Chapter 5: The Secret

“Ah—choo!” Dai Yi let out a heavy sneeze. “Someone must be talking behind my back.”

Dai Linxuan had just gotten home and was changing shoes at the entrance. Without turning around, he said, “It’s so late—why aren’t you asleep yet?”

“Watching some TV.” Dai Yi sat on the sofa, popping a grape into her mouth. “I thought you went to pick up Lai Li.”

Dai Linxuan headed toward the stairs. “He has military training tomorrow.”

“He’ll actually follow the military training rules obediently?” Dai Yi sounded surprised. Dai Linxuan chuckled but said nothing. After he had climbed a few steps, Dai Yi suddenly spoke up again. “I saw the suitcase in your room.”

Dai Linxuan paused midway up the stairs and turned his head to look down at the figure on the sofa.

Dai Yi stared at the TV and asked, “Lai Li’s living on campus now, so is Big Brother moving out too?”

Dai Linxuan explained, “The house is too far from the company. It’s inconvenient.”

A hint of nostalgia crept into Dai Yi’s tone. “When Lai Li first came to our house, you were juggling school and rotations at the company while dealing with how clingy he was… Even then, you lived at home every day and never complained about the inconvenience.”

Dai Linxuan gripped the handrail. “That’s why I could only sleep three or four hours a day back then—no naps either. Way more grueling than your high school life with Lai Li.”

Dai Yi asked, “So now you don’t want that kind of hardship anymore?”

Dai Linxuan climbed another step toward the second floor. “Of course it’s better to have it easier.”

“Big Brother, can’t we be like we used to?” Dai Yi’s words suddenly sped up. “Mom, you, me, and Lai Li—just like before—”

Dai Linxuan slowly tugged at his collar, his voice as mild as ever. “What’s different now from before?”

“You know exactly what. Everyone’s changed… gotten really weird.” Dai Yi murmured, “Forget it.”

Dai Linxuan didn’t catch that. He grasped the bedroom doorknob, about to go in.

“Congratulations, Big Brother.” Dai Yi’s voice rang out again, echoing faintly in the high-ceilinged living room. “You’re about to become a group director.”

Dai Linxuan neither confirmed nor denied it. “Congratulations to you too.”

Dai Yi was the same age as Lai Li, just a few months younger. Her grades weren’t much worse than Dai Linxuan’s. At eighteen or nineteen, she had juggled her studies with an internship at the group foundation, always saying she wanted to become its director one day—she loved charity work. But over a year ago, she suddenly changed course and started rotating through executive positions at headquarters.

Dai Linxuan, on the other hand, had done grassroots rotations before graduation and chosen to start his own business afterward. Only now was he returning.

The twists in their shifts in mindset were hard to put into words.

Still, Dai Linxuan’s congratulations felt abrupt, and rotations didn’t mean much anyway. Dai Yi didn’t ask about it and instead posed an unrelated question. “Big Brother, what was your childhood dream?”

“To be a doctor.” During the college entrance exam volunteer form that year, Dai Linxuan had nearly chosen a medical major.

“That suits your personality.” Dai Yi turned around, kneeling on the sofa and looking up. From this angle, she could only see a figure standing on the second floor, his expression unclear. “Do you know what my dream was? Teachers assigned that kind of essay topic so many times in elementary school, and I always wrote that my dream was to maintain the status quo. After all, I could have anything anyone else wanted just for the taking. Nothing to wish for.

“Pretty naive, right?

“Only in the last two years did I realize it really was naive. Maintaining the status quo isn’t easy at all. It requires fighting for it, grabbing it—power and wealth to encompass everything, or else you can’t hold onto what’s slipping away.”

There was a long silence from upstairs. If not for the shadow still visible, Dai Yi might have thought Dai Linxuan had already gone into his room. After a while, a voice finally came from above. “I wish you every success.”

Dai Yi smiled brightly. “Thanks, Big Brother.”

With a soft bang, it meant Dai Linxuan had returned to his room.

Dai Yi turned off the TV, sat in the luxurious, quiet living room for a bit, then got up and went back to her room.

She took a shower, dried off, tossed the towel onto the carpet, and stepped on it while checking the latest messages on her phone.

【Get Lost and Bark】: You there?

【Eighth of the Month’s Thirteenth】: What?

【Get Lost and Bark】: Lend me some money.

Lai Li asking her for money—it was a rare oddity.

She immediately screenshotted it and sent it to Dai Linxuan.

【Eighth of the Month’s Thirteenth】: Are you fed up with Lai Li and don’t want to support him anymore?

【Xuan】: How much?

A new message popped up at the top of the screen—Lai Li was asking him for fifty thousand.

【Eighth of the Month’s Thirteenth】: You need to borrow fifty thousand from me? What did you do, gamble it all away? Get scammed by fair-weather friends? Ski resort went bankrupt? On drugs?

【Get Lost and Bark】: Lending or not? If yes, transfer to this bank card.

Lai Li sent a card number and a strange name—Song Zichu.

Who was that?

No one by that name in their circle.

Logically, Lai Li shouldn’t be short fifty thousand. Dai Linxuan’s generosity toward him went beyond just cleaning up his messes. Financially, Lai Li was better off than most rich kids in Danshi. Even if he fell out with Dai Linxuan someday, he could keep three or four little lovers in luxury for life.

Dai Yi pondered for a long time and reached a conclusion—

Lai Li was in love.

Lai Li wasn’t some saint; helping others for fun was a joke to him.

This mystery girlfriend must be struggling financially, and Lai Li didn’t want to reveal his wealth and make her feel inferior, so he pretended to borrow from a friend to help her.

Very reasonable.

So Dai Yi transferred the money and then screenshotted it to Dai Linxuan, a bit gleeful.

【Eighth of the Month’s Thirteenth】: College really changes people. Lai Li actually swallowed his pride to borrow from me for someone else.

Dai Yi and Lai Li’s relationship had been icy for the past two years. Before the birthday banquet, they hadn’t spoken in at least three months.

Dai Linxuan didn’t reply, but Lai Li sent, “Thanks, pay you back in a couple years.”

Dai Yi flopped onto the bed, laughing even harder.

Lai Li actually thanked her. How fun.

–

“Is being late every day fun!?” the instructor barked. “How many times now? Drop and give me a hundred push-ups over there!”

Gasps rippled through the ranks.

Even at their most hot-blooded age, a hundred push-ups could be killer, especially with the sun beating down on them.

The one punished showed no reaction, sauntering out of the shade into the blazing sun. The loose military training uniform looked roguish and arrogant on Lai Li.

“Fine.” Lai Li shrugged off his jacket onto his shoulder and glanced at the assistant instructor nearby. “After I do a hundred, your assistant can piss off. Don’t let him hover around me.”

Each class had two instructors for training: the head one was a professional hired by the school, the assistant a senior student.

By coincidence, this senior was someone Lai Li knew—one of He Shuxin’s lackeys: Tang Yuanyang.

In the five days of training so far, Tang Yuanyang had nitpicked him almost daily.

The head instructor’s face darkened. “If you can crank out a hundred in one go, the whole group gets an hour off in the shade this afternoon. Assistant gets the day off—you won’t see him!”

“Won’t that just make him happy?” Lai Li wore a ring today. He took it off, held it to his mouth, and nodded toward a lounge chair nearby. “I do mine straight through, he trains in my place, and I take the break there.”

“Deal. Fail, and you run five laps around the field alone.” The head instructor said coldly.

Tang Yuanyang tensed. If he really had to train for Lai Li, he’d lose face big time—school forums would eat it up that night. But a hundred push-ups straight… He relaxed a bit, waiting for Lai Li to embarrass himself.

Cheers erupted from nearby squads—

“Damn, Lai Li! Go for it! The whole class’s happiness is riding on you!”

“Finish it and I’ll call you Daddy!”

“I’ll bring you breakfast for a week!”

Lai Li bit down on the ring and dropped into position on the scorching ground.

September’s weather was extreme: cool mornings and evenings, deadly hot afternoons. The worst part was right after lunch, with food still settling.

Song Zichu stood in the ranks too, more worried than the others. Last Saturday morning, he’d borrowed fifty thousand from Lai Li, so he was naturally more tuned in.

Lai Li had been skipping dorm checks and barely staying lately. He seemed to know that assistant instructor—they’d clashed multiple times, nearly fighting yesterday.

“One!”

“Two!”

“Three!”

Classmates counted in unison; even the instructors didn’t stop them. Youthful bravado was infectious. Lai Li was good-looking with a solid build, especially past the halfway mark when his tucked-in shirt rode up with his muscles, revealing a sliver of lean, taut waist.

Those who noticed whistled.

Song Zichu’s spot gave him a tricky view: he vaguely spotted two crossed scars above Lai Li’s lower back, made gruesome by the flexing muscles.

Past the one-third mark, fine sweat beaded on Lai Li’s forehead, gathering into fat drops that rolled down his high nose bridge and dripped onto the ring in his mouth, sparkling crystal clear.

“Ninety-eight!”

“Ninety-nine!”

Drip—

The sweat hit the ground just as Lai Li finished the last one.

“Fuck yeah, Lai Li!!!”

Not only did Lai Li complete them all in one go, but every form was perfect. The instructors, classmates, and even Tang Yuanyang hadn’t expected it. Before Lai Li clashed with He Shuxin, Tang Yuanyang used to hang out with him and knew he was a good fighter—but not that his stamina was this insane.

Tang Yuanyang’s face fell. He glanced at the head instructor.

The instructor’s attitude softened. He extended a hand to Lai Li. “Not bad.”

Lai Li ignored it and stood on his own. He slipped the ring back onto his middle finger and said curtly, “Germaphobe.”

“…” A germaphobe doing push-ups on the concrete?

“A man of his word, Instructor.” Lai Li waved backward and flipped off the sullen Tang Yuanyang as he passed.

It had been ages since he’d worked out like that—his heart raced. Lai Li lay on the chair in the shade, draped his jacket over his face, and dozed off.

Opening season was always the noisiest time on campus, training chants mixing with basketball thuds, speeding up his heartbeat.

His sleep wasn’t deep, but he still dreamed.

Twelve years ago, Danshi’s West Bank District’s largest slum hadn’t been razed for high-rises yet. It was rundown and chaotic—kick a bubble noodle cup on the street and it might spill shit; alleys teemed with cheap streetwalkers, the air thick with residents’ normalized piss stench. Cramped buildings hid fugitives in any random room.

The government wanted to fix this blight and put it out to tender, but few companies bit. Somehow, it ended up with the Dai Family.

That year, Dai Enhao’s car accident left him a vegetable. Jiang Qiujun took the helm, needing a flashy project to solidify her position in the group. No one expected her to pick the West Bank slum.

That was why everyone thought the Dai couple was just kind-hearted in adopting Lai Li.

But it wasn’t like that.

That year, it wasn’t just Jiang Qiujun who entered the slums—eighteen-year-old Dai Linxuan did too.

The golden boy smashed the lock on one of the slum’s countless shacks, stepped inside with sunlight, into the rot-stinking ruin, and cradled a dying, ugly shell back to the clouds.

From then on, Lai Li’s life flipped irreversibly. From sewer cockroach to prized jade leaf—no one could replicate it.

Lai Li and Dai Linxuan’s meeting was originally a secret.

For the first few years, Dai Linxuan made him keep quiet. Later, it evolved into a casual, “Doesn’t matter if it’s out—who cares? Big Brother will support you forever.”

The Dai Linxuan Lai Li knew was noble and gentle, dreamlike perfection—like a museum’s finest piece. Even angry, he was restrained and polite, always composed. He soared to the peaks and waded the mud, never against his conscience.

The only flaw was having a brother like Lai Li.

But so what?

Lai Li was Lai Li, Dai Linxuan was Dai Linxuan. No matter Lai Li’s stains, to Dai Linxuan, they were separate—behind display glass, unable to taint the exhibit.

Splash—

Lai Li abruptly opened his eyes, meeting Song Zichu’s gaze. The other man was holding his jacket.

“Sorry, I scared you,” Song Zichu immediately apologized. “There was a bug on your clothes.”

It was already very late. Only a few scattered people remained around them. The iron net of the distant basketball court flickered in and out of sight. A cold wind blew through, carrying an unpleasant smell that raised goosebumps across their skin. The dimness diluted the earlier clamor into something exceptionally hazy, as if the sun had never visited.

Song Zichu instinctively took a step back. The look in Lai Li’s eyes at that moment carried an indescribable sense of horror.

He paused before saying, “Thanks for helping me that day. Let me treat you to a meal in the cafeteria?”

Lai Li tightened his grip, but in doing so, he accidentally lit up his phone screen.

Song Zichu instinctively glanced over. Lai Li’s phone wallpaper showed a man lounging on a sofa, gazing lazily and gently at the camera with a peaceful, indulgent smile.

Lai Li turned off the screen. When he looked up again, he had returned to his usual self. He snatched back his jacket and strode into the descending night. “Don’t touch my things.”