friend A on my birthday [photo of a milky-white fruit attached] and Friend B [photos of a pair of cotton gloves and a cotton scarf attached]. I'd thought they were both too busy to come, so I was really touched when they showed up with gifts.

Before long, the comment had 10,063 replies:

Netizen 1: Holy crap! My eyes aren't fooling me, are they? Isn't that a Linglong Fruit? A single one is worth ten thousand gold!

Netizen 2: Your eyes are fine. That's the fruit said to contain the power of ancient mythical beasts. And those gloves... If I'm not mistaken, the gloves and scarf are made from golden mulberry silkworm silk.

Netizen 3: Heh, did this person come here just to show off? Disgusting.

Netizen 4: They dug up the story over on the MengNet forums! That Linglong Fruit showed up at an auction a while ago. Apparently, some mysterious big shot A spent a fortune on it to please his beloved (we can't say the exact amount, you know how it is). Here's the forum link. I'll delete it later.

Netizen 5: Damn, I think I've seen the big shot B who gave those gloves and scarf. He wiped out a whole nest of forest beasts, then came out with a huge swarm of angry golden mulberry silkworms behind him. Good thing the big shot was great at drawing aggro, or we'd have been completely wiped out. (Dead inside face)

[Netizen 5's comment got 1,111 replies]

Netizen 5: Don't ask who it is! I can't say! You can beat me to death and I still won't say! But still... if the gloves and scarf really came from that big shot B, does he know he's been cuckolded? Judging by everyone's guesses, the person who posted seems to be big shot A's beloved. [Wry face]

The next day, after finishing his farm work, Lu Chen logged into MengNet and was stunned by 9,999+ messages.

It took him a while to sort through all the chaotic, half-true clues. In a complicated mood, he deleted his comment and deactivated the account he'd had for years.

What can he say? He should've told Friend A to pick some fruit from his orchard and Friend B to gather some silkworm cocoons from his farm.

Sigh. Next time he sees them, he'll give them a few bags of thousand-year snow fruit and a few sets of undergarments made from nether silkworm silk.

[Coming soon:]

"Survival Train: Unlucky Talent"

Chen Mu has always been unlucky.

After being pulled into a survival world, his luck doesn't change:

[Welcome to the Survival Train world. Your journey for survival will begin aboard Train G444.]

[We will now draw a random talent card for you.]

[Congratulations, Host. Your talent is: Unlucky.]

[Effect: When opening a chest, you have a 0.1% chance of obtaining safe supplies.]

Chen Mu: ?

[The train's next stop: Zombie Manor.]

[Time at this stop: 15 days.]

With the title of Unlucky hanging over his head, he kills monsters to get treasure chests, then opens the chests and finds more monsters.

And so...

[Killed chest monster: 1 ordinary zombie. Supplies obtained: 1 bottle of mineral water, 1 loaf of bread, 10 points.]

[Killed chest monster: 1 elite zombie. Supplies obtained: 10 random seeds, 10 basic supply packs, 100 points.]

[Killed chest monster: 1 boss zombie. Supplies obtained: 1 random silver equipment case, 1 blueprint, 1,000 points.]

Looking at the supplies covering the ground, he gets it: as long as he brings enough firepower, even an unlucky guy can become a lucky one.

After killing 999 chest monsters, Chen Mu hears the crisp announcement broadcast to every player:

[Congratulations to Train G444 for placing first in this stop's ranking, with 57,600 accumulated points. Rewards: 3 gold chests, 2 random blueprints, and 100 basic supply packs.]

The world chat explodes:

[G324: Damn, what kind of god is this? They swooped in and took first place on the last day.]

[G165: If I remember right, yesterday the top ten were all pretty close in total kills, with the highest just over 30,000. Today this 444 has nearly doubled the distance... Can someone calculate how many zombies this 444 killed in one day?]

[G325: That's insane.]

[G168: What's going on? I searched the whole manor and only found about a thousand zombies. Where the hell did this 444 guy find so many?]

Meanwhile, Chen Mu, the main player of Train G444 and the focus of everyone's discussion, stares at the three gold chests before him, pondering which one to use his 0.1% guaranteed reward on.

"Chen Mu's Survival Diary"

"I had great luck today. My guaranteed reward gave me a pair of SS-rank socks. They feel pretty good."

"Come to think of it, what monsters will the other two gold chests give me?"

"Oh, one gave me a magic lamp with a lucky god inside who'll grant me three wishes. What a shame. I don't believe luck just falls out of the sky."

"Not bad luck. I got an SS-rank beast core, perfect for helping my pet evolve."

[Recommended ongoing story by a friend: "A Metaphysics Expert Reborn as the Wrongly Switched Fake Young Master of a Wealthy Family" by Wang Zai Tang. One-line pitch: Isn't getting rich amazing?]

A note from the blurb would like to remind you:

1. No personal attacks. If you don't like it, just click the X. This foolish author is fierce! [Baring teeth]

2. The author of this story is rather indecisive and is afraid of losing their way in the comments. Except in special circumstances, I won't reply to comments. Thanks for understanding.

Theme: This story is about a protagonist who never gives up hope, keeps moving forward with warmth, and grows toward the light even when caught in hardship.