Bai Mingzhen wasn't going to answer such a childish question. He firmly shoved Bai Huan into the back seat, then walked around to the other side and got into the car himself.
By then, Bai Huan had already calmed down. He was leaning against the car window, staring blankly at the distant entrance to his former home.
"It's just like a dream."
Bai Huan slowly exhaled, still unable to accept reality.
If Xiao He hadn't been taken away from him, perhaps he wouldn't even have had a reason to lose his mind.
Swapping him and Bai Chen back into their rightful places was perfectly reasonable. He had enjoyed eighteen years of wealth and privilege. Anyone in his position ought to leave quietly with their tail between their legs.
He believed he should do the same.
Even if he was the false young master, he couldn't afford to lose his manners and dignity. He couldn't let others look down on him, much less give them reason to think, "Ah, no wonder he's the false young master. His genes really are inferior."
He had put on an appearance of guilt, only for that facade to be shattered so easily.
It was a bad sign.
Bai Mingzhen paid no attention to his younger brother's melancholy. He took a cup from his assistant in the front seat and handed it to Bai Huan.
"What's this?"
Bai Huan lowered his head.
The yellowish liquid looked like a cup of urine.
"Mint and chrysanthemum tea. It clears internal heat and calms excessive fire," Bell explained from the front, flashing a row of pearly white teeth.
Bai Huan silently unscrewed the lid and took two sips.
"What a strange taste."
Then he stared thoughtfully at the swollen mint leaves floating in the tea.
"A lot of the mint growing in that garden belongs to me too."
"I told you to grow it in flowerpots, but you insisted on planting it in the garden. If you dig it up now, it'll be difficult to keep alive," Bai Mingzhen said indifferently.
"Flowerpots don't have that connection to the earth. Flowers grow better when they're planted in real soil."
Bai Mingzhen had always lived a simple, austere life, with little interest in pleasures or amusements.
In his own words, time was limited, and he didn't have the leisure to dabble in this and that.
Bai Huan was different.
Like many of his current friends, he enjoyed luxury and extravagance, favored ostentatious pleasures, and was particular about fashionable clothes, food, and everyday necessities.
When socializing, what mattered most to him was the emotional satisfaction people provided. He was exceptionally generous toward those who were utterly useless but knew how to flatter him with a silver tongue.
Bai Mingzhen neither approved nor disapproved of Cheng Yueqing and Bai Mushan's decision to exchange the two children.
In fact, keeping Bai Huan at Banchun Manor would be rather inconvenient.
He wasn't close to his mother and father, and they weren't particularly happy to see him either. But if he wanted to visit Bai Huan, he would have to keep going in and out of Banchun Manor, getting tangled up in all sorts of unnecessary complications.
What a nuisance.
Besides, Bai Mingzhen didn't attach much importance to blood relationships.
He had always openly favored Bai Huan.
No matter which family Bai Huan was sent to, Bai Mingzhen would still be his older brother.
That would never change.
Bai Huan waited in vain for Bai Mingzhen to respond to his remarks about growing flowers.
He handed the cup back to Bell, then turned his head and stole several glances at Bai Mingzhen.
His eldest brother was different from the other wealthy young men of Nancheng.
Although he came from an illustrious family, he always carried an air of someone who had made his own way in the world, struggling and earning his living independently, never quite belonging among the privileged.
Whenever Bai Huan and his friends of the same age saw him, they couldn't help feeling ashamed of their own inadequacies.
But Bai Huan was his brother, so he inevitably felt proud of him too.
Now that the bond of brotherhood was gone, Bai Huan finally realized just how wide and deep the gulf between himself and his eldest brother truly was.
At that moment, Bai Mingzhen also looked somewhat impatient and exhausted.
Becoming successful at a young age was no easy feat.
His eyes were lowered as he tapped on his phone. The bluish light from the screen clearly illuminated the faint dark circles beneath his eyes.
After replying to messages in his work group, Bai Mingzhen put down his phone and said to Bai Huan, "Those clothes don't fit you. I'll have Bell take you shopping for new ones later."
Bai Huan froze for a moment, then smiled faintly and tugged at the hem of his shirt.
"They fit. Why wouldn't they? I should've been wearing clothes like these all along."
Bai Mingzhen had never fallen for this sort of act from anyone.
He opened the car door.
"Now that you've calmed down, go find your parents and have them take you home."
"You just said you'd take us home."
Bai Huan folded his arms and leaned back stubbornly, refusing to budge.
"As if I owe you anything, you little brat."
"You're insulting me again."
Bai Mingzhen reached over and ruffled the young man's hair.
Instead of being pleased, Bai Huan grew unhappy.
Without a word, he caught the man's hand and sniffed it several times.
"When did you start smoking?"
"Too much stress. If I don't smoke, I'll become an alcoholic."
Bai Mingzhen smiled faintly.
He rarely smiled, and even when he did, not a single wrinkle appeared at the corners of his eyes. His smile had a cool, refreshing quality.
"Then I'll smoke too."
Bai Huan disdainfully tossed his hand away.
Bai Mingzhen nodded slowly, a faint threat lurking in his gaze.
"Fine. Then I'll quit smoking. You can smoke, and I'll give you a smoking."
Bai Huan immediately fell silent.
Because Bai Mingzhen really had spanked his bottom before.
"The cold air's escaping."
Bai Huan lowered the car window.
"I still need to go back inside. I forgot something."
Bai Mingzhen saw through him at a glance.
"Going back in to fight for victory? Still unwilling to give up?"
"Mind your own business."
With that, Bai Huan pushed open the car door.
He got out, ran his fingers through his bangs, and looked around.
Then he smiled for two seconds at Chen Yuanyuan and Wang Caiyi, who were sitting in the Volkswagen behind them.
Wang Caiyi waved at him and leaned her head out of the window.
Bai Huan pointed toward the beautiful house.
"I'm going inside for a moment."
Wang Caiyi changed her gesture, motioning for him to hurry along.
The young man ran toward the house.
When he entered, he gave Cheng Yueqing, who was still crying sadly, quite a fright.
He had no time to comfort her, nor was he in the mood to do so.
After all, she already had her biological son back. Now mother and son could be loving and filial toward each other. How wonderful. How happy.
So he simply threw out, "I forgot something," and hurried upstairs.
He entered his room, followed closely by A Xiu, who was practically a surveillance camera in human form.
A Xiu watched him take a lighter from his pocket.
He flicked it open and held the flame against the curtains.
Click.
A Xiu clutched her face and screamed.
She was about to rush downstairs and report him when Bai Huan grabbed her.
He shoved the lighter into her hand, seized that hand, and used it to set the bedsheets on fire as well.
Only afterward did he release A Xiu.
"Partners in crime. We committed this together," he said quietly.
A Xiu didn't dare say a word.
It wasn't until Bai Huan had left that she pretended to be clueless, pointed upstairs, and cried out in alarm.
"There's smoke! Is there a fire? Goodness, the sun must be too strong this year!"
Having finally vented his anger, Bai Huan left in high spirits.
He hadn't managed to find Xiao He, but he quickly uprooted several mint plants, stuffed them into his clothes, and ran as fast as his legs could carry him.
He headed straight for the Volkswagen.
The moment he got into the car, he urged Chen Yuanyuan to hurry up and leave.
Chen Yuanyuan stepped on the accelerator and exchanged a bewildered glance with Wang Caiyi in the passenger seat.
Meanwhile, Bai Huan was laughing so hard in the back seat that he doubled over.
And that more or less explains why Bai Huan ultimately set fire to his own room.
However, the matter didn't end there.
Although the fire was "discovered" quickly, it was still a fire.
The room was no longer habitable.
Cheng Yueqing's original plan to have Bai Chen move straight into it came to nothing.
Although she still missed Bai Huan in her heart, a trace of resentment had now mixed into that longing.
The material losses, her flawless plans—everything had gone up in flames.
That child Taimi was simply too wicked!
Chen Yuanyuan and Wang Caiyi took Bai Huan straight to a shopping mall near Lanshuitang.
After parking the car in the underground garage, the family of three entered the elevator.
The two adults treated the child who had only just returned to their side with an eagerness to please that bordered on flattery.
But the child remained distracted the entire time.
When they reached the first floor, Chen Yuanyuan held the elevator doors open to let mother and son step out.
"Did your adoptive mother confiscate your phone? Let's buy you a phone first."
"I need to take this call."
Wang Caiyi's phone rang. She answered it and walked aside.
Bai Huan had a fairly good impression of her, so he obediently stood behind her and waited.
But he didn't know what the person on the other end was saying.
Wang Caiyi's previously rosy complexion gradually turned deathly pale.
The woman became tongue-tied.
"Ah... You... No, that's... Wait, I..."
Her face quickly flushed bright red again.
Confused, Bai Huan snatched the phone from her hand and held it to his ear.
He had listened to Cheng Yueqing's voice for eighteen years.
He recognized it instantly.
"He only found out about you and Mr. Chen a few days ago, and he's already become a completely different person! He has no manners left at all! He even dared to set fire to the house! And don't blame me for being petty. Nobody's money falls from the sky. We all work ourselves to the bone to earn it. I know Taimi is finished now that he's in your hands. He'll probably end up becoming some little hooligan!"
"Taimi..."
Wang Caiyi hurriedly tried to snatch the phone back.
Bai Huan pushed her hand aside and spoke to Cheng Yueqing on the other end.
"If Auntie is so angry she can't stand it, then call the police and have me arrested."
The woman said nothing.
She remained silent.
Then, with a sharp click, she hung up.
Guessing that the call had ended, Wang Caiyi finally took her phone back from Bai Huan.
She asked cautiously, "She said you set fire to her house?"
Chen Yuanyuan also came over.
Bai Huan didn't conceal anything.
"I didn't burn down her house. I only set fire to the room I used to live in."
Noticing the change in the expressions of the two people before him, Bai Huan added:
"I love them. I just don't want anyone else taking possession of what's mine. Them, my room, and you two as well."
He realized that although he was no longer a member of the Bai family, he wasn't truly part of this family either.
Even though the three of them would be living together day and night from now on, they would still have to be wary of one another, constantly trying to figure out what the others were thinking.
"But you still can't just set fire to a room! The Bai family's house is so big. There must be plenty of rooms. This is something you could have discussed," Wang Caiyi said earnestly.
Bai Huan nodded.
In truth, he had a powerful premonition.
The moment Bai Chen appeared wearing his clothes, Bai Huan had known that everything belonging to him in that house would eventually become Bai Chen's.
His clothes.
His room.
Even his dog.
Chen Yuanyuan was a little more considerate in his thinking, though he wasn't particularly clever either.
"Since you like dogs so much, the old lady downstairs happens to have a watchdog that just gave birth to a litter. She's been worrying about finding homes for the puppies. You can go pick one you like later and bring it home."
"No need. I don't have time to raise a dog anymore," Bai Huan said, shaking his head.
"That's fine too."
Everything was fine as far as Chen Yuanyuan was concerned.
"Not having a dog saves money. Keeping dogs is expensive these days. The old lady's dog eats an entire basin of noodles every day."
Bai Huan snorted inwardly.
Feeding noodles to a dog.
How pathetic.
They first took Bai Huan to buy a phone.
Chen Yuanyuan had initially intended to buy him an Apple phone.
Bai Huan politely declined a couple of times.
Chen Yuanyuan promptly turned around and bought him a two-thousand-yuan OPPO instead.
Bai Huan accepted the phone and SIM card listlessly, murmured his thanks, and then entered a string of numbers into his contacts.
He sent the number a message.
"You heartless bastard! You abandoned me and our child without so much as a word! You faithless, ungrateful scoundrel!"
After sending the message, Bai Huan was beside himself with delight.
He chuckled and giggled so much that Wang Caiyi came over to ask what he was playing with.
Bai Huan didn't tell her.
Instead, he handed her the phone.
"Mom, please enter your phone number here."
Wang Caiyi froze.
She blinked and asked the same question Cheng Yueqing had asked earlier.
"What did you call me?"
"Mom."
Wang Caiyi answered him three times in succession.
She clearly didn't know what to do with herself.
Her hands were even trembling as she entered her contact information.
Chen Yuanyuan, whom Bai Huan had deliberately left to one side, was still wandering around ahead of them with his hands clasped behind his back, looking here and there.
He's a swindler, Bai Huan thought.
Afterward, they bought seasonal clothes, a schoolbag, necessary daily necessities, and various other things.
Bai Huan didn't have a single penny to his name, so naturally, he couldn't afford to be picky.
Whatever Chen Yuanyuan and Wang Caiyi suggested, he accepted.
However, Bai Huan noticed that Chen Yuanyuan was the one who made the decisions about everything.
That didn't mean he decided everything entirely on his own.
He appeared quite refined and gentlemanly.
Whenever he looked at an item, he would always ask Wang Caiyi whether she thought it was good.
And every time, Wang Caiyi would look at Chen Yuanyuan with shy admiration and say, "Honey, you have such good taste. I'll leave it all to you."
So disgustingly lovey-dovey. Acting like that at their age.
Bai Huan thought to himself.
They bought bags upon bags of things.
Chen Yuanyuan made two trips down to the parking garage to load everything into the car.
When they had finally finished shopping and were driving back toward Taohua Lane, Wang Caiyi asked who the man who had suddenly appeared earlier was.
"Which man?"
"The one who carried you into the car."
"Bai Mingzhen."
Realization dawned on Wang Caiyi.
"Oh, the eldest son of the Bai family! He looks quite a bit older than you. Very mature. He must be working already, right?"
"He's been working for ten years."
Bai Huan felt around in his trouser pocket and pulled out a SIM card he had secretly brought with him from the Bai family home.
He inserted it into his new phone.
Wang Caiyi continued asking questions.
"Then isn't he in his thirties? He doesn't look it."
"He's not in his thirties. Bai Mingzhen started university at sixteen, began working at eighteen, and graduated from university at nineteen. He's only twenty-eight this year."
Wang Caiyi exclaimed in amazement.
"Wow! He's a genius!"
Although Bai Huan felt proud, he couldn't stand hearing other people dismiss all of Bai Mingzhen's hard work with a single word like genius.
"Bai Mingzhen works very hard too. He only gets half as much sleep as the rest of us."
"Well, that child certainly has talent. Ordinary people wouldn't achieve that no matter how hard they worked," Wang Caiyi said.
Seeing that Bai Huan was staring out the car window without speaking, Wang Caiyi continued trying to make conversation.
"Are you closer to your eldest brother or your second brother?"
"...I'm close to both of them."
"Then why do you always call your eldest brother by his full name?"
"I'm used to it. I've been calling him that for years."
Wang Caiyi wanted to keep digging, but Chen Yuanyuan interrupted her with a deliberate clearing of his throat.
"We've picked up Taimi now. Give all the relatives a call. His youngest aunt was asking just yesterday when Taimi would come home. She wants the family to get together for a reunion dinner."
Wang Caiyi took her phone out of her bag and said quietly, "Your eldest sister borrowed five hundred thousand yuan from us last year. Why don't you ask whether she can repay it this year? Everything Taimi needs costs money. Our salaries won't be enough."
"She's my eldest sister. How am I supposed to ask her? Besides, she had her third child this year. At least we only have Taimi," Chen Yuanyuan said as he drove.
"It's not as though I told her to have a third child!"
Wang Caiyi was thin-skinned, and her face flushed with embarrassment.
"Your eldest brother owes us money too, and so does your mother. The money we give her for retirement is enough to cover another family's expenses for an entire year. She gave birth to a whole bunch of children who are no use to her, but that doesn't mean she can treat us as though we're not even human!"
"Doesn't your sister come asking you for money every year too? If it were for food, I wouldn't say a word, but she spends it supporting men outside and fooling around with lovers..."
Wang Caiyi gritted her teeth.
"You know perfectly well what I've sacrificed for that entire family of yours, what Taimi has sacrificed, and you..."
"Beeeeeeep—"
A long, piercing blast of a car horn drowned out the voices inside the vehicle.
Sweat streamed down Chen Yuanyuan's face.
His expression was a mixture of humiliation and anger, and veins bulged at his temples.
"I'll go ask them for the money tomorrow!"
But his voice was very low, almost a mumble.
Bai Huan was already distracted in the back seat, so naturally, he couldn't make out exactly what the people in front were saying.
Still, he had figured out who owed the two of them money.
A message arrived on his phone.
Bai Huan had even less interest in paying attention to them now.
He had added Bai Mingzhen using his new phone number.
Bai Mingzhen sent him a screenshot of the earlier text message.
You?
Bai Huan typed rapidly.
Give me some money. I don't have any money to spend.
Bai Mingzhen asked:
Where did you get the phone?
This time, Bai Huan actually answered the question.
Mom and Dad bought it for me.
Bai Mingzhen sent him a picture.
It appeared to have been taken inside his car.
In the photograph was the packaging box of an Apple phone.
Just had Bell buy it. I'll return it.
Bai Huan nearly jumped out of his seat.
I want it! I want it! Give it to me! Give it to me!
Bai Mingzhen:
Call me Brother.
Bai Huan lay across the back seat.
Sunlight streamed directly through the car window onto his face.
As the light and shadows shifted, his eyes appeared astonishingly large, almost taking up half his face.
Every movement of his gaze was therefore exceptionally noticeable.
There was no need to look too closely to see the unique concentration and stubbornness in those eyes.
Just when Bai Mingzhen was certain Bai Huan would finally call him Brother, Bai Huan opened the voice-message function.
"Charge for five minutes, talk for two hours."
He sent the recording.
Bai Mingzhen listened to it twice before asking:
Mom says you set fire to the house. Why?
-I didn't want anyone else moving into my room.
For some inexplicable reason, this reminded Bai Mingzhen of something that had happened when he was a teenager.
Taimi had watched a public service advertisement at home.
When Bai Mingzhen returned from school that day, little Taimi, who was only four or five years old, had imitated the child actor in the advertisement.
He had carried an enormous basin of water toward Bai Mingzhen, staggering unsteadily under its weight.
In a sticky, childish voice that was nevertheless exceptionally loud, he had declared:
"Big Brother, wash your feet!"
Many years had passed.
Even Bai Mingzhen, who no longer held any hope for his family, couldn't help the warmth that softened his gaze whenever he remembered that scene.
Until another message popped up in the chat window.
It was from his now-grown younger brother.
And it was practically begging for a beating.
-Bai Mingzhen, give me money.