CH 20

It was unknown if it was the fever medicine starting to kick in, or if it was the typical symptoms of a fever, but Ye Jiuyue blearily fell asleep. The longer he slept, the more he felt hot, so hot that he was profusely sweating. But he didn’t wake up, and was only sleeping fitfully, and fitfully dreamt an all-over-the-place dream. 

He dreamed of the orphanage at one moment, dreamed of his home in the next, then dreamed of high school, and dreamed of university.

Ye Jiuyue was an orphan and was an orphan that was a little special. In China, healthy, able-bodied male infants were rarely abandoned at the entrances of orphanages. But there were always exceptions, and there were times when unwed women made mistakes and secretly abandoned babies. 

No matter what, Ye Jiuyue’s luck couldn’t be counted as too bad. That orphanage’s staff treated the kids alright, at least they didn’t abuse them. In any case, Ye Jiuyue was healthy, had no disabilities, was young, and was a boy. The families that were willing to adopt him were numerous; with conditions like these, he was very popular with the families that wished to adopt children. 

Ye Jiuyue was adopted by a family that was pretty well off in all aspects; he was raised until kindergarten age, then suddenly his foster parents had a biological son.

This was of course a happy thing.

His foster parents were not bad, they treated Ye Jiuyue very well, even though they had their own son they still treated Ye Jiuyue the same. While their biological son grew up, he would always hear his parents say things like ‘look at your big brother’, ‘when your big brother was your age’ and ‘why aren’t you even half as obedient/smart/hardworking at school as your big brother’. 

Ye Jiuyue was the legendary ‘other people’s kid’. 

And so his foster parents’ real son went into a teenage rebellion from a young age and was irreconcilable with Ye Jiuyue since young.

People are inevitably superficially close to outsiders and hold their family at a distance, moreover, adults generally wouldn’t take the skirmishes between kids seriously and wouldn’t use a term as serious as ‘bullying’ to describe it.

Although, the reality was that Ye Tianwen was bullying Ye Jiuyue, and as time went by and he grew older, his tactics increased in number and became more and more serious. From purposefully splashing ink on Ye Jiuyue’s notebooks, to ripping up Ye Jiuyue’s books, to messing up Ye Jiuyue’s clothes, adding ‘stuff’ to Ye Jiuyue’s water, and destroying Ye Jiuyue’s stuff one by one. 

Occasionally, his adopted parents would feel that their youngest son was going too far and would take out a broom to beat him, but their youngest son’s biological grandparents didn’t let them. In their eyes, the youngest grandson was the real one, had the same blood in his veins, Ye Jiuyue was an outsider.

And it was from the grandparents and other relatives’ stray chatter, that Ye Jiuyue and Ye Tianwen learned of the adoption.

Ye Tianwen went from bad to worse. 

His foster parents couldn’t do anything either, they tried helping to stop him, but in the end, they sent Ye Jiuyue to live in the school dorms, afraid that the little kid at home would affect Ye Jiuyue’s studies.

Ye Jiuyue didn’t blame his foster parents; he knew that they had done all they could. It was very difficult to balance a bowl of water, even in families with biological brothers, there would still be favouritism; not to mention that his own circumstances were more also particular.

With his natural disposition, towards malice, Ye Jiuyue would very rarely go sharply on the offensive; if he could bear it, he would, if he could avoid it, he would. People had to be more open-minded, getting angry would only waste time and harm your body. 

If he had that energy, then it would be better to use it to repay the kindness he had received. Ye Jiuyue thought.  

Ye Tianwen was four years younger than Ye Jiuyue; he was 14 this year and was in grade 9–the peak of the rebellious phase. That’s why Ye Jiuyue and his adoptive parents came to an unspoken agreement: Ye Jiuyue would stay at the school and not come back unless something came up, in order to not get bullied.

After all, the fact that Ye Jiuyue had gotten first place in the national exam had once again triggered Ye Tianwen. During that time, there were always many people of all times that would go to the Ye family to interview Ye Jiuyue or do other things; Ye Tianwen had almost destroyed the house. 

In truth, if he could stop going back, then Ye Jiuyue would breathe a sigh of relief. It was true that he could ignore Ye Tianwen, but he didn’t have masochistic tendencies, he didn’t like being bullied like that.

Going to university meant growing up, and also meant he could rationally not go back home and wouldn’t cause his adopted parents to worry either. Ye Jiuyue was very happy.

In addition, going to university had miraculous occurrences, for example, sleeping with his idol.  

Hehe.

Vtfc Qflzlcu：“……” 

Lf kjr rdejaalcu ys atf rlvf bo atf yfv jcv tjv byrfgnfv Tf Alesef obg afc wlceafr. 

Ca olgra, tf’v mbwf bnfg ab mtfmx bc Tf Alesef’r rlaejalbc jcv wfjregf tlr afwqfgjaegf, yea tf obecv atja Tf Alesef rffwfv ab yf tjnlcu j clutawjgf; tlr fsfygbkr kfgf alutais oeggbkfv lcab j ogbkc, rffwlcu ab yf nfgs ecfjrs. Yo mbegrf, xffqlcu lc wlcv atja Tf Alesef’r clutawjgf ijra alwf tjv yffc jybea gfajxlcu atf cjalbcji fzjw, Vtfc Qflzlcu vlvc’a ajxf la qjgalmeijgis ab tfjga, jcv pera reymbcrmlberis fzafcvfv tlr tjcv bnfg jcv qijmfv la bnfg Tf Alesef’r obgftfjv.

He, himself, didn’t know why he was doing this either. It was probably because when he was little and had a fever, his older sister took care of him like this, he just felt very at ease whenever she did this.

And then Ye Jiuyue climbed higher up the pole; reached out a hand from within the blankets and loosely grabbed Shen Weixing’s wrist. 

Shen Weixing froze and quietly uttered “Jiuyue”. Of course, Ye Jiuyue didn’t answer and continued sleeping, although his eyebrows gradually relaxed and his expression became calm. It was unknown what he’d dreamed of, but he started giggling again.

Crazy weirdo. Shen Weixing looked at him strangely, and thought that Ye Jiuyue really was an extremely strange person, way too hard to understand. 

How could I have fallen in love with such a weirdo?! Shen Weixing thought. 

Then he thought: even if Ye Jiuyue is a weirdo, I still can’t bully Ye Jiuyue, though. It’s alright if both people don’t bring feelings into the mix, it’s adult matters right, both parties are consenting and come together to take care of physical needs, there’s nothing wrong with that. However, if one person in the pair catches feelings and the other doesn’t, and what’s more, pretends to not know, then this thing can’t be justified. 

Shen Weixing thought that his big sister would be ashamed of this scummy little brother of hers, she might even come in the middle of the night and enter his dreams to give him a beating. 

If one were to ask about Shen Weixing’s moral compass,  it was mostly beaten into him by his older sister. 

When they were young, the two siblings suffered too much, plus Shen Weixing was so young and didn’t have much of a moral compass built up, all he knew was that when it was cold you had to wear clothes, when you were hungry you had to eat your fill, when you saw something nice you would want it, as for if it was stealing or scamming, he wasn’t able to differentiate right from wrong. 

As a result, the only time ever in his life that he stole something was when he was four years old and stole a bag of dried noodles from the little convenience store near his house. He’d happily brought it back and shared it with his big sister, but was pressed down on the ground by her and spanked for ten minutes; his butt even got swollen because of that. 

Oh, stealing was wrong. Shen Weixing remembered this, and remembered this for a lifetime, if his brain didn’t remember then his butt would take its place and remember for him.  

Afterwards, his older sister brought him with her as she ran away from home and to the city.

At that time, Shen Weixing had grown up a little and was a social butterfly. Ever since young, he’d had good looks; he really showed that dressing shabbily wouldn’t affect real beauty. He speedily got on like a house on fire with the group of young delinquents due to his face.  

Shen Weixing didn’t dare follow those delinquents in stealing or exhorting money from classmates, but getting food and drink with his face was a breeze for him. He didn’t think that there was much of a problem. It was the young ladies that brought up treating him themselves, plus he was in the growing period of puberty and desperately needed the meat and extra carbs. 

Shen Weixing happily packed up the roasted duck and brought it back home for his sister who worked hard every day, and then he was pinned to the floor and beaten by his sister again. This time she didn’t take off his pants, after all, he was older now. His sister just took off the new T-shirt that the young lady had bought him and beat his back until it was swollen.

Every time she hit him, his sister cried harder than him and would cry while beating him, making Shen Weixing extremely terrified, swearing not to go down the wrong road again. 

Once the beating was done, his sister applied medicine for him, and would silently cry as she did so. Her tears dropped onto Shen Weixing’s wounds and hurt like fire. 

More time passed and Shen Weixing’s sister started a relationship.  

The other party was the youngest son of the supermarket his sister worked at; they were a very classic Cinderella and Prince Charming duo. It was nothing more than the young master tagging along with his father on an inspection trip to their property, and then falling in love at first sight with Cinderella. 

After all, it was Shen Weixing’s sister. While the siblings didn’t look very alike, each was beautiful in their own way. Even though she wore the supermarket vest and had no makeup on, she was still dazzling. 

The young master was pretty romantic and would go to the supermarket every day, chasing after Shen Weixing’s sister to be at her beck and call. With his sincerity, he finally won Shen Weixing’s sister’s heart and was brought back home to be introduced to her little brother. 

Seeing his goddess having to live in the slums with her little brother, the young master’s heart was breaking. With a pat on the head, he kneeled down and proposed on the spot. He said that he was afraid that his goddess wouldn’t be willing to accept his help, so he would first propose, then after they were engaged they would be a family. After that, there wouldn’t be any issues and she could reasonably accept his help.  

Shen Weixing’s impression of his future brother-in-law was pretty good; he stood by the side cheering. 

His sister was also very moved and accepted while crying. 

At the time, it seemed like everything was perfect, but before Shen Weixing could be happy for too long, things quickly spiralled downhill. 

It wasn’t that the young master’s family members came with a ‘take this cheque for three million dollars and stay away from him’, the young master’s family were all very calm, they didn’t even do anything. It was the young master’s ex-girlfriend that came to Shen Weixing’s older sister. 

The ex-girlfriend was also very calm, she politely invited Shen Weixing’s older sister to a cafe, showed his sister the pregnancy report, and very politely told her the story that existed behind the story of Prince Charming and Cinderella. 

The other story was this: when the young master fell in love with Shen Weixing’s sister at first sight, the ex-girlfriend was not yet the ex-girlfriend, she was already pregnant, they had even already been engaged, they were from families of equal social status, but they were childhood friends turned sweethearts, it wasn’t just a marriage to tie the two family businesses together.  

But because of Shen Weixing’s sister’s arrival, the young master persisted in wanting to cancel the engagement, and told his fiancee to get an abortion. 

The young master spent a whole night in the rain outside Shen Weixing and his sister’s house.  

Shen Weixing spent half the night watching by the window, feeling sad and pitiful, for his sister, and for his future brother-in-law.

In his opinion, his sister wasn’t at fault in this situation, and there was no wrong or right with matters of love. The only thing that could be blamed was the ex-girlfriend for not being able to keep her boyfriend, but his sister shouldn’t have to have her heart broken just because of that.

His sister silently gave him a glance and Shen Weixing shut up, because he saw in her eyes the familiar sign that he was going to be beaten. 

Of course, this time his sister didn’t hit him, and just told him that it was true that she wasn’t at fault, because she didn’t know before. But now that she knew, if she continued, then she would be in the wrong.  

Also, it was true that there wasn’t any wrong or right in feelings, but there were morals and consciences.  

As a human, you have to act in a way that doesn’t go against your own morals or conscience, even if it’s a decision that you very likely don’t want to make, even if it will be at a detriment to your own interests. You can’t solely pursue self-interests, you should have self-discipline, you shouldn’t hurt another innocent person for your own gains and interests.

In the end, his sister and his future brother-in-law still broke up.

Jiejie didn’t accept the money that the young master offered, but she accepted the money that the young master’s fiancee gave. They wrote down an IOU, borrowed two hundred thousand, rented a better house, making Shen Weixing able to properly go to school, also making it so that he didn’t have to live in such poverty. At least now he didn’t have to purposefully eat less than enough every meal during this age when he was growing to help her save money.

Not too much time passed before Shen Weixing was scouted by a star scout.

At the time he was already fifteen years old and more or less have his own ideas and decision-making ability. What’s more, after having gone through those things, having witnessed his big sister’s three-shift work conditions, Shen Weixing resolutely requested that his sister let him debut, swearing that it wouldn’t affect his studies. 

This time his sister didn’t hit him, took him as an adult, and after a lengthy talk, accepted his decision.

Originally, everything was moving towards a better direction. Shen Weixing was in the first advertisement of his life—truthfully it couldn’t be counted as an advertisement, it was just the flyer for a small supermarket. He’d gotten five hundred yuan and was so happy he was giddy with laughter. Not caring if his older sister would scold him afterwards, he spent all of the five hundred at once; he bought a lot of meat and bought a dress and a pair of shoes for his sister, to give his sister a surprise once she got back. 

However, his sister gave him a shock instead—when she was working she fainted and was brought to the hospital, where it was found that she had an illness, formed from the long years of accumulated fatigue.

Truthfully, money really wasn’t the problem. 

Shen Weixing didn’t tell his sister and went to borrow money from his ex-brother-in-law; his ex-brother-in-law knew about this as well, he actually contacted Shen Weixing first, and said that he would help with the medical expenses. Some other people that they knew also more or less provided a lot of help. 

Shen Weixing’s luck was not bad, the supermarket flyer was seen by a small-time director, who felt that Shen Weixing’s foundation was not bad. Following that, he contacted Shen Weixing’s little agency. After the audition, he actually gave Shen Weixing the role of male side character number 8 in an idol drama.

The lines were few, the sponsoring was little, but it was after all a rare opportunity, and could already be counted as meeting a benefactor, and what’s more, he could also get a sum of money after the contract was signed.

While Shen Weixing took care of his sister, he acted in dramas. His sister hadn’t been discharged from the hospital yet when that cheap, rip-off idol drama was broadcasted.

The drama was very crappy, the whole cast permeated with the rot of a shitty show; no matter if it was the too old male and female leads, or the grandiose overdramatic cringy plot, they all gave no reasons to not change the channel. The only thing that made people give it another look was Shen Weixing. 

At the time he was just sixteen, hadn’t yet grown into his features and his acting was also so-so, but it was enough to surprise and make a good impression.

Immediately following that, there was a splattering of little advertisements and roles for significant side characters in dramas that came in for him, there was even a somewhat better company asked him to jump over to their company. 

After Shen Weixing seriously thought it through, he went to the slightly bigger company.

This company’s scale was so-so, but they actually had quite a procedure for things. After looking into Shen Weixing’s strengths and potential, they found that Shen Weixing could sing, and was quite good at it. 

This was during the period where national talent shows were at their most popular. Shen Weixing was sent to participate in a very popular singing talent show. Although he was a little lacking in terms of actual mechanics to singing, with his looks after some dressing up and the unlimited potential that came with his young age, with the song “opera”, he captivated everyone and became famous overnight. 

Afterwards, the competition could be said to have gone smoothly for him. Compared to contestants that had a background in singing, he naturally wasn’t on par and ended with fifth place. Once again, he changed companies, then speedily released a top ten songs album and a personal song album. Then he also got invitations to play the second male lead and even male lead to many tv series; the future was bright. 

It was at this time, that his sister passed away.

Shen Weixing almost cried to death, wherever he walked he would kneel, from the hospital to the morgue, then to the funeral home and the crematorium, then finally to the graveyard. As long as he saw his sister he would kneel down and cry, from corpse to remains, then to ashes.  

The people around him didn’t even dare to look at him, afraid that they’d be infected by him and cry as well.

After finishing with the funeral, Shen Weixing finally stopped crying, and said that he was going to be in mourning for his sister for three years.  

His manager thought that he was crazy. It was true that the siblings deeply depended on each other, him being sad about his sister passing away was normal, but going into mourning for three years? When he finished his three years of mourning he could just directly go and retire from the industry! What century was this?!

In the end, of course he wasn’t able to complete his mourning. Shen Weixing’s contract was there and anyways, he wasn’t someone who could break a contract just because he so desired. He forced himself to hold on and complete the jobs he’d already accepted, but his performance could only be said to be so-so.

At first, everyone could understand and sympathize with him losing a sister, but reality was cruel, his sister died, it wasn’t like their sister died, no one was obligated to keep on making allowances for him.  

Shen Weixing’s originally on the rise career was held up like this, until he finally walked out of his pain and picked himself up again. He started from acting as side characters, and only then did he get back on his feet.

The author has something to say:

After Jiuyue’s pitiful backstory, it’s Shen Ge’s pitiful backstory, but after all is said and done, Shen Jiejie is the most pitiful Orz

Rinrin: (இ﹏இ`｡) 

Ppeach: (╯﹏╰, ) 

Lastin: (´;︵;`)