[Lin Family Mansion — September 15, Morning]
The en-suite bathroom was the size of his old apartment from his past life.
Marble floor that ran into marble walls.
A shower big enough for four. A freestanding tub beside the shower that looked like it had never been used. Two sinks set into a long counter, side by side, for a person who had always lived alone in the room next door.
Lin Feng shed what he'd slept in and stepped into the shower.
Hot water hit skin that wasn't his.
The chest was narrower. The shoulders were different. His skin and build had an eighteen-year-old softness where his twenty-seven-year-old body had once carried leanness and calluses and scars from training.
He washed without thinking about it. Soap, water, done.
The temperature had come on perfectly the moment he turned the handle, and he spent half a second wondering how the shower had known what he wanted, and then he stopped wondering.
"It feels weird."
Lin Feng stepped out. For a moment, before he grabbed the towel, he looked first at his own weapon.
"That guy wielded this... thing. What a waste for someone like that Lin Feng."
He shook his head as he took the towel and faced the mirror nearby. "Well, it's mine now."
The en-suite mirror was better than the one in the bedroom. Cleaner light, no frame in the way, close enough that he could count the strands of silver where the original had let them grow in over a sideburn line.
The vanity drawers told their own story.
Three kinds of skincare arranged in order of application.
Cologne — two bottles, one almost empty.
A styling iron sitting cold on its ceramic rest since yesterday morning.
A packet of under-eye masks, half-used.
Lin Feng closed the drawer without taking anything from it. Splashed his face with cold water instead. Then wiped it clean with a dry towel.
Back in the bedroom, he opened the closet.
Designer labels on every hanger. He pulled the plainest shirt he could find — a dark cotton button-down without a logo on it anywhere — and a pair of jeans that had the look of clothes bought for looking unpretentious rather than clothes that actually were.
His hands worked the buttons. His eyes worked the room.
A smoke detector in the corner above the bed. Angled slightly downward.
A desk lamp on the nightstand. The shade a shade too angled toward the bed, not toward the reading chair beside it.
The corner of the bookshelf where a shadow sat at the wrong depth for a bookshelf corner.
The air vent high on the wall with a grille that had been cleaned recently. Recently enough to stand out against the rest of the house.
Places his eyes stopped on without his brain telling them to.
The prickle from earlier was stronger in here than it had been across the room. The feeling for him was familiar. It was like standing in a highly secured room. Then he shook his head.
"Later."
He finished buttoning the shirt, walked out of the bedroom, and took the stairs down.
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The dining room was bright.
The morning light came through the floor-to-ceiling windows in long rectangles across the polished wood floor.
The table was laid for two at one end. Steam rose from a covered bowl of congee. A small plate of osmanthus cakes arranged in a spiral. Tea eggs, dark and glistening, in a ceramic dish. Fried dough sticks still warm in a linen-lined basket.
A girl stood by the counter at the back of the room, setting down a teapot.
Her sweater was cream, loose-fitting, one shoulder slipped free so that the line of her collarbone showed. Black leggings. Her long hair pulled back into a ponytail that had half come loose. Rabbit-ear slippers.
She hadn't heard him come down.
Lin Feng stopped at the foot of the stairs.
"So… this is her." He murmured under his breath. "Lin Weiwei."
She turned.
Lin Weiwei saw him. Her eyes widened by a fraction — surprise — and then the fraction closed, her expression smoothing into the careful neutrality she wore for him. A face that had been practiced over years.
"Big Brother, you're awake." Her voice was soft. "I made breakfast. You have class at nine, so I thought—"
She stopped.
Because Lin Feng had walked past the bottom of the stairs, to the chair across from where she'd been standing, and put his phone down on the table.
Face down. Screen off.
Her hands stilled on the teapot.
"Thank you, Weiwei." He pulled the chair out and sat. Looked up at her. Met her eyes. "It looks amazing. You didn't need to wake up so early."
Silence.
She did not move for a moment.
"Big Brother…" Her voice came out uncertain. "Are you— is everything okay? Do you have a fever? Should I—"
Her hand was already lifting toward his forehead before she finished the sentence. An automatic gesture. Something she had probably done as a child and had never stopped.
Lin Feng caught her wrist before her fingers reached him.
Her skin was cool. He held her there for a second then carefully let her go.
"I'm fine." He gestured at the chair across from his. "Come. Sit and eat with me."
"Uhmm… But I already ate earlier… Big Brother…"
"Then have tea. Keep me company."
Long silence.
She looked at him like he might vanish if she blinked.
Then she carried the teapot to the table. Set it on the trivet. Pulled the chair out slowly, carefully, and sat.
Her hand went to the teapot handle.
She poured one cup. Then a second.
The second one she set on a saucer in front of him without asking. Her own she kept in her hands.
Lin Feng picked up his spoon and started on the congee.
It was better than he'd expected. The ginger and scallion balanced. Not overworked. The temperature of the bowl had been considered — still hot in the center, already drinkable at the edge.
The tea eggs had been simmered long enough that the flavor had gone all the way through the whites.
He tried the osmanthus cakes next.
He chewed slowly.
"How long were you in the kitchen?"
Lin Weiwei's teacup tilted a fraction in her hand. She brought it back level before she answered.
"Two… two hours ago. I mean — that's when I started."
"Big Brother… you've never asked me before. Never."
"Is…" Before Lin Weiwei could finish what she was about to ask, Lin Feng set his spoon down on the rest.
"I know." He looked up at her. "That was stupid."
Her teacup went still.
Both of her hands wrapped around the cup, knuckles pale against the porcelain. She did not drink from it nor did she set it down.
She just held it.
The phone buzzed against the wood of the table.
Her eyes found the vibration without meaning to. A flicker of recognition. Then the neutral face she wore for him.
All of it in one breath.
"Big Brother." She said it carefully. "Isn't that… isn't she waiting for you?"
Lin Feng looked at the phone for a moment then back at the bowl of congee.
"Not important."
"But you always—"
Lin Feng took another osmanthus cake with his chopsticks. Chewed. Swallowed.
"Always answered immediately? Always dropped everything to run?"
He met her eyes.
"Yeah. That was stupid too."
The teacup trembled. Just once. She lowered it to the saucer with a small ceramic click and took her hands away from it like it had gone hot.
Silence.
Lin Feng kept eating. The congee was getting close to the bottom of the bowl. He had finished both fried dough sticks. A second osmanthus cake and a tea egg.
Across from him, Lin Weiwei did not move.
She watched him eat.
He finished the bowl.
Pushed it toward the center of the table.
Picked up the phone.
The screen came on when his thumb found it. Five messages stacked in a column, all from the same name, sent across a window of about forty minutes.
[Su Qingxue: Lin Feng, I need your help at the library! Really important!] Received:7:05 AM
[Su Qingxue: This is urgent! Hey Lin Feng, are you there?] Received: 7:15 AM
[Su Qingxue: Hey, answer my chats… are you coming or not?] Received: 7:25 AM
[Su Qingxue: Are you angry? Did I do something wrong? Talk to me!] Received: 7:32 AM
[Su Qingxue: Fine. If you won't help, I'll find someone else. Don't say I didn't give you a chance.] Received: 7:40 AM
Lin Feng's thumb moved across the screen once.
[Lin Feng: Sorry, I'm busy today. Good luck with whatever you need.] Sent: 7:42 AM
He then placed the phone face-down.
Lin Weiwei watched the entire scene before her. The teacup was on the saucer, untouched, and her hands had come to rest flat on the table on either side of it.
"Big Brother… did you just—"
"Tell her no?" He pushed back from the table and stood. "Yeah. I just did."
"But you never—"
"Never told her no? Never prioritized anything over running to her side?"
Lin Feng walked past her.
Not toward the door. Toward the kitchen counter at the back of the room.
The container sat on the counter.
Cloth-wrapped. The original had set it there some time in the early morning, before going back to bed. It was still warm when Lin Feng picked it up. He could feel the warmth through the linen, through his palm, steady and low.
Lin Weiwei's chair scraped behind him.
Her eyes locked onto the container. She had watched the original make one every morning for longer than she could probably count. She knew what it was.
"Big Brother…" Her voice was smaller now than it had been all morning. "Is that… is that for her? For Ms. Su?"
Lin Feng turned.
"It's for someone else." He shook his head as he picked it up. "Someone important."
Lin Weiwei blinked. Just once.
Nothing else on her face moved.
Lin Feng held her gaze for a beat. Then two.
"Thank you for the breakfast, Weiwei. Really."
A small pause.
"It meant a lot to me. More than you know."
He walked past her, past the table where her teacup sat untouched on its saucer, past the doorway into the hall. The front door opened. Closed. His footsteps faded down the drive.
Then, the dining room was quiet.
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Lin Weiwei sat at the table.
Her teacup was on the saucer in front of her, the tea now cold. She had not drunk any of it. The tea had gone dark at the rim where it had cooled against the ceramic.
Across from her sat Lin Feng's empty bowl. Every spoonful gone. The plate where the osmanthus cakes had been also empty. The chopsticks crossed on the rest beside the bowl the way a person crossed them when they were finished.
His chair was pushed back at an angle. Not tucked in.
The light had moved. The rectangles of sun on the floor had shifted by a finger's width, and one edge of the table had gone into shadow.
Lin Weiwei stood.
She cleared his bowl first. Then the osmanthus plate. Then the chopsticks and his spoon. She then stacked them on the tray on the side table, the way she had done every morning. Covered the fried dough sticks with the linen cloth. Carried the congee pot to the warming plate.
Her hand stopped on the back of his chair.
"Big Brother ate everything."
She muttered under her breath to the empty room.
"Every bite."
She pushed the chair in.
"Don't."
Interrupted herself.
"Don't be too hopeful, Weiwei."
The chair slid into place under the table. She pushed it carefully. Too carefully, as if the chair might break.
She picked up the tray and carried it out of the dining room and through to the kitchen. Set it on the counter beside the sink and left the dishes there.
She walked out of the kitchen and took the stairs.
Her room was next to his. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
She opened the bottom drawer of her desk and took out a tablet, thinner than the ones the university provided for its students — this one had no outer casing branding, just matte aluminum and a fingerprint sensor in the corner.
She pressed her thumb to it. The screen woke.
Eight tiles loaded across the display in a grid.
Six of them showed his bedroom from different angles — the ceiling down, the mirror back, the smoke detector wide, the bookshelf corner, the desk lamp on the nightstand, the air vent high on the wall.
One more showed the hall outside his door, while the last one showed the staircase from the second-floor landing.
The bedroom tiles were empty.
"Maybe I should add more cameras..."
Lin Weiwei caught herself. Closed her eyes for a beat. Shook her head.
"No. No more. I don't need to see more of Big Brother… Seeing so many Big Brothers in one screen is already too much…"
She said as she grabbed a pillow and hugged it. "After all, one day, me and my Big Brother will get married… Hehehe…"
"But then… Big Brother will fill my entire line of vision… Ayieeee…"
She lay down onto her bed, rolled a few times, then kicked her legs in the air.
"I wonder how Big Brother woke up today."
Lin Weiwei then looked back at the tablet.
She scrolled. The replay buffer was always running. She tapped back to the morning, to the moment he had woken up. Fast-forwarded through the small motions — sitting up, standing, the unsteady walk across to the mirror.
She had watched this earlier. She watched it again.
He had stood in front of the mirror and plucked a couple of strands of his own hair.
And then he had said something to the glass that the microphone had not been sensitive enough to catch.
"Big Brother is so handsome… Yet why does Big Brother look a little bothered?"
She asked no one in particular. Lin Weiwei continued to watch as Lin Feng stared at his own reflection this morning like the face in the mirror belonged to someone else.
She closed the replay. Flipped to the gate camera.
"Hmm… He must be thinking about that Su Qingxue again… Maybe they had a fight last night or something."
"Oh well… Big Brother should still be in the entrance right now. Let me see Big Brother one more time."
Then the screens shifted, showing the main entrance from four different angles.
Lin Feng exited the main entrance, the container under his arm.
He turned left out of the main entrance onto the sidewalk.
Lin Weiwei quickly stood up and looked out the window. There, she could still see him, turning right, crossing the pedestrian lane.
"No."
Lin Feng then turned left again after crossing the crosswalk and kept walking with the same unhurried pace.
Toward the café right across the street.
"No! No! No!"
Lin Weiwei quickly turned around and rummaged through her belongings. After a quick search, she found her binoculars, rushed back to the window and kept her eyes on Lin Feng.
"So that lunch box wasn't for Su Qingxue after all."
Then Lin Feng stopped for a moment and looked in the direction of the mansion. Scanning as if he were looking for something.
Lin Weiwei had noticed. She quickly crouched down under the window.
A few moments later, her phone buzzed on the desk next to the tablet.
She flinched.
Then she picked it up.
[Lin Feng: By the way, those osmanthus cakes were the best I've ever had. Don't skip class today. I'll see you at dinner.] Received: 8:01 AM
She read it twice.
Something warm moved through her chest.
Something colder moved behind it.
"Dinner..."
She turned back to the tablet.
On the screen, one of the cameras still managed to pick Lin Feng up. He just placed his phone back in his pocket, his other hand still holding the container against his side.
"THAT LUNCH BOX WASN'T FOR SU QINGXUE AT ALL!"
"IT'S HER."
"IT WAS FOR HER."
"THAT STALKER BITCH!"
Lin Weiwei set the tablet down onto the bed.
She then set it carefully, straightened it so the edge lined up with the wood grain.
"Calm down Weiwei… Calm down…"
"He's your stepbrother. Your brother. Nothing more. Don't get jealous."
A pause.
"…Well. Not blood-related, technically."
"But still…"
Lin Weiwei shook her head.
"But still… Big Brother seems to be a little different today."
"He seems to be being nice to the women around him instead of just being Su Qingxue's bootlicker..."
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
"Relax Weiwei… This is going to be fine."
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
She adjusted the angle of the tablet one degree to the left.
"Big Brother is asking me to have dinner with him…"
"This is already major progress!"
She took the tablet again and switched the screens back to Lin Feng just after he woke up, looking at his own reflection in the mirror.
"Tonight can't come fast enough."
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[Lin Weiwei] ★★★★★★★
[7-Star Heroine — All-rounder Advanced Software Engineer]
[Star Points: 21M/1,000M]
[Affection: −99]
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[End of Chapter]