Chapter 14

014.

Lu Yuan couldn't describe the complicated feelings in his heart at this moment, but when he looked in the mirror, he could clearly see that his left eye screamed "the sky is falling" and his right eye screamed "Lu Yan is a dog." When he opened his WeChat Moments, his latest post had Lu Jingshan, Lu Ke, Lu Zhuo, and Bai Yu blocked, leaving only one line:

"So touching. This brotherly love is thinner than paper. *wipes tears*"

And he @'d Lu Yan.

Lu Yan pretended not to see the words "thinner than paper," shameless as ever as he dropped a kissy-face emoji sticker and bounced, boarding a plane to the city of Haishi.

— His agent really lived up to the title "Godfather of Mainland Entertainment (deranged edition)," because he actually managed to land him a pretty high-profile gig in just twenty minutes, appearing as a surprise guest at a variety show taping.

To prove he definitely wasn't running away, Lu Yan even sent Bai Yu a selfie from the set, thoughtfully using a timestamp camera app to clearly show the time and location:

"Brother Yu, the originally scheduled surprise guest said he got scammed by a guy faking a collision on his way out and is still at the police station going back and forth with the old guy. I happen to have some connections with the director, and he roped me into filling in—I couldn't say no. If you want to do a spot check, go bother A Yuan. *pitiful face*"

Bai Yu's reply came three hours later—just a single, ice-cold period.

That wasn't just any period—that was Bai Yu's way of saying he was off the hook!

Lu Yan, who'd been sweating bullets for three hours straight, let out a massive sigh of relief.

Then, sitting in the show's tour bus, he felt a flicker of brotherly guilt he hadn't felt in a while. He exited Bai Yu's chat and saw "A Yuan" pinned at the top. He cleared his throat and sent a hesitant little cat-begging emoji.

A few seconds later, he got back a sticker of a chubby kitten looking down at him with disdain, along with three words and a period: "Who are you?"

Lu Yan: "..."

"Yan-ge, what's up? Staring at your phone with such a serious face?" The guest in the seat ahead turned around and saw Lu Yan with a tense expression, as serious as that time on a singing show when he found out he'd been set up to perform with the producer's tone-deaf son, who couldn't even quack as well as the village ducks.

"I pissed off my brother, and now he's asking who the hell I am."

The guest, who also had a younger brother, looked at Lu Yan like he'd just found a kindred spirit. He quickly got up, plopped down next to Lu Yan, grabbed his wrist, and said with deep empathy:

"I get it. I totally get it, Yan-ge. My little shit of a brother is just like that—throws a tantrum over the smallest things. He's online too much, spewing trash memes all day. One minute he's passive-aggressively asking 'who do you think you are to boss me around,' the next he's all 'so what if I did?' Sometimes I really want to beat his ass black and blue, but the little shit is sneaky—he'll whip out his phone and record me, threatening to expose me and make me a celebrity with a scandal, and get the whole internet to come after me."

Lu Yan felt for the guy, but he couldn't relate.

"My brother's not a brat. He's good-looking and he smells nice."

"My brother has a great temper. He never gives me attitude, and he even takes the blame for me without me asking. This time it's my fault—I was the one who crossed the line first and made him mad."

"My brother is also super polite. He's a top student at Jingda's School of Fine Arts. He memorizes papers I can't even understand in the blink of an eye. Not like your brother with his garbage memes!"

"See, when my brother messes with me, he only sends cute cat stickers like this!"

The guest: "...You're a brother-con?"

Lu Yan: "No, I'm just stating facts."

The two stared at each other, wide-eyed, for a few seconds. The guest stood up abruptly and said to the camera: "I don't like talking to brother-cons. It makes me look like I don't give a damn about my own brother. But can you blame me? The real issue is my brother's just asking for it."

Another guest who'd been watching the show curiously asked: "So how old is your brother?"

The guest: "Twelve."

The other: "He's still young then. Yan-ge's brother's already in college. Maybe by the time your brother turns eighteen, he'll get into Jingda and be a good boy too."

Lu Yan popped his head out from his seat: "Impossible. My brother was already a perfect angel at twelve—could cook, clean, do everything, talented and virtuous, with more 'good student' awards than he can hold with both hands!"

The guest with a brother immediately sneered at the camera: "Folks, your Yan-ge says he's not a brother-con. If you believe him, hit 1. If not, spam 666."

Lu Yan: "..."

*

The variety show was a mess, and the little figure in Lu Yuan's head was a mess too.

He stared at Bai Yu's message for a full ten minutes. Open eyes, close eyes, open again, close again—blinking over and over, looping endlessly, before he finally let out a defeated groan.

Defeated, he tapped out a reply on his phone.

Sesame Tangyuan: "Good afternoon, Mr. Bai. Regarding the paper, I've only memorized 'Research Progress on Sleep Deprivation and Vascular Endothelial Function Injury' so far."

Lu Yuan looked at Bai Yu's profile picture, his eyes full of hope, his heart pounding—thump, thump, thump—so hard. That unspoken tension crept over him like a spiderweb.

Ding.

A new message arrived. Contrary to the reply Lu Yuan had imagined—"Then you don't need to come tonight. There's nothing to quiz with just one paper"—the message contained only a single, maddeningly simple word: "Mm."

Mm?! That's it?

Nothing else?

Lu Yuan was stunned for a moment. He put his phone on the table, stood up, waited two minutes, paced left, paced right, then walked two laps around the table, but no new WeChat notification ever appeared.

Lu Yuan: "..."

So that was all Bai Yu had to say.

Even after learning he'd only memorized one paper, he still insisted on quizzing him on it tonight.

What a buzzkill!

Lu Yuan clenched his fist and punched the air a couple of times, but ultimately had to accept his fate. Under Chen Chi's encouraging gaze, with his fist clenched in support, he dragged his feet and trudged back into the study with the paper.

Sitting at the small table by the floor-to-ceiling window, he stared at the wall of text, let out a breath, and tried to calm himself down.

Still feeling a bit frustrated, he got up, tore off a piece of paper, wrote Lu Yan's and Bai Yu's names on it, stuck it on a throw pillow, and beat the crap out of it.

Before he knew it, evening rolled around.

Although Chen Chi had still carefully prepared a delicious and hearty dinner, with that male ghost haunting his thoughts, the meal tasted like ash to Lu Yuan.

He barely touched his favorite sweet-and-sour ribs.

Under Chen Chi's downcast and worried gaze, Lu Yuan put down his chopsticks, returned to the bedroom, changed out of his ugly Psyduck pajamas, checked himself in the mirror repeatedly, then asked Chen Chi: "Brother Chen, do I look okay?"

Lu Yuan had always run cold—the type of young person who prioritized warmth over style in winter. His roommate had once looked at him, totally amazed, and said:

"Being good-looking really is something else. If I wore this outfit to class, I'd be kicked out of the design school. Our dear professor would point at my nose and ask: 'Hello, you've studied fashion design for two years, and your aesthetic sense is still up your ass?'"

But Lu Yuan was different.

The professor would only look at him approvingly and nod: "If only the old boss of Shuojin hadn't insisted on pushing his own short, stumpy son back then, and had picked pretty kids like you who have everything, the company wouldn't still have a reputation for terrible taste."

At this moment, Lu Yuan was only wearing a white, cropped down jacket with a stand collar and extra padding, zipped all the way up. When he ducked his chin, the collar covered half his face. On the bottom, he wore matching straight-leg fleece-lined sweatpants, the loose cuffs half-tucked into his snow boots.

Good-looking. Even in the most basic outfit, he was still good-looking.

Chen Chi silently praised the look for a good long while, then offered a small suggestion: "How about switching to a more festive color?"

Wearing all white like that, combined with Lu Yuan's listless expression, made him look like he was heading to a funeral.

Lu Yuan: "If I wear red and still have a funeral face, wouldn't the contrast be way too obvious? What if he gets upset and makes things hard for me?"

Hmm.

Although Chen Chi, as a butler, wasn't very familiar with Bai Yu, based on what he'd learned about Bai Yu from the Lu family, he figured the guy wouldn't pull something like that.

If you asked him, Young Master Yuan was just picking up bad habits from Young Master Yan.

Chairman Bai wasn't that scary.

He didn't say this out loud. In the end, Lu Yuan still went out in all white, crawling along like a turtle through the soft snow on the ground toward Villa No. 1. Chen Chi stood at the front gate, watching him like a mother bird watching her fledgling about to leave the nest and spread its wings, his eyes brimming with encouragement and motherly affection.

Lu Yuan: "..."

This was too much; he felt like that stare from behind could burn a hole right through his puffy down jacket.

Villa No. 1 wasn't far from Villa No. 2, otherwise Lu Yuan wouldn't have easily noticed someone standing by the floor-to-ceiling window. But with all his dragging his feet, that short walk somehow took him over ten minutes. Along the way, he even received a message from Lu Yan trying to patch up their "epic" brotherly bond, but Lu Yuan's reply—"I'm heading to Villa No. 1 to turn in my assignment"—scared him so bad he didn't dare say another word.

He just sent a meme of someone on their knees, banging their head on the ground in apology, and tentatively asked: "Is one island enough as compensation? I thought about it, and if that's not enough, I can throw in a third one."

Lu Yuan: "..."

What would he do with so many islands?

Was he planning to ditch the rich-kid life someday and go clamming on the beach?

Lu Yuan said in his most devilish whisper: "Forget the islands for now—don't forget you said you'd memorize the paper today, and you're coming back tomorrow to face the music with me."

Lu Yan: "..."

Third Brother: "The director just called me, saying I did great on the variety show and offered me a fat paycheck to stay one more day. I thought it over and figured I shouldn't turn down money, since big brother still needs to buy more islands for baby A Yuan. Baby A Yuan, big brother will be back the day after tomorrow—don't miss me too much /kiss"

Lu Yuan: "..."

Standing there, grinding his teeth in sheer fury, Lu Yuan mentally beat up his third brother a hundred times before putting back on a flawless smile and ringing the doorbell of Villa No. 1.