Chapter 13
An elder brother is like a father, and Shen Maoyuan and his father are more similar in appearance and personality. So when Chen Liuchi heard the voice from the other side become deeper, he couldn't help but feel a little scared.
"I'm about to go back," he said reluctantly. "I just finished my meal and I'm leaving now."
Shen Maoyuan hummed, and then seemed to see something: "Chen Du came back in your car, you didn't drive?"
Chenliuchi mumbled, "I left in a friend's car."
Shen Maoyuan was silent for two seconds: "Are you at that Cen Zhao's house?"
Upon hearing this, Chen Liuchi simply gave up and said, "Yes, we are dating."
Shen Maoyuan fell silent for a moment, then suppressed his anger for a few seconds: "You've only known each other for a few days? How well do you know him that you dare to go to his house on your own?! You've forgotten the pain after the wound has healed, haven't you?!"
Chen Liuchi knew that Shen Maoyuan's worries were understandable, but the same thing applies: he is now twenty-seven, not seventeen. He has his own judgment and the ability to protect himself. Moreover, he knows Cen Zhao very well and he is definitely not a hypocritical scum.
"Give me his home address and I'll pick you up."
Shen Maoyuan let out a deep breath and calmed himself down.
Chen Liuchi wanted to say no, but Shen Maoyuan's tone was very bad. He didn't want to have a bad relationship with his brother, so he had to tell him a rough location.
After hanging up the phone, Cen Zhao had already cleaned up and washed his hands as he emerged from the kitchen. He was standing by the dining table packing cherries from a foam box. Seeing Chen Liuchi looking over, he said, "I see you really like them. Take these back. The ones in the box are untouched and very clean."
Chen Liuchi was a little embarrassed: "Did you hear that..."
Cen Zhao smiled, stood up and changed his clothes: "It's normal for your family to be worried. I'll take you downstairs."
The temperature today is obviously higher than yesterday. The wind is not cold at night and there is a smell of summer in the air.
Cen Zhao continued to escort Chen Liuchi out of the community. Shen Maoyuan's car had not arrived yet, and the two of them stood under the street light near the security booth and chatted casually.
"My brother... is quite worried about me." Chen Liuchi hesitated for a moment, but decided to explain. He didn't want Cen Zhao to think Shen Maoyuan was rude and overbearing. "I had a bad relationship experience in the past, so it's inevitable that he would be wary of my date."
Cen Zhao frowned slightly, but seeing that Chen Liuchi had no intention of continuing to talk about his previous relationship, he tactfully did not ask any further questions and only nodded: "I understand."
Seeing Chen Liuchi's gaze, Cen Zhao smiled and said, "I'm also a brother, I can understand his feelings."
Yes, Cen Jin is more worrying both psychologically and pathologically. For more than ten years, Cen Zhao has not dared to completely relax for a moment.
Even many years after Cen Jin's death, Cen Zhao was still worried. He worried about whether weeds had grown around his tomb, whether the red paint on his tombstone had peeled off. Even as a forensic doctor who should have been an atheist, Cen Zhao would go downstairs with his parents every New Year to draw circles and burn paper, watching the ashes rise into the sky and worrying about whether his silly brother could find his way home.
All around was quiet. Chen Liuchi looked at Cen Zhao and suddenly asked, "Do you ever get bored? Do you ever feel bad about being the older brother?"
Cen Zhao was a little surprised by the question, but he did not give an answer immediately. Instead, he thought about it carefully for a moment. He found that his answer after deep thought was no different from the answer he just wanted to blurt out subconsciously, so he spoke.
"No," Cen Zhao said, "I haven't thought about why I'm the older brother. Life's multiplication of forces has led me to this position, so I naturally accept it."
"To me, Cen Jin is at most a bit of a worry, not the annoying kind." Cen Zhao looked at Chen Liuchi and could see the momentary uneasiness in his eyes. "Believe me, your brother is probably even more depressed and uneasy than you are right now."
"This is true. Just like Cen Jin, he doesn't understand the ways of the world. Everything he says is sincere."
Cen Zhao spread his hands and said, "Sometimes I'm worried that his eyes will hurt if he stares at the embroidery too intently for too long, so I want to take him out for a walk or do something else to distract him. But nine times out of ten, he'll tell me I'm annoying, spouting out single words saying I'm disgusting."
He put one hand over his chest, looking heartbroken. "So every time I stay by his side, it actually makes me more nervous, afraid of annoying him."
“The disciplinarian is actually the one who is more worried than the person being disciplined.”
As he finished speaking, there was a horn honking from the opposite side of the road. Chen Liuchi came back to his senses and looked up, and saw the familiar black Mercedes-Benz. The window was rolled down, and Shen Maoyuan was holding the steering wheel with one hand and looking at him sideways.
"My brother is here."
Chen Liuchi nodded to Shen Maoyuan and said to Cen Zhao, "Then I'll be leaving first. Thank you for hosting Forensic Doctor Cen today. The potato chicken is especially delicious."
Cen Zhao pretended to be dissatisfied: "Brother is here, so you have to be polite to me, Chen Liuchi."
Chen Liuchi raised his eyebrows when he heard this, looking as if to say, "What can you do to me?"
Shen Maoyuan was staring at him from the opposite side, and Cen Zhao was truly at a loss for what to do. He could only sigh softly and hand over the cherries. "Can you send me a message when you get home, Boss Shen?"
Chen Liuchi smiled immediately. When he took the cherry, his thumb deliberately rested on the joint of Cen Zhao's index finger and rubbed it gently: "Okay, Cen Zhao."
"Had a good chat?"
Until he got in the car, the smile in Chen Liuchi's eyes was still very obvious and glaring, and he had no intention of hiding it in front of Shen Maoyuan.
"Okay." Chen Liuchi first put Cherry in the back seat before sitting up and fastening his seatbelt. "I already said we're here for a date, so how can we not have a good conversation?"
Shen Maoyuan held the steering wheel with both hands and looked at him. He seemed to have a lot to say, but because of Chen Liuchi's constant saying "It's twenty-seven, not seventeen", Shen Maoyuan was confused at this moment.
Twenty-seven years old is indeed an adult. Everyone is an independent individual, and he shouldn't interfere too much.
But, but.
"elder brother."
Chen Liuchi suddenly turned his head and looked over, and asked curiously, "Did you think I was annoying when I was a kid?"
Shen Maoyuan was stunned by this completely unrelated question, his expression showing a rare blankness: "What?"
Chen Liuchi didn't know what he was thinking about, but he laughed first. He asked Shen Maoyuan in a low voice, feeling a little guilty but also a little sympathetic: "Mom said that when I was a kid, I really liked sleeping in your room, but every time I slept in your bed, I would wet it. Is that true?"
Shen Maoyuan snorted, "Really? Because every time you sleep with me, you secretly drink the soda water in my room, and you sleep like a pig in the middle of the night. I can't wake you up even if I call you."
Upon hearing this, Chen Liuchi was very emotional and pretentious: "Thank you for raising me with all your hard work."
Shen Maoyuan immediately got goosebumps all over his body, completely baffled: "What on earth do you want to say?"
Chen Liuchi replied readily, "Nothing, I just feel that it's good to have a brother."
Shen Maoyuan's first reaction was that this was his sugar-coated bullet, without even a twitch of his eyebrows. "After expressing your feelings, tell me about you and that forensic doctor. Are you two dating already?"
Chenliuchi paused and hummed.
"lie."
Shen Maoyuan immediately exposed him: "If we really were to date, you would definitely be much more confident than you are now."
His tone was filled with disapproval: "Why are you going to someone else's house when you're not even together? Is that appropriate? Is it safe?"
I thought it would be another war of words with both sides arguing with each other, but surprisingly, Chenliuchi's mood was much calmer than Shen Maoyuan had imagined.
His voice was lighter than Shen Maoyuan's, but his pronunciation was clear, and his tone was much gentler than the explosiveness he'd usually displayed when discussing such matters. "I trust Cen Zhao and my own judgment. He invited me, and I responded. He likes me, and I like him, too. There's nothing insecure about it."
Shen Maoyuan was speechless for a moment. His eyes met Shen Liuchi's, their similar outlines reflected in each other's eyes. Shen Maoyuan suddenly felt a little dazed at this moment, as if for the first time he had a sense of the age of his 27-year-old brother.
Chenliuchi is already an adult who can take responsibility for his own future, but he seems to be stuck in the past ten years and cannot get out.
The orange-yellow lights spread out in the night like dandelions, illuminating the roofs along the road and making them sparkle.
Shen Maoyuan drove, and neither of them spoke. The wind blew in through the cracks in the car window, filling the car with silence.
The two brothers' apartments were not far from each other, on opposite ends of the same street. Shen Maoyuan's car, registered in Shuijunwan, drove smoothly all the way to the apartment building. He didn't let Shenliuchi get out immediately, but first asked him about his recent plans, whether he wanted to continue resting for a while or find him a new job.
Chen Liuchi listened speechlessly: "So you never thought that Chen Du and I were doing serious business? Then don't go to the Sailing Festival. I won't invite you."
Shen Maoyuan tutted his words. "Why are you mad at me? I just want you to have something to do. Besides, Qi Dafei is not a good person. Forensic doctors are part of the police force. Don't you have to have a decent job?"
Chen Liuchi laughed out loud, his tone cheesy: "Tell me the truth, are you quite satisfied with Cen Zhao? Otherwise, you wouldn't push me like this."
Shen Maoyuan didn't answer, but just sent him a WeChat contact: "If you really don't want to go back to Yinhe, I have a friend who works in the internet industry. He might be a good match for you."
Chen Liuchi glanced at the other person's profile picture, which was a simplified version of a large company's logo. He immediately exclaimed, "That's so high-end! Aren't you afraid that I, with my limited skills, will embarrass you?"
Shen Maoyuan still had some confidence in his brother's abilities, but he didn't want to be cocky, so he simply said, "The worst-case scenario is him packing you up and throwing you back to the Milky Way. What's there to be afraid of?"
Chen Liuchi didn't dare to make an international friendly gesture to his brother, so he could only roll his eyes implicitly.
"Still not." He logged out of the friend page, turned off his phone, and put it back in his pocket. "I don't want to be a slave anymore. I want to be a seagull, eating French fries at the beach whenever I want."
Shen Maoyuan didn't understand these popular internet memes. He frowned and was about to say something, but Chen Liuchi spoke first.
"You're a little weird,"
Chen Liuchi looked at his brother with a puzzled look in his eyes. "It's not your style to push people directly on me. Besides, I felt that you clearly didn't disagree with my investment in the bar before. What are you so anxious about?"
Unexpectedly, Shen Maoyuan did not deny it. He fell silent, and Chen Liuchi waited patiently.
After a moment, Shen Maoyuan finally raised his head in the dim light. His face was expressionless, but his eyes flashed with a cold light. "I got the news yesterday that Jiang Bozheng can be released early due to his good behavior in prison and his meritorious service."
"Xiaochi, starting from next week, you may see that bastard again at any time and any place."
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