During her few days staying at the Chen family home, Chu Luyu couldn’t have been more comfortable.
Every day, she was cared for down to the smallest detail by Chu Fanyin. Chen Mian went to classes during the day, and when he came home at night, his mom would dispatch him to be Chu Luyu’s little servant.
Fruit was peeled and delivered to her room by him; little cakes were bought by him after waiting in line on the west side of town on a rainy day…
After these past few days together, Chu Luyu had gradually gotten a read on this cheap little brother’s temperament. He was basically a somewhat rebellious, chuunibyou sophomore in college—grumpy-faced but kind-hearted, loved playing games, and although his mouth never let up on Chu Luyu as his sister, he probably really liked her deep down.
Realizing that this little brother was just a kid she could easily handle, Chu Luyu decided to start with him to pry into what was really going on between her mom and stepfather.
The system knew that Chu Luyu had been hung up on the cold war between the old couple, so it told her about their fate in the original plot.
System Cuihua: 【In the original plot, the two of them ignored each other for a long time, and the stepfather was listless the whole time, completely lacking energy. Then his ex-wife suddenly returned to the country, and somehow the two ended up arranged at the same banquet. Then the stepfather was mysteriously drugged, and that ex-wife took the opportunity to hook up with him again. Afterwards, the original stepfather regretted it like crazy, but the original mother couldn’t tolerate any infidelity, and the ex-wife kept applying pressure with their bed photos. With no way out, the original mother and stepfather eventually divorced.】
Chu Luyu was speechless for a moment: 【Drugging, bed photos… Definitely a short-drama world indeed :).】
Chu Luyu: 【So, as long as I resolve this cold war crisis between the old couple, then the later tragedy won’t happen?】
System Cuihua: 【Absolutely. They both really adore each other—neither one actually wants to part ways.】
After hearing this, Chu Luyu became even more determined to settle this matter.
That weekend, Chen Mian didn’t have class. When he woke up, he was curled up on the downstairs sofa playing games.
When Chu Luyu went over to find him, she happened to hear him yelling: “Get a job, please, I’m begging you, mid-laner—get a job and stop ruining the Rift for other people!”
Chu Luyu was a bit exasperated. She walked closer and said to him: “In this game, you have to be prepared to 1v9. If your mental fortitude isn’t strong enough, why even start a match?”
Chen Mian thought she didn’t know anything and couldn’t be bothered to argue. He tapped the remake button while rolling his eyes.
“You’re a Diamond player, and you have the nerve to lecture me.”
Chu Luyu didn’t respond immediately. She glanced at his phone. “Glory 57 stars? That’s not even that high.”
Chen Mian looked up at her with a face of utter shock and speechlessness. Chu Luyu said nothing, only snatched his phone and plopped down right next to him.
“Do you have all the mage runes?”
“…Yeah.”
“Skins? For Nuwa, Xi Shi, and Diao Chan—do you have skins for those three mid-laners?”
“…I have all of them.”
Chen Mian watched helplessly as she changed his preferred roles and lanes, switching from jungler to mid-lane, and immediately panicked.
“Don’t mess around! This rank is not something you can handle! And those three mid-laners require serious game sense and mechanics—the ones you use most in Diamond are just Daji, Xiao Qiao, and Angela, right? If you really want to play, at least pick someone you can actually play!”
In truth, Chen Mian was like his mom at heart—he still spoiled this sister of his.
Ever since he was born, he had been brainwashed by his family: he was a boy, a little man, and had to yield to his sister in everything and protect her.
So when he was little, he was a total sis-con, wanting to drag her along everywhere he went. When she wasn’t home, he’d occasionally even get separation anxiety.
When did their relationship become strained?
Chen Mian couldn’t quite remember.
All he knew was that as time went on, Chu Luyu became more and more difficult, and no matter how much he tried to please her or back down, she never seemed satisfied.
She had turned the household upside down, and the fondness and “doting” he’d had for her since childhood had gradually been worn away by her antics.
But no matter what, he had never once thought of disowning her as his sister…
Chu Luyu, meanwhile, completely ignored Chen Mian’s protests. She calmly entered the game match.
It wasn’t until more than ten minutes later, when the game ended, that Chen Mian stared at the results screen on his phone in disbelief.
Top-tier mid-laner. Four stars gained.
Holy crap, since when was this drama queen this good at gaming?!
“You haven’t been home all this time—were you secretly taking commissions to play games outside? How did your skill level jump so much?!”
Chu Luyu thought to herself, Of course it jumped. In the real world, she was a total homebody; aside from drawing and submitting her illustrations, her greatest pleasures were binge-watching shows and playing games.
She had provincial-level badges for all the usual pretty mid-lane female mages, and for Nuwa, Xi Shi, and Diao Chan, she had national-level badges.
But of course, she couldn’t tell Chen Mian any of this. In response to his question, she simply put on an air of “I’m above all this.”
“It’s not too late for you to start treating me better. Maybe if Big Sis is in a good mood, she’ll grind you some fancy national badges for fun.”
Chen Mian let out a “Tch,” putting on a look of unyielding defiance, and muttered under his breath: “Who cares. A national badge boost only costs a few thousand bucks anyway…”
“Wow, so you’re loaded, huh? How about transferring some to your big sister so I can splurge a little?”
Chen Mian looked at Chu Luyu, hesitated as if he wanted to say something, and then actually pulled out his phone and transferred 8,500 yuan to her.
“It’s the end of the month, so this is all the allowance I have left. If you need more next month, I’ll transfer it to you after I get my next payment.”
Chu Luyu was stunned. She hadn’t expected this bratty little brother to be so generous with her.
She couldn’t help but reach out and ruffle his hair hard, saying, “How can you be this sweet?!”
With that, ignoring the stiffness in Chen Mian’s expression, she looped her arm through his and leaned against him in a very intimate manner.
“Since you’re so good to me, can you be a little more kind and quietly tell me—what’s going on with Mom and Uncle Chen? Why are they really fighting?”
Chen Mian turned to look at her, as if he didn’t really want to say.
Chu Luyu didn’t understand. “What’s wrong? Is there some secret in this family that I’m not allowed to know?”
“Don’t talk like that,” Chen Mian said, clearly disliking her stance of being an outsider. He hesitated for a moment. “Fine, but I’m telling you upfront—if I tell you, you can’t get mad.”
“Of course not!”
“It’s just that you recently got engaged to that second son of the Jiang family, right? So whenever my dad goes out for social events, people keep asking about you. After a while, he realized that quite a few people in the circle already know about you, so he suggested to Mom that she have you find something to do. Otherwise, if you’re going to be socializing in these circles in the future, you might end up looked down on. You know Mom—she’s always been super sensitive about anything concerning you. When my dad brought it up, it was really just a suggestion, but she took it as if he was starting to look down on you. One thing led to another, and they started arguing…”
After saying all that, as if afraid that Chu Luyu would get angry, Chen Mian quickly added a defense for Chen Huanian.
“You know how my dad normally treats you. If he actually looked down on you, he wouldn’t have been so good to you all these years. His intention behind saying those things was really for your own good.”
After all, in this circle, people were quick to kiss up to the powerful and kick down the weak. Before, Chu Luyu was just the Chen family’s stepdaughter, and there weren’t many people who truly cared about her.
But now that she also carried the identity of the second young master of the Jiang family’s fiancée, there was no guarantee that others wouldn’t gossip about her behind her back.
A girl getting mocked and looked down upon all the time was never a good thing.
Chen Huanian was considering exactly that when he gave those suggestions to Chu Fanyin.
Seeing Chu Luyu remain silent, Chen Mian assumed she was angry.
Afraid that this drama queen was about to kick up another fuss, he quickly asked: “You’re not mad, are you? You can’t be! You’re the one who asked! If you get mad now, that’d be totally unreasonable!”
Seeing how scared he was, Chu Luyu felt helpless.
“I’m not mad. I’m just thinking about something.”
“About what?” Chen Mian asked curiously.
“About… what exactly I can do.”
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