In the original story, Lu Bochen had deliberately avoided Lu Jiaoyue for a while after she first returned.
Lu Jiaoyue and Lu Bochen were twins. Although their faces were strikingly alike, their personalities were polar opposites.
Unlike Lu Bochen, who was awkward around other people, Lu Jiaoyue was sweet-tongued, tactful, and emotionally perceptive. She could easily win the affection of those around her.
Every time he saw that face, so much like his own, making all sorts of lively expressions he could never manage, a subtle sense of inferiority stirred within Lu Bochen.
Beside Lu Jiaoyue, he seemed even stranger, even more abnormal.
Sometimes he would sneak a look at Lu Jiaoyue, envy quietly showing in his eyes, then quickly look away before she noticed.
His sister was probably what his father and mother wished he could be, wasn't she?
Lu Bochen often thought this as he silently observed Lu Jiaoyue.
Why had they been born at almost the same time, yet he was the only one who had grown into a weird kid?
Even an all-white room turned pitch-black once the lights were off and the curtains drawn. Lu Bochen sat on the edge of his bed, his thoughts drifting farther and farther away.
A touch of liquid against his hand slowly brought him back to his senses. Only then did he realize that he had unknowingly cut his own arm, and blood was steadily seeping from the wound.
Lu Bochen blinked slowly. He felt no pain at all, but instinctively loosened his grip on the fountain pen.
The arm Lu Bochen had stabbed was the very one he had used to push Lu Jiaoyue that day. He had not meant to knock his sister down, and had regretted it the instant he did it. This wound was his punishment for doing something wrong.
He had wanted to stab deeper. The only reason he stopped halfway was that he suddenly remembered what his therapist had emphasized-he must never hurt himself, under any circumstances.
But he had failed to control himself. He had done something wrong again.
As the strength left Lu Bochen's hand, the fountain pen dropped soundlessly onto the carpet.
He pressed his lips together and opened the bedside drawer, his face expressionless. Taking out the medicine, gauze, and bandages he always kept inside, he began tending to the wound with practiced movements.
Once he finished bandaging it, Lu Bochen looked at the scars elsewhere on his arm. Some were deep, others shallow; some were fresh, others old. There were so many of them, and they looked horribly ugly.
Unfortunately, a human body was not a canvas. The marks left on it could not simply be erased.
Scars were scars. Some faded with time, but many more could never be removed. They stayed right where they were, and a single glance reminded their owner of how he had felt at the time.
Lu Bochen stared at them for a while, then suddenly felt despondent.
Without a word, he pulled down his sleeve to cover his entire arm, refusing to look at it in an act of self-deception.
Thinking of the reprimands he might receive at his next therapy session, Lu Bochen felt a little numb and simply stopped thinking about it.
He lay back, rested the back of his hand over his closed eyes, and began emptying his mind.
So could he really become "normal" one day?
Lu Bochen asked himself this, but had no answer.
The next morning, Lu Xiaoxiao got up quite early. When she went downstairs, yawning, she found Lu Xunli already eating breakfast.
Her eldest brother had always kept a healthy routine, so it was hardly surprising that he was the first one downstairs.
Lu Xiaoxiao sat down at the dining table, took a bite of bread, and ate it with milk, thoroughly enjoying her breakfast.
She was only halfway through her bread when Song Zhilan came downstairs looking displeased. She sat down with a cold expression, without saying a word to Lu Yuan, who followed behind her.
Lu Yuan's expression was grim, and he clearly had no intention of eating breakfast at home. He hurried past the dining table and went straight out.
At the sound of the front door closing, Lu Xiaoxiao paused mid-bite and stared blankly at Song Zhilan, unable to figure out what was going on.
[Weren't things fine last night? How did one night's sleep undo all that progress?]
[What was going on, Mom? Were you calling it quits again? Dad was already so hopelessly lovesick. If all else failed, couldn't you cut him a little slack?]
Hearing her daughter's thoughts, Song Zhilan's expression softened slightly, though she was still upset.
After secretly reading Lu Yuan's book the previous night, her opinion of her husband had changed somewhat. She had deliberately made the first move, hoping to ease the tension between them.
After so many years together, Song Zhilan did understand Lu Yuan's temperament. Although he handled business matters with ease, he genuinely did not know how to express his feelings at home. Sometimes, even his concern for the children had to be conveyed through her.
Now that she was certain of his feelings, Song Zhilan had no intention of mentioning what she had seen, worried that bringing it up would hurt his pride. She planned to act as though she knew nothing.
Yet after she had offered him an opening and was already lying in his arms, Lu Yuan suddenly came out with this:
"Zhilan, if this is about your nephew's company... you don't need to go this far. I wasn't going to abandon your family anyway, and I wasn't going to keep holding a grudge over what happened back then."
The remark killed the mood so completely that Song Zhilan froze.
When the Lu Family and the Song Family had arranged the marriage, the Lu Family had been marrying slightly above their station. But Song Zhilan had always been one of the Song Family's less prominent daughters, and the Lu Family happened to possess a technology that was particularly useful to the Song Family. That was how her marriage had come about.
To the members of the Song Family, Song Zhilan's marriage into the Lu Family had fulfilled her worth. They had gotten their investment back.
But not long after Lu Yuan took over the Lu Corporation, a competitor set the company up. Its cash flow collapsed, leaving it in a critical situation.
Song Zhilan secretly turned to her family for help, only to be firmly refused.
The head of the Song Family was Song Zhilan's eldest paternal uncle, Song Zhulin. Shrewd and profit-minded, he was unwilling to risk filling the Lu Corporation's financial hole. He even urged Song Zhilan to start planning a divorce, saying that she could still remarry while she was young. If she refused to listen, he would leave her to fend for herself.
Although Song Zhilan and Lu Yuan had not been especially close then, she greatly admired his ability and character. She did not want to make things worse for him when he was at his lowest. Besides, she was pregnant with Lu Xunli, so she decisively rejected Song Zhulin's advice and chose to stand by Lu Yuan through thick and thin.
Later, when Lu Yuan asked whether she could seek help from the Song Family, Song Zhilan, who had already been rebuffed, found herself in a difficult position. Not wanting him to lose faith in her family, she could only tactfully steer the conversation elsewhere.
Lu Yuan never brought it up again. Somehow, within a mere month, he managed to secure other investments and stabilize the Lu Corporation. After that, the company flourished, and within a few years, it had even surpassed the Song Family in scale.
Now the Song Family wanted to get back on good terms with them.
But having already witnessed their cold indifference, Lu Yuan remained unmoved by the Song Family's increasingly eager overtures.
Song Zhilan had never told Lu Yuan that she had swallowed her pride and begged her uncle for funding. Only when he said those words that night did she realize that he still harbored resentment toward her.
She had only wanted to be closer to him, yet he had interpreted it as an ulterior motive. Feeling deeply wronged, Song Zhilan immediately pulled free of Lu Yuan's embrace and turned her back to him to sleep.
Just like that, the warmth between them abruptly froze, leading to the scene that morning.
Before you continue