Qin Huizhu was completely stunned.
She had thought it was just her imagination.
But she hadn’t expected it to actually be true—just as she had feared.
Qin Xiaofeng hadn’t been playing the piano at all!
The music she’d heard from beginning to end had been played from a phone by Qin Xiaofeng!
“Second Sister?!”
Qin Xiaofeng hadn’t expected Qin Huizhu to suddenly lift her sleep mask. His panic was written all over his face.
“W-what… are you doing?”
Qin Huizhu couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Her voice trembled slightly. “Xiaofeng… what is this?”
“I’m sorry, Second Sister,” Qin Xiaofeng said with puppy-dog eyes. “My hand hasn’t fully healed yet, and I was afraid my playing wouldn’t be as effective, so I used this method instead.”
“So that’s what it was… It’s okay. I’m not angry,” Qin Huizhu said with a forced smile.
But was it really because his hand wasn’t better yet?
She suddenly recalled the moment of panic she’d seen earlier in Xiaofeng’s eyes when she’d asked him to play. That hadn’t been a hallucination, had it?
“Second Sister, I won’t use the phone anymore. I’ll play for you now. But it might not sound the same—it’s been a while, and my hand’s still recovering,” Qin Xiaofeng said quickly, sitting down at the piano with a trace of nervousness in his eyes.
“It’s fine. As long as it’s you playing, I’ll like it. Don’t overthink it,” Qin Huizhu comforted him gently, trying to brush away the chaotic thoughts swirling in her mind.
But this time, unlike before, she didn’t put her sleep mask back on. Instead, she stared fixedly at Qin Xiaofeng’s back as he sat at the piano.
As the music began, a strong sense of unease rose in her heart.
Something was wrong…
The music was off…
Even his back looked off…
Qin Huizhu’s panic deepened. She suddenly remembered a night more than half a year ago.
That night, just like tonight, she’d been tortured by insomnia nearly to the brink of collapse.
The sleeping pills she’d hidden had been taken away by her younger sisters after they discovered them.
She’d tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep, and eventually decided to sneak around the house while everyone else slept to try to find the pills.
She had thought it was her third sister playing, but when she walked in, she saw a slender young man sitting at the piano.
He’d softly called her “Second Sister.”
At the time, overwhelmed with stress and forgetting to put on her glasses, her severe nearsightedness had made it impossible to see the boy’s face clearly.
But hearing the words “Second Sister” had naturally made her assume it was her beloved younger brother, Qin Xiaofeng.
After all, the family had always nurtured Xiaofeng’s love for piano.
As for the biological brother they had retrieved—Qin Yi…
Qin Huizhu had never believed that someone who had lived in hardship for over a decade, someone who had returned on the first day looking like a homeless stray, could possibly know how to play the piano.
So that night, she hadn’t doubted the identity of the person playing even once.
The “Xiaofeng” at the piano hadn’t said much, and under her urging, he had simply continued playing until she’d fallen asleep at the desk.
“Could it be that the one playing that night wasn’t Xiaofeng, but…”
The music playing now did nothing to bring her sleep. It only made her more irritable, more anxious. Her heart raced wildly.
Despite her reason trying to piece together the clues, Qin Huizhu still couldn’t accept the truth.
“Qin Yi couldn’t possibly have had the chance to learn piano!”
“But if that night it really was Qin Yi, why didn’t he come forward and tell me?”
“Why did Xiaofeng admit it when I asked him the next day?”
“Did Xiaofeng lie to me?!”
The more she thought about it, the tighter her chest became. It was as if something was clenching her heart.
She tried to get up and pour herself a glass of water. Her gaze happened to fall on the sleep mask in her hand.
A terrifying thought suddenly struck her.
The mask…
Was it to keep her from discovering that the person who had been playing the piano all these months wasn’t Qin Xiaofeng—
But Qin Yi?!
Qin Huizhu’s eyes widened. She could almost see the image: the moment she put on the mask, Xiaofeng quietly got up from the piano, and Qin Yi took his place.
“No… that’s impossible…”
“Xiaofeng wouldn’t lie to me…”
She kept repeating it in her heart, trying to convince herself. Trying to find an explanation that would make sense of everything.
But she failed.
Unbidden, her mind recalled the words Qin Yi had said to her—twice now—words she had never fully understood:
“I hope you’ll always be able to sleep peacefully.”
That one sentence seemed to tie all the fragmented clues together.
And in that moment, she finally understood what it meant.
From that night over half a year ago, the one playing the piano…
Hadn’t been Qin Xiaofeng at all.
It had been Qin Yi!
But how had Qin Yi learned piano?
Qin Huizhu couldn’t figure it out. Then, suddenly, she realized—she knew absolutely nothing about Qin Yi’s life outside the Qin family.
Nothing at all.
She… as an older sister… knew nothing about her biological younger brother’s past.
How ridiculous.
The guilt surged violently in her chest, and suddenly, she understood everything.
She finally understood why Qin Yi had become so distant.
She finally understood why he had left so resolutely that night.
“Xiaofeng…” she murmured, her voice hoarse as the music came to an end.
“What’s wrong, Second Sister? Was it… because I didn’t play well?”
Qin Xiaofeng turned around with an apologetic look and bowed his head like a child who had done something wrong. “I’m sorry, Second Sister. Once my hand’s healed, I’ll get back to how I used to be.”
“Xiaofeng.”
Qin Huizhu repeated his name again but said nothing else, as if reminding him of something.
“Second Sister?” Qin Xiaofeng looked confused.
“Tell me the truth.” Qin Huizhu stared into his eyes and asked, word by word, “This past half-year… the one who played the piano to help me sleep—was it really you?”