The atmosphere froze.

After a moment, Kuang Shuyu rubbed his temples and said, “Xingran, let’s talk in my study.”

They were in the living room, where servants were constantly coming and going, and their parents might not have gone to bed yet.

Without a word, Kuang Xingran stood up and walked toward his study. Kuang Shuyu followed, making sure to carefully close the door behind them.

Kuang Xingran got straight to the point, leaving no room for pretense, not even sparing herself any dignity.

“Shuyu-ge, why did you falsely accuse Wan wan of pestering you that day?”

“So many people laughed at her then. She had just given up on the violin she’d played for more than ten years because of something similar.”

“She grew up with us. She loved you for so many years. And yet, you used her as a stepping stone, hurting and exploiting her. Doesn’t your conscience hurt?”

“And me… I heard the truth that day, but I didn’t speak up immediately. All because of you. Because you’re my brother, I betrayed my best friend.”

“Shuyu-ge, you weren’t like this before.”

Kuang Shuyu’s face was shrouded in darkness. He stared at Kuang Xingran, who confronted him relentlessly, and suddenly said, “Xingran, you didn’t used to call me Shuyu-ge either. You used to just call me ge.”

Ever since Kuang Ye returned to the Kuang family, everything had changed. He was no longer the legitimate young master of the family but instead a pathetic child who had been adopted.
Everything he once took for granted had been taken away and given to someone else.

His position as the heir, the woman he loved—Mu Wan—all of it went to Kuang Ye.

That useless, uneducated, uncultured waste of space.

What right did he have?

Kuang Shuyu had lived as the Kuang family’s first son for eighteen years. How was he supposed to accept that he was nothing more than the child of human traffickers?

He couldn’t accept it.

And he wouldn’t.

Especially not when the admiring and respectful gazes from others suddenly turned into mockery and ridicule.

It was unbearable.

And so, he decided he had to take control of the Kuang Corporation. He wanted everyone to see that even without a blood connection, he was still the Kuang family’s one and only son.

Kuang Xingran frowned at him. “So you’re saying all of this is because of Kuang Ye?”

A cold expression flickered across Kuang Shuyu’s face as the negative emotions he’d suppressed for so long finally erupted.

“What else?”

“If it weren’t for him, Mu Wan would never have left me.”

“I wouldn’t have had to curry favor with the Yuan family by being with that idiot Yuan Weiwei.”

“I do have feelings for Mu Wan, but she’s already colluded with Kuang Ye. If I don’t placate Yuan Weiwei, I’d be left with nothing. Do you think Mom and Dad would still value me?”

“Xingran, I know you’ve always been on my side. Please, help me talk to Mu Wan. Convince her to come back to me, okay?”

“Yuan Weiwei is so annoying. Every day, I have to go shopping with her or eat her terrible cooking. I’ve had enough…”

Kuang Xingran stared at him in shock. She couldn’t believe the man in front of her—the same man who used to be so refined and gentlemanly—was now venting in such a vile, unrestrained manner, spewing insults and trash-talking his girlfriend without hesitation.

Before entering the study, she had been lying to herself, convincing herself that her brother had simply made a mistake.

But now, looking at the man who radiated the stench of selfishness and decay, she could barely recognize him.

Disappointment washed over her as she raised her voice in anger.

“Kuang Shuyu, have you ever reflected on your own actions?”

“Right after university, Wan wan mentioned getting engaged. What did you say? ‘No rush.'”

“And then you turned around and got involved in scandals with actresses, flirting with one heiress after another.”

“Now that Wan wan is with Kuang Ye, you’re panicking? Where was this urgency before?”

“Wan wan is a princess raised in the palm of the Mu family’s hands. Why should she stay in place waiting for you?”

Kuang Shuyu’s face turned ashen at her sharp questioning. Finally, he uttered something that completely shattered Kuang Xingran’s remaining hope in him.

“If Mu Wan really loved me, there’s no way she would’ve gotten together with Kuang Ye so quickly.”

“I think what she loves isn’t me, but the status of being the Kuang family’s young mistress.”

“She left me because I’m not the Kuang family’s biological son—”

Slap!

A crisp sound echoed in the study.

Kuang Xingran couldn’t hold back and slapped Kuang Shuyu across the face.

Her cold gaze was devoid of any warmth.

“Don’t you dare insult my friend like that.”

“Kuang Shuyu, you may still be the eldest son of the Kuang family, but you are no longer my brother.”

She pushed open the study door and walked out without looking back.

A cold tear slid down her face.

Seeing a loved one, someone she once held dear, become so unrecognizable was like having a piece of decaying flesh attached to her body—painful and unbearable.

But decaying flesh must be cut away.