After successfully shutting down the “villain” and leaving him speechless, Zhou Zhuoyuan savored a brief moment of satisfaction. He glanced at Lin Boxu, who looked utterly wretched after his surgery, and said in a tone soured by guilt-by-association—though he held back from saying anything too harsh—”I’m heading back.”
This time, Lin Boxu didn’t try to stop him. Perhaps the earlier argument had left him feeling uncomfortable and caught between a rock and a hard place.
But the next day at noon, during the brief window Zhou Zhuoyuan allowed for calls, Lin Boxu lay in his hospital bed and video-called him again.
Once the anesthesia had worn off, the pain from his fracture was excruciating. Sweat beaded on Lin Boxu’s forehead, and even as he forced a smile, his brows knitted involuntarily. “Little Yuan, you free this afternoon?”
Seeing him in that state, Zhou Zhuoyuan closed his half-finished workbook. “Yeah. What’s up?”
“Can you come visit me?” Lin Boxu asked. “Mom and Dad aren’t here, and there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
Zhou Zhuoyuan nearly asked why they couldn’t just talk over the phone, but then he realized it was probably an excuse. Lin Boxu’s fair-weather friends had all vanished when he needed them most, so it was only natural for him to feel lonely, suffering alone in the hospital after his injury.
“Alright,” he said. “But I can’t stay long.”
Lin Boxu’s room was a three-bed ward, but he was lucky—the other two beds stood empty. He’d claimed the one farthest inside, where he sat munching on a fruit platter with loud crunches. When Zhou Zhuoyuan walked in, he waved him over enthusiastically. “Come sit. Have some fruit.”
Zhou Zhuoyuan had no appetite. “Did your boss compensate you?”
Lin Boxu had never harbored grand ambitions. He’d only taken the job because his brother calling him a beggar had stung his fragile pride. “He did. Guess that means I’m getting paid to lie around for a while.”
Zhou Zhuoyuan eyed the leg swathed in plaster. “How long did the doctor say until you can walk normally?”
“Three to six months, probably.”
Three months.
So in his previous life, Lin Boxu had never gone through anything like this.
Zhou Zhuoyuan’s fingers curled slightly. “Does it hurt?”
Oblivious to the undercurrent, Lin Boxu popped a chunk of apple into his mouth with casual gusto. “Hell yeah, it hurts. Back then, I was in so much agony I thought I’d lose my mind. But it’s manageable now. Trading that for a few months of vacation? Totally worth it.”
“Will you hate me?”
Zhou Zhuoyuan’s voice was so soft Lin Boxu almost thought he’d imagined it. He froze for a moment, then flashed a toothy grin at his downcast brother. “Of course I hate you. If you hadn’t called me a beggar, how the hell would I have ended up like this?”
Zhou Zhuoyuan’s defenses snapped up in an instant. “I didn’t force you to get a job! And it sure wasn’t me who told you to break the safety rules!”
Lin Boxu reached out with his sticky hand and ruffled his hair. “Exactly. So quit beating yourself up over it. Never pegged you for having such a guilty conscience.”
Zhou Zhuoyuan bristled. “Your hand’s covered in fruit juice—don’t touch me!”
Seeing that he hadn’t denied feeling guilty, Lin Boxu sighed and spoke with earnest gravity. “If I’d kept goofing off out there without working, I could’ve gotten hurt in a fight or wiped out on a motorcycle. Accidents happen, you know? You can’t let them trap you.”
There was no way Zhou Zhuoyuan could explain that without his meddling, Lin Boxu never would have endured this kind of suffering.
The old air conditioner in the room hummed steadily, dutifully blowing warm air for the patients.
Zhou Zhuoyuan had already unwound his scarf and folded it neatly on his lap. He stared at it for a moment before asking abruptly, “Lin Boxu, why are you so good to me?”
Why rush to brew medicine for him under knifepoint? Why help him flee after learning he’d caused Zhou Zhuoyi’s death? Why send him money every month even after the debt was paid off?
And why, with a broken leg of his own, was he the one offering comfort now?
Unaware of his thoughts, Lin Boxu followed his gaze to the scarf and shifted awkwardly. “It’s not that big a deal. Can’t hold a candle to what the Zhou Family can give you.”
That brought him to the real reason he’d summoned Zhou Zhuoyuan. “Little Yuan, there’s something I need to tell you.”
Zhou Zhuoyuan hadn’t expected it to be anything serious. He looked up, puzzled.
Lin Boxu grew solemn. “Mom and Dad favor me not because of some switched-at-birth mix-up, but because they mistakenly thought you were Mom’s illegitimate child.”
It turned out that a year before Zhou Zhuoyi was born, Lin Decai had cheated during their marriage. The mistress showed up at their door, infuriating Jiang Yueyi until she fainted on the spot. When she came to, she demanded a divorce from Lin Decai.
Lin Decai refused, and with the mandatory cooling-off period in place, Jiang Yueyi had no choice but to move out and live separately. Smarting from the humiliation, she took up with a young guy out of spite—but he turned out to be a scumbag too, ditching her after less than two months.
Deceived in both body and heart, Jiang Yueyi was heartbroken. Right then, Lin Decai showed up begging for forgiveness, kneeling on the ground and slapping his own face.
Jiang Yueyi told Lin Decai about everything that had happened to her over the past month or so. Lin Decai said he didn’t mind at all, and the two of them enjoyed a sweet and affectionate time together. Soon after, Jiang Yueyi was found to be pregnant.
Jiang Yueyi’s health wasn’t good, and the doctor told them that aborting the child would carry significant risks. The timing of the pregnancy coincided with when the young man had run off, as well as the period when Jiang Yueyi and Lin Decai were reconciling. Since Lin Decai was the one at fault first, he magnanimously said they should have the child.
Zhou Zhuoyi was indeed their child, but Zhou Zhuoyuan was not.
Not long after the two boys were born, Lin Decai and Zhou Zhuoyuan did a paternity test, which concluded that Zhou Zhuoyuan was the son of that runaway scumbag. As a result, “mother” Jiang Yueyi ended up disliking him as well.
But because her conscience hadn’t been entirely extinguished, she awkwardly raised the child anyway, which ended up raising a deeply resentful Zhou Zhuoyuan full of bitterness and hatred.
“Grandpa told me that you’re Mom’s illegitimate child, and everything in the family should belong to me.”
It turned out it had all been one big misunderstanding.
He and Zhou Zhuoyuan had spent almost every day together for fifteen years. Although their relationship was terrible, the thought of Zhou Zhuoyuan never coming back made Lin Boxu’s heart feel like it was shrinking in pain. So he lashed out at his family, refusing to allow Zhou Zhuoyuan to go off and live a good life.
But Zhou Zhuoyuan unhesitatingly chose the Zhou Family and left the Lin Family’s den of dragons and tigers.
At the time, Lin Boxu felt resentful. He was too self-centered, believing that even if the Lin Family had treated Zhou Zhuoyuan poorly, Zhou Zhuoyuan shouldn’t have been so cold and heartless, showing no attachment at all. So Lin Boxu would often go to Zhou Zhuoyuan demanding money. But the Zhou Zhuoyuan who had returned to the Zhou Family had become even tougher, and Lin Boxu couldn’t do anything about him.
Unable to borrow money, Lin Boxu still persisted in harassing Zhou Zhuoyuan every so often. At first, he thought he was doing it out of boredom and to punish his cold-blooded younger brother.
Later, he realized it was because he missed him.
He wanted to see Zhou Zhuoyuan, just to chat simply, like normal brothers.
So in the end, Lin Boxu resisted the temptation of hundreds of thousands and sought reconciliation with his cold-blooded younger brother. And for some reason, Zhou Zhuoyuan miraculously softened, preventing Lin Boxu’s planned prolonged battle from ever taking place.
After recounting all this, Lin Boxu took a deep breath. “Little Yuan, I’m truly sorry.”
During the time when he took Zhou Zhuoyuan’s hundreds of thousands, Lin Boxu had secretly read Zhou Zhuoyuan’s diary. The entries weren’t numerous—only written when he was particularly happy or especially upset. There were ten entries cursing Lin Decai and Jiang Yueyi, and twenty-eight cursing Lin Boxu. Only three didn’t curse anyone.
Lin Boxu remembered one entry especially clearly: “Today, the teacher helped me get my money back, and I bought a new backpack! So happy—it’s exactly the same as the one big brother Liu Wenhao gave him. I really envy Liu Wenhao. How great would it be if his brother were my brother? Why can’t I have a gentle brother who treats me well?”
The usually sharp-tongued Zhou Zhuoyuan, who was like a prickly hedgehog, had quietly bared his soft underbelly in the diary after a brief moment of happiness, writing down his childlike hopes and confusions like any elementary schooler.
Habits are a terrifying thing. After fifteen years in the Lin Family, it was impossible for Zhou Zhuoyuan to have felt no attachment at all—only when the hurt far outweighed the reluctance could he act so utterly detached.
Lin Boxu would forever owe Lin Yuan an apology.
“Does that mean I deserved to be so unlucky?” Zhou Zhuoyuan stared at him, forcing out a bitter smile. “Lin Boxu, did I deserve to be so unlucky?”
The smile was very bitter, yet it held no malice or sadness. It was as if Zhou Zhuoyuan had suddenly found release.
It turned out they weren’t inhuman “villains” after all—every bad thing they did had its reasons.
Zhou Zhuoyuan wasn’t born unlikable either; he was just too unlucky, becoming the most reviled figure in this melodramatic saga.
He shouldn’t be trapped by that accident.
–
“What were you up to this afternoon? How did your hair end up like that?” Zhou Zhuoli, impeccably dressed, had a hard time accepting how disheveled Zhou Zhuoyuan looked.
Zhou Zhuoyuan scowled. “Nothing. Stop nagging.”
His hair, sticky with fruit juice, had clumped into chunks, and a few of those chunks had even been messed up into spikes by Lin Boxu. By the time Zhou Zhuoyuan got back, it was already dinnertime, and he hadn’t had a chance to fix it.
“Hey, let me wipe that for you.” Zhou Zhuoli pulled out a wet wipe and walked behind Zhou Zhuoyuan to tidy his hair.
Zhou Zhuoyuan was eating his dinner and was too lazy to argue with this neat freak, so he let him do it.
He Qinglan sent him a funny video along with a message saying “Hahaha.” Zhou Zhuoyuan clicked it open but didn’t find it amusing—maybe He Qinglan’s sense of humor was just low. Still, he graciously replied with “Hahaha.”
Zhou Zhuoli finished up, went back to his seat, and sat down. “I knew you were chatting with that competition boyfriend of yours.”
What nonsense—he hadn’t even had time to reply to He Qinglan all afternoon.
Zhou Zhuoli had already grown accustomed to his indifference. “Does the winter vacation start right after the Final Joint Exam? Do you have a lot of things to bring home?”
Zhou Zhuoyuan’s movements while eating paused. During the winter vacation, the school wouldn’t be open, and Zhu Wan wouldn’t possibly let him stay out during the New Year period.
“I want to go traveling for a few days first.”
Recalling the situation from last time, Zhou Zhuoli vaguely realized that he was unwilling to go home. “How many days exactly? When will you come back?”
Seeing that he wasn’t opposing the idea, Zhou Zhuoyuan breathed a sigh of relief. “Until one or two days before the New Year.”
He also wanted to head to the Northern Small City to try his luck and find those neighbors who had taken such good care of him back in the day.
A hint of disapproval crept into Zhou Zhuoli’s tone. “That long? Are you planning to go with that Competition Boyfriend of yours?”
In fact, Zhou Zhuoyuan hadn’t even asked He Qinglan yet, but that didn’t stop him from answering without a shred of guilt. “Yeah.”
After all, they had no idea whether he actually had anyone accompanying him.
Zhou Zhuoli pondered for a moment. “Alright, I’ll go back tonight and talk to Mom and Dad about it, but I can’t guarantee they’ll agree.”
His attitude was utterly sincere, affording this sparse, straggly little tree that was Zhou Zhuoyuan the utmost respect.
Only then did Zhou Zhuoyuan look at him in surprise. “Uh, thanks.”
