SY - 49

Song Zhi called Song Luo, saying she would be home late today due to work. She told him not to bother picking her up.

“I have a driver, and I don’t know when I’ll finish, so you should rest first.”

Song Luo was still uneasy. He sat on the sofa until three in the morning, tried calling her but got no answer, and finally couldn’t hold back. He grabbed his coat and was about to head out.

Just then, there was a knock at the door.

He breathed a sigh of relief, went to open the door: “Why didn’t you answer my call? I thought something happened to you.”

Standing behind the door were Jiang Yanzhou, and Song Zhi, cradled in his arms.

After two seconds of silence, Song Luo frowned: “You’re truly a ‘brother’ from hell, aren’t you? Are you trying to solve my problems and take care of my sister?”

Jiang Yanzhou, carrying the sleeping Song Zhi, bypassed him, his tone flat: “I’m not solving your problems.”

Song Zhi’s room was at the very end. He used one hand to open the door and carried her inside.

After being separated for so long, this was Jiang Yanzhou’s first time in her room. There was her usual faint scent of roses.

When they were together before, Jiang Yanzhou loved to smell her. Every time he was exhausted after work, holding her made him feel no longer tired.

She talked a lot, sometimes even seeming a bit noisy, but Jiang Yanzhou never found her annoying.

He liked her chattering endlessly in his ear, and he also liked her telling him everything that happened in her life.

But later, she stopped talking about anything. She would still act spoiled while holding him, but it felt more like fulfilling a duty.

Only now did Jiang Yanzhou realize that his own coldness had destroyed her warmth.

He could only slowly make amends.

He felt that with some effort, he could also become the type Song Zhi liked.

Someone with a touch of life, humane, a living person.

After tucking her into bed, he stood by the bed and watched her for a long time.

Song Zhi was exceptionally quiet when asleep; she rarely even turned over.

When Jiang Yanzhou turned around, Song Luo was standing behind him, leaning against the doorframe.

He offered Jiang Yanzhou a cigarette: “Want to chat?”

Jiang Yanzhou didn’t refuse. He took the cigarette and went out with him.

They stood on the outdoor balcony. The CBD buildings in the distance were still lit up.

Song Luo lit his lighter. Jiang Yanzhou, with the cigarette in his mouth, leaned his head closer. The flame licked the end of the cigarette, and after a few flickers, it caught fire.

The two actually had many commonalities in certain aspects; otherwise, they wouldn’t have become friends.

In Song Luo’s view, Jiang Yanzhou merely looked obedient on the surface.

In reality, he was rebellious to the core.

He started smoking at fourteen, and although his addiction wasn’t heavy, it was enough to show his degree of rebellion.

Song Luo didn’t start until he was seventeen.

After flicking off the ash, he looked at Jiang Yanzhou: “What are your thoughts now?”

The latter turned to look at him: “About what?”

Song Luo said: “You and Song Zhi.”

Jiang Yanzhou was silent for a moment, then looked up at the night view in the distance.

Beicheng was big, but after looking at it for a long time, it was just... that.

He didn’t particularly like this city. Strictly speaking, he had no favorite place.

In old Chinese exams, when asked to write an essay about where he wanted to go when he grew up.

He handed in a blank paper, and that was the first time in his life he dropped from first place in the entire school to second; all fifty points for the essay were deducted.

Afterwards, his Chinese teacher asked him why he handed in a blank essay, and he only said: “I don’t have a specific place I want to go.”

The Chinese teacher said, frustrated: “You could have just written anything.”

But he didn’t want to.

He felt there was no need to lie about something so trivial.

Grades weren’t that important to him, actually.

He rarely found anything to be truly important. He didn’t care much for money or power.

But his life had long been planned out. No matter how much he didn’t care, he had no choice but to follow that path obediently.

Those prominent aristocratic families had many rules and placed particular importance on bloodlines.

“The family arranged a few blind dates for me,” Jiang Yanzhou said calmly, a cigarette between his fingers, as if narrating something unrelated to him. “Yesterday, they called several more times, asking me to make time to go back for a meal.”

Song Luo frowned: “Why are you telling me this?”

The wind was strong at night, and Jiang Yanzhou wasn’t wearing much. The car had the heater on, so he had taken off his coat, only noticing a slight chill after getting out.

But now he seemed to feel nothing: “Do you know why I left the Jiang family and founded Shenhuan?”

“To prove to your elders that you can still be successful without relying on the family?”

Jiang Yanzhou shook his head: “If I continued to live under the title of the Jiang family’s eldest grandson, my marriage and children would always have to consider the Jiang family’s interests. Even if I disregarded everything and married Zhizhi then, her life in the Jiang family wouldn’t be easy. With the contempt and cold stares from the elders, given her personality, how could she bear it?”

He said, “I can’t let her suffer even a little bit of injustice.”

Back then, he took a great risk, starting his own business. The initial period of the company’s establishment was the most grueling time in his life.

On average, he slept only one or two hours a day, personally negotiating all the large and small projects.

He traveled between two countries in a single day, sleeping only on planes.

The constant late nights took a toll on his body.

He fainted several times due to over-fatigue.

Even the doctor advised him to get enough sleep.

Throughout those years, Jiang Yanzhou lived like this, but he never complained to Song Zhi.

She had already experienced the greatest suffering in this world; she should always be happy.

Humans are indeed contradictory creatures. He wanted to give her the best, yet he deliberately neglected her.

Because he was afraid, afraid that she would suddenly tire of him one day, and leave him.

He didn’t quite understand relationships; Song Zhi was the first person he ever felt emotional for.

In front of her, his inferiority was magnified to the extreme.

He himself wasn’t a very likable person; it had always been like that since he was little.

It was only because his surname was Jiang that people often came to curry favor with him.

But behind his back, they all called him a mute: “Is it because you don’t have a mother, so no one taught you how to speak?”

He had forgotten who said that, but he only remembered that it was his first fight.

That person lost two teeth from the beating, but the next day, his mother led him to apologize.

After that incident, Jiang Yanzhou began to be isolated by everyone.

They said he bullied others by relying on his family’s money.

Facing these stigmas, Jiang Yanzhou never defended himself. He felt it didn’t matter.

He truly didn’t like to talk much. Perhaps it was his personality; his precocious intelligence prevented him from understanding the thoughts of his peers.

He always felt it was nothing, and being disliked wasn’t a bad thing; at least it brought him peace.

Until he met Song Zhi.

She was cheerful and confident, never lacking admirers.

Jiang Yanzhou learned for the first time that inferiority could make a person so loathsome.

He was annoyed by all those flies constantly buzzing around her.

Even later, he still believed that the person she liked was Qin He.

He himself might just be a dispensable pastime in her boring life.

But he was willing to be that pastime.

However, once it began, he would start to crave more. After he got her body, he began to fantasize about getting her heart.

But she always seemed to be rather flippant.

Jiang Yanzhou’s insecurity in relationships made him become anxious about gains and losses.

This anxiety, coupled with the pressure from his company, meant he even had to rely on medication to sleep during that period.

He took a deep drag from his cigarette, then extinguished the unburnt butt in the nearby ashtray, his voice a little hoarse: “I always thought she didn’t care about me, but later I realized she just wanted me to be a bit more relaxed.”

Wasn’t it Song Zhi who accompanied him through the most difficult times?

Making him happy, coaxing him to sleep.

She always had her own way of being kind to others. On the surface, she seemed flippant, but deep down, she was softer than anyone.

These were all things Jiang Yanzhou only realized after they broke up.

Such a high IQ, yet in matters of love, he was like an imbecile.

Song Luo didn’t know what had happened between them over the years. Song Zhi only ever reported good news, never bad, whenever she went to see him.

“I finally succeeded in losing weight. I lost eight pounds. You don’t know how scary that personal trainer is. Once, I ate a late-night snack and forgot to block her from my Moments, and the next day she made me do fifty more squats.”

“Your sister is a superstar now, the face of the group. Do you know what ‘face’ means? Country bumpkin, ‘face’ means the most beautiful person.”

“Grandma is doing well, and I’m doing well too. You be obedient in there. Don’t always think about fighting with others. Control your temper. I don’t want to suddenly receive news that your sentence has been extended.”

She was actually quite strong; Song Luo knew that since she was very little.

Every time he came home from a fight, he would be whipped by his father with a ruler and then punished to kneel in the yard.

To kneel all night, not allowed to get up.

Song Zhi would come out to bring him a late-night snack, not afraid of being seen by their parents.

When Song Luo asked, she said indifferently: “It’s fine. At worst, I’ll just kneel with you.”

She wasn’t very old then, just in elementary school, a little pink bundle.

Song Luo laughed: “Aren’t you scared?”

She said: “I am scared. Dad hits really hard, but I’m more afraid of not having a brother. What if you kneel for too long and die?”

Although the last sentence was a bit of a mood killer, Song Luo still found the little one quite cute.

He always hoped Song Zhi would find a boyfriend who would treat her well. Qin He was the most suitable candidate: family-oriented, gentle, and with a stable job.

Who knew that Jiang Yanzhou, that bastard, would get there first?

He asked Jiang Yanzhou: “Do you still want to be with her?”

Jiang Yanzhou clicked his tongue impatiently: “Have you been listening at all to everything I just said?”

Right, it’s that annoying face again.

Song Luo got angry as soon as he saw that annoying face: “You’re talking nonsense, how am I supposed to know what you’re trying to express?”

Jiang Yanzhou took out his wallet, pulled out a business card, and handed it to him.

Song Luo lowered his head to take it. The job title on the business card read “Principal of a certain primary school”: “Why are you giving me this?”

He put his wallet away and said indifferently: “This is a primary school I donated to a while ago. I can put in a good word for you with the principal there. When you have time, you can go back and retake first-grade Chinese.”

Song Luo was stunned for a long time before he reacted to the meaning of his words. He stepped forward and grabbed his collar: “Jiang Yanzhou, what the hell do you mean?”

Jiang Yanzhou’s expression didn’t change: “It means you’re an imbecile.”

“Damn it!”

“Let go.”

“I’m not letting go.”

“I won’t hit you, for the sake of you being my child’s uncle.”

“Who the hell is having a child with you, damn it.”

“There will be children in the future.”

Song Zhi was in a daze, feeling like something was making noise by her ear.

She opened her eyes, somewhat irritated, and sat up.

At this late hour, aren’t they letting people sleep?!

She wasn’t usually grumpy after waking up, but being woken up from a deep sleep was infuriating, especially after a long day.

She put on her slippers, opened the door, and through the French windows, saw the two ambiguous figures on the balcony.

Having just woken up, her brain, still in a state of confusion, briefly froze for a few seconds before she belatedly conjured up a tear-jerking drama.

The two of them had mutual feelings since their school days. To get close to the brother, he dated the sister, and everything would fall into place once the brother was released from prison.

Song Zhi hadn’t expected to be “cheated on” by her own brother.

The two, who were about to fight, heard the movement in the living room and both turned their heads.

They were met with Song Zhi’s meaningful expression.

Song Luo’s mind was slow and didn’t understand what that meant. Jiang Yanzhou pushed him away and entered the living room.

His tone was gentle, like a spring of water, so much so that listening to it for too long would make one drown.

“Did I wake you up?”

Song Zhi retorted: “What do you think?”

Jiang Yanzhou apologized to her: “I almost forgot you were still sleeping. I won’t bother you anymore; go back to rest.”

Song Zhi looked at Song Luo, who had just entered behind him: “Were you two just...?”

Song Luo snorted coldly: “This bastard actually told me to repeat first grade, and called me an imbecile, damn it.”

Song Zhi looked surprised. She hadn’t expected Jiang Yanzhou, that silent one, to have such a high level of verbal combat skill.

Jiang Yanzhou slightly lowered his eyelashes, his voice very soft: “I just thought that Song Luo has been in prison for so long, he might have forgotten some basic common knowledge. So I thought, since I just donated a few buildings to a primary school a few days ago, I could use this opportunity to let him go and learn a bit.”

“I think your suggestion is good,” Song Zhi said, looking at Song Luo. “He’s thinking of you in every way, and you’re distorting him like this.”

Song Luo looked incredulous: “I’m distorting... No, this bastard didn’t say that just now. Damn it, I really give up. His tone has completely changed.”

Song Zhi frowned in displeasure when she heard him curse: “Zhouzhou is doing it for your own good, and you’re still calling others bastards.”

Hearing Song Zhi’s affectionate term for him, Jiang Yanzhou subtly pursed his lips to hide his smile, then came forward understandingly to mediate: “It’s fine, I believe he didn’t mean it.”

Song Luo: “???”