For the beautiful young girl Lu Luoluo, November 12, 2023 was destined to be an extraordinary day.
On the surface, this day looked the same as any other. That night, too, was no different from countless ordinary nights, and Lu Luoluo did not sense anything unusual.
When she heard the evening self-study bell ring, she shoved her comic book into the desk compartment, slung her slightly deflated backpack over her shoulders, linked arms with her best friend, and walked out of the classroom toward the school gate.
High school girls have endless topics to talk about. It could be a newly styled haircut, a newly released manga, or the elusive orange cat clan that haunted the campus.
Without realizing it, it was time to part ways. As usual, Lu Luoluo loosened her grip on her friend’s arm. Loosened. Loosened.
Huh, she could not let go.
Sensing that something was wrong, Lu Luoluo followed her friend’s line of sight and looked ahead.
Standing where her friend was staring was a young man, seventeen or eighteen years old, tall and slightly thin, with familiar features.
Familiar because, setting gender aside, the young man’s face was exactly the same as the one Lu Luoluo saw in the mirror every day and quietly admired in her heart. If Lu Luoluo had a twin brother, no matter how similar, this was exactly how he would look.
The three bold, heavy characters “illegitimate child” swayed up and down, left and right in her mind, making Lu Luoluo feel dizzy and light-headed.
When Lu Luoluo was little, she used to watch melodramatic TV dramas with her grandmother. Schemes of wealthy families, marital grudges, and tangled relationships had given her plenty of material for wild imagination. A sudden illegitimate younger brother or sister appearing out of nowhere, turning her overnight into a pitiful little cabbage left in the dirt. Parents divorcing, living under someone else’s roof, swallowing humiliation and enduring hardship. A tragic opening, restrained perseverance throughout, and a satisfying, triumphant ending.
Now, that truly dog-blood drama seemed to be playing out right in front of her eyes, and Lu Luoluo’s facial features twisted for a split second.
Especially since this suspected illegitimate brother was wearing an expression of confusion and innocence, even tinged with a bit of joy, as he slowly walked toward her.
Lu Luoluo bared her teeth and took a cautious step back, ducking behind her friend.
Her friend cooperated by spreading her arms, eyes full of vigilance.
They glanced around and, not seeing any reporters holding cameras, both let out a breath of relief.
The Lu family was considered a prominent household in City A and could not afford the embarrassment of an illegitimate child fighting over inheritance splashed across the newspapers. Even if videos and photos could be intercepted, there was no guarantee that nothing unexpected would happen. The less trouble, the better.
The young man had long legs. Even though he was walking slowly, he soon stopped in front of the two of them, still wearing that same confused, innocent, faintly joyful expression.
Lu Luoluo’s friend grew even more vigilant, shielding Lu Luoluo more tightly. She knew her best friend’s family situation all too well. Both sides of her parents’ families had been single-line descendants for generations, and Lu Luoluo herself was undeniably an only child at home. There was absolutely no chance of a long-lost older brother. Not to mention anything else, if the Lu family had ever lost a child, the entire city would have been turned upside down.
With her internal alarm raised to the highest level, the friend heard the young man slowly utter two words.
“Auntie?”
Auntie? Her friend’s vision went black for a moment, her breath caught in her throat, nearly choking her. She opened her mouth, ready to teach him a lesson about manners, but was stopped in time. Lu Luoluo reached out and grabbed her friend’s sleeve, saying in a low, slow, and solemn voice, “I’ll handle this. You go home first.”
Lu Luoluo was born into wealth and raised in wealth. Her parents had always been loving toward each other, but she had seen plenty of ugly situations around her. Now it was simply her turn.
Nothing more than that.
She sized up the young man and saw that he was wearing only a thin silk pajama set. A cold thought crossed her mind. This must have been a spur-of-the-moment move.
Lu Luoluo pushed her friend into the car that had come to pick her up, then quickly walked over to the young man. She tossed out a frosty “Get in the car,” and without looking back, headed toward a low-key black sedan nearby, opened the door, and sat down in the back seat.
The young man froze slightly where he stood, then obediently followed after her.
He took his seat beside Lu Luoluo with practiced ease, leaning his back against the leather seat and placing both hands obediently on his knees. It was clearly a restrained, proper sitting posture, yet there was not the slightest hint of discomfort about him.
Driver Old Zhang caught sight of the young man’s face in the rearview mirror and was startled. He thought to himself that he had probably stumbled upon some incredible secret of a wealthy family. At once, he did not dare say a word and steadily started the car.
“You’ve been drinking?” Lu Luoluo caught a faint trace of alcohol in the air and frowned. “Your name?”
Perhaps because he had drunk alcohol, the young man’s reactions were a bit slow. He paused for a moment before replying at an unhurried pace, “I drank a little. I’m an adult today, so I’m allowed to drink.”
“My name. I— Lu Ran?”
The last shred of hope was shattered. Gripping the strap of her backpack, Lu Luoluo closed her eyes in exhaustion.
Eighteen years old. Surname Lu. That face.
An illegitimate child her mother, Madam Lu Mingzhu, had had through an affair during her marriage. A conclusion set in stone.
Yes, Lu Luoluo was certain. It was her mother who had cheated, not her father.
Lu Luoluo was sixteen this year and bore her mother’s surname. Her father, Mr. Shen Jia, and her mother, Madam Lu Mingzhu, had strictly followed the national family planning and prenatal care policies, marrying and then giving birth to Lu Luoluo five years later. Lu Luoluo resembled her mother, Lu Mingzhu, by about seventy percent. From childhood to adulthood, people often said the mother and daughter looked as if they had been molded from the same template.
Lu Ran’s features were even more similar to Lu Luoluo’s, but if he stood beside her mother, Lu Mingzhu, one look was enough to tell they were mother and son.
Waves of sorrow surged up from the depths of her heart, and Lu Luoluo could not help but feel sorry for her father, Shen Jia.
Back then, he had been a well-known young heir in City A. For love, he had married into his wife’s family, causing a huge stir and citywide gossip. Yet only two or three years after the wedding, his wife had an illegitimate child. He worked diligently for his father-in-law’s company, and before he was even forty, he developed liver cancer. Before his death, he had settled everything properly, ensuring that his wife and daughter would be provided for all their lives, only then leaving this world in peace.
A woman’s pregnancy could not be hidden. So how had her father endured wearing such a humiliating green hat all those years, and continued to treat her and her mother so well?
Could it be, could it be that she herself was not her father’s child either? Lu Luoluo’s fingers tightened and then loosened, a wave of bitterness rising in her heart.
Or perhaps her father also had an illegitimate child outside?
The fairy-tale marriage of her parents was not as beautiful as it appeared on the surface.
“Mom?” Lu Luoluo heard the young man beside her speak cautiously.
Lu Luoluo: “…” Irritation rose in her chest as she tossed her backpack under the seat. “Don’t call me that!”
Looks like he really was drunk, to have mistaken her for Madam Lu.
Here she was, a perfectly fine young girl in the prime of her youth, somehow ending up as the mother of her illegitimate older brother.
“Mom?” Lu Ran’s voice carried a hint of grievance.
“Fine then. When you see her later, remember to call her Grandma,” Luoluo said, clenching her fists as she mocked him.
She wondered what kind of reaction Madam Lu would have when she saw her own daughter come home together with her illegitimate son.
Shock? Guilt? Or something else?
“Mom, I’m cold,” Lu Ran said, and Lu Luoluo heard him clearly.
Winter was approaching, and he had come out wearing nothing but silk pajamas. Of course he was cold.
There were thin blankets in the car, but Lu Luoluo was certainly not going to give him one.
She said coldly, “If you’re cold, then shiver.”
Lu Ran obediently shuddered.
Strange. Why was Mom so fierce today?
Could it be because he had been drinking?
But today was his eighteenth birthday. Mom and Grandma had held a grand coming-of-age ceremony for him and had even specially allowed him to have a couple of drinks.
Lu Ran’s mind was a complete blur. He did not think about how he had suddenly appeared at the gate of No. 1 High School. Nor could he make sense of why his mother and his mother’s friend, Auntie, were both wearing school uniforms and looked so young.
“Mom.” Lu Ran reached out and grabbed Luoluo’s arm, speaking in a low voice. “Mom, all these years, you… it hasn’t been easy for you.”
Luoluo gave up on correcting how he addressed her. She tried to pull her arm free but failed. Annoyed, she said, “How has it not been easy?”
Madam Lu had her own father spoiling her and her husband doting on her. She went shopping and traveling whenever she pleased. The only real headache was probably Luoluo’s report card.
Tsk. And maybe the illegitimate child too. When Madam Lu said she was going traveling, could it have been to accompany the illegitimate child?
She shot her illegitimate older brother a sidelong glance and saw his eyes redden as he choked out, “Don’t wait for my dad anymore—” As he spoke, large tears fell one after another, and he began to cry in hiccupping sobs.
Boom.
A deafening explosion went off in Lu Luoluo’s mind, blowing it apart once again. When she finally grasped what Lu Ran meant, an icy chill spread through her palms. Wait for his dad?
Then what did that make her and her own father?
Those melodramatic TV dramas she had watched with her grandmother in her early childhood, ones she had almost forgotten, came flooding back into her mind. Plots full of white moonlight, substitutes, and forceful possession unfolded one after another.
It was too absurd. Lu Luoluo could hardly believe this was real.
Driver Old Zhang shrank his neck, wishing his presence could be smaller, even smaller.
What kind of long-buried, dog-blood feud between wealthy families was this? It was way too explosive.
Lu Ran clutched Lu Luoluo’s arm and cried in jerking sobs. Lu Luoluo did not bother with him anymore. Her face flushed red with anger as grief welled up from deep inside.
No one spoke again.
But tears had an end, and so did the road home. Ten minutes later, the black sedan came to a steady stop in front of a villa. Lu Ran’s crying finally eased. He hurriedly got out of the car first, opened the door for Lu Luoluo, then rushed ahead again and reached his finger toward the fingerprint lock sensor.
The door, of course, did not open.
A wounded confusion surfaced on Lu Ran’s face.
Lu Luoluo sneered inwardly. Did this illegitimate older brother actually think Madam Lu Mingzhu had entered his fingerprint into the door lock?
So eager to step right into the house?
In his dreams. After today, this person would completely disappear from in front of her, from her world.
Lu Luoluo did not care about past grudges. But in the present and the future, her home would never tolerate an illegitimate older brother.
To hell with understanding and endurance.
Lu Luoluo pressed her finger to the sensor, and the crisp click of the door unlocking sounded as it opened.
The lights inside were blazing. Rarely, Madam Lu Mingzhu had gotten home before her.
“Baby Luoluo is back. Come take a look at the new hairstyle Mom did today, how is—” The last word was swallowed when she saw Lu Ran.
Madam Lu Mingzhu blinked. “This?”
“Grandma.” Lu Ran’s eyes were still red, but his expression was perfectly obedient.
Confusion filled Lu Mingzhu’s gaze: ?
The scene was downright absurd. In Lu Luoluo’s heart, there was only cold sarcasm. “My illegitimate older brother had a bit to drink today and finally couldn’t hold back anymore, so he came to look for me.”
Madam Lu Mingzhu looked utterly lost.
She looked at Lu Ran, then at her precious daughter Lu Luoluo, then back at Lu Ran again.
Madam Lu Mingzhu struggled to process those words.
Ten seconds later, Madam Lu Mingzhu exploded in fury. “Your dad cheated on me outside!”
Lu Luoluo was stunned.
The very first thought that surfaced in her mind was: Mom, just look at this so-called illegitimate older brother’s face. Look at how much he resembles you. Don’t you have any sense of that at all?