WMSR – QT Chapter 46

 

WMSR – QT Chapter 46

By

siofra

Chapter 46

“Brother, you certainly didn’t expect me to attend the same university as you, did you? I heard you’re still listed among A University’s outstanding alumni—I’m going to join that list someday too, right by your side.”

“Brother, I’m heading off… Will you miss me?”

“I’m sure you will. After all, Brother, I miss you this much.” At those words, the young man abruptly paused, lifting his chin to force back the hot, stinging teariness pricking at his reddening eyes.

After that, the youth completely lost his earlier lively demeanor, quietly curling up against the stone marker. He stared down at the photograph etched into the granite—a face bearing a striking resemblance to his own, though the smile captured within the frame was far softer.

That was his brother. An older brother eighteen years his senior.

His older brother, Bai Yichen.

He had started retaining memories very early on. From the moment he could form conscious thoughts, he knew he had an older brother who adored him, and of all people, he loved this brother the most—more than his father, his mother, or anyone else.

His absolute favorite thing in the world was being pulled into his brother’s embrace, listening to his brother read bedtime stories in that wonderfully soothing voice, and feeling a gentle palm rhythmically patting his back to lull him to sleep.

He loved his brother. He loved the brother who played with him, coaxed him through his tantrums, and fulfilled every single one of his wishes.

Yet as he gradually grew older, he noticed his brother changing. His brother stopped coddling him constantly, stopped spending every day playing games with him, and instead handed him over to all sorts of tutors, forcing him to learn things he had zero interest in.

What made him even angrier was how rarely he got to see his brother anymore.

It felt as though, overnight, the best brother in the entire world—the one who doted on him and spoiled him rotten—had vanished.

On one of his brother’s birthdays, he had spent many days quietly crafting a handmade birthday gift using the very skills he had been forced to study. He didn’t tell a single soul, wanting it to be a special surprise for his brother. But that night, he waited and waited through the hours, until he eventually fell asleep, and his brother never came home.

After that day, his resentment boiled over entirely. In the end, he never gave his brother the gift; instead, he hid it away in secret. Whenever he missed his brother, he would glare at the undelivered birthday gift and tell himself that his bad brother didn’t deserve it anyway, and that he didn’t care.

From then on, it was as though he had discovered a brand-new weapon to retaliate against his brother: whenever his brother enforced strict rules and academic demands, he would deliberately stir up trouble and refuse to study. In truth, he knew deep down that he was just desperately trying to capture his brother’s attention. He was naturally bright, and the material his tutors assigned wasn’t genuinely difficult; he memorized it with ease. At times, he would secretly wonder: if his brother discovered he had already mastered everything the tutors taught, would he praise him?

He had kept waiting for that precise opportunity, and that day finally arrived. His brother had marched in to hunt him down after discovering he skipped his assignments. But as he stood over him watching him write, his brother realized he already knew all the answers. Shock had flashed across his older brother’s eyes, and he had even reached out to stroke his hair and praise him. He had stayed high on that excitement all through the night, tossing and turning in bed for hours unable to sleep, his mind racing with the thought: Tomorrow, Brother will be home, and the tutor is coming too. Will Brother stay and watch me study again?

Back then, it had never crossed his mind that his brother could ever leave him.

He had continued daydreaming that if his brother kept accompanying his studies like this, he would transform into an exemplary, studious model student. After all, both Mom and Dad always said his brother was the smartest person alive, and since he was his brother’s younger sibling, he naturally couldn’t fall too far behind.

Yet that wish—to have his brother accompany his studies every single day—was never fulfilled. Not only did his brother fail to visit often, he began coming home even less than before. On top of that, for reasons beyond his understanding, his parents suddenly turned deeply somber and distressed. Even though they strained themselves to mask it in front of him, he had still caught his mother crying on multiple occasions.

He had no clue what was happening, but a faint, chilling undertone of unease had begun to gnaw at him…

And then, as if validating those terrible premonitions, his mother told him that his brother was gone…

Gone? What did “gone” even mean? At that tender age, he couldn’t fully comprehend the concept. He simply assumed his brother had traveled off to some distant, faraway place again. But if that was a normal occurrence, why was his mother crying so hysterically…?

It wasn’t until he attended his brother’s funeral, looking at the silent form resting inside the cold glass casket and the framed portrait of his brother hanging up, that the true weight of that word finally shattered over him…

From that day onward, he no longer had an older brother…

Following his brother’s death, his entire world underwent an overnight metamorphosis. His parents, who had always indulged him with boundless leniency, suddenly turned far stricter with him than his brother had ever been. A legion of new tutors descended upon him, demanding that he master an immense mountain of knowledge.

It was only then that he truly understood the staggering burden his brother had carried all those years. The reason he had been able to play carefree, living under a blanket of nearly permissive parental spoiling, was entirely because his brother stood shielding him. Because his brother had matured enough to shoulder the entire weight of the family on his own shoulders, he could act out, throw tantrums, and play however he wanted without anyone restricting him. But now, his brother was gone. Therefore, he had no choice but to grow up into the next pillar destined to bear the family’s crown.

The sheer volume of new coursework was crushing, exhausting him to his limits. The dense, suffocating weight of his responsibilities left him gasping for air. Yet it was precisely during this grueling trial that he realized how much those seemingly overbearing study demands his brother had forced upon him back then were now paying off; if he hadn’t built that foundation early on, the sudden avalanche of advanced studies would have completely buried him.

Whenever his brother crossed his mind, vivid memories would surface: his brother supervising his homework in various settings, or wearing that familiar, helpless expression of a headache whenever he acted out. His eyes would slowly blur with moisture. From that day forward, he never uttered another word of complaint or fatigue. Because no matter how punishing the studies became, nothing could ever match the hollow agony of knowing he would never see his brother again.

He held himself to standards bordering on ruthless self-punishment. He wanted to forge himself into someone just as brilliant and extraordinary as his brother, and he intended to safeguard everything his brother had loved and protected. The only shadow of regret lodged in his heart was this: why hadn’t he given that birthday gift to his brother back then? Why had he let his petty temper win? Why hadn’t he been a more obedient, cooperative kid? He just wanted to hear his brother praise him one more time…

As the years passed and he grew older, he gradually uncovered many truths that had once been kept hidden from him. He learned that his brother had perished due to a terminal illness, yet he also discovered there was a deeper, hidden story behind the scenes—one that involved a name he now knew all too well: Su Yuanhang.