Chapter 61

Chapter 61

Right then, a WeChat notification popped up.

Opening WeChat, Qi Muyao saw a newly added contact had sent a message: "Is your brother still on your case?"

Qi Muyao checked their Moments and found photos of the girl from earlier, Dongfang Yuxiao. He asked, "How'd you just add this person?"

Qi Yanyu replied flatly, "We fought a few days ago—she blocked me. Just got her back on WeChat."

Qi Muyao kept scrolling through, clicking into every chat in the recent messages list. After scrolling forever, he didn’t find what he was looking for.

He opened the photo album next—completely empty. "You didn’t take any pics of her?"

He glanced at Qi Yanyu, who was on his best behavior today, uncharacteristically obedient.

Qi Yanyu stayed quiet, so Qi Muyao assumed it was because this was his first time dating a girl—he probably didn’t know what to do.

"You should snap more pics of her."

Seeing Qi Yanyu give a slight nod, Qi Muyao handed him back his phone. "Text her back."

As soon as Qi Yanyu had his phone, he tried to make an exit. "Gotta get back to campus."

But Qi Muyao wasn’t letting him off that easy. "Zhang Liu’s been asking you to get checked out multiple times—why haven’t you gone?"

"I’ve been swamped with class."

"Get the full workup done. Get that artificial valve replaced early. Your heart won’t bother you after."

"Maybe later."

Qi Muyao studied him. Though he kept his voice calm, Qi Yanyu knew that gentle tone was just his brother’s calm act—it could drop any second.

"I’m hanging with that girl again."

Qi Muyao looked at him, eyes lowered, expression soft as he asked, "Then when are you getting checked out? Just get the surgery over with after the exam."

Qi Yanyu thought. "When I’m off."

"Last Saturday night and last night—why’d you skip the dorm and home? Where were you?"

Qi Yanyu shrugged it off. "Out with some friends."

"Who?"

"Some randos… and that girl from earlier."

"Where'd you go?"

Qi Muyao tapped Qi Yanyu’s cheek with his knuckles. Qi Yanyu stiffened slightly, eyes downcast, face blank. "Some resort up north."

"Really?" Qi Muyao side-eyed him. "What about Gu Jinglan? Was he there?"

Like he’d been gut-punched, Qi Yanyu clammed up.

"Qi Yanyu, you swore to me last month…" Qi Muyao took in the boy’s pale face. His temper flared.

Just then, Qi Yanyu's phone rang.

A WeChat call came through.

Qi Muyao told him to answer on speaker, and Qi Yanyu turned on speakerphone—

"Have you left yet?"

Qi Yanyu heard a voice livelier than before and hesitated briefly. "Not yet..."

Dongfang Yuxiao chirped, "Is your brother still riding you? He's not actually lecturing you for your first date with a girl, is he?"

Qi Yanyu glanced at Qi Muyao, whose expression was unreadable.

"I'm leaving soon," Qi Yanyu said.

"Then come pick me up. I'm still at the foot of the mountain. Where've you been? Take me back to school." Her tone suggested Dongfang Yuxiao had been waiting for him a long time.

"Sorry, I'll be right there," Qi Yanyu replied.

"Hurry," Dongfang Yuxiao said softly. "A-Yu, ask big bro to go easy on us, will you? Let us little lovebirds off the hook."

Qi Yanyu hung up and looked at Qi Muyao.

His expression was now more defiant, his face slightly paler as he stared at Qi Muyao.

"What did you tell her about your big brother?" Qi Muyao seemed satisfied with Qi Yanyu's current state. "I sound like some monster to your girl."

Qi Yanyu didn't answer, but his mood had improved slightly.

"Go on, be good to her," Qi Muyao let him leave.

As Qi Yanyu started to stand, Qi Muyao added, "I'll have someone drive you back."

"No need," Qi Yanyu quickly said. When Qi Muyao looked up at him, he added, "Don't ruin this for us."

Wow, he's got a mouth now.

Qi Muyao watched Qi Yanyu leave. His attendant asked if they should follow him.

"Why bother?" Qi Muyao said. "They'll be official soon enough anyway."

Qi Yanyu exited the upscale restaurant and walked a long distance before turning around—no tail in sight. He was now out of Qi Muyao's view.

He had deleted Gu Jinglan's number, but it was memorized by heart. He dialed the familiar digits.

He always erased chats and call logs, so Qi Muyao hadn't seen his usual conversations with Gu Jinglan when going through his phone earlier.

"Have you left yet?" Qi Yanyu asked once the call connected.

Qi Muyao had kept him for two or three hours—had Gu Jinglan left already?

Since he'd told him not to message or call, Gu Jinglan hadn't reached out.

"I'm in the car in the parking lot. Where are you? I'll come get you," Gu Jinglan, who had been waiting for him, replied.

Qi Yanyu found the parking lot. Gu Jinglan was in the car. As soon as Qi Yanyu opened the door and got in, Gu Jinglan looked at him worriedly.

"Drive," Qi Yanyu said urgently, not wanting to cross paths with Qi Muyao, who might be heading out too. That's why he hadn't let Gu Jinglan come meet him.

They finally drove down the mountain, and on the way, they ran into Qi Muyao.

Qi Yanyu glanced at Gu Jinglan, who was behind the wheel, and asked, “Did you eat yet?”

“I’ll eat later,” Gu Jinglan replied, then asked, “What about you?”

“Yeah, I ate.”

“Wanna hit the amusement park this afternoon?” Gu Jinglan’s mood was still easygoing, unfazed by the long wait.

“Sorry, I just saw my family back there.”

“Your family doesn’t let you date?”

More like, they don’t let him date guys. Qi Yanyu nodded.

“I gotta make a call,” Qi Yanyu said to Gu Jinglan before dialing Dongfang Yuxiao for a voice chat.

Gu Jinglan’s face gave nothing away. The first thing he heard Qi Yanyu say after the call connected was:

“You’re… not still waiting for me, are you?”

“Pfft, obviously not,” Dongfang Yuxiao laughed.

“Thanks for covering for me.”

“No problem. You’ve already left, right?”

Some people just got it—took one look to know he was in a tight spot. She’d bailed him out twice now, both times with surprisingly smooth results.

“So… we good?”

“Mhm.” Qi Yanyu hung up.

No explanation about who he’d called. Gu Jinglan blinked once but kept his eyes on the road ahead. If Qi Yanyu wanted him to know, he’d say so.

Running into Qi Muyao had soured Qi Yanyu’s morning mood.

Soon, they arrived at the amusement park. After parking and buying tickets, they stepped inside and saw plenty of young people having fun—mostly college students with light class schedules.

Life as a non-med student? Pure bliss.

Qi Yanyu adjusted his mood from the earlier encounter with Qi Muyao and walked with Gu Jinglan into the amusement park’s gift shop.

Along the way, he spotted tons of kids wearing those animal-ear headbands. He paused in front of the display, and Gu Jinglan picked up a Judy Hopps headband.

“Couple set?”

Qi Yanyu already had the Nick Wilde ears in hand when Gu Jinglan asked.

They got the Judy and Nick set.

Gu Jinglan fixed the fox ears on Qi Yanyu—he’d called dibs on the fox, figuring Gu Jinglan would balk at bunny ears.

Guess he was wrong.

With his killer looks—jet-black hair and porcelain features—the bunny ears somehow didn’t even look silly. Girls were sneaking looks whether they were walking by or stuck in line.

Qi Yanyu was feeling a bit down, thinking he had made Gu Jinglan wait for three hours.

But Gu Jinglan didn’t mind and even comforted him, "Which ride do you want to go on? I’ll wait in line for you."

Qi Yanyu looked at him—Gu Jinglan’s mood was unaffected. He thought, *If he’s fine, I shouldn’t be upset either.*

So he said, "Then I’ll go get ice cream. What flavor do you want?"

"Same as the little pig," Gu Jinglan said with a smile—a playful nickname.

Qi Yanyu paused, confused. Seeing this, Gu Jinglan added with a gentle laugh, "Same as yours is fine."

Qi Yanyu cheered up and went to queue at the dessert stand for ice cream.

While waiting in line, two or three girls had been following him. Seeing him alone, they finally mustered the courage to approach: "Are you the *sister-in-law*?"

Qi Yanyu thought they were talking to someone else and kept staring absently at the ground.

He thought, *I can’t go on like this, being threatened by Qi Muyao. Every time I see him, it ruins my mood.*

He feared that before he could make it to the end—before enduring the torment from the Lan siblings—he might end up clashing with Qi Muyao and dying of frustration.

Still lost in thought, he wondered how much Gu Jinglan liked him. *Would he really elope with me? Probably not. Who would abandon their studies?*

Gu Jinglan was going to be a doctor, right? According to Qi Yuanhan, his family owned a major hospital.

Was Gu Jinglan just messing with him? Doubt, sadness, resentment, and uncertainty about the future weighed on him.

The voices around him grew louder: "Are you Jiang Tiyan’s *sister-in-law*?"

Snapping back to reality, Qi Yanyu saw a few girls surrounding him—girls he didn’t know. He turned away.

One girl immediately stepped in front of him, raising her phone to take photos and videos: "You’re Jiang Tiyan’s boyfriend, right?"

"..."

"Is Jiang Tiyan at the amusement park too? Where’s Brother Jiang, *sister-in-law*?"

Qi Yanyu hesitated, but the girls kept going: "Why are you wearing a fox headband? Brother Jiang wouldn’t wear bunny ears, haha."

"I don’t know Jiang Tiyan," Qi Yanyu replied coldly.

The girl showed a photo on her phone: "Isn’t this you sitting with Brother Jiang in class at Kan Medical University?"

Without even looking, Qi Yanyu repeated, "No."

"It didn’t go viral, but all the long-time fans know about your photos. The person Brother Jiang was holding during his livestream was you, right?"

Qi Yanyu was confused. *When did Jiang Tiyan ever hold me?*

He scoffed inwardly. *Is Jiang Tiyan into guys too?* He shot back sarcastically, "Can’t you even recognize your own sister-in-law?"

"Last time, Brother Jiang helped you out of a club, covering your face with his jacket. Paparazzi tailed you all the way, and Brother Jiang took you back to his place. You spent the night and the next morning together."

Qi Yanyu didn’t remember, and he didn’t want to. He considered ditching the line, but then thought of Gu Jinglan, who hadn’t eaten and might want ice cream, so he stayed to finish the wait.

Though they might have sensed his displeasure, the girls kept recording. Qi Yanyu looked away to stay out of the shot.

"Stop filming," Qi Yanyu said, afraid that if he and Gu Jinglan were seen together in a photo and it got posted online, his older brother Qi Muyao would find out.

"Can you ask Brother Jiang to take a photo and sign autographs for us?"

Qi Yanyu looked down. He was already in a bad mood from running into Qi Muyao, and now his mood soured even further.

He took out his phone, and the girls assumed he was calling security or something.

But Qi Yanyu angrily dialed instead, saying, "You want to find Jiang Tiyan, right? I'll have him talk to you."

"Really?"

"Thank you, sister-in-law! You're so nice!"

"Way better than those actresses Brother Jiang was linked to."

He seemed calm as he called, but after several tries, Jiang Tiyan wasn't picking up. Qi Yanyu sneered inwardly, wondering if this pampered brat was still asleep.

After multiple missed calls and hang-ups, the call finally connected.

"Hello?" came a groggy, annoyed voice.

"Jiang Tiyan," Qi Yanyu growled.

Recognizing his childhood friend's voice, Jiang Tiyan—who was grounded at home—had been angry at Qi Yanyu, thinking he was calling to apologize or sweet-talk him. So he snorted haughtily, "What? Finally feeling guilty?"

Hearing their idol's voice, the girls freaked out with joy.

"Tell your fans exactly what we are to each other," Qi Yanyu said coldly, then put the call on speaker.

"What do *you* think our relationship is?" Jiang Tiyan retorted with a mocking laugh, sprawled upside-down on his couch.

Now that Qi Yanyu was the one calling, Jiang Tiyan assumed he needed a favor, which lifted his mood.

The phone erupted with fans' excited screams: "Brother Jiang, is that you?"

"I'm your fan! Your wife is so pretty!"

"Brother Jiang, where are you? Any chance of signed photos?"

"Take care of yourself, Brother Jiang! Don’t work yourself too hard on set. Post more selfies on Weibo!"

Listening to the fangirls' squeals, Jiang Tiyan said leisurely, "Give the phone to your wife."

The call was on speaker, so Qi Yanyu naturally heard the term "wife."

"Jiang Tiyan, didn't your mom chew you out enough? Still with the 'wife' nonsense?" Qi Yanyu scoffed. "Or does your dad still not know about your little secrets?"

"Brother Jiang, are you fighting with your wife? Don’t argue!"

"Sister-in-law, please go easy on him. Don’t talk to him like that."

"What secrets could I have? Qi Yanyu," Jiang Tiyan shot back, "I still owe you payback for tattling to my mom."

"Brother Jiang, calm down." "Sister-in-law didn’t mean it."

"Tell your fans to stop taking photos or videos of me and uploading them."

Jiang Tiyan chuckled lightly and deliberately said, "Kill the speaker. Too much noise—can't hear."

Qi Yanyu killed speakerphone and put the phone to his ear, ready to repeat his message.

But Jiang Tiyan cut him off: "Are you begging me?" He laughed again. "You out with some dude somewhere, and my fans caught you? Scared your brother will find out, so now you’re begging me?"