Brother, It's Been a Long Time

By the time his older brother arrived late, Xie Qizhi was leisurely sipping his squid soup when the door was suddenly pushed open.

Songcheng was located at a high latitude, and the weather had already turned chilly after autumn. The wind was strong at night, and Xie Zhilan wore a thin beige coat over a white long-sleeved shirt. As he walked in, he looked like a young college student who had wandered into the wrong place. However, everyone knew him, and they all teased him for being so late.

He quickly glanced at Xie Qizhi, winked and smiled at him, and then joined the sophisticated adults, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries like "Hello, Director X, long time no see."

Xie Qizhi listened for a moment, then quietly asked Ying Huai, "Is everyone here a director? What kind of director are you?"

"I'm not," Ying Huai said, looking down at him. "Just like you, I'm just here for a free meal."

Xie Qizhi naturally didn't believe him. Merchants chased profits; if Ying Huai had nothing of value, why had they let him off so easily earlier and only surrounded Ying Huai? Was it just because he was handsomer than him?

Xie Qizhi looked at his brother. After sitting down, he barely ate a bite, constantly being pulled into conversations and offered drinks. Xie Qizhi thought they were talking about serious matters, but after listening for over ten minutes, he couldn't remember a thing. It felt emptier and more boring than his first math class after returning to school from a two-month hospitalization.

He gradually lost his patience, and Ying Huai beside him hadn't been listening from the start. He was looking down at his phone, and when Xie Qizhi leaned closer to look, he found him secretly playing a game.

The layout was like a four-panel comic strip, where small items in each panel could move and affect one another. The graphics were very exquisite, but there was no Chinese text. This was another thing he didn't understand.

Xie Qizhi grabbed Ying Huai's arm, stopping him from playing, wanting him to talk to him.

Ying Huai put his phone away and asked, "What do you want to talk about?"

Xie Qizhi stared at the balding man who was offering his brother a drink, saying very unhappily, "What does his wife's cousin's daughter have to do with my brother? Do they even know each other, for him to make such a claim?"

"How would I know?" Ying Huai said, puzzled. He raised his eyes to observe Xie Zhilan for a moment, then told him, "They don't."

Xie Qizhi asked suspiciously, "How do you know?"

Even he, as the younger brother, couldn't say for sure. What if his brother had been in a relationship before?

"Once, he met someone at the mall. Clearly, they didn't know each other, but they still chatted for a whole afternoon and even had dinner together," Ying Huai said in a low voice. "Only after eating did he realize the other party had mistaken him for someone else. Every time he can't remember who someone is, he just goes along with whatever they say."

Xie Qizhi asked curiously, "How do you know? Were you there too?"

"No," Ying Huai replied. "He got halfway through the meal and felt more and more uneasy, so he took a photo and sent it to me, asking me to help him flip through his graduation album to find out who this person was and what their name was."

It sounded like a very funny story. Yet, when he thought about how they still understood each other so well despite not seeing each other for years, Xie Qizhi couldn't laugh.

Ying Huai seemed to notice. He looked closely at his drooping eyelashes, lightly nudged his shoulder, and said, "You're unhappy when I don't talk to you, and you're still unhappy when I do. Why are you so hard to please?"

Xie Qizhi glared at him. "Who needs you to please me."

Ying Huai was stunned, looking at him with amusement. "What's wrong? Who made Qiqi angry again?"

Xie Qizhi said with an expressionless face, "I don't want to talk to you anymore."

Hearing this, Ying Huai really stopped talking, leaning back comfortably in his chair, and went back to playing that independent four-panel comic game.

Xie Qizhi: "..."

When one was in a bad mood, things that were originally bearable became at least ten times worse.

Xie Qizhi really didn't understand what there was to talk about in those boring topics, and did they really need to raise their glasses every few minutes? He also didn't want to hear others calling his brother "Young President Xie" and offering him drinks. He hadn't eaten anything, and drinking so much would upset his stomach.

He poured milk into his unused glass, walked over to his brother, and interrupted them, "Brother."

Everyone looked at him. Xie Zhilan raised his eyes, his peach blossom eyes shining with a gentle smile. "Does Qiqi need something from me?"

"I also want to offer you a toast." He forcefully stuffed the glass into his brother's hand, clinking his glass against it with a crisp sound. "I wish you happiness every day and that everything goes your way."

As soon as he spoke, the others laughed, as if looking at a naive child. They teased that Young President Xie had a very sweet younger brother.

However, Xie Zhilan didn't laugh along. He said very seriously, "I also wish Qiqi happiness every day, free from illness and disaster."

Xie Qizhi watched him tilt his head back, drinking the glass of milk completely before he felt reassured and returned to his seat.

Ying Huai stopped playing his game. Whether he had beaten it or got bored, he took an untouched bottle of Coca-Cola, unscrewed the cap, poured some for himself, and said with his head down, "You care about him so much? Your relationship is really good."

Wasn't that obvious?

"He's my brother." Xie Qizhi pushed his glass over. "I want some too."

But Ying Huai didn't pour it for him, saying expressionlessly, "Don't you have hands?"

If he wouldn't do it, Xie Qizhi would do it himself. Lifting the bottle, he snorted at Ying Huai and said, "Stingy."

"Qiqi," Lin Jianshan called out to Xie Qizhi, pointing outside the door. "Do you want to go out for some fresh air?"

Xie Qizhi didn't answer, looking hesitantly at Ying Huai.

Ying Huai replied, "Go if you want."

The atmosphere in the private room was too suffocating, so Xie Qizhi followed Lin Jianshan out.

The night was deep, and a full moon hung high in the pitch-black sky, its bright light flowing over the stone-paved road.

Xie Qizhi and Lin Jianshan walked a short distance and then sat on a long bench by the road. Xie Qizhi stared blankly at the shimmering river, quietly listening to Lin Jianshan talk about his brother—how many people regarded him as an outstanding young man and wanted to matchmake him with girlfriends.

Xie Qizhi said, "My brother is never short of girlfriends."

Lin Jianshan blinked, smiled, and said, "True. If only he could share some of his luck with Ying Huai. I've never seen Ying Huai in a relationship; I don't know what kind of person he will end up liking."

Doesn't Sister Lin know? Xie Qizhi thought coldly. He likes someone who looks like my brother.

He didn't want to hear about this, so he asked Lin Jianshan about her marriage—what her husband was like, how they met, and how they ended up getting married.

Lin Jianshan leaned over, reaching out to pat his head, but didn't answer.

Xie Qizhi called her in confusion, "Sister Lin?"

Lin Jianshan let out a sigh, looking at Xie Qizhi, and said in a slightly sad tone, "I told you about this before, didn't I? Why do you have the same illness as your brother? You look like you care about others on the outside, but you don't actually pay attention at all."

Xie Qizhi was stunned, blinking his eyes innocently at her.

"Only good at acting cute, just like your brother." Lin Jianshan laughed, forgiving him, and slowly continued, "That's why back then, compared to your brother, I liked Ying Huai a bit more. Zhilan often broke his promises, always stood me up, but as long as Ying Huai promised, no matter how boring he found it, he would stay with me to the end..."

Xie Qizhi listened to her. Although she was smiling, he felt she might be very sad right now.

The person who had stayed with her to the end had gradually grown distant, not even attending her wedding, and when they reconnected, they had nothing left to say. Meanwhile, the person who often stood her up and didn't care about anything became her longest-lasting close friend.

Why was that? Xie Qizhi thought, was it because liking someone also required moderation?

A calm, gentle feeling could last a long time, but a feeling too deep would waver constantly, becoming tired and heavy, and finally had to be released forever.

Lin Jianshan looked down at her watch, asking him, "After the Mid-Autumn Festival, you're moving to my place, right? Do you need me to pick you up?"

Although he had known his brother's arrangements early on, hearing Lin Jianshan ask this still made him feel sad. The wind by the river was strong, and he bowed his head and coughed for a while before telling Lin Jianshan the truth, "I don't want to move. I only want to stay at Ying Huai's place. I don't know why my brother insists on making me move to your place."

Hearing this, Lin Jianshan was clearly stunned. "You don't know?"

Xie Qizhi asked blankly, "Know what?"

"It wasn't Zhilan who insisted on making you move; it was Ying Huai who said it wasn't convenient for him and he could only keep you for a month." Lin Jianshan asked strangely, "Qiqi, didn't your brother tell you?"

Xie Qizhi felt a thud in his heart, like the dull sound of a stone piercing through the lake's surface and sinking to the bottom.

Sister Lin's husband called her, so she had to go back first, leaving Xie Qizhi sitting alone by the river.

He was still thinking of ways to make Ying Huai like him step by step, but Ying Huai had already set a time limit for him. When the time was up, it would be the end.

Half an hour later, his brother messaged: [Qiqi, where did you run off to?]

Xie Qizhi looked down, didn't reply, and stood up to walk back.

Reaching the door of the private room, the door was slightly ajar. The others had left, leaving only his brother and Ying Huai.

Just as Xie Qizhi was about to walk in, he suddenly heard Ying Huai ask, "Is your family about to go bankrupt too? Why are you working so hard to make money?"

Xie Zhilan said sadly, "There's no other way. Qiqi is eighteen now."

"So what if he's eighteen?"

"Eighteen means he's an adult. My parents feel they've done their duty and don't want to support him anymore," Xie Zhilan said. "If I obediently listened to them, continued my studies, and interned at their company, the money I'd make in a year wouldn't even be enough to buy a bottle of imported medicine for Qiqi."

Ying Huai asked, "Why—"

Xie Zhilan knew what he wanted to ask, replying in a deep voice, "In the beginning, everyone said—the people at the orphanage, the doctors who examined him—they all said Qiqi wouldn't live to adulthood. Do you understand? They didn't expect Qiqi to live past eighteen."

"If they had known, they absolutely wouldn't have adopted Qiqi. Doing charity to prolong a child's life and spending a lifetime pouring money into a bottomless pit—in my parents' eyes, those are two completely different things."

Xie Qizhi stood frozen outside the door, his breath seemingly catching. A feeling of coldness and suffocation enveloped him. He clenched his fists, clutching his aching chest. He didn't walk in, nor did he want to hear any more, turning to leave.

The people in the private room were completely unaware. Ying Huai looked down to message Xie Qizhi, speaking while typing, "That he could grow up safely is already a good thing."

"Yes," Xie Zhilan said. "This Lunar New Year, I didn't even dare let him go home. Those messy relatives gathering would definitely say things, and Qiqi would be sad every time he heard them."

"Let him stay at my place," Ying Huai said without looking up. "I'll take him boating."

Xie Zhilan was stunned for a moment, narrowing his eyes as he evaluated him suspiciously, "When did you change your personality? You're willing to take a kid out to play?"

Ying Huai gave a calm "hmm," seeing Xie Qizhi reply to his message: [Not waiting for you two, I'm too sleepy, going back first [wave