After my father passed away we lost a source of income in the family, resulting in my mother becoming more preoccupied with work as she tried to provide for us. In the morning, she would first prepare two dishes, one vegetarian and one with meat, store it in the fridge and then set up the rice cooker. By doing so, when we returned home from school, all we needed to do was use the microwave to reheat the dishes.
That year, I was eleven years old and the winter was especially cold, as the whole southern side of the country started facing heavy snowfall. That was the first time in my life I had truly witnessed snow; gentle, chilling, shrouding the whole sky in spray of white mist, a white that dyed the whole world the same colour.
Yet when that snow was at its heaviest, I held onto the toilet and was vomiting my insides out, to the point where I felt like I was almost about to spit out my bile.
After vomiting, there would come a period of time where a sense of comfort sets in, but five or six minutes later, the stomach pain would erupt again and cause a strong sense of nausea.
Sheng Min Ou heard the commotion and came over so that he was outside the bathroom, maintaining a faraway distance as he did not move to approach me. He watched me for a moment, then used a tone without much concern, “How are you feeling, do you need to go to the hospital?”
I pushed down a tab to flush the toilet, then turned back to face him, with tears in my eyes and snot running down my nose as I gave him a hasty wave of my hand.
“No… no big deal, we don’t have to go.”
My father’s horrific and gruesome passing had caused significant trauma to me, as for a long period of time I was inexplicably averse to visiting the hospital. If I could avoid going there then I would never go, if I had no choice but to go then it would always be a quick entrance and an even quicker exit. Therefore, even if back then I was in excruciating pain, I still firmly held onto the thought of not visiting the hospital.
As for Sheng Min Ou, back then he just felt like he had the ‘obligation’ to ask, so he did. Once he finished asking the question, it was on me for whether I wanted his help or not. Therefore, he didn’t need to follow it up further, so he turned around to went back to his bedroom.
I sat in the bathroom to rest for a while, swaying from side to side as I shakily made my way back to my room. Wave after wave of stomach pain hit me as I lay, curled up in my bed.
I endured it until nine p.m. at night, before the dull hurt became a sharp, agonising pain. The discomfort didn’t get better, rather it became more severe.
A cold sweat broke out from every pore on my body, and the pain slowly drained me of all my energy. I noticed that even when I looked at sights ahead of me I seemed to see double of everything.
Being in this condition made me realise that if I still held back and refused to go to the hospital, then my mother would probably return home to prepare funeral proceedings for my corpse.
Drawing on my willpower to summon the last of my strength, I shifted out of my room one step after another, to knock on Sheng Min Ou’s door.
Our rooms were actually adjacent to each other, the original floor plan had one big bedroom but it was split in two to form our rooms. Then, because this renovation occurred after the house was already built, Sheng Min Ou’s room had no windows at all, so it always felt cramped and oppressed, the inside of his room perpetually dark.
Later on he moved out so my mother started using his room as a place for storage, with the inside of the room becoming increasingly chaotic and disorganised.
“Ge…” I strenuously approached his room as I knocked against his door.
After a while, a few sounds were heard from inside his room, and Sheng Min Ou quickly pulled open his door and appeared in front of me.
Back then he was fifteen at the time and had already started his growth spurt. He was substantially taller than me to the point where if I stood close to him, I needed to lift my chin up to look him in the eye.
“Ge, I’m in pain.” I couldn’t hold out any longer as I clutched my stomach and fell into his arms.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
He held onto me and stumbled back two steps, then held me upright.
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Sheng Min Ou reached out a hand and placed it against my forehead, “You seem to have a fever.”
No wonder I felt like I had no energy at all in my body, I felt my centre of gravity lean more and more towards the person in front of me, and even the words I spoke came out with a wailing tone, “Ge, am I going to die?”
Sheng Min Ou probably concluded that the fever had messed with my brain, as he held me and placed me on the sofa. He then picked up the phone in the living room and dialled a number.
A few rings later, the other side picked up and Sheng Min Ou spoke with evident worry in his voice, yet his emotions remained completely distinctive from his voice, like a lake’s surface that had been frozen over, devoid of a single ripple.
“Mum, A-Feng seems to be sick, I’m planning to take him to the hospital right now to get him checked out. After finishing work could you please head directly there.”
My mother anxiously interrogated him and asked if it was any urgent matter, whether it was serious or not, and he replied dutifully. He told her to not worry, and that he would handle the situation appropriately.
After hanging up, Sheng Min Ou left to go to his room for a change of clothes, then walked into my room to bring me a thick outer layer for me to wear.
He grabbed the keys and started walking out the door, without any intention of helping me leave the house.
I moved forward two steps then clutched my stomach as I knelt to the floor, unable to move another step. He saw that I wasn’t following behind, so turned around and came back and faced me.
“No energy to walk?”
I lifted my head with tears in my eyes and sniffled, “En.”
He frowned, the words ‘an annoyance’ almost materialising on his face. I bit my lip, the tears welling up under my eyes and on the cusp of spilling over.
Suddenly, Sheng Min Ou appeared in front of me and squatted down.
I was stunned, then I heard him say, “Get on, I’ll carry you.”
It wouldn’t be an overstatement at all when I said in that moment a line of words appeared in my head, and that phrase was: ‘In this world, only my elder brother is good to me, any child with an elder brother is a treasure you’ll see.’
I blinked a few times, rapidly dispersing the tears that were gathering in my eyes and clumsily crawled onto his back.
It took some effort for Sheng Min Ou to stand up, then he piggy-backed me out the door.
During winter, the roads were more slippery and it was harder to hail a taxi in this weather. The road that was close to our house was also a quiet street, so after Sheng Min Ou stood by the side for a while and saw that no cars were approaching, he could only continue to move forwards to another crossroad to try his luck.
“Ge… my stomach hurts…” I shrunk up on his back, covering my face with the faux fur hood and creating a small enclosed space that was both safe and warm.
Sheng Min Ou perhaps felt ticklish from the fur on my hood as he turned his head back.
“When you get to the hospital it won’t hurt anymore.”
Faced with my ramblings and my repeated whining as if I was a spoilt child, he always responded with silence as he ignored my complaints. However, sometimes when he was annoyed by my incessant complaints, he would occasionally choose to respond to me.
The snow fell relentlessly, and clumps of it accumulated on his hair, with some even falling onto his thick, inky black eyelashes. When he blinked, it would melt into water again as it slipped down from the edges of his eyes, mixing with the sweat that formed near his temples.
I wiped it off him with the back of my hand and couldn’t hold myself back as I asked, “…Ge, am i going to die?”
Usually I wasn’t someone who was so terrified of death. However, perhaps back then as I was young and sick, I was in a weakened mental and physical state so there was no helping my overthinking, despite it possibly being hard to understand for others.
Sheng Min Ou did not address my question, as he took one step followed by the other, treading slowly on the snowy surface while he routinely scanned the roads to see if there was an empty taxi passing by.
“Ge, I feel horrible… I feel like I’m about to die…”
Sheng Min Ou hoisted me up as he replied to me, his breathing uneven, “You won’t.” With every word he muttered, a white puff of smoke would form as it left his lips.
From the distance, a taxi with a green ‘empty’ sign slowly approached. Sheng Min Ou hurriedly waved his hand at the car and my attention was also drawn to his action.
The taxi parked near the curb, and Sheng Min Ou opened the door to the passenger seat. He then placed me down and held my hood tightly over my head as he stuffed me in the car.
“You’re so… annoying, how could… say you’re… and die.”
Following the sounds of the door closing, I could vaguely hear him muttering a few more words after the sentence he just said, but back then because of my agonising stomach pain flaring up once more I had completely lost any sense of playfully responding to him. All I could do was curl up in the back seat and shiver uncontrollably, as I lost my chance chance to confirm with him what he had said.
Usually, I wasn’t the type that easily fell sick, and even if I was sick I would usually heal up quickly. At most it would be two days before I fully recovered and leapt around all lively and fine again. However, that time I was diagnosed with acute enteritis, and I was put on an IV drip for a full three days. My mother informed all her current work posts of the situation and took a day off, but was unable to leave no matter what afterwards, so she could only have Sheng Min Ou accompany me in the hospital.
Once the IV drip was inserted it was kept there for five to six hours. I was given a bed, so when I was tired I could sleep, but Sheng Min Ou could only sit on an uncomfortable wooden chair as he observed the IV drip attached to my body. If he became tired, he couldn’t even rest well.
On the second day after being given the IV drip, I actually already started feeling a lot better, and my fever had gone down as well. Once I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw in my sights was Sheng Min Ou.
He had his chin cupped in one hand, his elbow placed on my bedside, his head tilted slightly as he stared at the IV drip above, appearing marginally bored and fatigued.
I moved my hand and he realised that I was awake as his eyes turned to meet me.
After I recovered from the illness, I developed a new, profound understanding towards life and lives. I started fostering an unparalleled passion for everything in this world, the white sheets of snow outside, the animated chirping birds, the bustling noises from lively crowds, my mother, and Sheng Min Ou.
Especially my mother and Sheng Min Ou.
I moved my hand which still had the IV drip attached to it and tugged at Sheng Min Ou’s sleeve. In my heart, a soft, tender emotion swelled and I strangely felt touched by myself.
“Ge, when I grow up, I’ll definitely be filial to you and mum.” My energy hadn’t completely come back yet, so my voice was still weak, but it was enough for Sheng Min Ou to hear clearly.
Sheng Min Ou propped his chin in his hand and the end of his eyebrow lifted upwards, whilst the edges of his lips curled simultaneously in amusement.
“You’ll treat me with filial devotion?”
I was scared he wasn’t going to believe me, so I unwittingly clasped onto his fingers tighter and placed a heavier emphasis in my tone, “En, when I grow up, get a job, and start earning money, I’ll definitely treat you very, very well, better than anyone else.”
Children are truthfully very naive, as they believed that when they grew up and started working to earn a steady income, they’d have the ability to make people happy. For me back then, I completely neglected another possibility in my life, that I’d grow up, and not only contribute nothing to society, but rather become a liability. That… possibility.
Sheng Min Ou stared at me in silent appraisal for a long time, the slight stun and shock in his eyes completely wiped from his expression, wholly faded into indifference.
He returned my declaration with a half smile, “Sure, up to you.”
For him, that was just a child’s fantasy. Perhaps from when he had first heard my words he had not thought to remember it and take it to heart. However, to me, I remember every single scene vividly in my head, each word I uttered was from the bottom of my heart, without a single phrase of deceit.
Sheng Min Ou always thought that every action or gesture I aimed towards him, everything irksome, clingy, frustrating was all because the immoral love I had that I was unable to voice. The outcome between Qi Yang and myself, where one died and one remained alive, and all the commotion that was caused today, was completely because of the crazed possessiveness I felt towards him.
Actually, that wasn’t the case.
At least, it wasn’t completely the case.
Everything I did for him, a part of it was because he was the person I loved, and the other part was because he was, and forever will be my beloved elder brother.
I said that I would treat him well, I would look after him and take responsibility for him in the stead of my father, and I never go back on my words.
Despite him not caring for it.
The porridge on the stove started spilling over the sides of the pot and I abruptly jerked back to the present, hurriedly turning down the flames and searching for something to wipe down the mess. In the end, I realised that a hand towel did not exist in Sheng Min Ou’s kitchen, so I could only start searching for a disposable wipe instead as I hastily took a few squares and placed it over the porridge that spilled.
At the same instant, there was a sound from the bedroom. I glanced at the time on the clock and guessed that Sheng Min Ou had probably woken up, so I quickly turned off the stove and walked briskly towards the bedroom.
I passed the dining room and came to the corridor before stopping in my footsteps, bumping into Sheng Min Ou head on as he just left his bedroom. He looked as if he did not expect that I would still be here, as the way he stared at me, stunned, whilst still keeping a hand on his door knob was quite amusing.
“Hey~” I said, giving him a greeting, “I made some porridge, do you want some?”
I’m a official ‘M’ now as I continue to read this but I like it. ….. And getting really crazy with the mystery 😐
+1
Is this the closest to fluff that I’m going to get, and its not even in their present 😞. What makes me even more sad is the fact that Lu Feng actually stuck around to make that bastard porridge even after he said all of that to him.
Thank you so much for your hard work ♥️
Thanks for your hard work!
This was a surprisingly “nice” chapter… I didn’t have to curse anyone out in my head. 😂
I really liked this chapter!
Thank you for your hard work 💕
New reader here.
Thanks for the chapter.
I think the only chapter i didn’t curse at anyone LOL
Thank you for the hard work!
Is Shen Min Ou really an apathetic person? If apathy is a neurological condition, is it his fault when sometimes he doesn’t understand how LF felt?
Let’s not try to understand or excuses them. I think they are over what we can imagine! 😟
My baby