C1 A Loser's Comeback

Minston University was serene in the early morning hours.

Today marked the Dragon Boat Festival, and the majority of students seized the chance to indulge in a sleep-in.

Yet, there were always exceptions.

"Hey, check out that good-looking guy over there."

"Doesn't matter how good-looking he is; he's just a trash picker. A loser through and through."

"That's Royse you're talking about. I've known him since he enrolled three years ago. He's the notorious Rubbish Prince, the perennial pauper of Minston University, always getting by on scholarships."

Royse was already making his rounds among the campus trash bins, a routine that never failed to draw attention.

He faced scorn, sympathy, disgust, and even outright sabotage, but none of it fazed him anymore. Amidst the whispers and stares, he calmly extended his grabber, plucked out plastic bottles, and stowed them in his sack.

Three years of sustaining his education through recycling had thickened his skin. He'd encountered every type of person; if he'd let their judgments sway him, he would've given up long ago, not to mention the impossibility of finding a girlfriend.

At the thought, a small smile played on Royse's lips.

This was his silver lining. After months of dogged courtship, Emmie, his classmate, had accepted his offer of a relationship two weeks prior.

His recent early risings were also motivated by a gift—a smartphone with a beauty camera feature that he'd bought for Emmie, costing him the 3,000 yuan he'd saved from his scavenging. Now, with empty pockets, he was more driven to beat the garbage trucks and gather as much as he could.

Alas, the plummeting prices of recyclables made earning money harder than ever.

Royse's brow furrowed with concern. He had chosen geology as his major, but his academic performance was less than stellar, and he couldn't rely on his studies to make ends meet. Manual labor didn't appeal to him either.

After today, he planned to explore the job market.

With these thoughts in mind, Royse continued his search, making his way from the dorms to the neighboring art department, steadily filling half a bag with discarded treasures.

Minston University sprawled across a vast expanse, and Royse had traversed it as if he'd run a mini-marathon. His legs felt like jelly, so he scanned the area and spotted an empty chair to rest on.

After a brief pause, he was ready to resume his trash collection, but as he got to his feet, something caught his eye.

A half-empty Sprite bottle was propped against the armrest, its cap askew, seemingly abandoned.

Royse wavered for a moment.

An ownerless Sprite could offer a refreshing sip, and the bottle itself was worth thirty cents.

To drink or not to drink?

It was a no-brainer for Royse – the drink was free.

Without much internal debate, he grabbed the bottle.

He twisted off the cap and downed the contents in one seamless motion.

Two gulps later, most of the Sprite had vanished.

In the June heat of Minston, the cold soda was the perfect antidote to the sweltering morning.

Royse savored the drink, his eyes half-closed in contentment. It was a luxury he seldom afforded – a beverage worth three yuan, equivalent to ten plastic bottles.

"What are you doing? That's my drink!"

An astonished voice jolted Royse from his reverie.

He paused, bottle still at his lips, and turned to see a girl in a yellow pleated skirt staring at him in disbelief.

Silence hung between them for a moment, their gazes locked, neither speaking.

"Sorry, I thought it was up for grabs."

Regaining his composure, Royse ceased his guzzling, screwed the cap back on, and offered the bottle back. "Here, you can have it back."

Barely a sip remained.

"You!"

The girl in the pleated skirt shot Royse an indignant look, then turned and walked away with a huff.

Royse just shrugged, finished off the Sprite, and stashed the empty bottle in his pocket with a satisfied grin.

"Royse!"

As he pocketed the bottle, a girl approached him with a brisk jog.

He looked up, his face breaking into a smile. "Hey, Rosalie, what brings you here?"

Rosalie was a fellow classmate, living modestly. She dressed simply and wore no makeup, which made her unassuming appearance stand out less.

She was also Emmie's close friend, and without her behind-the-scenes support, Royse's relationship with Emmie might never have happened. Grateful for her help, Royse always addressed her with respect.

"I need to talk to you about something."

Rosalie's cheeks were flushed, her breathing quickened from her rush to get here.

Caught in Royse's questioning look, she wavered, struggling with her words before finally speaking up with determination, "Emmie asked me to give this back to you. She's breaking up with you."

She handed over a phone to him—the one he had given Emmie.

Royse's smile stiffened on his face.

"Breaking up?"

He turned to Rosalie, his face etched with bitterness. "Did she give a reason?"

A flicker of sympathy crossed Rosalie's face. "She wanted me to tell you that you two are worlds apart. You could collect trash for a year and still not make as much as Axel does in a month."

Royse fell silent, then after a moment, he managed a wry laugh. "It's about money, then."

He reflected on his own situation. He had feared Emmie might not endure the gossip that came with his trash-picking lifestyle.

He could understand her succumbing to the mockery and choosing to end things, but to leave for a playboy with money...

Truth be told, Royse was deeply disappointed in Emmie upon hearing this.

Axel had quite the reputation at Minston University, known as the wealthiest Rich Second Generation in the art department, with a family fortune likely in the billions. He was always decked out in designer clothes and drove a GTR, frequently seen with a new girlfriend on his arm.

Clearly, he wasn't the type to settle down, and Emmie was with him for the money alone.

Royse had believed that Emmie's willingness to be with him was proof she wasn't superficial, and he had even prepared a special surprise for her. Now, it appeared she was quite the actress.

Well, better to know now than later. A woman like that wasn't worth pining over.

With that thought, his heartache eased slightly. He looked up, thanked Rosalie, took the phone, and walked away.

"Royse, don't take it too hard. I misjudged her before. Emmie isn't worth your heartache."

Rosalie, ever the kind soul, felt a twinge of guilt and offered her words of comfort to Royse.

"It's none of your business. Go back."

Royse didn't look back as he waved dismissively and walked away.

He made his way to a secluded bench.

Sitting down, he stared at his phone, memories of the past flickering through his mind.

He suddenly felt a sense of ennui. Dating, he mused, was utterly impractical without money.

Time was ticking.

With that thought, Royse rummaged in his pocket and extracted an unopened SIM card. He inserted it into the phone Emmie had returned to him.

The startup screen flashed briefly before a stream of text messages cascaded in.

"The family committee has confirmed that Royse, now 21, meets the age requirement for inheritance. Your property will be officially transferred today."

"Please proceed to the Citibank branch in your residential area to manage the inheritance within one month of this notice. Failure to do so will be considered a forfeiture of your claim."

"As a direct bloodline member with inheritance rights, effective immediately, you may request unconditional assistance from the family once. This opportunity is non-transferable to any other heir."

The familiar authoritative tone and the traditional style suddenly made Royse feel a pang of nostalgia for the family he had left six years ago. He wondered how many still remembered him.

This was the surprise he had intended for Emmie at his birthday celebration.

A surprise that would have sent any average person into raptures.

Regrettably, Emmie would never have that chance.

Royse wasn't truly impoverished; he was merely enduring his family's rite of passage.

Per the ancestral mandate, all members of the Stewart family must leave the nest at fifteen and fend for themselves for six years without financial support. The method of survival was immaterial; if he could make it through, he would inherit 1% of the family fortune.

The figure might seem modest, but given the staggering wealth of the Stewart estate, its actual value was jaw-dropping.

The Stewart Financial Group, a titan familiar to all on the Forbes list, was just one of Royse's family enterprises. Operating in realms beyond the average person's reach, it manipulated the global economy, treating nations as pawns, capable of sparking worldwide economic upheaval with ease.

In terms of wealth, the Stewart Financial Group's value is such that it could purchase roughly a third of the planet.

Now, one percent of that immense fortune belongs to Royse.

Family rules grant him the freedom to manage this vast wealth as he sees fit, whether for investment purposes or otherwise. Should anyone choose to live a life of leisure on these funds, there would be no objections. Indeed, every generation has its share of such heirs, and they are not few in number.

To foster internal competition and ensure the family's legacy, the ancestral code mandates that each direct descendant has the right to contest for the role of family head in the next generation.

The benchmark for this contest is who can use their inherited wealth to generate even greater value.

Royse had pondered this when he left home, but his interest has since waned.

Among his contemporaries, there are two other direct heirs, both of whom are formidable in their own right. One has established a significant mercenary organization in the Middle East, capable of holding its own against Mcraken's smaller legion forces without even deploying their main units. The other is a renowned stock market savant, rumored to have outsmarted the family's professional traders, holding original shares in all the key industries.

Royse harbors no desire to enter this fray. With his parents gone and few familiar faces in the family, he prefers to live as an ordinary person, enjoying a life of stable prosperity. After all, competing for the family leadership might be safe domestically, but the bullets in the Middle East don't discriminate.

With this thought, Royse abruptly stood up, dumping the morning's collection of plastic bottles into the trash bin without a second thought.

He then made his way off-campus.

The closest Citibank branch was in the CBD of the neighboring city. He intended to head there now, to claim the inheritance that was rightfully his.

A truly enormous fortune.