Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Following the lead of the bullet comments, I looked at Jiang Yilin beside me.

He truly had a clean-even beautiful-exterior.

It was easy for people to assume that his inner self was just as pure and simple as his looks.

But when I thought about how he relentlessly cornered my brother in the original plotline, I subconsciously frowned.

A piece of chalk suddenly landed on my desk.

Then came the teacher’s voice: “Huo Zhiyan, stop staring at your seatmate.”

He added, “Focus on the blackboard.”

A wave of muffled laughter broke out in the classroom.

They were likely all mocking my obsession with Jiang Yilin.

Even the bullet comments started calling me shameless and desperate.

I calmly looked away.

I didn’t notice Jiang Yilin’s hand twitch slightly on the desk.

That evening, before the night self-study session, I received a message from my brother.

After being away on a business trip for over half a month, he had finally returned today.

He said he had already requested a leave of absence for me and was waiting at the school gate.

Seeing his message, I couldn’t help but flash my most genuine smile in two weeks.

I quickly packed my bag to leave.

When I looked up, I unexpectedly met Jiang Yilin’s expressionless gaze. He was staring at me.

There was a hint of scrutiny in his eyes, but by the time I looked over, it had already vanished.

I slowly let the smile fade from my face.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“I need to get out,” Jiang Yilin said to me.

This was the first sentence he had spoken to me in the two years I’d known him.

His tone was low and his voice was cold.

I realized I was sitting on the aisle side and immediately stood up to give him room to pass.

I found my brother leaning against his car at the school gate.

The moment we met, he habitually took my backpack from me.

“Brother, you’ve been away for so long. Did you meet any pretty ladies you liked?”

“How did I hear that you skipped a grade and moved up to the second year of high school?”

As soon as we met, our questions collided.

I obediently answered my brother first. “Studying is easy. Skipping a grade is also easy.”

As soon as I finished, my brother lightly tapped my forehead.

My nonchalant explanation could fool anyone, but it couldn’t fool him.

After all, I was the one who stayed up every night studying until three in the morning, and he was the only one who knew.

He knit his brows slightly and asked, “Why exactly? Why the rush?”

He said, “I’ve never placed any demands on your academic performance.”

I rubbed my forehead and used the excuse I had prepared in advance. “I started school a year late anyway, so my previous classmates were all younger than me.”

I added, “I’m vain, too. I wanted to hear people praise me as a grade-skipping little genius.”

My brother’s brow didn’t relax; he still looked at me skeptically.

He wasn’t that easy to brush off.

I tugged at his sleeve. “So, Brother, did you actually meet any pretty ladies you liked on this trip?”

Using the momentum of me pulling his sleeve, my brother led me into the car.

“I’m not in the mood for that.” He was still resistant when it came to such matters.

My heart sank heavily.

That night, my brother stayed with me as I blew out the candles on my sixteenth birthday cake.

Under the flickering light, the gaze from my brother’s cool, arrogant face was exceptionally gentle as he looked at me.

I looked back at him for a long time.

Our mother had passed away early, and my father had never bothered with me.

My brother was the sole vessel for all my feelings of family.

Of course I couldn’t bear to lose him.

I closed my eyes and made a wish before the candlelight-

I must help my brother avoid his destined dead end.

Sixteenth birthday, twenty-sixth birthday, thirty-sixth birthday…

I want my brother to be there to celebrate every one of them with me.