A Father’s Disappointment
He wasn’t an unreasonable parent. He’d thought that if Yuan moved out and suffered a little on his own, he might come to understand a few things. He hadn’t expected Yuan to go even further. Not long ago, Secretary Du had told him that Yuan had withdrawn from school without permission and taken a sum of money from the fund his wife had left behind, with no one knowing what he’d spent it on.
And now Yuan showed no remorse, continuing to hurt Ningning. In a fit of anger, and deeply disappointed in Yuan, he’d slapped him.
He’d actually thought Yuan would dodge.
Lu Yuan raised his head and looked at Lu Zhengqing. Blood trickled from his chin, drop by drop, but he made no move to wipe it away. Calmly, without a trace of emotion, he said, “It wasn’t me.”
“Lu Yuning slipped on his own…”
But before he could finish, Lu Zhengqing cut him off harshly. Compared with Ningning, pale and trembling in the water, Yuan’s simple explanation, delivered from where he stood, sounded like a casual excuse. Even his attitude seemed insincere.
The little guilt in Lu Zhengqing’s heart vanished.
Anger took its place.
Yuan and Ningning were about the same age, but Ningning had suffered from heart disease and allergic asthma since childhood. He’d never been as healthy as Yuan.
With drenched, frail Ningning sitting in the pond and cold, indifferent Yuan standing beside him, Lu Zhengqing’s sympathies had already tipped one way.
Besides, this wasn’t the first time Yuan had done something like this.
Lu Zhengqing’s gaze settled on Lu Yuan, heavy with pressure.
At the company, even senior executives who’d weathered half a lifetime of storms would falter under his gaze. But Yuan met his eyes with an unclouded, pure look. When their gazes locked, Lu Zhengqing felt a stir in his heart and instinctively looked away, letting his eyes fall to Yuan’s shoulders and back.
Only then did Lu Zhengqing notice how different Yuan looked from the sturdy boy in his memories.
He was far too thin now. His clothes hung loosely on him, and he looked even gaunter than Ningning beside him.
What had happened to Yuan? Lu Zhengqing couldn’t help wondering.
“Dad.”
But in the next moment, Lu Yuning spoke, interrupting Lu Zhengqing’s fleeting thought.
Leaning on Wangbei’s arm, Lu Yuning gritted his teeth and struggled to his feet. Though the cold pond water had soaked most of his clothes, he still managed a well-behaved smile at his father and brother, reassuring them that he was all right. Only then did he look at Lu Yuan.
He hadn’t really seen what had happened. He wasn’t sure whether he’d slipped by accident, either. But he was clever enough to know what he should say now, and that he couldn’t let things get worse. After only a brief hesitation, he said firmly, “I slipped on my own. It had nothing to do with Second Brother.”
That moment’s hesitation made his words sound unconvincing. Though they were meant as an explanation, they came across as if he were being forced to cover something up.
How could Lu Zhengqing miss that hesitation? His expression darkened at once. “Ningning, you slipped on your own? Then why were you standing by the pond? How did you manage to slip?”
Lu Yuning had always been straightforward. He hadn’t had time to come up with a story, so he anxiously avoided Lu Zhengqing’s gaze and stammered, “I…”
But after a long moment, he couldn’t get another word out.
That was enough for Lu Zhengqing.
The truth was almost self-evident.
At times like this, Lu Zhengqing always wondered if he’d failed in raising Lu Yuan. He’d missed the most crucial years of Yuan’s childhood, leaving him narrow-minded and selfish. Even after four years, he still hadn’t managed to set him straight.
His sharp gaze returned to Lu Yuan, like a knife.
But then something unexpected happened.
The boy stubbornly finished what he’d been saying. “Lu Yuning slipped on his own.”
If it had been anyone else, Lu Yuan wouldn’t even have bothered to explain. What did it matter if they misunderstood?
But Lu Zhengqing and Lu Wangbei were the exceptions, the only two people bound to him by blood.
Yet the moment the words left his mouth, it was as if a fuse had been lit to a bomb.
Lu Zhengqing cut him off again, his voice low and hurried with anger. “Lu Yuning, Lu Yuning! Do you know he’s your younger brother, not some stranger? You’ve been back for four years. Is Ningning really nothing more than Lu Yuning to you?”
His eyes fell on the scroll in Yuan’s arms, and an inexplicable anger flared. He snatched it and flung it into the water, scolding, “What painting could be so important that you wouldn’t even help your own brother?”
Caught off guard, Lu Yuan watched his father take the scroll from him. The painting he’d spent months restoring was soaked through. He stepped into the pond without hesitation and retrieved it, but it was already too late.
Most of it was ruined. In the end, he hadn’t managed the one thing he could do for his mother.
“You’re narrow-minded and selfish. Ningning has yielded to you over and over, never once trying to compete with you for anything, and you keep hurting him again and again…”
Lu Zhengqing let out everything he’d held back over the years.
Lu Yuan looked up at him, dazed and bewildered. Only after a moment did he react, and then his heart began to ache as if it were being scraped by a knife.
So this was how they saw him?
He’d only wanted to take back what was his. Was that wrong, too?
But he couldn’t find the words to explain.
How could he tell them that he’d never cared about the Lu family’s money or status? Would they even believe him?
Lu Yuan turned to Lu Wangbei.
Unlike Lu Zhengqing’s imposing authority, Lu Wangbei had always supported him like an older brother.
But this time, the look in Wangbei’s eyes was so unfamiliar, as if they’d never known each other. He stared coldly at Yuan. “I thought if I indulged you, you’d learn to behave and treat Ningning better.”
“A leopard can’t change its spots. Secretary Du said you went to the company a few days ago. Did you find out about Ningning’s heart surgery from him? Were you trying to make him miss the transplant he’d waited so long for?”
“Do you have to be the death of everyone close to me?”
“Brother…” Lu Yuan looked at the stranger before him, Lu Wangbei. What surgery? He had no idea. He hadn’t even been to the company.
Before he could finish, Lu Wangbei’s face twisted with a loathing Yuan had never seen before. “Don’t call me that. I don’t deserve to be your brother…”
He paused, as if he’d had enough of something he despised. There was even a hint of relief in Lu Wangbei’s eyes. He gave a short, cold laugh, then looked at Lu Yuan and said each word distinctly. “Was killing Mom not enough for you?”
Lu Yuan stopped in his tracks. His amber eyes widened in disbelief as he looked at his brother.
Killed Mom?
Lu Wangbei’s voice was calm, but utterly cold. “If she hadn’t been giving birth to you, how could Mom have had such a hard labor? If you hadn’t been so willful and run off, how would she have died so young?” From the moment he could remember, Lu Wangbei had never liked this younger brother. After giving birth to him, their mother’s health had declined. Yuan had been willful and pampered, domineering and unreasonable at home.
It wasn’t the first time he’d sneaked off to play in the water without telling the adults. Whenever he went out secretly, it was always his older brother who got scolded.
Every time they found him, they repeated the same warning: never go play in the water alone. A thousand times, and it never did any good.
Lu Wangbei clearly remembered that it had been his birthday. He’d made plans with his friends, but Lu Yuan had insisted on going to the park. Wangbei had had no choice but to give in and go with Yuan and their mother to the park by the riverbank.
He even remembered that there had been railings and warning signs at the stretch of water where Yuan and their mother had met with disaster. But how could a spoiled child like Lu Yuan ever listen to the adults? In the end, Yuan’s selfishness had destroyed their family.
And from that day on, Lu Wangbei had never celebrated another birthday.
Lu Yuan had gone missing, and everyone thought he’d drowned. Only their mother refused to believe it. During the days they searched the river, she grew more haggard by the day.
Later, someone downstream said they’d seen him. They even showed them his jade Buddha pendant and swore that someone had rescued the child. Their mother began searching frantically all over again.
Before Ningning came, the memories of his mother lying bedridden in her room, her face growing thinner and more tired by the day, and his father with his brow furrowed almost constantly, all the dark, suffocating memories of his childhood flooded Lu Wangbei’s mind.
The whole family’s tragedy had come from this younger brother.
Through the long years of growing up, Lu Wangbei had often wondered:
Why hadn’t Lu Yuan simply drowned?
If he hadn’t had this brother, Ningning would have been his brother. Their family would have been different.
After Lu Wangbei finished speaking, a stunned silence fell over them.
It wasn’t the awkward silence of people unsure how to respond. It was more like the unspoken admission that followed the shattering of a tacit, hypocritical understanding.
Only after a long while did Lu Zhengqing manage a quiet rebuke, barely even a scolding. “Wangbei.”
That one simple word said everything.
So that was it.
Lu Yuan suddenly curved his lips into a smile. Looking at his blood relatives, he finally understood what had troubled him for so long. Why they loved Lu Yuning more than him.
He’d thought he wasn’t good enough, that he’d disappointed them too much.
But all along, they’d blamed him. They’d never loved him. And if they’d never loved him, how could anyone have taken their love away?
But they’d been the ones to bring him back to the Lu family. He hadn’t begged them to take him in.
If they hadn’t wanted him, why bring him back? Why keep up this sham for four years, giving him hope when there was none? He wasn’t someone who couldn’t survive without love. He’d lived that way for ten years. If they’d only told him plainly, he wouldn’t have clung to them.
“What’s this?” Perhaps the atmosphere had grown too awkward. Lu Yuning fished a soaked sheet of paper from the pond and tried to change the subject, cutting through the silence. “This is… signet-ring cell carcinoma of the stomach… multiple distant metastases…” He read the words uncertainly. The report was soaked, and there wasn’t much he could make out. He couldn’t tell what kind of report it was.
“Whose is this?” Lu Yuning assumed a staff member had dropped it. His eyes filled with concern for some stranger he didn’t know. But then he looked at Lu Yuan and thought of a possibility, his eyes widening.
Before he could say anything, Lu Wangbei lightly plucked the paper from Lu Yuning’s hand and tossed it to the ground. “Be good, Ningning. Don’t touch dirty things,” he said with disgust.
“But…” Lu Yuning started to say.
Following Lu Yuning’s gaze, Lu Wangbei gave Lu Yuan an almost cruel once-over, then sneered. “What? Could it be Lu Yuan’s?” He paused, then said coldly, “What new trick have you come up with now? Pretending to be sick?”
“Brother…” Before Lu Wangbei could finish, Lu Yuning tugged on his sleeve to stop him. He looked at Lu Yuan with concern. “Second Brother…” Second Brother hadn’t seemed well just moments ago.
Lu Yuan raised his eyes to the three members of the Lu family.
He’d thought he would be in pain, but at that moment all he felt was a faint weariness.
He lowered his eyes to the report beneath Lu Wangbei’s foot. If anything, he gave a laugh. The gloom in his expression had lifted. Raising his eyes, he said coolly, as if it had nothing to do with him, “It isn’t.”
He didn’t even want to say anything more.
He turned and left. The abrupt movement caught Lu Wangbei off guard.
Lu Yuan should have charged at him and thrown a punch, then carried on making a scene. And with his mask of the loving older brother already torn off, Wangbei could finally have let out the most vicious thoughts he’d buried inside for years.
But Lu Yuan did nothing.
Just then, even the look he gave Wangbei was frighteningly unfamiliar. It was as if the light in his pale brown eyes had gone out.
An indescribable pain suddenly rose in Lu Wangbei’s chest, a wrenching, bitter ache.
He turned instinctively to look at his father, but Lu Zhengqing was staring blankly at Yuan’s retreating figure, too. Without thinking, he fell back on the authority he usually wielded and shouted, “Lu Yuan, stop right there!”
But Lu Yuan seemed not to hear him.
“If you leave the Lu family today, don’t ever come back!”
Lu Yuan didn’t so much as pause. He disappeared from view.
Lu Yuan had thought he’d be able to make it home.
But he passed out at the foot of the mountain. A kind stranger whose name he never learned took him to the hospital.
He didn’t have much time left, but there was still enough to settle a few things before he died, like finding someone to adopt the little orange cat.
For some reason, his condition worsened quickly.
During those final days, the nurse overseeing his organ donation asked him again and again whether, when the end came, he wanted her to find his family so they could be by his side.
On the television in his hospital room, the news played on a loop. At the opening ceremony of the exhibition by Lu Yuning, a rising star in traditional Chinese painting, a family of three stood together, happy and smiling.
Lu Yuan used the last of his strength to shake his head.
They despised him, so he’d leave them behind.
In the darkness before his eyes, he vaguely saw a gentle woman waving to him, dressed in a white qipao, just like the woman in the painting.
A faint smile touched his lips. He thought, my real family is waiting for me.