Chapter 14: The Arrival of the White-Haired Brother
Night.
Lin Shu stepped out of the school gate, walking along the sidewalk.
The ringing of bicycle bells tinkled nearby. She turned her head but didn’t see Xie Bucheng—it was someone else passing by on a bike.
So annoying. Why keep ringing? There’s no one else on the road.
Thinking of Xie Bucheng crouched by the wall earlier, watching her with that gaze, Lin Shu took a deep breath and patted her cheek, as if trying to shake off the tangled emotions.
Damn troublemaker.
Who knows how many innocent girls he’ll trouble in the future.
The streetlights cast a dim yellow glow.
The shadows of trees and bushes beside the sidewalk shifted with her steps, continuously receding. Lin Shu kept her head down, lost in messy thoughts, unaware that a dark silhouette stood silently in one shadowed corner. She passed by when a cool, calm voice called out, “Lin Shu.”
She stopped in her tracks.
After a brief silence, she kept walking.
The figure lingered in the shadows for a moment, then caught up to her. Lin Shu turned around and asked, “What do you want?”
Half of the person stood in light, the other half in shadow.
Tall and slim, his frame looked fragile, like a paper airplane folded in science class—one gust of wind and he might drift away.
He had always made her heart ache.
The Ji Xing Shen in Lin Shu’s heart seemed like a fragile existence, easily scattered by a breath or shattered by a touch.
The car headlights illuminated the boy’s figure, revealing a crisp blue and white school uniform, his posture so straight it seemed as if measured with a ruler. The face that once haunted Lin Shu’s dreams was now close, yet blurred, his serene phoenix-like eyes swirling with dark currents, looking down at her with weight and gravity.
He said, “I thought you finally understood, that you’d focus on studying instead of trivial distractions. But I didn’t expect…”
Lin Shu lowered her head, lost in thought, her grip tightening unconsciously on her backpack strap.
“Don’t hang out with Xie Bucheng. They’re not good people,” Ji Xing Shen warned.
“Who are you to tell me what to do?” Lin Shu shot back coldly.
Ji Xing Shen stared at her stubborn face. The sudden flush from the afternoon had faded, leaving her face pale like the moon—cool and distant, like the Lin Shu he first met.
The high school entrance exams had just ended.
He and other financially supported students awkwardly waited in a private room at a restaurant. Scholarships had been distributed, and the officials and sponsors arranged a meal and group photos for the poor students.
There weren’t enough seats.
Out of courtesy, he stood awkwardly, holding his utensils low, hoping no one would notice him.
He overthought it.
Among so many people, no one even saw him.
Half an hour passed.
A girl who entered the room glanced at him, added a stool in the spacious area for the sponsors and officials, and gestured for him to sit.
She wore a beige dress and spoke little, only eating. He assumed she was also a sponsored student. Their shared sense of inferiority had just begun to bud, no resonance yet. Then he heard her call a confident couple “Mom and Dad.”
She picked up a large shrimp for him, her voice curious.
“My name’s Lin Shu. Are you Ji Xing Shen? The one who took first place in the provincial physics competition in ninth grade?”
He hesitated before answering, shame blossoming wildly inside him, yet he couldn’t suppress his urge to look at her.
The girl had a fairy-like face.
Back then, “fairy” wasn’t a teasing term.
She smiled brightly at him, eyes free of worldly calculation, filled only with pure admiration. “You’re amazing!”
He lowered his gaze to his scuffed sneakers, never raising his head again during the meal.
...
“I don’t really have the standing to tell you what to do,” Ji Xing Shen said softly after a pause. “Your family has helped me. I’m just warning you.”
The girl who once treated him like an angel now seemed to hear a joke. She looked up, a shadowy smile on her face, purity gone, replaced by a deep, incomprehensible loathing.
“Help? Then please don’t repay kindness with hatred.”
With that, Lin Shu turned and walked away.
Ji Xing Shen instinctively stepped forward. He could have grabbed her hand but didn’t, watching helplessly as she distanced herself with a resolute posture.
An inexplicable flutter gripped his heart.
It was the premonition of loss fermenting inside him.
But it was never possible to have her; they belonged to different worlds. Their divergent paths had been set from birth.
Ding ling ling—
A string of bicycle bells rang out.
---
Xie Bucheng stood on his bike, repeatedly ringing the metal bell on the handlebar until Lin Shu turned around angrily to look at him.
The school’s most unruly boy rode alongside the beautiful, outstanding girl, separated by a strip of greenery.
What were they talking about?
Ji Xing Shen couldn’t hear clearly.
But their posture and the rhythm of their back-and-forth suggested it wasn’t just casual classmates’ chatter.
His phone vibrated.
A call from his father — Grandma’s condition had worsened and she was hospitalized again. Dad urged Ji Xing Shen to quickly contact the Lin family for help; the hospital wouldn’t provide the special medicine without money.
The boy held his phone in the dark. The crisp bike bell and their conversation grew distant, but his father’s voice grew clearer.
...
“Who were you talking to just now?” Xie Bucheng asked.
“Who else? That scumbag...” Lin Shu replied.
Xie Bucheng thought she meant him, made a turn signal motion, shook the handlebars, and said “Oh.”
Lin Shu asked if playing like that wouldn’t cause him to fall.
“Nope.”
Right then, Xie Bucheng leaned dangerously toward the bushes. Lin Shu panicked and rushed over to steady him, but the brat righted himself after the extreme lean, refusing to ride normally. He kept hopping forward on the brakes like a big rabbit.
Alright, alright, so that’s how you want to play.
Whoever worries about Xie Bucheng is a fool!
“Don’t play like that, you scared me to death... Oh, and watch out for Fang Chao. He seems to know quite a few people in the underworld. When cornered, even rabbits bite.”
No doubt, the ‘little dog’ is obvious!
Xie Bucheng’s only reply was, “Mind your own business. Always worrying about others—do you love meddling that much?”
Lin Shu glared at him.
Xie Bucheng jumped his bike onto the curb, and under her “ferocious” stare, jumped back onto the road. When she wasn’t looking, he jumped back up again.
So damn cheeky.
Lin Shu smiled a little. When she was happy, her stomach twitched, her data usage spiked, and her expression grew strange.
“Period?” Xie Bucheng asked.
Lin Shu nodded.
He said “Oh” and stopped playing around, riding properly again. Then he added, “Drink more hot water.”
Lin Shu had no energy to argue. Otherwise, she might foolishly try to argue with him. Guys seem to suggest nothing but hot water. But thinking about it, Xie Bucheng and she weren’t that close. Saying “drink more hot water” was already kindness. Why fuss?
The more you want, the more you repeat the same mistakes.
Lin Shu suddenly fell silent on the edge of an outburst.
Xie Bucheng asked, “Can’t your family’s car come pick you up? Why insist on walking?”
As they spoke, a Porsche pulled up beside the road with its hazard lights on, almost crashing into the bike lane. Lin Shu shouted, and Xie Bucheng jumped off just in time, grabbing Lin Shu and pulling her inside.
Sometimes drunk drivers appeared at night.
But nothing this reckless—how could someone drive straight at people!
Lin Shu stuck out her head, furiously filming with her phone.
“Do you know you almost hit someone?! Wait, I’m posting your misdeeds online!”
The Porsche door opened.
A man with bleached white hair stepped out. Tall and muscular but slim-limbed, he looked lanky. His flashy outfit outshone even the flamboyant Xie Bucheng. If Xie Bucheng was cool, Lin Zhou was pure extravagance. At a glance, he looked like an idol, with heavy bloodshot eyes and a weary look of satisfaction. The troublemaker looked downright innocent by comparison.
“Who do you want to expose, huh?” The man strode over, passed Xie Bucheng, and grabbed Lin Shu’s shoulder.
Lin Shu’s eyes widened.
Xie Bucheng grabbed the man’s wrist, his other hand balled into a fist. The naive sparkle was gone, replaced by fierce aggression as he swung a punch toward the man’s face.
“Stop!”
Lin Shu hurried to hold Xie Bucheng back.
The man dodged and swung back.
“Stop!”
Lin Shu turned and wrapped her arms tightly around the flashy man who had just gotten out of the Porsche.
---
Silence fell.
The girl’s swift actions stunned the two men, controlling the situation. Lin Shu felt like the cream filling in a sandwich cookie, shoulders hunched, murmuring, “Bro, this is my classmate Xie Bucheng. Xie Bucheng, this is my brother Lin Zhou.”
Xie Bucheng frowned, eyeing Lin Zhou, who seemed two different layers compared to Lin Shu. “Your real brother?”
“Yeah, real blood brother—same mother, same father.”
After answering Xie Bucheng, Lin Shu grasped her brother’s hands, the gesture appearing affectionate but really to brace against any sudden outburst and to prevent him from getting too close to Xie Bucheng. “Bro, why are you back? Isn’t the holiday in two days?”
“If I don’t come early, won’t I get stuck on the highway?” Lin Zhou retorted with her own words.
Lin Shu choked and coughed twice, calming down. She didn’t feel guilty at all. Why was she so flustered, as if caught red-handed?
“College life is great…”
“I think you’re having more fun,” Lin Zhou sneered after sizing up Xie Bucheng, grabbed Lin Shu, and quickly put her in the car. Soon, Lin Shu was strapped in the passenger seat, as if kidnapped, signaling Xie Bucheng with her eyes to leave quickly.
Xie Bucheng picked up his mountain bike, pedaled into a narrow path, and glanced back.
Well, damn.
The Porsche that had just left suddenly charged back.
Lin Shu clung desperately to her brother, leaning out to shout, “What are you looking at? Xie Bucheng, you better get going!”
Xie Bucheng hurried down the curb, turned into a narrow alley barely wide enough for one person, and twenty minutes later, entered his home, inexplicably smiling.
His tattooed cousin asked what good news had him so happy.
Xie Bucheng said nothing, instead asked if there was a drink suitable for girls during their period.
His cousin blinked, cursed, “Kid, I don’t even have a girlfriend, and you’re already…”
They tussled briefly before Xie Bucheng returned to his room.
Lying down, he smiled inexplicably.
At first glance, Lin Shu and the white-haired flashy man didn’t look related, but on reflection, it would be stranger if they weren’t siblings.
As the saying goes, for every poison there’s an antidote within three paces.
“Maybe her brother misunderstood something…”
Xie Bucheng immediately messaged Lin Shu. She didn’t reply until after midnight, saying it was fine now, she had handled everything, and apologized for causing him trouble today.
Xie Bucheng: Why speak like a Japanese person?
Lin Shu: …You weren’t hurt, right?
Xie Bucheng: Just scraped some skin.
Lin Shu: Sorry, sorry. My brother thought we were that kind of relationship and got a bit worked up. I explained to him; it won’t happen again.
Xie Bucheng: We’re not that kind of relationship?
He teased her.
Expecting Lin Shu to blow up and ask what nonsense he was spouting, he was surprised when she didn’t reply. Until 2 a.m., she sent a message: …Are we?
Yes, we are.
Xie Bucheng sent then deleted the message, fearing that if he teased her more, she wouldn’t sleep all night—and had class tomorrow.
Xie Bucheng: Told you, you secretly like me.
Lin Shu: Go to hell!
Xie Bucheng: Leg hurts…
Lin Shu: None of my business!
Xie Bucheng: The scraped skin part.
Lin Shu: …Bro, can I call you bro too? Stop messing with me; I’m not a toy. Go to the hospital and get painkillers. I’ll pay, I promise!
Xie Bucheng: Sleeping now.
Lin Shu: …Good night.
Xie Bucheng: [ClumsyDog.gif]
A clever dog’s head popped out of a big green cabbage, eyes spinning wildly. Lin Shu first hid under her blanket laughing, then, realizing Xie Bucheng was teasing her, grew annoyed.
Who’s the clumsy dog here?
You’re the silly dog.
No one told her that after being reborn with an adult soul, dealing with an immature brother and an unfathomable lifesaver would be so challenging.
Tsk.