Chapter 12

012.

"He sent me a folder with more than a dozen papers in it, all about—let me see—oh, 'The Mechanisms of Long-Term Sleep Deprivation on the Cardiovascular System,' 'Research Progress on Sleep Deprivation and Vascular Endothelial Function Injury,' 'The Predictive Value of Circadian Rhythm Disruption on Sudden Cardiac Death,' and stuff like that. He said I need to memorize them word for word."

Around ten o'clock, Lu Yan, who had caught up on some sleep, sat at the dining table, stuffing rice into his mouth while complaining with a dead-inside expression.

"Of course, that's not the real issue. He's usually swamped—surgeries, shifts, you name it. Even if I don't memorize them, he can't really do anything about it. If he actually tries to discipline me, worst case I buy a plane ticket and get out of town until he cools off."

"The real kicker is that our dear second brother knows exactly how busy he usually is, and he also knows I'd just go through the motions. So he told me that once I'm done memorizing, he'd have Brother Yu come by to quiz me! I said, have you lost your mind? Brother Yu is the chairman of Bai Group—he doesn't even have time to sign documents, let alone listen to me recite papers?"

Lu Yuan, eating an apple that Chen Chi had sent over, nodded in full agreement.

"Give me one too." Lu Yan opened his mouth, and Lu Yuan fed him a slice of fruit. He chewed for a while, then let out a deep sigh, his eyes going a little glassy. "But who'd have guessed—Brother Yu actually had the time."

Lu Yuan: "?"

Lu Yan pointed at Lu Yuan and said rapidly, "Yeah, yeah, that was literally my face too."

It was that kind of "the sun rose from the west" look—like pigs really could fly, and a toad really did get the swan.

"For a moment, I also wondered if Lu Zhuo was pulling my leg—until I texted Brother Yu and he asked if I was done memorizing." Lu Yan closed his eyes, unable to face this messed-up world. "Ha! Ha! Ha! The chairman of Bai Group has nothing better to do than listen to me recite 'The Predictive Value of Circadian Rhythm Disruption on Sudden Cardiac Death.' Lucky me!"

Honestly, he'd rather believe Bai Group was about to go under.

Lu Yuan: "..."

He reached out with sympathy and pity to pat his third brother's bird's nest of hair, and apologized sincerely: "I'm sorry. It's not really your fault. You didn't know any better, so—"

Before he could finish, Lu Yan waved his hand. "Whether your heart was acting up or not, I shouldn't have kept you up all night. That's just a bad habit. Lu Zhuo said that even if I wanted to get close to you fast and be the best brothers ever, I can't do it that way. So don't blame yourself—it's not your fault."

There was no way he wasn't going to blame himself.

Lu Yuan tentatively asked, "Want me to help you memorize some of it?"

Lu Yan: "?"

Since when can someone else memorize stuff for you?

At his shocked expression, Lu Yuan cleared his throat. "Look, I'm the one with the heart issue. By rights, I should be the one who knows this kind of medical stuff."

He suspected the real point of Lu Yan's punishment was to make him—the guy with the bad heart—feel guilty, and realize that pulling all-nighters was a total no-go.

Like how drill instructors punish the whole squad for one person's screw-up.

With that thought, Lu Yuan rubbed his nose and said quietly, "Why don't you just ask him?"

Lu Yan: "...I'm really gonna ask, then."

Lu Yuan nodded.

Ten minutes later, staring at the simple two-word reply "Fine" on his phone, Lu Yan went silent for a long time.

Seeing this, Lu Yuan finished off the last bite of apple. "Don't forget to send me the files. I'm heading to bed."

The folder Lu Zhuo sent Lu Yan contained sixteen papers total. Including punctuation, each paper ran about five thousand characters—sixteen papers came to eighty thousand. Split down the middle, that was forty thousand characters each for Lu Yuan and Lu Yan.

Lu Yuan did the math and silently thanked his lucky stars that he'd always had a good memory. Memorizing stuff had never been his weak point.

He opened the first paper, and his confident expression slowly fell apart as one obscure term after another popped up.

Hold on. Hold on.

He closed the paper, looked up at the ceiling, and thought:

It's late. I said I wouldn't stay up. Time to sleep.

*

Lu Yuan didn't sleep well that night.

He'd slept too long during the day, so at night he was as wired as if he'd mainlined coffee. Forget chest pain—he felt like he could take on the world, like he could jog two laps around Songlan Estate.

Unable to sleep, Lu Yuan had no choice but to stare at the ceiling with wide eyes and open the paper again.

His plan was to read through the papers a few times, look up the jargon, and only then start memorizing. But in reality, he was dozing off by the time he finished the abstract, and by the fifth jargon term he was yawning nonstop, eyes watering.

The phone screen lit up briefly before going dark, and Lu Yuan's breathing under the covers gradually steadied.

But he had a string of weird dreams.

First, he was wearing a school uniform and carrying a backpack, heading to class. A teacher whose face he couldn't see suddenly announced a surprise quiz. When the test paper landed in his hands, he stared at a bunch of unfamiliar words, shocked, panicked, and totally lost.

Then, a tall, imposing figure stood beside him. He still couldn't see the face, but he could clearly feel the man's cold, imposing presence and the suffocating weight of being looked down on.

"Idiot."

Seeing that he hadn't written anything for a long time, the man spat out two icy words and turned to leave.

Click.

The suffocating classroom suddenly became a cramped room. In the pitch-black environment, a computer screen cast faint light. A slender young man hunched over a drawing tablet, scribbling away. After a while, he yawned and muttered something unintelligible.

A few minutes later, he finally finished his work, let out a relaxed sigh, shut down the computer, and stood up to head toward the bed. At that exact moment, a sharp pain shot through his chest. Before he could cry for help, his stiff body collapsed uncontrollably onto the floor.

The familiar pain of dying yanked Lu Yuan out of the dream. He snapped his eyes open, his gaze slowly focusing on the ceiling. Once his head cleared, he took two deep breaths to calm his racing heart.

...The heart palpitations from staying up late were nothing next to that nightmare.

Cold sweat was plastered to his back. Feeling gross, Lu Yuan groaned and crawled out of bed. He glanced at the clock on his way to the bathroom—it was only four in the morning.

Lu Yuan: "..."

It felt like he was back in his last life, getting up early to hit the books.

Speaking of school—

Lu Yuan stood under the shower, warm water running over his skin. He squinted, trying to recall.

That guy in his dream—the one who stood by his desk during the test, put pressure on him, called him an idiot, and was just a total jerk—was that Bai Yu?

That height, that vibe—it was him, right? It had to be!

Lu Yuan thought of that face, snorted coldly, and yanked the shower off. He dried his hair and bundled himself into his soft Ducky pajamas.

After washing up, he slowly headed down to the living room.

At four in the morning, the living room was dead silent—you could hear a pin drop. He turned on the lights and went to the kitchen to find something quick in the fridge.

He remembered there was a brand of frozen dumplings he really liked in the fridge—the ones Lu Ke had someone bring back from his old apartment when they packed up his stuff, after Lu Yuan had reminded him like three times to grab them.

As on every late night before his rebirth, Lu Yuan stood in the kitchen, putting a pot of water on to boil, ripping open the bag of frozen dumplings, and dropping them one by one into the pot.

Plop, plop—plunk.

The sound of footsteps joined the dumplings' splashes. Lu Yuan turned instinctively and found himself face-to-face with Chen Chi's grim, tight expression.

Chen-ge?

Lu Yuan froze, spatula raised in a wave: "Morning? Want some?"

Chen Chi: "..."

Seeing the young master sneaking around the kitchen once could be written off as a passing whim, but two or three times meant he was failing as the steward.

Chen Chi, determined to be an exemplary steward, rarely failed to flash his trademark smile. Instead, weighed down by self-loathing at his own uselessness, he stepped forward and took the spatula: "Morning, Young Master Yuan. I've got this... Frozen dumplings aren't great for you. I'll have the chef make something fresh."

Lu Yuan waved his hands frantically. Waking the chef at four in the morning to cook breakfast was embarrassing enough, let alone—

"I want these. This brand's frozen dumplings have a clean ingredient list and made the CCTV food safety list." He said, craning his neck to check the pot, urging Chen Chi, "Stir them—they're about to stick to the pot."

Chen Chi, who had a steward's license but no chef's training, kept his serious expression, followed Lu Yuan's instructions and stirred the dumplings. A few minutes later, once they floated to the surface, he scooped them into a bowl one by one.

Lu Yuan gave him half.

"Don't be polite. I can't eat too much in the morning." If he ate too much, he'd get sleepy again, flop onto the bed, and pass out, and his memorization work would go out the window.

The dumplings were filled with sauerkraut and pork. When he bit through the wrapper, the tangy sauerkraut juice burst across his whole mouth. Lu Yuan savored the familiar flavor, and the gloom from his nightmare lifted considerably.

Until he opened his phone and spotted the WeChat contact card Lu Yan had pushed to him late last night.

Below it was a reminder.

Third Brother: Brother Yu's WeChat ↑. Whenever you finish memorizing, schedule a spot-check time with him / smile

Lu Yuan: "..."

Unbelievable—other CEOs rolled up in luxury cars with billion-dollar contracts to negotiate with Bai Group, while he and Lu Yan drove over in a fancy car, clutching their thesis, just to have Bai Yu quiz them on memorization.

What a horrifying image.

—It could even earn a spot in a horror film.

Lu Yuan stared at the contact card for a long time, the remaining dumplings in his bowl nearly going cold, before he reluctantly tapped the friend request.

After finishing the dumplings, he printed the thesis in the study, carried the juice Chen Chi had kindly provided, and settled cross-legged on the floor by the floor-to-ceiling window, muttering the paper aloud.

At seven sharp.

As winter dawn just lifted the veil over the capital city, the master bedroom light in Villa No. 1 not far away flicked on. The curtains drew back slowly on both sides, and a tall, slender figure casually glanced toward the window, noticing the same splash of brightness.

Into Bai Yu's view waddled an ugly, ridiculous duck.