My Brother Was the Impostor All Along - Chapter 2

Yan Jingyao’s face fell.

“Chen Chengxi, what are you trying to say? You’re so desperate to stay that you’ll accuse anyone?”

He leaped up and pointed at me.

“You impostor! You’ve squatted in someone else’s nest for sixteen years. Get out and make room for my real sister!”

“Sixteen?” Yan Zhaozhao blinked. “But I’m eighteen.”

The air went still. Yan Jingyao froze, utterly dumbstruck.

Zhaozhao was small and thin. She looked fifteen or sixteen at most, so everyone had simply assumed she and I were the ones who had been switched.

But the moment she entered, I had noticed the bun at the side of her head.

In Great Yan, girls who had come of age usually wore two hanging braids. The side bun was for women of eighteen and older.

Let’s review the facts. Yan Zhaozhao was eighteen, and she was the real daughter. I was sixteen. Yan Jingyao was eighteen. One of us was an impostor.

Who could it possibly be?

Yan Jingyao panicked.

“Zhaozhao, are you sure? You look so young! How can you be eighteen already? You must be counting by the traditional age system!”

She shook her head. “I was born in the Wuxu month of the Jiazi year. I’m eighteen. There’s no mistake.”

Mother and Father exchanged a glance. That was exactly when Yan Jingyao had been born.

His face drained of color. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead.

I ordered two cups of clean water.

“Zhaozhao’s blood has been tested. Mine and Yan Jingyao’s haven’t. Why don’t we find out?”

I pricked my finger and let a drop fall into the water. Yan Jingyao’s hand shook so badly that it took him ages to squeeze out a single drop.

Mother added a drop of her blood to my cup first. It spread and mingled with mine.

She exhaled, her eyes reddening.

Then she added a drop to Yan Jingyao’s cup.

It bobbed in the water, eventually settling on one side while his stayed on the other. The two remained distinct.

Their blood would not mingle. They were not mother and son.

Yan Jingyao staggered, barely keeping his feet.

I smiled and slapped him across the face.

“Go on. Bark again.”

“You’re the impostor who was switched at birth. Get out and make room for my real elder sister!”

Yan Jingyao clutched his cheek in disbelief.

“You dare hit me?”

I shook out my hand. “Why wouldn’t I? An impostor whose entire clan deserves execution is shouting at the princess’s daughter under her own roof. Shouldn’t I hit you?”

“You—!” His face reddened and his lips shook.

Father barked, “Chengxi! Use your words. What do you think you’re doing, raising your hand?”

“You’re quite right, Father.” I nodded obediently, then kicked Yan Jingyao squarely onto his backside. “An impostor only deserves my foot.”

As he toppled backward, Yan Zhaozhao instinctively reached to catch him. Then she stopped herself short and stepped aside.

He crashed into a vase, shattered it, and landed on the broken porcelain with a grimace of pain.

Mother couldn’t bear the sight. She hurried over to help him up.

“Chengxi!” Father slammed the table. “You’ve gone too far!”

I tilted my head at him.

“When Yan Jingyao was demanding my death a moment ago, you didn’t say a word. Now that he’s the one getting hurt, your heart aches? Which of us is actually your child?”

Father had no answer.

I left him to it, sidled up to Mother, and bumped Yan Jingyao aside with my hip.

“Mother, now that we’ve established the truth, let’s hand him over to the authorities. He said it himself: start with the impostor.”

Yan Jingyao went deathly pale.

Mother patted his back. “Don’t say such things, Chengxi. We raised your brother too—”

“I know you’re softhearted, Mother, but Father disagrees,” I cut in. “He said my sister is your flesh and blood. Keeping Yan Jingyao here would be rubbing salt into her wounds.”

I pulled Zhaozhao into Mother’s arms and nudged Yan Jingyao aside again.

“He stole her life. Making her look at him every day would only hurt her all over again, wouldn’t it?”

Father’s expression stiffened. He hadn’t expected his own words to come flying back at his precious son.

I had always known he worshipped anything with a penis. I hadn’t realized an impostor’s would do just as well. Apparently even a fake son outranked a real daughter.

Fine. Time to cut the problem off at the root.

I secretly pinched Zhaozhao. She caught on at once and began to cry.

“Mother, it isn’t that I can’t tolerate him. But for eighteen years, his parents beat and abused me while mine lavished love on him. I just don’t understand—who was all my suffering for?”

Mother broke into tears of remorse.

“Then Jingyao shall move out…”