Chapter 26

Ji Qingyuan just got off the plane and went straight to the hospital.

“Wow! Brother, you don’t know, that iron chain was so thick, so big! It hit me directly! Even my mom didn’t hit me that hard.” Ji Qingyuan was vividly describing the scene to Ji Linyu, while Zhu Xinyue was sitting on the sofa, eating fruit as a midnight snack.

She held the salad bowl and poked the fruit in the bowl with her fork. Feeling she got a piece, she put it into her mouth and quietly listened to Ji Qingyuan talking.

Ji Linyu sat beside her, peeling an apple. Facing Ji Qingyuan, who was seated on a single-person sofa, he occasionally glanced at Zhu Xinyue’s bowl of fruits. If she was almost done eating, he would add more to her bowl.

“Will Aunt Xu hit you?” Zhu Xinyue remembered that Ji Qingyuan’s mother was a woman who was particularly gentle towards other people’s children.

Ji Qingyuan curled his lips, “Yes, I used to come home late from school, and she would beat me if she couldn’t find me. But later, when she knew that I was helping you with math, she never beat me again, and even asked me to bring you milk, do you remember?”

Zhu Xinyue tilted her head and thought about it. It seemed that this was indeed the case. During that period, Ji Qingyuan often brought two bottles of milk to school, but the boy was shy and always gave them to her after school — breakfast milk turned into dinner milk.

“Yeah, it seems so. I actually thought you had a crush on me back then.” The original owner probably developed the thoughts of a young girl in love at that time.

Ji Linyu lowered his eyes, and his hand paused as he was peeling an apple, the sharp tip of the knife reflecting the light.

“No, I had a crush on the school beauty who lived upstairs at that time.” Ji Qingyuan joked.

Zhu Xinyue was both annoyed and amused, and couldn’t help but kick towards where Ji Qingyuan was speaking. Just now, he was patting her arm, trying to get her attention, so she quickly locked in his direction.

Ji Qingyuan yelped when she kicked him, but it didn’t hurt at all. He just did it to make her happy.

Ji Linyu watched Zhu Xinyue’s smiling face. Few visitors in recent days had made her smile so happily. Ji Qingyuan was one, and probably the only one.

He lowered his head and continued peeling the apple.

“Oh, come on. Childhood crushes don’t count. Right now, I admire you the most, Ms. Zhu!” Ji Qingyuan shamelessly came up to her, held up Zhu Xinyue’s kicking calf, and carefully put it back in place.

Ji Linyu stared at Ji Qingyuan’s hand, furrowing his brow quickly. Round after round apple skin was being cut off by the sharp fruit knife in his hand.

Zhu Xinyue: “Don’t come here. How long have I been in the hospital? Why are you just visiting me now?”

“Wasn’t I busy calming down the media and fans? Ask my brother. After the incident on set, I’ve been as busy as a bee. I haven’t had a day off.” Ji Qingyuan appealed to Ji Linyu for help.

Ji Linyu had not been able to join in their conversation from the beginning. Even when Ji Qingyuan mentioned him, he felt like an “outsider”.

He feels inexplicably unhappy.

“Don’t use Brother Linyu as a shield.” Zhu Xinyue wasn’t really blaming Ji Qingyuan for not visiting her. She was just joking along with his topic.

Ji Qingyuan glanced at the time and saw it was late now, so he stood up to leave.

“I have a magazine shoot tomorrow. I’ll head back now. You should have a good rest and get back in good spirits.” Ji Qingyuan bent down and pinched Zhu Xinyue’s cheek, who was sitting on the sofa and acting very well.

He said, “Cry if you want, laugh if you want. You don’t have to force yourself in front of me.”

When Ji Qingyuan first came, Zhu Xinyue still used the social business model to face others. Ji Qingyuan saw through her at a glance and knew her initial smile was not from the heart. It seemed like she was smiling, but she wasn’t happy at all. So he tried his best to cheer her up, accompany her with jokes and laughter, and at least not let her darkness be so quiet.

Zhu Xinyue was stunned, her fork with fruit stopped in midair, her nose slightly sour.

Ji Linyu watched their interaction silently, turned around without a word, and walked towards the door of the ward.

Ji Qingyuan glanced at Ji Linyu’s back. He knew Ji Linyu had been with her these days and also heard that on the day of the incident, Ji Linyu rushed into the fire to bring her and the staff member out.

Although he had not returned to the Ji family for long, he knew what kind of person Ji Linyu was.

Ji Linyu is different from him. If his brother likes someone, it is very obvious and anyone with a discerning eye can see it.

Too bad she can’t see it now.

As if on purpose, Ji Qingyuan touched Zhu Xinyue’s head in front of Ji Linyu and said with a smile: “What I said before still counts. Back then, you came to Tianze City because of me. Now I can stay in Tianze City for you. As long as you nod, we can be together, and I will take care of you.”

Zhu Xinyue had just noticed that the person next to her had left the sofa. She didn’t know where Ji Linyu was and looked for Ji Linyu’s voice in a daze, but no, he didn’t speak. She didn’t know where he was, whether he was still in the room, whether he heard what Ji Qingyuan said, and what his reaction was.

Ji Qingyuan bent down, his aggressive smell overwhelmed the sweet scent of apples, and his warm breath sprayed on her earlobe, softly saying, “Don’t tell me the answer too quickly. Think about it again.”

With that, Ji Qingyuan stood up and walked out. Seeing Ji Linyu’s current expression, as cold as an iceberg, made him even happier.

There was no other reason for doing this, he just thought it was interesting.

Teasing a usually serious and good gentleman was really fun.

Ji Linyu saw Ji Qingyuan off, closed the ward door, asked the bodyguard to guard the ward, and walked out with Ji Qingyuan.

Ji Qingyuan put on a mask and hat, covered himself tightly, and walked beside his brother.

The two took the elevator together.

Ji Linyu asked, “Do you like her?”

They both knew who “her”  he was referring to.

“Whether I like her or not doesn’t matter. I’m responsible for her for the rest of my life. Brother, she saved me.” Ji Qingyuan spoke sincerely, his tone becoming more serious, “If she can’t see in the future, I’m willing to be her support and take care of her for the rest of her life.”

“Do you have to repay someone who saved you with your body?”

“Her eyes became blind because of saving me. How could I abandon her? That would be ungrateful.”

The numbers on the elevator panel were descending, and the air began to thicken, with hidden currents surging in the narrow space.

Ji Qingyuan waited for his brother to ask, but Ji Linyu remained silent until the elevator doors opened.

Unable to wait any longer, Ji Qingyuan asked his brother, “Brother, aren’t you curious why Xinyue came to Tianze City in the first place?”

Ji Linyu stepped out of the elevator, and Ji Qingyuan quickly followed, hands in his pockets, eagerly watching his brother’s tense profile.

“I know,” Ji Linyu said.

Seeing his brother so composed, Ji Qingyuan found himself less so and blurted out, “Zhu Xinyue has liked me since childhood, following me all the way to Tianze City. Even entering the entertainment industry because of me. She had always been like this since childhood, following whatever I did. She liked the things I liked and hated what I hated. Now, even filming ‘Peach Blossom Source,’ she wants to act alongside me.”

“Brother, she likes me.”

Ji Linyu stopped walking and faced Ji Qingyuan.

The two walked out of the hospital building and stood at the entrance.

Moonlight was clear and bright, casting their distinct shadows on the ground.

Ji Qingyuan stared directly at his brother.

The heir of the family business, raised with a silver spoon, is now the head of the Jinhuan Group. He envied Ji Linyu for growing up in the Ji family, unlike himself, who had been lost for so long before the Ji family found him.

Compared to his brother, he was ordinary. His brother seemed to effortlessly make people like him, speak well of him, but Ji Qingyuan was different. He needed to always maintain his image, improve his acting skills, and even at the point of life and death, remember his perfect persona. Between saving himself and gaining good publicity by saving others, he chose the latter.

Ji Qingyuan was willing to believe his brother was genuinely good because he was good to everyone.

He was different; he was only good to those who loved him. As for those he disliked, those who hated him, his detractors—he cursed them to the depths of hell, feeling it wasn’t enough.

He really wanted to know if his brother, such a good person, would do anything against his moral standards out of jealousy.

“Do you like her?” Ji Linyu asked.

Ji Qingyuan hesitated for a moment, realizing for the first time that from the beginning, he wasn’t in control of the conversation.

His throat tightened, feeling an invisible pressure in Ji Linyu’s icy gaze, like an oppressive weight on his heart.

“What if I say I like her?” Facing immense pressure, Ji Qingyuan tested his brother’s limits on the edge of danger.

A cool evening breeze passed by, the night growing darker, making the moonlight pristine and flawless.

Ji Linyu smiled suddenly, touching his forehead and patting Ji Qingyuan’s shoulder, as if laughing at him, and at himself.

Confused, Ji Qingyuan asked, “Brother?”

Ji Linyu’s ink-black eyes sparkled, as if suddenly understanding something.

“It turns out that I don’t care about your answer at all.” No matter what answer Ji Qingyuan gave, it would not change Ji Linyu’s mind.

Ji Qingyuan was stunned, not understanding his brother’s meaning for a moment.

“I don’t care whether she liked you in the past or whether you like her now.” Ji Linyu put his hands back in his pockets, his demeanor calm, like a tranquil sea returning to its calm surface, his gaze towards Ji Qingyuan serene and reserved, hiding all sharpness.

Ji Qingyuan frowned, playing his final card, “At the celebration party, she confessed to you just to make me jealous. Brother, at that time, she didn’t even know you.”

There was a flicker in Ji Linyu’s eyes, a ripple on the sea, but it was light and fleeting, just a small wave that was quickly suppressed.

“You’ve known her for so long, yet you don’t understand her as well as I do.”

Ji Qingyuan looked into his brother’s eyes and saw absolute trust in Zhu Xinyue.

“She’s not what you say she is.”

“She wouldn’t involve others for such silly reasons.”

Ji Linyu looked up at the hospital building, finding the brightly lit VIP ward.

It was the first time Ji Qingyuan saw such a gentle expression on his brother’s face.

With a calm voice, Ji Linyu said as if stating something obvious, “Even if what you said is true, I don’t care.

“After all, I like her not because she likes me, but because she exists. That’s all.”