Chapter 23

"You still dare say that!" Qiao the campus belle rolled her eyes without a shred of grace, looking utterly disgusted. "You promised to stay up all night watching with me, but every one of you gave out by the middle of the night. You're seriously useless."

"You slept so soundly through horror movies. Didn't you even dream about ghosts chasing you?"

The teased boys and girls laughed awkwardly. Several girls eagerly went over to Qiao Shiyu to help make breakfast, only to be waved away by Qiao the campus belle with a look of disdain.

"It's just fried eggs and boiled milk. I can handle it myself. Go wash up."

"The toothpaste and toothbrushes are all disposable hotel supplies, and they smell awful. Just make do with them."

"Then we won't hold back!" The boys and girls laughed as they ran off. By the time they returned from washing up, Qiao the campus belle had already fried all the eggs and laid them out on the dining table.

The boys went into the kitchen to bring out the milk, and everyone held a bowl and scooped some for themselves. The other girls gathered up the snacks left over from last night and managed to put together a plate of potato chips and shrimp crackers, a plate of preserved fruit, and two packs of toast as extra food.

"Wow, Qiao the campus belle really doesn't look like someone who can cook. She's so pretty, yet she can actually make food. What a virtuous beauty!" Yue Bin took a bite of his runny-yolk fried egg and grinned as he nudged Xing Yuan beside him with his elbow. Waggling his eyebrows, he asked, "Right?"

The tall captain of the school basketball team suspiciously reddened and stammered, "W-why are you asking me?"

"Hm?" Lu Chi, seated on Yue Bin's other side, suddenly turned to look at Xing Yuan and innocently pressed, "Could it be that Xing Yuan has a different opinion?"

"Of course not!" Xing Yuan jerked in fright and loudly refuted, "How could I possibly have a different opinion? Shi Yu was already pretty and had a good personality!"

"Oh!" Everyone at the table turned to look at him and said meaningfully, "So that's what you think!"

Xing Yuan: "..." Why did he suddenly feel like he was being bullied?

Qiao Shiyu blinked and laughed. "Don't praise me so much. I can't really cook either. I only know how to fry eggs and boil things."

"That's already amazing." Lu Miaomiao, holding her bowl of milk, said loudly, "My brother only knows how to cook instant noodles. If he tries to fry eggs, he'll set the pan on fire!"

Lu Chi, who had been unexpectedly exposed by his own little sister: "..."

"Huh?" Yue Bin turned his head, propped his chin on one hand, and asked with great interest, "You can't cook?"

Lu Chi looked back at him expressionlessly. "What about it? Is that not allowed?"

"Of course not!" Yue Bin raised his brows and smiled pleasantly. "I just wanted to say that I can cook, and I'm really good at it."

Lu Chi: "..." So?

A large hand landed on his head and gave it a rub. Yue Bin withdrew his paw in satisfaction, then looked at Lu Chi's messy hair and laughed smugly. "I'll cook for you someday, nyehahahaha..."

Lu Chi: "..."

Expressionlessly smoothing his hair back into place, Lu Chi lowered his head to look at Lu Miaomiao. Activating his eldest-brother-as-a-father mode, he smiled benevolently and asked, "You haven't done your homework yet, have you?"

"How many points do you think you'll get on this monthly exam?"

"Can you make it into the top hundred in your grade for finals?"

"Is studying difficult for you? Big Brother has decided to set aside an hour every evening to tutor you. Starting next week, I'll pick you up from the elementary division after school, and you'll come with me to the high school library to review your lessons. You can get an early taste of high school student life. How about it? Aren't you looking forward to it?"

"Oh, right. Big Brother also thinks your Chinese foundation is a little weak. So starting tomorrow, shall we memorize the New Chinese Dictionary?"

Lu Miaomiao: "..." S-so scary. Big Brother, I was wrong, QAQ.

Lu Chi smiled as he rubbed Miao Miao's little braid, then said gently, "Big Brother used to be busy with his own things and rarely spent time with Miao Miao. But now that Big Brother has mostly sorted out his studies, I'll make more time to spend with Miao Miao from now on." After all, in Yanjing, Big Brother "only" had you as family~

Lu Xiao Heng, filming at Yanying Film Studio far away: "Achoo?!"

Lu Miaomiao sprawled lifelessly across the dining table, feeling as though even the milk tasted bitter.

Yue Bin, seated on the other side, also felt the legendary Big Brother Domain. The psychological trauma of being oppressed by his own elder brother for years instantly spread through his entire body. Yue Bin cautiously shifted his chair a little closer to Xing Yuan, tucked the hand that had just rubbed Lu Chi's head into his chest, and trembled with his back turned toward Lu Chi.

Sure enough, all creatures known as "big brothers" in this world were terrifying, QAQ.

Chapter 23

A three-day holiday sounded pretty sweet, but for boys and girls still in high school, even holidays came with piles of homework and test papers to finish. There was always limited time to play to their hearts' content. So after breakfast, as the boys and girls helped Qiao Shiyu clean the villa bit by bit, the birthday party that had lasted a full day and night, full of surprises and scares, finally came to an end.

The once-lively villa returned to its usual quiet, with a faint air of loneliness and desolation still lingering in the air. Qiao Shiyu did not want to stay alone in such a huge house gathering dust, so she simply returned downtown with everyone else before taking a bus to her grandmother's home.

As for Lu Chi, he took his sister back to school—given his cooking skills, which were so terrible they made listeners weep and eaters cry, after several stubborn attempts, the siblings had both chosen to surrender to reality. They would rather eat subsidized meals at the main cafeteria every day than ever cook for themselves again.

Originally, the siblings' routine had been to return to school for all three meals on weekends, then go back after eating to reunite at their second brother Lu Heng's staff dormitory near the school. However, Zhuo Yue's invitation for Lu Chi to join the study group gave him a better idea. Lu Chi suddenly remembered that the school library allowed students from different grades to study together—now, even the problem of being unable to reunite across different school divisions was solved. Lu Chi simply brought his sister to the library to tutor her, so the two of them no longer had to run back and forth over weekend meals and lodging. After all, Yanjing's overly bustling, sprawling, traffic-filled streets had always been a burden for Lu Chi—he could barely manage himself, much less bring along his seven-year-old sister.