Brother Li

Ye Qing had always known he had a talent for playing the innocent, but even he had to admit defeat before Li Ling.

Li Ling's innocent-sounding barbs were in a league of their own.

Onstage, Li Lian was falling apart, but Li Ling looked perfectly calm.

Then Li Lian burst out laughing. "Hahaha! So what if you've done all this today? I'm still the one who got all our parents' love."

"Everything you want came to me without my even trying. Mom and Dad love me most."

Li Ling was unmoved. "I don't need it."

At that moment, the two people below the stage seemed to come to their senses. They rushed up and shoved Li Ling. "What's wrong with you? He's your little brother! What are you doing?"

The crowd hadn't expected the Li Family parents to still refuse to believe it after all that.

The two onstage looked deeply disappointed. "We know you don't like your little brother, but you can't do this to him."

"Today is his birthday!"

Li Ling seemed to have anticipated this. He looked at them without a ripple of emotion. "I knew you wouldn't believe it. You've never been very bright."

The next second, another video appeared on the screen.

A man and a woman were in a room, discussing something.

"Are we going to get away with what we did?" the woman asked, fear audible in her voice.

"We will. I've already bribed the doctor."

The video cut again, and the woman's voice returned. "That Li Ling is getting in our Lian's way."

"It's fine. I have a plan."

The footage shifted to the man arriving at the Li Family's door dressed as a Taoist priest. What happened afterward was much as everyone knew it: the Li couple had favored their younger son beyond all reason.

"Impossible. That's impossible," Li Mother said in disbelief. Beside her, Li Father looked just as stunned.

"Then what about all those strange things that happened at home? After we... didn't everything stop?"

Li Ling scoffed. "She was the housekeeper. Where in that house couldn't she have tampered with something? You're clueless."

The truth was plain now. The Li couple could no longer deny it.

But after years of favoring their younger son, they couldn't simply stop caring about him, even knowing he wasn't their biological child. Nor could they suddenly grow close to their elder son.

Li Ling didn't need their affection anyway. He had hoped for it as a child, but he had long since outgrown that hope.

Li Mother was more decisive than Li Father. She slapped Li Lian across the face. What truly angered her was his conspiracy to harm them and the company. As for whether he was her biological son, she had doted on him for so many years that it hardly seemed to matter anymore.

"You... you child! How could you do this to me?"

Li Lian took the slap without a word. He wished he really were their biological son, but fate had decided otherwise. Since he couldn't change that, he could only fight for himself.

That didn't mean he felt no guilt. But if not for the claim that Li Ling brought misfortune to others, Li Lian probably would never have been treated this way. Once he thought of it like that, the guilt seemed to fade.

Li Ling watched without a trace of emotion in his eyes. The flair for drama Ye Qing had sensed in him earlier seemed almost like an illusion.

I've heard of men favoring their wives over their concubines, but this is the first time I've seen parents favor one "son" at the expense of another.

And that "son" wasn't even their biological child.

The Ye Family members felt that keenly.

Looking over the farce he had set in motion, Li Ling calmly dropped one final bombshell. "My grandfather left me ten percent of the company's shares. Over the years, I've bought more bit by bit. I now hold forty percent, making me the largest shareholder."

Everyone understood what that meant. The Li Family company had changed hands.

Li Father looked lost. "How is that possible? Wasn't the company Xiao Lian's..."

"Yes, Father. But how could you expect a useless fool to run a company? If some of its people hadn't remained loyal, it would have gone under long ago."

Only then did Li Lian seem to lose his mind. "How dare you? How dare you!"

"Why wouldn't I? I'm the one who should rightfully be in charge, aren't I?"

Li Ling stood apart as his parents cursed and blamed him. He had someone escort them away, then put the housekeeper and her husband in a room with them. How they settled things from there was up to them.

He had stopped caring about any of it long ago. With the farce over, he addressed the guests in the hall. "Sorry you all had to witness that. The banquet will continue, so please enjoy yourselves."

The guests had been treated to quite a spectacle and showed no displeasure. Some even admired Li Ling. Pulling all this off could not have been easy.

Ye Father and Ye Mother felt the same, though Ye Mother also felt a pang of sympathy for Li Ling. "Who knows how much that child has suffered?"

"At least he didn't let it lead him astray."

So when Li Ling came over and Ye Mother called him a good child, he froze for a long moment.

Her next words, telling him how hard things must have been, nearly broke his composure. Ye Mother truly felt for him. Knowing that everything he had endured since childhood stemmed from such an absurd scheme only made her heart ache more.

Li Ling was visibly moved, though his face remained composed.

Out of sympathy for him, Ye Mother wanted the young men to get to know one another.

The three younger members of the Ye Family had a good impression of Li Ling too. Even without Ye Mother's encouragement, they might have struck up a friendship with him.

After everything that had happened at the banquet, Li Ling also thought well of the three of them. He felt especially in tune with Ye Qing.

The two hit it off at once. Once they became more familiar, Ye Qing started calling him Brother Li without a hint of reserve.

From that one meeting, the three younger Ye Family members and Li Ling became friends. Their families' companies might even work together someday.

It had been quite the scandal. The Ye Family members felt they hadn't heard gossip this good in ages, not since Ye Qing had started acting.

The trip had certainly been worth it.

With filming finished, Ye Qing had nothing much to do. After a spell of free time, he heard Gu Ze was about to film his final scene and went to the set.

He didn't want to miss Gu Ze's last scene.