Chapter 5

Lin Langli watched him quietly, waiting for Chenmian to reveal his true colors.

Her pretense of nonchalance, which she had maintained not long ago, was now exposed. She was now staring at him angrily, like a small, snarling beast.

"I thought you were going to pretend for a while?" Lin Langli said softly. "What? You can't take it anymore?"

Slumber was rendered speechless by his words, her chest heaving violently, but her eyes and nose were red.

Back home, Chenmian practically fled back to his room, slamming the door shut to shut out all the noise. He collapsed onto the bed, tossing and turning, trying to figure out what to do. Today, he and Lin Langli had completely broken off relations; from now on, they would be irreconcilable enemies.

The more he thought about it, the more confused he became. His head started to spin, and a chill ran through his body. He drifted off to sleep, and when he woke up again, he touched his forehead. It was burning hot. It seemed he was really sick.

Shen Mian fell ill again. The Shen family unanimously believed it was because Shen Mian's emotions had been fluctuating too much recently. Shen's mother, Su Yueqiu, felt somewhat guilty and was worried before going to bed. In the middle of the night, she put on her coat and went into Shen Mian's room to tuck him in.

Seeing Chenmian sleeping so restlessly with her brows slightly furrowed, Su Yueqiu's heart melted. But after leaving Chenmian's room, she stopped in her tracks when she saw the next room next door.

Lin Langli was still awake, sitting at his desk assembling a model. Su Yueqiu started a conversation: "Lin Langli, how have you been at home these past two days?"

Lin Langli neither said it was good nor bad, and continued to assemble the model. Su Yueqiu watched quietly for a while, and then heard Lin Langli say, "I have never played with this before. When I was a child, I was always very envious when I saw my classmates had toys."

Su Yueqiu was deeply moved by these words. She was a wealthy young lady who was innocent and carefree before marriage and did not conform to worldly customs. Although her marriage was a marriage alliance with the Shen family, her husband, Shen Mianjun, treated her with care and the two were very loving. As a result, she could not see the suffering in the world and did not know how difficult the lives of the poor were.

She quickly pressed on, "Was that family bad to you?"

Lin Langli shook his head, his tone calm: "No, my parents are very good to me. They have done their best to raise me."

Su Yueqiu didn't know what to say. She carefully examined the child, whom she hadn't really looked at since bringing him back, and tears welled up in her eyes as guilt filled her heart.

"Xiaoli, we are sorry for you. Trust your mother, and I will make sure you will never suffer again."

Lin Langli turned his head to look at her: "But, as long as Chenmian is wronged or acts coquettishly, you all side with him. I don't know... what do you want me to do after I come back? Maybe you just want to make up for the material conditions I lacked in the past ten years?"

"But I don't need to. Since middle school, I have had to help my family share the burden by working part-time, taking care of my mother, and my grandmother. I have made it this far and entered the same school as Shen Ci. I never thought that I would be weaker than others in the future. I will only go further than them."

"Your sudden appearance disrupted all my plans. I enrolled last year, and first you went into a coma, repeatedly and continuously disrupting my life and ruining my part-time job. Then you led the way in isolating me, bribing my roommates to ostracize me..."

"None of that matters. If I wanted to, I could easily retaliate. But you showed up and told me that this is your child, that Chenmian was switched at birth, and that Chenmian's actions were just mischief, childish play, and that I should forgive you?"

"I don't care about Sleep, I'm just a little disappointed. It would be fine if you didn't interfere, but you insist on making me swallow all this and treat him like family."

"Mom, isn't this wrong?"

Su Yueqiu was stunned by this long question, momentarily confused and unsure of what to do. Only when Lin Langli turned back to continue assembling the model did she find her voice, tinged with panic: "Lin Langli, what do you want us to do?"

"Don't interfere in my conflict with Shen Mian." Lin Langli looked into his mother's eyes and saw a hint of reluctance in them, so he continued, "I won't hurt his body. I just want him to know his mistakes."

"..." Su Yueqiu was silent for a while, then nodded, "Xiao Li, you are a good child."

She got up and walked towards the door, but stopped after a couple of steps, turned back, and asked softly, "Xiaoli, can Mommy hug you?"

Lin Langli did not answer, but simply raised his hand to turn off the lamp and said, "You are the mother who is in slumber."

—

Unaware that the couple who held the highest positions in the household had changed their minds that very night, Shenmian remained oblivious.

He was still happily planning how to get rid of Lin Langli in his dream. When he woke up, he was still listless, lying in bed with his eyes half-closed, not wanting to touch his phone, his mind wandering aimlessly.

Shen Ci came in and called him to wash up, but Shen Mian didn't move. So Shen Ci sat on the edge of the bed and nudged him: "It's just a little fever. How many times a year do you get sick? Why aren't you used to it?"

Chenmian exhaled a breath of hot air: "I feel so uncomfortable."

"So delicate." Shen Ci frowned slightly. "Nothing happened between you two after I left yesterday, right?"

Chenmian crawled out from under the covers, revealing a pair of watery eyes. She was ill at the moment, and her snow-white skin was mixed with powder, making her look particularly fragile. Her tone was also weak and feeble as she spoke, distorting the truth: "I apologized to him, but he still scolded me and said he would definitely kick me out."

Shen Ci asked suspiciously, "You apologized? He really said that?"

"Yeah, he was so fierce that night. If you hadn't saved me, he would definitely have bullied me again. I was thinking of getting along with him properly, otherwise what if he keeps causing me trouble in the future? I even gave him the necklace you bought me yesterday, but he said why should I spend the Shen family's money? I'm not a member of the Shen family..."

"I was so angry I could hardly breathe, so I got sick when I got back. Being sick is awful. I should have known better than to apologize to him; I even got yelled at..."

"Shen Ci, what if he really causes me trouble? I'm not as smart as you guys, and I'm always sick. Mom and Dad will definitely think he's better. If they kick me out, I won't have money for medicine, medical care, or to hire someone to take care of me. Will I die?"

Chenmian spoke intermittently, coughing lightly from time to time. Chen Ci looked down at the sickly person on the bed, who was pulling at the silk quilt, with her white fingers, the color of flower buds, sticking out. Her body was still trembling slightly, as if she had been frightened.

"Don't talk nonsense! What do you mean by dead or alive?" Shen Ci interrupted the person on the bed, and after a while comforted them, "Be good, your parents won't kick you out."

Remembering her mischievousness before she fell into a deep sleep, she paused, then said with difficulty, "Besides, I'm still here. I'll take care of you."

Chen Mian was furious inside for not receiving Chen Ci's firm support, but she put on an even more gentle expression and said in a sweet voice, "Chen Ci, you are still the best to me."

Lost in thought, Shen Ci didn't notice the strange behavior of the person in front of him and casually replied, "I'll have Auntie bring you some medicine. If you feel unwell, don't move."

"No!" Chenmian struggled to get up, but she didn't have much strength and couldn't help but fall out, but was caught by Chen Ci.

"What are you doing?"

"I want some water, my throat hurts so much." Each sentence was drawn out, soft and weak—only heard when someone is sick. Shen Ci felt a little uncomfortable, so he gently pressed the person back onto the bed, propped them up with a pillow, and whispered, "Want some water? Want some candy?"

"I want them both!"

With Shen Ci's hand, Shen Mian sipped the water in the cup, no different from a cat licking water. In this posture, Shen Ci could easily see Shen Mian's slender, soft, and white neck, hidden in her wispy hair.

He suddenly remembered that when he was a child, Chenmian was weak. His family followed the master's advice and raised him as a girl. Chenmian insisted on not wearing skirts, so he grew his hair long until he was in middle school.

Shen Mian was very happy after getting his hair cut. When Shen Ci asked him why he was so excited, Shen Mian said, "A bunch of blind people always think I'm a girl. I'm clearly a boy!"

Actually, long-haired sleeping characters are quite cute.

"What did you say?" As if she had unintentionally spoken her thoughts, Chenmian raised her face and asked, her eyes moistened by the warm steam.

Upon seeing such a beautiful, delicate face, Shen Ci's mind went blank, his thoughts went blank, and he instinctively snapped, "Why are you so spoiled! You're not like a boy at all!"

Shenmian hated it most when others talked about his gender. Hearing this, he was immediately unhappy. He raised his hand and pushed Shenci's wrist hard, successfully knocking the water cup over. The remaining water was instantly spilled on Shenci and dripped all over the ground.

Before Shen Ci could get angry, Chen Mian grabbed his hand and held it tightly: "Why do you talk so rudely? I hate it when people talk to me like that."

She then looked a little aggrieved, her eyelashes drooping: "Why are you always so mean to me? Are you overjoyed that Lin Langli is back?"

"Stop, stop, stop!" Shen Ci quickly interrupted, "Why are we talking about him again?"

He refused to apologize, remaining silent for a few seconds before tears, like pearls, began to stream down his face: "I hate you."

Shen Ci's heart tightened. He knew that Shen Mian was just being stubborn, but he still felt a surge of inexplicable anger. He thought to himself, "What an ungrateful wretch! I've been so biased towards him, yet he can turn around and say 'he's bad.'"

With a cold face, she wiped his tears with her fingertips, but then felt that such a gesture was too intimate, unlike what young men would do, or like brothers, or perhaps like father and son.

Shen Ci felt a little better. With a troublesome child like Shen Mian, a father should just spoil him a bit.

They completely ignored the fact that the two of them were the same age, and that in fact, in their family, he was considered the "older brother" in the ancestral tablets.

What kind of "brother" is that? Shen Ci had never accepted this order of precedence since he was a child, and had never called him that.

She was happy to sleep, but she stopped doing so when she grew up. However, when she was young, she would always say to him in a sweet tone, "I love my little brother so much."

Shen Ci ignored him, but Shen Mian leaned in to kiss his cheek and whispered, "I don't want to stay in bed anymore. The injection hurts so much, little brother. I want to go out and play with my friends. Can you go and talk to Mom and ask her to take me with you?"