Starting with the Herrschers, I Cut Down All

And what did Boss mean by saying he had backbone?

Was she mocking him for crashing out of his race car without breaking any bones?

Ling raised her little face. "She said you wouldn't bow to the powerful."

Though that wasn't what she'd actually said. It seemed Miss Kiana had been questioning Boss Bronya, and then Boss had shouted in utter despair: [He didn't kneel! He didn't kneel!

If he kneels, he's my successor. If he doesn't, he's just a student and has to slowly climb the ranks like Ryoma. We're close personally—wherever he works, isn't it still work?]

Boss seemed to have been driven to despair, but Ling didn't need to mention that. After all, her senior was obviously closer to Bronya.

Ling, who understood the coldness of human relationships and the fickleness of the world, should just be a little magpie who brought good news, not bad.

Volume One:

Chapter 53: Yes Means Yes, No Means No—What Do You Mean by Resting for a While?

An Yu had originally thought he'd be in a pretty good mood today.

"I'm back."

Pushing open the door, An Yu looked at the simple but homey dishes in the living room and quietly let out a breath of relief.

It felt like today would be a very pleasant day.

He'd lived like this every day before...

Elysia simply stared at him in silence. After hesitating for a moment, An Yu decided to settle the issue before eating.

"What is it this time?"

Having gradually gotten used to his mentally ill older sister, An Yu sat down refreshed after washing his face.

"I went to see the professor today."

Elysia had originally wanted to lean closer and sniff him for any strange scents, but those things could wait!

"Mm, and then?"

"She said you might've been a bad seed in your past life. The reason I have nightmares is because the special chromosomes in my body released some fragments of inherited genetic information."

And the dreams of all thirteen of them were especially similar, even sharing certain common elements.

An Yu let out a breath. "I suggest you stay away from those bad friends of yours."

He'd thought it was something serious. This tiny problem was neither scientific nor mysterious—it was just a scam so poorly done it was embarrassing.

"Don't you think this is a very serious issue? It even has a bit of a fairy-tale flavor."

After all, it involved fate, and fate had always been one of Elysia's greatest tools for making friends.

"All I heard was that those bad friends of yours told you to stay away from the younger brother you depended on for survival, and they even talked badly about him."

"It's a good thing you didn't run away from home today. Otherwise, I'd have given you this house."

Leaning against the sofa, An Yu stared woodenly at the ceiling.

He suddenly regretted not being controlling enough. What kind of bullshit friends had Elysia made?

At the same time, he felt fortunate—fortunate that he'd tutored Elysia every day in high school. If she'd gone to an even worse school, wouldn't things have turned out even more terribly?

Elysia: ...

That did seem to make sense.

Without realizing it, the conversation circled back to the original issue.

Elysia puffed out her cheeks. "But Mobius is a professor! A very impressive professor!"

Besides, the professor hadn't told her to stay away from An Yu. Mobius herself was indifferent to this failed fate and had even suggested that Elysia find a class to attend.

The professor's biggest flaws were that she loved instant noodles and made terrible coffee...

"What achievements does she have?"

An Yu chuckled. Comparing teachers? Interesting.

Elysia was instantly speechless. She definitely had some, but Elysia didn't know what they were. Still, Professor Mobius was so amazing—her achievements should be easy to look up, right?

Just as she was about to take out her phone to search, An Yu firmly turned her to face him.

His older sister looked blank. For some reason, after being forcefully turned around, her expression became rather subtle, even a little nervous. Her throat bobbed faintly too.

"Then let me tell you. My teacher is called Einstein. She's one of Anti-Entropy's founders, the peak of modern theoretical physics. She changed the way every physicist viewed the universe. At eight years old, she taught herself calculus and linear algebra, and while still alive, she was already hailed as the greatest scientist in human history."

After listing his teacher's most famous achievements in one breath, An Yu quietly looked at Elysia. "What about your professor?"

I-I don't know. Elysia looked at her reflection in An Yu's brown eyes, and her thoughts came to a halt.

A moment later, Elysia lowered her head. It sounded so impressive that she instinctively lost all courage to argue back. Besides, he was too close, making her head feel dizzy.

But! A moment later, she raised her head again unwillingly. An Yu was still holding the same posture, waiting for her to look up.

An Yu understood Elysia too well. She was unconvinced, but couldn't find any reason to refute him. Now she could only cross her arms or spread her hands like a little bear.

"Does my sister have any other questions?"

An Yu's tone was fairly calm. It was fortunate Elysia had said professor instead of expert, or An Yu would've called the police on the spot to see if he could get that expert locked up.

Elysia wanted to speak but stopped. She felt a little unconvinced, but when she leaned closer, the familiar scent made her slightly dizzy, and that dissatisfaction vanished into thin air.

She really did know how to raise a child. Look how good-looking the one she raised had become.

"Let's eat."

Her voice was soft and sweet.

Finally, they could eat. An Yu sighed in relief.

"Actually, the professor advised me not to take these things to heart."

But Elysia wasn't done talking. She chattered on, still trying to salvage some of the professor's image in her little brother's mind.

"I get it. Playing hard to get, right?"

An Yu served his sister some food, hoping it would shut her up. Eat properly, my dear sister.

Settle down already. This week had truly felt like an eternity to An Yu.

"She also suggested I find a class to attend."

Elysia tested the waters carefully.

"..."

An Yu didn't respond.

"Shouldn't you agree?"

After all, An Yu had complained before that she was too idle at home.

An Yu pondered for a moment. "I'm thinking about which of the Thirty-Six Stratagems this is. Borrowing a road to attack Guo?"

Hard to say. After all, An Yu didn't know what Elysia had talked about with those bad friends of hers today.

Elysia puffed up her cheeks again. "Why can't my friends be sincere friends!"

An Yu replied calmly, "I've never seen a sincere friend recommend that someone stay away from their younger brother."

Sometimes, he felt he was already heartless enough. Not even a week had passed, yet he was already close to wanting to send his older sister to a mental hospital.

He began to admire those filial sons from ancient times. Though some of their stories did sound ridiculous, like lying on ice to seek carp... though An Yu also knew those stories were often meant to gain fame.

"No one would recommend something like that!"

Everyone else was clearly very measured. At least, they were all very measured in real life.

An Yu slowly put down his chopsticks.

Elysia still bravely met his gaze.

"Can I understand that this is your own idea?" An Yu tilted his head.

Elysia's expression froze, and she stammered, "Th-then, that's not it either."

"Then where did this idea come from?"

An Yu wasn't trying to quarrel with his sister. Throwing tantrums was often useless. He had always believed that as long as things could be talked out, it was fine. If they truly couldn't communicate, then it was better to separate cleanly.

Why keep sticking together and torturing each other?

"No, no, I never had that idea at all, okay?"

She lowered her head in dejection, feeling that she'd never won an argument against An Yu since childhood—except when they argued about their sibling relationship.

And she could only win that argument because she grew faster when they were children, while An Yu simply had no grounds to argue.

An Yu looked at Elysia with a faint smile. No?

Sis, my dear sister, yes means yes, no means no. What was with this unconfident look?

[Yes means yes! No means no! What do you mean by resting for a while?]

Above, fooling men. Below, fooling women.

Volume One: Chapter 54: I Want You to Treat Me as You Always Have, I Want Your Love for Me to Grow Day by Day

"I just want you to stay home and keep me company more. It used to be like that," Elysia muttered.

"What about university?"

An Yu showed no mercy. They had been apart for four years in university. One year, heavy snow even blocked the roads, and they hadn't eaten New Year's Eve dinner together. Their relationship had grown distant during that time.

And it had let Elysia make a whole bunch of bad friends.

"Your grades were good. I couldn't exactly drag you down with me, could I?"

Only on this matter did Elysia speak with complete conviction, though her little head stayed lowered, making her sound less confident than she claimed.

An Yu: ...

"I need to work, Sis." He picked at his food.

"Ever since I was little, I swore that I absolutely, absolutely wouldn't live a hard life. I wanted to make lots of money."

"Back then, I fantasized every day. If I made lots of money, could I buy all the things I'd wanted to eat before?"

An Yu was a transmigrator, and he admitted that his self-control far surpassed that of ordinary people, but that didn't mean he had no desires.

He also admitted openly that he'd liked Elysia since childhood. Savings for a wife were meant for preparing surprises.

It was just that too many things had happened afterward. University had slowly pulled them apart, and he had calmed down a lot. Not to mention all the bullshit that had happened recently.

"Besides, when you were little, Sis, you rarely hid your desires either. You'd always crave something but act tough as you pulled my hand and said, 'Xiao Yu, once we grow up, we can eat as much of this stuff as we want! Big Sis will buy it for you.'"

An Yu leaned back in his chair. But the future truly hadn't gone as smoothly as they'd imagined as children. As they grew up, more and more things troubled them, and it became difficult for the two of them to lean on each other as they grew.

"But you secretly saved money when you were little too. I never even knew."

Elysia repeatedly poked at her rice with her chopsticks.

"Wouldn't you have cheated half of it away?"

The corners of Elysia's lips lifted slightly, but she wasn't happy. An Yu had saved that money for so long, and he'd even said it was savings for a wife.

She sat on the sofa with her slender legs curled up, her pale bare feet tucked beneath her.

An Yu seemed to have finished eating. He moved closer and cupped the face that he'd never found tiresome to look at before.

Elysia froze. Her delicate toes curled unconsciously beneath her, her heart pounding wildly and her throat bobbing. But because swallowing was too obvious, she instinctively held herself back.

Th-this was a little too sudden.

"Sis, I really have changed a lot. So have you."

"No matter what road we take in the future, at least when we're at home, can we not argue?"

An Yu could tell that he wasn't fundamentally a particularly gentle person. If they kept growing distant at home, he definitely wouldn't keep enduring it forever.

Th-that was it?

Elysia's beautiful eyes, unfocused from her tangled thoughts, slowly regained clarity.

"I thought you were going to confess to me."

Her tone was indescribably complicated, though she hadn't thought too much into it.