After finishing the meal, Alex wiped his mouth, like a big cat that had just finished eating a Meow Bun with satisfaction. He narrowed his eyes, which were a little off color due to his complex bloodline, and stretched his shoulders with his paws outstretched.

Then he looked up and saw Song Xiaobao's expression as if he had been struck by lightning. He couldn't help scratching his chin in dissatisfaction and lodged a solemn protest: "What's going on, Song Lili? Are you discriminating against us? Isn't it time for you to read heavy-taste novels on your phone all day? I caught a glimpse of your...what was it yesterday? Oh, the story of two tentacle octopuses being gay."

Song Xiaobao's tongue was a little tied. She wanted to explain, deny, ask, and scold Alex for talking nonsense. These things couldn't be arranged in order of priority. They all wanted to cut in line, so they were all stuck in her throat. Finally, she stuttered and blurted out: "My second brother didn't discriminate against you for farting!"

Alex opened his eyes wide in surprise. "What? Even farting is discriminated against? Can the air in your stomach and intestines naturally escape from your pores? You are too high-tech!"

Song Xiaobao was speechless and had no choice but to beat him.

After a one-sided beating, the tough-skinned Alex tidied up his messed-up hair without a care in the world, and watched Song Xiaobao sit down exhausted on the edge of the hotel bed with a bitter face.

He stretched out his finger and poked her lightly as if teasing: "What's the matter? Is it really that hard to accept?"

"Nonsense, he's my brother, how can it be the same?" Song Xiaobao slapped his claws away, then hugged his head with both hands, "What should I do? If my eldest brother finds out, he will definitely beat him to death."

"Your eldest brother?" Alex asked in confusion, "Does he care so much?"

Xiao Bao said: "Didn't I tell you that the three of us siblings grew up without parents, and my eldest brother raised the two of us."

"Oh, feudal patriarch," Alex nodded in understanding and shrugged to show his sympathy. Then, he came closer with a lecherous look in his eyes, "Hey, girl, is your brother handsome? Do you have a photo? Take it out and let me see it."

This time, Xiaobao adopted a driving-away beating and beat the bitch all the way out.

After beating the bitch away, she lay back heavily on the bed, making a hole in it, then rolled around a few times in frustration. Finally, she couldn't help herself and reluctantly took out her cell phone. After some hesitation, she dialed the number Wei Zhiyuan had left for her.

Wei Zhiyuan led a healthy and regular life and had already fallen asleep. It took him a while to answer the phone, and he asked with a hint of sleep in his voice, "Xiaobao? What happened?"

Song Xiaobao pretended not to realize that she had woken him up. She thought to herself that Wei Zhiyuan wouldn't mind anyway - she had disliked him so many times since she was a child that it was hard to count. Her brothers should have gotten used to it by now.

She started talking about this and that for a long time, and Wei Zhiyuan kept accompanying her patiently. In the end, Song Xiaobao was worried and ran out of words to talk about. After a brief silence, Wei Zhiyuan asked, "Do you have anything to say to me?"

Xiao Bao coughed dryly, and with a tight voice, he tried to imitate a joking tone, saying indirectly: "Let me tell you something very funny. The fake foreigner who went with me to pick you up today is a gay. He is very mean. He can't walk when he sees a handsome guy. He came back and kept talking to me for more than half an hour. Eight out of ten sentences were about how handsome you are. He also kept fantasizing to me that you are also handsome."

Wei Zhiyuan smiled calmly: "What am I?"

Song Xiaobao: "Uh... this..."

She was embarrassed and didn't know how to express it. The next moment, Wei Zhiyuan said, "He is right. I really am."

Song Xiaobao: “…”

At that moment, she felt as if there were thousands of toads in her heart, sitting upright together, making a deafening sound in her ears: "Quack!"

Song Xiaobao couldn't help but hold his breath until he was almost suffocated. Then he let out a trembling breath, and there was a roar in his ears.

After she remained silent for a long while, Wei Zhiyuan said calmly, "Did I scare you? I think there is nothing that cannot be said to others. These are all things that are not a big deal. There is no point in hiding them and walking on thin ice for a lifetime. It doesn't matter if you can't accept it for the time being."

His attitude was frank. Song Xiaobao was silent for a moment, but he couldn't help but be brought into the frank context by him.

She thought about it and realized that this was the meaning. She got along well with Alex. No matter what her second brother became, to her, he was still the same person. There was not much difference.

Xiaobao's advantage is that she is open-minded. In this way, she successfully cleared the big stone in her heart and felt relieved. She also kindly asked Wei Zhiyuan: "That's what you said, but you must not be so frank with me. I tell you, he is simply..."

Wei Zhiyuan's smile deepened: "He knows."

The unfortunate Xiao Bao was choked by him again and coughed heavily. After a long while, he said weakly: "You are so bold, young man, you dare to confess this. Aren't you afraid that the tyrant will execute your entire family?"

Wei Zhiyuan seemed to suddenly find it quite amusing to hear her fussing like that. Now that things had come to this, there was really no need to keep it a secret from her, so he bluntly dropped the final bombshell: "Because the person I like is him."

The cell phone in Song Xiaobao's hand finally rolled to the ground with a "click". She felt that she needed a quick-acting heart-saving pill.

By the time Wei Qian finished dealing with everything as if he was escaping from it and finally went home reluctantly, he thought he had opened the wrong door.

He and Xiaobao are often not at home and spend a long time away from home, so of course they have to close the doors and windows. So every time they push the door open, they feel that the indoor air is not circulating and there is a feeling of stuffiness that takes a long time to dissipate.

If it is night, the room will not only feel empty and stuffy, but also be pitch black and silent, with no sound at all.

Wei Qian always dragged himself tired, turned on the lights, opened the windows, and switched on the TV, even if it was a commercial, to make some noise in the house. Then he would collapse on the sofa like mud and call to arrange an hourly worker.

Sometimes Wei Qian even wanted to have a pet - in the past he hated these small animals that shed hair the most, and when Xiaobao was a child, his repeated requests to have a puppy were rejected - but now he felt that no matter whether it was a cat, a dog or a mouse, at least there was a living creature that could vent when going in and out, and even if he could squat down and talk to the cat or dog when entering the house, he would not seem so stupid.

Unfortunately, I couldn't raise it. No one was at home every day. Not to mention the living creatures that needed to eat, drink, defecate and urinate, even the electronic pets died.

Over time, "going home" became something he didn't look forward to at all.

But this time, when he pushed the door open, the first thing he smelled was a faint scent of laundry detergent floating in the air. He walked in and looked out onto the balcony, where he saw bed sheets, pillowcases and a few pieces of clothing hanging in the wind.

Afterwards, the aroma of meat slowly cooked over a low fire lingered again. In the small casserole in the kitchen that had not been used for thousands of years, a pot of meat was bubbling and stewing. Wei Qian carefully lifted the lid of the casserole through a small hand towel, and the aroma steaming from it almost made him fall.

He suddenly had the idea that "health preservation is bullshit, eating meat is the way to go", and he never wanted to touch lettuce boiled in soy sauce soup and plain water again.

"You're back?" Wei Zhiyuan suddenly came over, and took out a pair of chopsticks from nowhere. He rubbed Wei Qian's waist with his hand, reached out from behind him, and gently poked the meat in the pot, "It's almost done."

Wei Zhiyuan was much stronger than when he left home. Standing behind him, he seemed particularly noticeable and oppressive, which made Wei Qian feel a little uncomfortable.

But Wei Qian firmly believed that this oppressive force came from his own imagination, because in terms of size, Wei Zhiyuan could never compare to Sanpang, who had been gifted since childhood. Every time Sanpang approached him, Wei Qian had only one simple thought: "This guy really takes up space."

Wei Qian suspected that Wei Zhiyuan had made him a little oversensitive. Over the years, he thought he no longer cared about the offense his younger brother had committed when he was young and frivolous, but it seemed that was not the case.

Although Wei Zhiyuan had matured a lot in his speech, behavior, eyes and attitude after coming back this time, Wei Qian was relieved, but he vaguely felt that Xiaoyuan seemed to have become more "nervous" in some aspects. Moreover, as he got older and bolder, he became more and more difficult to deal with. Every time Wei Zhiyuan approached him intentionally or unintentionally, although Wei Qian would not avoid him, he could not help but tense up.

However, at this moment, Wei Qian quickly regretted why he did not dodge.

Because Wei Zhiyuan immediately took out a piece of lean meat from the pot, carefully blew away the scorching heat, and then unexpectedly reached out and gently touched the corner of Wei Qian's mouth. The chopsticks fell to his mouth and said to his ear, which was particularly prone to itching: "Try it."

Wei Qian: “…”

Wei Zhiyuan pretended not to notice the veins jumping up and down after he shuddered slightly, stepped back a little, and said with a smile: "It's not hot anymore - yes, have you read my plan? How is it?"

Wei Qian had no choice but to take the meat from the chopsticks and discuss with him the investment in their online game as if nothing had happened.

This was just the beginning. For a long time afterwards, Wei Qian lived on the edge of a strange collapse and enjoyment.

What made him collapse was Wei Zhiyuan's attitude towards him.

Wei Zhiyuan would often use some ambiguous little actions to get close to him. If Wei Qian ignored him woodenly, he would suddenly cross the line, and then slide back to the safety line before Wei Qian got angry, and then say in a flattering way that he was just joking, and then talk to Wei Qian seriously about other things as if nothing had happened.

Wei Zhiyuan used the sixteen-character guerrilla warfare strategy of "when the enemy advances, we retreat; when the enemy stays, we harass; when the enemy is tired, we attack; when the enemy retreats, we pursue" to the extreme. He was just like a mole that had dug one hundred and eighty holes in the ground. He would pop his head out from somewhere at any time and grin. Before Wei Qian could pick up the stick to hit him, he would shrink back and run away. Next time, he would pop up again at an unknown time and place.

When Wei Zhiyuan was disobedient when he was a child, Wei Qian could simply pick him up and beat him up. After he grew up, although beating him up was unrealistic, before Wei Zhiyuan went abroad, Wei Qian found that as long as he was a little cold to him, the boy would be like a lost soul and allow himself to be rubbed.

At this moment, Wei Qian is certain that these two methods of dealing with Wei Zhiyuan have failed.

Before he figured out how to end the matter if this shaky window paper was broken, Wei Qian didn't want to take the risk of making things worse.

For a moment, he had no choice but to endure it, feeling that he was living under an ambush from all sides by Wei Zhiyuan who "popped up" at any time and place every day.

What made him enjoy was that since Wei Zhiyuan came back, this house finally felt like a home.

First of all, there is someone to talk to when you enter the room. Real communication and dialogue are different from perfunctory or polite chat. Even the most selfish and introverted person can hardly resist the pleasant charm of the former.

Xiaobao couldn't do that. Wei Qian had limited aesthetic ability, and even the most beautiful women in the world couldn't stop the audience from being face-blind. Although he was somewhat interested in the things in Xiaobao's circle out of concern for his sister, he could never tell who those people she always talked about were, and he couldn't explain to her what he usually did.

Wei Zhiyuan is different. Wei Qian discovered that Xiaoyuan likes to trace back to the source of his views on certain things from the definition level. His interest is to make various online and stand-alone games. Apart from the technical level, Wei Zhiyuan loves to formulate or abstractly refine the rules of the game. His thinking is extremely clear and he is good at simulating various evolutions, which is somewhat similar to Ma Chunming.

It’s just that Ma Chunming is not good at expressing himself. Sometimes he thinks of something but can’t get to the point. If you can’t keep up with his train of thought, it will become a case of miscommunication. It seems that Wei Zhiyuan has an extra intelligent interaction platform with customers than he does.

After he came back, Wei Qian felt that he had spoken more in the past month than in the previous year.

In the end, he had almost gotten used to the daily routine of Wei Zhiyuan cutting fruit in the kitchen and him leaning against the door talking to him.

Having a soothing, relaxing and pleasant home is something that many people can only dream of.

But this strange state of balance is only temporary after all.

It is impossible for Wei Qian to continue to deceive himself and others with such an illusion, and Wei Zhiyuan is certainly unwilling to just test it again and again. As he escalates recklessly, the surface balance becomes more and more shaky, waiting for the last straw to break the camel's back.

Here comes the straw.

That day, Wei Qian came home from get off work and half-lying on the sofa to rest for a while. He almost fell asleep when he closed his eyes. In a half-awake state, he felt something and suddenly woke up. He found that Wei Zhiyuan was kneeling on the floor next to the sofa, with a hand gently stroking his cheek and chin, which he had not yet retracted.

Wei Zhiyuan seemed to have cultivated an indestructible body and a thick skin. When he was caught doing something bad, he did not seem panicked at all. Instead, he took advantage of Wei Qian's sleepiness and slid his hand down Wei Qian's arm. Finally, he took his hand and licked his fingers lightly with a strong hint of meaning.

The warm and somewhat rough tongue wrapped around Lian Xin's ten fingers, and the hot breath passed through the extremely sensitive fingertips. Wei Qian's scalp almost exploded, and his heartbeat, which had just woken up, was almost roaring.

He pulled his hand back sharply as if he had been electrocuted, knowing that this could not go on any longer.

"Xiaoyuan." He spoke after a while.

This time, Wei Qian did not get angry. He just sat up from the sofa and said seriously, "I need to talk to you about this."

Wei Zhiyuan put his index finger on his lips and said, "Shh, don't talk about it today. How about tomorrow? Tomorrow is the weekend. You should at least have a day off. Don't go to the company. Go fishing with me."

Wei Qian did not object. He also felt that the calmer he was, the better. It would be nice if he could take a night to think carefully about it.

The next morning, the two of them went to the fish pond they had been to before. It had changed owners and had undergone several rounds of renovations, with the price increased significantly. The autumn had turned cold, and the number of tourists had begun to decrease. However, the small pavilion they had occupied was still there, renovated, with the tiles on the pointed roof painted with bright paint, which looked a bit fake.

Wei Zhiyuan walked all the way in, revisiting the old place, skillfully placing the bait and casting the rod to hook the fish.

Wei Qian's mind was not on fishing at all. He was silent for a long time, then sat down next to Wei Zhiyuan. He decided not to beat around the bush and said directly, "Give up. It's impossible."

Wei Zhiyuan's eyes were fixed on the fishing float not far away, without any fluctuation. After hearing this, he just replied calmly: "Brother, you can't make me give up. Even I can't make myself give up. It's impossible for people to control their own hearts."

Wei Qian asked him, "So what do you want to do in the future?"

Wei Zhiyuan then smiled gently. He unscrewed two bottles of mineral water, handed one to Wei Qian, and said to him, "Four years ago, I kept thinking about these questions - what should I do? How can I make you accept me? What should I do if you don't want me? The more I thought about it, the more confused I became. When the plane took off, my mind was filled with the back of you pulling my hand away. At that time, I felt my heart was broken with pain. Later, I slowly realized that all those were meaningless."

Wei Qian leaned against the pillar next to him, clasped his hands over his chest, waiting to listen to his incredible mental journey. He felt a little tragic and heroic. He felt like he was holding a meat knife facing a person with abscesses on his body. No matter how uncomfortable he was, he had to face it.

"At first, I thought that if my possessiveness towards you was never satisfied, or my feelings were never reciprocated, then you might as well kill me. I was madly jealous of every imaginary person who wanted to get close to you. I made up these people in my imagination and killed them all to relieve my anxiety."

"But on the day you tripped over the phone line and I thought something had happened to you, even though Third Brother told me that you were safe, I still had a nightmare that night. I dreamed that there were many people around you, and they disappeared one by one, until you were the only one left, all alone in my sight. I watched you walk around alone every day, and when you were sick you fainted in the living room, and no one knew about it. You could only wait until you woke up naturally, and then staggered up to find medicine. Then for a long time, whenever I closed my eyes, I would see this scene."

"It was probably about a month later. One day, in my fantasy, I saw a blurry person beside you. I couldn't tell if that person was a man or a woman, beautiful or ugly. He just stayed with you like a ghost. According to common sense, I created these people in my imagination just to kill them in the end, but I didn't do it because I saw you lower your head and smile at him. How long has it been since you smiled in my dream? I can hardly count it."

Wei Zhiyuan's voice was low and gentle, and it sounded like the vast and meaningful skylight and cloud shadows floating on the mirror-like water, but Wei Qian felt a tightness in his chest as he listened.

If Wei Zhiyuan was talking about someone else, at this point, as the eldest brother, he would bring that person back even if he had to tie him up.

But why was it him?

Since he was born, he felt that he had never been expected by anyone, let alone such deep love.

Wei Zhiyuan's words were like the perfectly round beads on his hands, rolling out one by one. They were not impressive in appearance, but contained a kind of emotion that was unspeakable but would be deafening once spoken.

But why is this person my younger brother?

"I suddenly felt enlightened. I thought, when I graduate and return to China in a few years, even if I see you marry someone, I won't be so upset anymore," Wei Zhiyuan said. "I can continue to love you. If that unknown lady loves you more than I do, I can remain silent for the rest of my life. Of course I will be in pain, but I can also regard pain as a form of spiritual practice."

Just as religion, which originated from the suffering of this world and the happiness of an unreachable place, built a spiritual bridge between the two.

Wei Qian asked softly, "What are you repairing?"

Wei Zhiyuan turned his head and looked at him quietly in the breeze without answering, but the answer was already obvious.

——Of course, it is to cultivate a happy and peaceful life for you.

He suddenly stretched out his hand and grabbed Wei Qian's hand which was on the railing. Wei Qian subconsciously shrank back, but he was held down forcefully. The identical wooden beads on their wrists collided with each other, making a faint sound, and even the sound of the water quieted down.

A fish took the bait and the float sank and floated violently, but no one paid any attention.

After an unknown amount of time, Wei Qian felt that his palms were soaked with sweat, but his face was still pale and unreasonable.

He grabbed Wei Zhiyuan's wrist, forced him to let go, and said firmly: "I still say the same thing, you should give up this idea."

Wei Zhiyuan smiled slightly and said nothing more. He picked up the fishing rod, shook his wrist and lifted it up. A big fish flipped over, and its brilliant scales sparkled in the water.

“No matter how well he pretends, he is shaken.” Wei Zhiyuan thought happily, “His pulse was obviously faster just now.”