Lian Jue reclined lazily against the edge of the bed, casually browsing through his phone while replying to messages.
Ever since Lin Yi had added him on WeChat, he had initially put on a brief act of polite disguise, calling him “Teacher Lian” on his lips, and occasionally “Mr. Lian.” Lately, however, he had become increasingly presumptuous, calling him “Xiao Jue” with breezy familiarity.
As for photography events and projects, Lin Yi had already invited him about eight hundred times, but since Lian Jue was currently laid up in a hospital bed, he naturally declined them all.
Even upon seeing the photo Lian Jue sent him—showing his head wrapped in thick bandages and his eyes unfocused—Lin Yi still refused to give up, tentatively asking if he could still cooperate with him for a “battle-damaged” aesthetic shoot.
Left speechless with anger, Lian Jue was just about to continue offering polite refusals when the ward door was suddenly knocked open.
Lian Qingfu brought an unwilling Lian Cheng into the room.
Lian Jue raised an eyebrow, casually shoving his phone beneath the bed: “What a rare guest. Whatever made you think of coming to see me?”
Having weathered his fair share of storms, Lian Qingfu didn’t get angry, instead asking with a good-natured smile: “How come Mr. Chen isn’t visiting today? And how is your head feeling?”
“Why do I feel like Uncle is more concerned about Mr. Chen than me?” Lian Jue mercilessly pierced through his careful thoughts, his gaze dropping to the gift baskets Lian Qingfu was holding. “You didn’t have to bring anything when you came, though who knows how you got the money for it anyway.”
Top-grade mountain ginseng.
It seemed Lian Qingfu had actually splurged quite a bit this time; Lian Jue had originally assumed that bringing a bag of apples would have been the absolute limit for them.
Lian Cheng rolled his eyes, picking a spot to seat himself inside the ward: “Lian Jue, Chen Xingjian isn’t here right now. With no one to back you up, what kind of imposing airs are you still trying to put on?”
“Even if Chen Xingjian isn’t here, it’s not like he’s dead. I still have plenty of ways to make you behave.” Lian Jue fired right back, the air practically saturated with the scent of gunpowder.
“You really are shameless enough. You steal my fiancé, and then you pull out that incident to lord it over us? Aren’t you afraid I’ll just expose it to the world?”
A mocking smirk tugged at the corners of Lian Jue’s lips: “Expose it? Relying on your eight thousand followers on Weibo? I suggest you be a bit more cautious and avoid cleaning out a batch of zombie accounts, or else those eight thousand followers won’t even have a fraction left by the end.”
“You cheap wretch, what do you know?!” Lian Cheng’s fingertips trembled with rage, his voice twisted and vicious.
“By the way, who ever acknowledged you as Chen Xingjian’s fiancé? Have the two of you ever been engaged? Has your name ever passed before the elders? Or did Chen Xingjian issue a press release or hold a press conference to officially recognize the status you proclaimed?”
“Don’t forget, the one currently staying with Chen Xingjian is me, the one sharing a bed with him is me, the one who signed a marriage agreement with him is me, and the one he’s willing to prop up and hand opportunities to is also me.”
Watching Lian Cheng’s complexion gradually turn ashen, Lian Jue felt an unbidden surge of good cheer, looking at Lian Cheng with a bright, smiling gaze: “You only have Lian Qingfu behind you, or at most the entire Lian family. I honestly can’t figure out where you’re suddenly getting the confidence to pick a fight with me.”
“Alright!” Lian Qingfu’s expression turned displeased as he watched the two of them argue back and forth until it was about time to intervene. “Chengcheng, why are you bickering with your younger brother? Family members shouldn’t be fighting like this. I only have two sons; standing together heart and soul to push the Lian family upward is the right path. Squabbling like this aren’t you afraid people will laugh at you?”
What a wonderfully high-sounding speech, but Lian Jue was no longer a three-year-old child; he no longer had any desire to play out a scene of brotherly harmony and filial piety with anyone.
“Lian Qingfu, do I need to remind you once more? You already sold me out once a long time ago. I have never had a father like you.” Lian Jue clenched his palm tightly against the edge of the blanket, his gaze lingering on the two of them for a fleeting second.
That day was his birthday. Lian Qingfu had taken him to an amusement park he had always wanted to visit and, against all precedent, even bought him a small cake to eat.
To this day, he still remembered it clearly: that cake had been tiny, likely sitting out for too long so that the texture of the frosting was no longer smooth, mixed with tiny, gritty granules. Across the top, “Happy Birthday” had been crudely scrawled in strawberry jam, with two tacky little red flowers planted in the top corner.
“Xiao Jue, do you want to eat some cake? This is a magic cake. If you eat a piece right now, your age will decrease by two years. Are you willing?” Lian Qingfu had tucked that piece of cake behind his back, half-cajoling and half-deceiving Lian Jue into shaving two years off his age.
From that day onward, he became one year younger than Lian Cheng and was forced to address him as “Older Brother.”
With his age altered in that manner, the label of illegitimate child was firmly slapped across his forehead, and curses and hostility accompanied him like a shadow from then on, never leaving his side for a single moment.
Funnily enough, when he ate the cake, Lian Jue had followed everyone else’s example and made a birthday wish to be happy every single day. As it turned out, the only moment of genuine happiness had been the very first bite of that cake.
“That little trick you pulled back then did you really think I didn’t know?” Lian Jue’s expression was laced with sarcasm. “Using those cheap little ploys to trick a child into covering for you, you really are utterly vile.”
Lian Qingfu’s expression darkened instantly. Probably no man could calmly accept being pointed at and cursed as vile, especially when the culprit was his own biological son.
“Lian Jue, things weren’t as simple as you think! If you’re going to hold onto real hatred, you should hate that mother of yours! If she hadn’t stubbornly dumped you off at the Lian family doorstep, you wouldn’t have had to suffer all these hardships in the first place.”
“And don’t flatter yourself into thinking that latching onto Chen Xingjian makes you some extraordinary figure. What are you anyway? Just someone with a decent face. Chen Xingjian has never lacked people with good looks swarming around him. The moment your tail gets too high and you fall out with the Lian family, let’s see what you’ll live on the day Chen Xingjian grows tired of you and throws you away!”
Lian Jue had never pinned all his hopes on Chen Xingjian alone. With or without Chen Xingjian, he could survive; after all, in this world, no one had ever reached a point where they couldn’t live without someone else.
A light laugh slipped past his lips, his eye rims burning red with pure hatred: “Don’t you worry, Lian Qingfu. If I can’t survive, you’ll be the very first person I drag down to hell as a cushion. But for now, I’m still using this face to make Chen Xingjian look at me with high regard so right in front of me, you’d better honestly paste on a flattering smile.”
“I’ll be sure to let Chen Xingjian know that I’m not satisfied with the apology you two brought over today.”
Lian Qingfu’s eyes bulged, his teeth clenched tightly together as veins throbbed furiously on his forehead, looking as though he might lunge forward at any second to tear Lian Jue to shreds.
His lips parted and closed: “You… you unfilial wretch!”
Lian Cheng furrowed his brow, reaching out to smooth Lian Qingfu’s chest: “Lian Jue, I actually preferred the way you looked when you were crying while hugging that little black-and-white cow cat.”
Lian Jue’s chest felt as though it had been pierced by an awl. He went wild, throwing off the blanket to push himself up from the bed, grabbing Lian Cheng tightly by the collar with a hard, unyielding tone: “What did you say?”
“That cat, you surely haven’t forgotten, right? The way you knelt like a dog, begging me to save that cat it’s still as clear in my head as if it happened yesterday.” Lian Cheng wore a triumphant expression. He felt that all the forbearance he had endured for so long was entirely worth it just to witness this single moment of Lian Jue’s emotional collapse.
“That cat wasn’t any purebred either, just some stray alley cat. Who knows how it managed to follow you all the way here you must have really liked it.”
Xiao Mi was a cat he had encountered in an alley back in his hometown. His birth mother had locked him out of the house once again, and a fine drizzle was falling outside. Clad only in a thin shirt with torn holes, the rain threads pricked against his skin like tiny needles, and he had nearly believed he was going to freeze to death.
In the end, Xiao Mi had licked his fingertips, one gentle stroke at a time, and curled up right into his arms. Human and cat kept each other warm like that, managing to scrape by through the entire night outside the door.
He had often thought that Xiao Mi was simply looking for a warm spot and had saved him quite unintentionally, but he was still deeply grateful to the cat. From then on, he always shared half of his already pitifully meager meals with Xiao Mi.
When he spotted Xiao Mi again after arriving at the Lian household, his brain had practically short-circuited from joy. Clutching the little kitten, he had knelt outside Li Fangya’s doorway, begging her to let him keep Xiao Mi by his side.
With a smiling facade, Lian Cheng had pulled him up and readily agreed to the request.
Even though he walked on eggshells every single day while living in the Lian household, he had still been overjoyed that he could finally live openly and honestly with Xiao Mi, and that the cat wouldn’t have to suffer from cold and hunger anymore. Yet barely two days later, Xiao Mi vanished without a trace. Everyone claimed they hadn’t seen it, suggesting it might have run off and gotten lost.
He had collected the fur Xiao Mi had shed over those few days and felted it into a tiny hairball his final, lingering memento of the cat.
“Lian Cheng?! What did you do to that cat?!” Driven mad by hatred, Lian Jue wanted to rip a chunk of flesh straight off Lian Cheng’s body, his eyes burning with absolute resolve.