Chapter 2.2
Zhong Xiyou had just placed the hot porridge and side dishes on the bedside table, pulled up a chair to sit on, and decided to wait for his second sister to wake on her own when he noticed her eyes flutter open. Overjoyed at the sight, he subconsciously opened his mouth to greet her, but then he met her cold and indifferent gaze.
There was no emotion in it. It was like she was looking at a stranger.
“…”
Instantly, he felt his heart ache, and the words that he had been about to say died in his throat. His second sister had always worked hard, trying to integrate herself into the family and had even tried her best to strike up conversations with him, doing everything she could to get even a little bit of attention from their family. But this time, after all that had happened, how disappointed was she? Just how disheartened was she that she now looked at him with such a cold gaze?
Zhong Youyou, in a bid to sit up, propped herself up with a hand. The action strained her right hand, however, and blood started oozing from it as a result.
Seeing this, Zhong Xiyou tried to put his sadness behind him as he quickly leaned over to help her sit up. But before he could touch her, he was stopped by his sister’s calmly waving hand. Zhong Xiyou’s fingers froze in mid-air, the smile that had squeezed out from the corner of his mouth souring just a tiny bit.
But even so, he didn’t blame Zhong Youyou. His sadness came from his sense of guilt.
Cheering himself up some seconds later, he asked enthusiastically, “Second Sister, are you hungry? Do you want to eat something to fill your stomach?” As he spoke, he took the porridge, scooped it up with a spoon, blew lightly, and delivered it towards her mouth.
Zhong Youyou was puzzled about how her cheap brother had suddenly had such a change of heart, but in the face of the porridge placed close to her mouth, she leaned her head away.
She was an orphan, one not used to being in close contact with others, let alone allowing herself to be fed by them. Allowing someone else to feed her would’ve been too awkward. Particularly when that someone was a person that she didn’t like – in this case, Zhong Xiyou.
This time, Zhong Xiyou froze completely.
He looked at the silent profile of his second sister. The face that had been smeared with makeup with no regard for anything else until it looked like a color palette, and the hair that had been permed until it was curly in some places and spiky in others. Zhong Xiyou had always disliked such girls, so seeing his second sister style herself like that made him even more disgusted. But after being reborn, he realized that she hadn’t been like that from the start. She just wanted to be pretty and envied Meng Shixuan’s appearance. But as no one in the Zhong family cared about her, she ended up going down the wrong path.
Basically, it was the Zhong family’s fault. And he himself was also at fault.
Zhong Xiyou waited for a few seconds, but she still pursed her lips, the emotions of alienation and resistance clear on her face. Eventually, Zhong Xiyou lost control of his wry smile and, amidst his heartache, withdrew his hand. He knew that if he stayed, his sister would not eat anything.
“Then I’ll go out first, I still have to go to school today.” As he spoke, Zhong Xiyou placed the porridge on the bedside table and rose to his feet to leave, but just before he closed the door, he turned around and squeezed out one last smile: “Second sister, remember to eat more. Mom and Dad have been out of the country for the past two days to take care of things. They’ll be back tomorrow.”
He realized that in his last life, he had never smiled at Zhong Youyou, so much so that he now felt stiff as he tried to do so.
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His sister raised her eyelids and glanced at him following his words, but then laid back down, offering him no response.
Zhong Xiyou forcefully held back the soreness in his heart, rubbed his eyes, and closed the door. As he did so, he decided to come back early after the day’s classes. He was in his sophomore year and would usually wait for Meng Shixuan, who was a senior in high school, to finish her classes before they would both be picked up by a driver. But today, he decided against waiting for Meng Shixuan so he could leave half an hour early and spend some time alone with his second sister.
As soon as he turned around, he met Meng Shixuan who had been coming out of her room with her schoolbag on her back.
Meng Shixuan was the same as usual, a faint smile on her face. Under the school uniform jacket was a gray knitted dress that outlined her beautiful figure. Her white skin exuded such extreme purity that she could be compared to an elegant swan when it was coupled with her faintly gentle, yet haughty aura. Just like a little princess.
And, in truth, Meng Shixuan was indeed the princess of the Zhong family, and she had been pampered as such since childhood.
Zhong Xiyou had always had a good relationship with this elder sister, as even he had doted on her. After all, she was beautiful and outstanding.
He had always thought that girls should be like his big sister Shixuan, so he had never so much as glanced at the second sister who had looked like a little beggar when she first returned home.
But at this moment, when he looked at Meng Shixuan, he felt a little disgusted.
She was living a life that others could never even dream of. To be precise, she was living his sister’s life. Those beautiful clothes, earrings, and cosmetics should all have belonged to his second sister.
It was a case of the dove that stole the magpie’s nest.
While his sister who had been lost, wandering the wilderness, eventually returned, all she had gotten was a cold and indifferent treatment from her family. Meanwhile, Meng Shixuan, after getting so much from them, in the final car accident, had timidly run away by herself.
If his second sister had grown up in the Zhong family instead of suffering all that time, wouldn’t she have turned out to be more charming than Meng Shixuan?
On thinking up to that point, Zhong Xiyou felt the disgust in his heart rise.
Meng Shixuan, unaware of her little brother’s thoughts, asked in surprise, “What’s wrong, Xiyou, you look a little strange. Why did you come out of Youyou’s room?”
She had thought that Zhong Xiyou hated Zhong Youyou, and so would not want to go in and take a look at her condition at all.
“Nothing.” Zhong Xiyou lost his usual doting expression at that moment. In its place came a look of indifference as he walked past her, striding out of the villa without waiting for her.
The more he thought about it, the more he felt he couldn’t forgive Meng Shixuan.
In the accident, he’d seen how his sister, Zhong Youyou, had caught on fire while trying to save them. She had been burnt beyond recognition in front of his eyes. And during those last moments, as if via telepathy, or some sort of bond, Zhong Xiyou had felt the same burning pain. No words could describe how painful it was, and that feeling had lasted for a whole month. At the time his only thought had been about just how much pain Zhong Youyou had endured in those burning flames.
He couldn’t stand it. The fact that he had let Zhong Youyou go through so much pain.
And during that time, what had Meng Shixuan been doing? Inheriting hundreds of millions of property, and continuing to be the lucky princess.
Meng Shixuan frowned as Zhong Xiyou walked by, but she decided not to give it much thought. Even then, however, her complexion darkened as she walked past Zhong Youyou’s room, and as she did, she glanced at it, a complex look flashing across her eyes as she walked on.