The stage performance had ended. Although Wuli repeatedly insisted that her injury wasn’t serious, Shuen still got scolded as her older brother.
“How are you acting as an older brother?! Why is it that every single time, you fail to protect your sister?!”
The Duke paced back and forth across the study.
Wuli had been seated in a chair, while Shuen…
‘Hmph. Someone who couldn’t protect his sister only deserved to stand.’
That wasn’t Wuli’s opinion.
It was the Duke’s.
Wuli quietly wiped away imaginary sweat at the side.
No wonder Shuen hated his own younger sister.
Anyone in his position would probably end up hating her.
“It’s not that. I twisted my ankle because of my own carelessness. It has nothing to do with my brother.” In an attempt to ease the tension between father and son, Wuli spoke up.
“Wuli, you don’t need to defend this brat!” the Duke snapped, still glaring at Shuen. “He’s grown this old and still doesn’t amount to anything.”
After several failed attempts to persuade him otherwise, Wuli glanced at Shuen.
The white-haired young man’s gaze remained calm and indifferent as he stood where he was. His eyes seemed to drift toward Wuli from time to time, yet he showed no reaction whatsoever to the Duke’s harsh reprimands.
Wuli: “…”
The white-haired girl coughed lightly twice, then wisely fell silent.
Forget it, forget it.
This was probably the default mode of interaction between this father-and-son pair on opposing sides of the battlefield. It was better not to speak up for Shuen anymore.
By the time the Duke finally finished his lengthy lecture and talked himself hoarse, the white-haired young man still looked completely unaffected.
He remained expressionless, his features cool and detached, as though his mind were somewhere else entirely. Yet right in front of the Duke, the white-haired young man let out a mocking laugh. Defiance practically radiated from his every expression.
“Protect her? She’s grown up already. Can’t she protect herself?”
As he spoke, Shuen shot Wuli a cool, indifferent glance.
Cold sweat immediately broke out on Wuli’s back again.
‘You can’t see me. You can’t see me.’
“Do I have to stay glued to her side every second of every day before it counts as protecting her?”
Every word Shuen spoke dripped with distance and alienation.
The Duke was nearly driven to death by his rebuttal.
In truth, every lecture the Duke gave Shuen failed to achieve the effect he wanted. In the end, all he could do was glare furiously, point a finger at him, and sputter,
“You, you, you unfilial brat! How dare you talk back?! Get back to your room and reflect on your behavior!”
Wuli knew what that meant.
The Duke had run out of ways to deal with Shuen.
In the end, both Wuli and Shuen were driven out of the study together.
After being scolded, Shuen’s expression only became colder, making Wuli’s heart sink.
The Duke had just blown the whole thing out of proportion and argued with the male lead on her behalf.
This wasn’t helping her at all.
This was driving a wedge between them!
Wuli considered the situation for half a second.
Then she decisively chose to salvage Shuen’s already precarious favorability toward her.
“Brother.”
Shuen turned to look at her.
Those deep blue eyes were as cold as ice.
The chill of his gaze made Wuli shiver.
“Don’t be angry… I know this wasn’t your fault.”
“It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t run off on my own back then, none of this would’ve happened.”
The moment she called out to Shuen, Wuli regretted it.
She stammered awkwardly, struggling for a long while before finally forcing out those few words. Even then, speaking them made her teeth ache.
She wasn’t someone who was good at comforting others, especially not someone like Shuen, whose very presence made interacting with him feel stressful. As a result, Wuli suddenly realized she might have gotten something wrong.
Shuen probably didn’t need her comfort at all.
The white-haired young man waited for her to finish speaking. He didn’t make any particular move, but his silence only made things even more torturous for the white-haired girl standing opposite him.
Wuli blinked her pale blue eyes and cautiously peeked at his expression again.
Then, without warning, she heard him say:
“…Sorry.”
Wuli: ??!
Her eyes widened in horror.
‘Sorry?’
‘What was that supposed to mean?!’
‘Shouldn’t I be the one apologizing to you? I even got you scolded!’
‘No, wait!’
‘Why is the male lead apologizing?!’
‘Something is wrong!’
‘There has to be something wrong!!!’
A storm instantly erupted inside Wuli’s mind.
Shuen’s tone was calm. It was hard to tell whether there was any guilt in it as he continued indifferently,
“When Father was speaking just now, I shouldn’t have pushed all the responsibility onto you. I failed to keep an eye on you for a while, so I’m partly at fault too.”
The sincere apology hit Wuli like a bolt from the blue.
For a long time, she couldn’t recover from the shock.
“How about this.”
The white-haired young man lowered his eyes slightly.
“From now on, I’ll try to stay with you more often to prevent you from getting hurt again.”
?
Wuli began to suspect there was something wrong with her ears.
Shuen had apologized.
And he had said he was going to stay with her.
What kind of nonsense was that? Having the male lead follow her around was no different from sentencing her to death.
Hearing those words, the white-haired girl immediately took a step back and waved her hands.
“No need, haha…”
Who would’ve thought that as she retreated, he would step forward instead?
“Yes, it is. It’s settled.”
Shuen left as soon as he finished speaking, his tone leaving no room for argument.
Leaving Wuli alone in complete disarray.
*
Wuli had assumed Shuen’s promise to stay with her was just a casual remark and didn’t really count.
That assumption lasted until Monday afternoon after the weekend.
After finishing his own classes, Shuen didn’t head back immediately. Instead, he came to Wuli’s classroom.
Academy classes were boring beyond belief.
Wuli could barely pay attention to them. At that moment, she was dozing off at her seat.
“Wuli.”
Hearing someone call her name, Wuli raised her head.
The moment she looked up, her eyes met Shuen’s.
With his head of white hair and tall, striking figure, Shuen stood out wherever he went. The male lead’s exceptional looks and imposing presence made him impossible to ignore.
Wuli jolted upright.
Most of her drowsiness vanished instantly.
One second earlier:
‘Why is Shuen here?’
The next second:
‘”From now on, I’ll try to stay with you more often to prevent you from getting hurt again.”’
‘????’
‘He’s not actually serious, is he?!’
Shuen, however, couldn’t care less about what Wuli was thinking.
He simply strode toward her.
It wasn’t until he had walked all the way to her side that Wuli seemed to snap back to reality. Looking at him blankly, she asked, “Brother? What are you doing here?”
Though deep down, she already knew the answer…
Seeing the stunned look on her face, the white-haired young man gave her what seemed like a reassuring smile.
Then he sat down beside her with perfect ease, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
“I told you yesterday.”
“From now on, I’m going to stay with you as much as possible.”
Everyone nearby widened their eyes.
What was going on?
Wasn’t it common knowledge that the young master and young lady of the Sinclair family didn’t get along?
Hadn’t Shuen pushed Wuli into the water just a few months ago?
What was this?
Coming to accompany her during class?
No matter how they looked at it, this didn’t seem like the behavior of siblings with a bad relationship at all!
Could the rumors have been wrong?
Although everyone outwardly pretended to mind their own business, in reality, they all had their ears perked up, eagerly listening for gossip.
Wuli let out two awkward laughs.
“I thought you were joking at the time.”
Her forced smile didn’t escape Shuen’s notice.
As if imitating her, he smiled as well. Then, completely at ease, he pulled out a book and flipped it open.
Without even looking up, he replied,
“Why would I joke about something like that?”
“I’m still worried you’ll get hurt again.”
“So it’s better if I stay with you.”
“…”
Wuli fell silent.
The expression on the white-haired girl’s face twisted slightly.
This was targeted harassment.
He was definitely targeting her.
Watching Wuli stare at him with wide, round eyes while being completely unable to do anything about it, Shuen’s mood improved in a strangely inexplicable way.
When Diane returned from getting water, this was the scene that greeted her.
The brown-haired girl’s eyelid twitched.
Wuli was sitting in her seat. Although her eyes were fixed on a book, she was obviously daydreaming. Her thoughts had long since drifted who knew how far away.
And even more alarming than that, seated beside her was a white-haired young man who didn’t belong to this class at all.
‘Shuen?!’
At first glance, Diane was surprised.
At second glance, she thought, ‘As expected.’
It seemed that Wuli’s relationship with her brother really wasn’t as terrible as the rumors claimed.
Seeing the situation, Diane chose not to disturb them. Instead, she casually found an empty seat and sat down.
The moment everyone saw her return, they immediately began shooting meaningful looks her way.
Their eyes practically screamed: ‘Do you see this? Do you see this? I thought Wuli and her brother didn’t get along. What happened?’
Diane: “…”
Calmly pushing up a pair of nonexistent glasses, she said, “Curious, are you?”
Everyone nodded frantically.
Diane smiled mysteriously.
“I’ll tell you later.”
Everyone: “…”
Ding-ding-ding.
The class bell rang.
The atmosphere, which had already been quiet, became even more silent.
The moment Wuli opened her eyes, she discovered that Shuen was still sitting beside her.
That surprised her.
‘What?! He really isn’t leaving?’
The white-haired young man remained as quiet as ever, his deep blue eyes calmly fixed on the book in his hands.
The instructor was still lecturing at the front of the classroom, speaking loudly, but in that instant, Wuli caught the voice of the person beside her.
Shuen’s voice was soft.
Yet every word landed in her ears with startling clarity.
“Hm?”
Wuli responded instinctively, her pale blue eyes filled with confusion as she listened to what he said next.
“If I remember correctly, you’ve always been ranked first in your major.”
Wuli was struck motionless as if by lightning.
Shuen lifted his eyes to look at her.
His gaze seemed hollow and bottomless, as though it could swallow every secret she possessed.
Cold sweat broke out on Wuli’s back again.
‘I’m done for…’
‘Did he figure out I’m not the real Wuli and is testing me…?’
‘On the surface, he’s reminding me that Wuli was always first in the major, but he’s actually warning me…’
‘And when he suddenly said he wanted to stay with me before, that wasn’t protection at all… it was surveillance…’
“Wuli.”
Still caught in the middle of her mental storm, she was suddenly called by name.
Her body twitched.
The white-haired young man’s eyes were unfathomably deep.
For a moment, Wuli felt as though all light had vanished from her world.
He said, “Don’t disappoint me.”
After saying those words, Shuen seemed completely unconcerned with what the white-haired girl might think.
Having casually dropped a bombshell on her, he simply returned to reading his book.
Wuli swallowed hard.
Panicked, she looked away.
The sheet of paper in her hands was repeatedly rubbed and crumpled beneath her fingers until it became wrinkled, yet she couldn’t absorb a single word written on it.
That expression on Shuen’s face made it very difficult not to suspect that he knew something.
In an instant, countless ominous possibilities flashed through Wuli’s mind.
The first and most obvious possibility:
In the game, the protagonist had always ranked first in the major. If Wuli wanted to avoid arousing suspicion in this world, then there was a high chance she would have to maintain that same first-place ranking.
The second possibility was far more frightening.
If Shuen had truly noticed something…
Then Wuli’s life would be hanging by a thread.
If he discovered that she wasn’t the real Wuli, that she had transmigrated here from another world…
The more she thought about it, the worse it seemed.
If something like that really came to light, she probably wouldn’t even live long enough to find a way home.
The thought alone filled her with anxiety.
Suppressing her emotions, she pretended to listen attentively to the lecture.
In reality, not a single word entered her head.
As always, Shuen remained perfectly composed.
After calmly finishing everything he had intended to study, he closed his book with an air of boredom.
Then he lifted his head and began listening to Wuli’s class with apparent interest.
Wuli: “…”
She was already anxious enough as it was, with nearly all her attention focused on Shuen.
The sound of him closing his book wasn’t loud.
Yet it still startled her.
Then she watched as he raised his head and started listening to the instructor’s lecture instead.
‘Do all otome game male leads love studying this much??’
‘As expected of a male lead.’
Even after the page had been turned, Wuli was still staring blankly ahead.
Then Shuen suddenly extended a hand.
The young man’s fingers were long and well-defined, strikingly elegant.
When his hand suddenly appeared in front of her, Wuli nearly jumped out of her skin.
She immediately scooted away from her desk.
Wuli: “…”
The moment she did it, she realized just how inappropriate that reaction had been.
Shuen merely swept a calm glance over her.
His deep blue eyes passed lightly across the white-haired girl’s face.
“You need to turn the page.”
Wuli thought to herself: ‘I’m doomed.’
“Wuli.”
“Hm?”
“Even if you can’t maintain first place in the major, you should at least rank near the top, understand?”
A faint smile curved Shuen’s lips.
“Otherwise, the Duke and Madam Sinclair will notice.”
Those unfathomably deep eyes seemed capable of seeing through everything.