Chapter 9 Brother’s Reflection
I left the underground garage and the days moved like a clock on a tight spring, regular and rushing forward.
After entering Hua Qing, I never stopped for a single moment.
I used my spare time to tutor, starting with one-on-one lessons. Then I rented a small apartment near the school and set up a cram school with five or six students.
Drawing from my own experience of repeating the college entrance exam three times and Gu Cheng's genius guidance, I wove the dry knowledge points into a logical network.
In the first year, all five students I sent to the cram school were admitted to 985 and 211 universities.
My name spread like wildfire.
In my third year of university, I used the first pot of money I earned to rent half a floor in a commercial building and founded a real tutoring institution.
Running a business was tough. I stayed up all night making plans, pulling in investors, and dealing with all kinds of people.
There were moments when I felt like I was back in Hui Huang Ren Jian, wearing a mask and smiling at everyone.
But it was different. This time, I was smiling for myself.
And behind me, there was no more bottomless pit that needed me to sacrifice everything to support it.
Once the institution got on track, I used part of the profit to start a small scholarship fund called Chun Cao.
It was for girls from poor families like mine who wanted to change their fate through education.
I interviewed every girl who applied. Looking at the light in their eyes, identical to the one I had back then, I told them:
"Go study. Sister will figure out the money."
Every day was incredibly fulfilling. It was so satisfying that I almost had no time to recall the past.
So much so that when Xiao Cui drove up to my company building, I realized belatedly that the boy stepping out of the car had grown so tall.
"Gu Yan! Look who I brought you!"
Xiao Cui rolled down the car window and waved at me with a grin.
Gu Cheng got out of the passenger seat.
He had just finished an international youth physicists competition in Switzerland and won the gold medal with overwhelming dominance.
He looked slender and tall, his hair cut short, revealing those pretty and indifferent eyes.
He was seventeen... or eighteen this year?
I was a bit dazed.
I had forgotten when Gu Cheng finally got tired of pretending to have an ordinary IQ.
In a nationwide junior high combined assessment, his scores broke the second place by nearly a full point and shocked everyone.
Since then, the name "Genius Youth Gu Cheng" could no longer be hidden.
Facing the media and interviews rushing in, he never shied away from his background.
In front of the cameras, he said calmly:
"I am Gu Yan's younger brother. She raised me."
That simple sentence brought my Yan Xing Education completely to life.
My entrepreneurial story was dug up by the media and packaged as a motivational drama titled "Cold-nosed Sister Sacrifices Everything to Support Genius Brother," becoming the best recruitment ad for Yan Xing Education.
Now, Xiao Cui drove Gu Cheng and me to the riverbank.
"Task done! Sister Cui is knocking off early for a date! Bye!"
She floored the gas and left in a cool manner.
The river wind carried a trace of moisture and blew my long hair.
We walked slowly along the embankment.
After a long time, Gu Cheng spoke first.
"Sister." He said, "This isn't your first life, right?"
My steps tripped without warning.
I steadied myself and looked at Gu Cheng, who was already a head taller than me.
He was looking down at me. The river wind blew his black hair and his always somewhat indifferent eyes held a depth I couldn't understand.
I instinctively wanted to ask "How do you know?"
But the words stuck in my throat, feeling too much for Gu Cheng like him.
Gu Cheng was understanding and didn't wait for me to speak before explaining himself.
"I first suspected you when you dropped seven-year-old me at Aunt's place without saying anything that day."
I widened my eyes slightly. "So early?"
"Your change was too big." Gu Cheng's mouth pulled into a faint smile, a bit cold and a bit helpless. "One day, you were hugging the whole world to me, the next day your eyes when looking at me were like looking at an... unfathomable enemy. You didn't even bother to hide it back then."
"And the second suspicion, or rather confirmation, was when you asked me to mark the college entrance exam 'practice paper' you wrote yourself."
"But at that time I was still too young to understand the supernatural concept of 'rebirth'."
I asked him, "Then what did you think I was like back then?"
He recalled.
"In my eyes at the time, you seemed to have done a long dream. Before the dream, you wanted to give me your heart and drain your blood to give me a future, and after waking up... you finally saw yourself."
"So I became dispensable."
The river wind blew, and the distant sun gradually turned into an orange-red sunset.
"Do you blame me?" I asked softly.
"I would definitely at first."
Gu Cheng answered honestly without hesitation. "For about two years, I lived in fear every day. I didn't dare to show too much intelligence for fear you would think I didn't need you, and didn't dare to show too much stupidity for fear you would think I was a burden."
"But what I felt more was fear, that you would abandon me again."
"So I started reflecting uncontrollably, because I knew you weren't that cold-blooded person. Something terrible must have happened to make you change so much."
Gu Cheng suddenly stopped walking. He looked at me.
"So, Sister, can you tell me what happened before your rebirth?"
I thought about it.
Suddenly I discovered that the humiliating and painful ten years of the previous life had started to become blurry in my memory.
But I still recalled what I needed to say and said it.
I said it calmly, as if describing someone else's story.
Gu Cheng listened quietly the whole time, without saying a word.
His expression on his face went from calm at first to becoming increasingly solemn.
He tightly pressed his lips, his jaw line tensed into a cold straight line.
The hands that had been in his pants pockets at first took out themselves at some point and tightly clenched into fists, with bulging veins on the back of his hands.
When I mentioned the fifty-two thousand, his body swayed.
In the end, I finished speaking.
"I think... I probably understand now."
"The me from that timeline was too noble-minded, a monster raised too high by your and the world's praises, living in a sterile vacuum environment for years."
"That me, he must have thought you entangled with Lu Congzheng for money and so-called noble status, willingly being a third party and a mistress even knowing the other party had a fiancée. So in his eyes, you were abusing yourself... so he wanted to sever ties with you."
"He even deliberately turned family affection into fifty-two thousand and gave it back to you, thinking he had acted cleverly by humiliating you and waiting for you to reflect yourself."
"But the one who should have reflected should be that 'me' who had never tasted any hardship! He didn't even bother to investigate more or ask you a few more questions and didn't know you were deceived too... truly, too disgusting."
"So even if he was me, I couldn't whitewash him either."
A cruise ship on the river blew its whistle in the sunset, long and muffled.
Gu Cheng finally analyzed that 'previous self' of his.
Then he asked me in a nearly broken voice:
"So, Sister, do you... blame me? Do you still hate me?"
Gu Cheng asked me, his voice sounding hoarse and gritty from excessive suppression.
"I would definitely at first."
I borrowed his earlier answer. "As for now... I don't know. I haven't thought about those things for a very long time."
It was a Schrodinger's answer.
You could hate or not care.
It all depended on my heart.
"... Sister."
He called me. His always indifferent eyes were filled with water light, turning red.
I laughed heartlessly instead.
"Sorry now is too late. I even thought before that if you were still raised crooked in this life and turned into an ice-cold white-eyed wolf, I might as well give you a fifty-two yuan red packet and sever ties completely, never to see each other in this life."
Gu Cheng's tears really fell at this.
He covered his eyes with both hands, his voice thick with nasal congestion and grievance: "Sister, don't scare me. I am very sensitive and have a small heart in this timeline."
I was about to laugh, but the edge of my vision appeared a familiar figure.
— Lu Congzheng.
Gu Cheng also noticed.
He put his hands down. The tears on his face instantly vanished.
But Lu Congzheng walked through the willows by the riverbank, approaching us step by step.
After several years, time seemed to have treated him exceptionally well. The sharpness of his youth had faded, making him more mature and restrained.
Only upon closer look did he have stubble on his chin and dark circles under his eyes.
But before he got close, Gu Cheng immediately stepped forward and blocked me behind him.
"Severing ties is being able to throw some past into the trash can." Gu Cheng said coldly. "But it seems some trash doesn't know how to stay in the trash bin well. Sometimes it still climbs back on its own and pollutes the environment."
Two tall, equally outstanding men faced off in the evening river wind.
One full of vitality and sharpness;
The other mature and restrained, full of exhaustion.
But I didn't need any of it.
I stepped out from behind Gu Cheng and stood shoulder to shoulder with him.
I looked at the person coming over. "Lu Congzheng, what do you want?"
Lu Congzheng looked at me, only at me, as if his world could no longer hold a second person.
"I and she, the engagement has been canceled."
He spoke, his voice hoarse.
I slightly raised an eyebrow but didn't speak.
Gu Cheng beside me showed an uneasy look.
"I confessed everything to her." Lu Congzheng smiled self-mockingly. "About you, and about my rebirth."
"She probably thought I was crazy, my brain was out of order. She didn't want to marry a mentally unstable person and worry about passing it to the children. So in the end, under my insistence, their family agreed to break the engagement."
"And later, of course there were many troubles, like Lu Family's stock price, the family's reputation, and a large commercial compensation."
"And... my father, he was very angry and planned to sever ties with me."
Lu Congzheng paused and took a deep breath.
"But none of that matters now."
"Because I really, don't want to let you go, Gu Yan."
"From the first day I met you, I knew I shouldn't get close to you. You are so wonderful, even in a place like the nightclub, you were still like a little grass growing towards the sun. Reason told me to stay away from you and not ruin you."
"But I couldn't control myself."
"It was my greed, my selfishness. I enjoyed your sincerity on one hand while not daring to give up the shackles and responsibilities on my body."
"I wanted to hold on to both sides, but in the end... it hurt you the deepest."
Lu Congzheng paused again. His throat rolled tightly.
"But, Gu Yan."
"I don't regret meeting you."
"You gave me the best love. You let me greed for this love, greedy until I forgot who I was and what I should do."
"I know I lied to you, and I lied to myself. I told myself this was all temporary. I had a plan. Everything would be fine soon. But I never thought about what kind of grievances and pain you would bear before my 'plan' was realized."
"I have always only thought about myself... I am just a cowardly and selfish scumbag."
"Sorry, Gu Yan. I really am sorry."
He finally said this apology that was two lifetimes late.
I listened carefully to his words and then nodded.
"Yes, I accept your apology."
Lu Congzheng's eyes lit up instantly, lit up in a lost way.
"Gu Cheng frowned beside him."
Lu Congzheng completely ignored him.
He was dizzy from the huge joy and couldn't help taking a big step forward. His voice trembled:
"Gu Yan, I... can we start over! I gave up everything. I have nothing now. I only have you... I hope you can become my wife. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. This time, openly and without hiding..."
"Sorry." I sighed and interrupted him. "Accepting an apology doesn't mean I love you again."
"We are all adults now. It's not that easy to fall in love again with someone just because of an apology, right?"
Lu Congzheng stood rooted.
The joy on his face faded bit by bit, shattered, and finally left only gray and blank.
The river wind blew and made his expensive suit coat rustle.
"Then... Gu Yan."
He used a nearly pleading tone for his final struggle.
"Finally, just as a farewell... can I hug you once? Just once."
"No."
I answered cleanly.
Silence.
"Hah..."
A sound between panting and a sneer squeezed out from the depths of his throat.
Even Lu Congzheng himself was startled by this sound.
Because it sounded so... pathetic.
Only then did Gu Cheng finally let out a sigh beside me.
He put his hands relaxedly back into his pants pockets and used the sharp-tongued tone unique to a teenager in his rebellious period to add the final stab with a smile:
"Sorry about that, Mr. Lu. My sister is now the founder of Yan Xing Education and Chun Cao Fund."
"In the growth stage, rejecting bindings."