Brother and Sister

Several more hours passed.

The sky gradually darkened as evening approached.

Li Wei finally let out a long sigh of relief and closed the notebook—dozens of pages filled with his and Janna's collaborative work.

Just then, footsteps approached from outside the door.

The footsteps stopped quickly at the entrance, and soon a bespectacled black-haired girl unlocked the door with a key.

"Brother, I'm back."

The girl was none other than Li Wei's younger sister, Lina.

Because their ancestors were Eastern immigrants from Ionia, she shared Li Wei's striking black hair and eyes, and her features and skin were more refined than those of the Zaunite Natives.

Unlike her slovenly brother, Lina wore a simple, demure thick braid and a standard Piltover University uniform, spotless from head to toe.

A fitted ladies' blazer and knee-length skirt, paired with white stockings, black leather shoes, and gold-rimmed glasses, made her look more like a young lady of the Piltovan Upper Class than a little Zaunite girl scraping by with her apprentice brother.

"Lina!"

Li Wei smiled and welcomed her in, mimicking the feeling from his memories.

That Li Wei had loved his sister deeply. Before dying, he'd felt relief, but the thought of leaving her with no one to care for him had made him struggle to breathe again.

"Brother, where did you get that pet bird?"

Lina noticed the delicate Blue Bird perched on Li Wei's shoulder.

But her mood seemed sour; even the adorable Janna couldn't lift the girl's spirits.

So before Li Wei could answer, her brow furrowed slightly:

"Brother, did you go through my box? Why are my books and notebooks all out here? You can barely read—what do you need them for? The school only gives out a few free notebooks, and just one pen. I still need them for class."

Lina grumbled on, but Li Wei wasn't annoyed.

"You must be tired after a full day of classes, right?"

"Lina, let's eat first."

With that, he carefully set up a chair as a makeshift table and pulled out a lunchbox from under the bed.

"Today, it's your favorite—"

"Raw marinated Bog Toad!"

Li Wei opened the lunchbox with a flourish, but instead of any golden glow, it revealed a heap of Bog Toad meat slathered in a bizarre array of colorful spices, looking like something straight out of the Ganges.

Bog Toads were magical creatures that lived in Zaun's sewage ditches.

Though they looked terrible and were scorned by the Piltovan Upper Class, their taste was surprisingly good—a favorite delicacy among Zaunites and one of the few meats they could afford.

That Li Wei, after finishing his overnight shift, had been exhausted and sleepy, but when he saw Bog Toad meat for sale on the street, he'd queued up for a long time to bring a box home for his sister.

"Bog Toad?!"

For some reason, Lina's brow furrowed even deeper:

"Brother, didn't I say I don't want to eat this stuff anymore?"

"It's because we keep eating these weird things that those Piltovans look down on us and call us 'Sewer Rats who'll eat anything'!"

"." Li Wei finally stopped smiling.

He didn't lecture her either. He just quietly handed her a fork:

"The landlord came by today to collect the rent."

Lina: "."

All her resentment got stuck in her throat, and she couldn't say a word.

Only then did Li Wei ask calmly, "Did you get bullied at school again?"

"Mm." Lina's eyes grew a little wet.

"Sorry, Brother."

"Talk it out. Bottling it up isn't good."

"It's that Young Lady of House Ferros again! Just because she's got some damn family backing her, she's always picking fights. It's one thing for her to curse me out, but she also said all us Zaunites are trash-eating Sewer Rats, that we're stinking outsiders who come to Piltover begging for food."

"What a mouthful of crap, that motherless bitch. Ahem!"

Lina let out a torrent of Zaunite curses, then awkwardly covered her mouth.

"Haha." Li Wei encouraged her, ruffling her hair. "At home, you don't have to put on airs."

"See—no matter how you dress up, you're still a Zaunite at heart."

"Mm." Lina blushed and lowered her head.

Then, without another word, she grabbed her fork and dug into the Bog Toad.

She started off eating politely, but soon dropped all pretense and began tearing into the meat with her hands.

"Brother." After a moment, the girl belatedly looked up. "When the landlord came to collect the rent, did he say anything?"

"He wouldn't just call the enforcers to kick us out, would he? If that happens, we'll have to go back to Zaun."

"Don't worry. Mr. Bill promised it won't come to that." Li Wei's expression stayed calm as he reassured her. "Just focus on your studies. I'll handle the money."

"Mm." Lina nodded.

She seemed about to keep eating, but after a moment's hesitation, she said to Li Wei:

"After we eat, I'm going back to school."

"There's an interview and assessment tonight. If I pass—brother, you know? I'll be accepted into Professor Jayce Talis's research group as a key trainee."

"The group members get extra stipends."

"Brother, then we'll have money!"

"Professor Jayce, huh." Li Wei could tell this was indeed a huge opportunity.

Jayce Talis, the founder of Hextech, now the hottest research star in all of Piltover.

Even when Li Wei went downstairs to buy a pack of cigarettes, he'd see a dozen different posters of Mr. Jayce plastered everywhere.

He never expected this.

If it were before his transmigration, hearing the name Jayce would've made Li Wei sneer, "Little Jayce dares to show off in front of an expert," and then coldly show him a monitor to teach him what Ionia's indomitable spirit really meant.

But now that he'd transmigrated, Jayce had become an unreachable big shot. Truly ironic.

Still, no matter what, this was a massive opportunity.

If Lina could become Jayce's student, then the siblings would never have to fear being kicked back to Zaun by the enforcers.

"But it won't be easy, right?"

"Huh?" Lina's forced smile froze.

Li Wei patted her head again and said, "Just do your best tonight. Don't put too much pressure on yourself."

"Even if you fail, we haven't lost anything."

"Mm." Lina couldn't find words, just bit her lip tightly. "Mm!"

"You go ahead and eat." Li Wei slowly stood up, sidestepping away from his sister and squeezing toward the door. "I'm off to my night shift."

"Now?" Lina felt reluctant. Their schedules were completely mismatched; this evening stretch was the only time they saw each other.

"Yeah, I'll see if Mr. Ervin is around."

Li Wei worked at a Hextech Sound Factory, and Mr. Ervin was his boss.

From the original owner's memories, this boss, who commanded authority over the workers, was actually a good man with a cold exterior and a warm heart.

A good man who sympathized with Zaunite workers—a rare breed among Piltover's business owners.

"If I can, I'll ask Mr. Ervin to advance next month's wages. He should agree."

That little money wouldn't cover the rent, but at least it could buy some time with the landlord, so they wouldn't get booted back to Zaun by the enforcers tomorrow.

"And next month?" his sister asked worriedly.

"Don't worry, I'll figure it out." Li Wei was confident. He was, after all, a well-traveled Earthling. As long as he could buy some time, he'd naturally find a way to earn money.

"Do well in your defense tonight. Don't think about home."

With that final instruction, Li Wei, with Azure Finch Janna perched on his shoulder, pushed open the door and stepped out.

"Hey, brother, aren't you eating?" Lina called out, but he didn't stop, and the door closed.

She thought for a moment, then slowly set down the lunchbox.

Crouching, she dug a salt bag out of a box of odds and ends under the bed, sparingly sprinkled a layer of coarse salt over the remaining half of the Bog Toad meat, then carefully closed the lunchbox lid and put it back on the bed.

"Brother, I didn't finish. You eat it when you get back from your shift, or it'll go bad."

Lina picked up the notebook Li Wei had used earlier, carefully tore a scrap of paper from the last page, and left a note for her brother.

After leaving the note, she casually stuffed the notebook into her schoolbag.

As she'd said, she never had enough notebooks.

Even though this blank notebook had already been written in by Li Wei, she still had to take it to school to use as scratch paper for tonight's defense interview.

"Wait." Just as Lina shoved the notebook into her bag, something belatedly occurred to her:

"What did my brother even write?"

"He never reads books normally, does he?"

Driven by curiosity and confusion, she finally opened the notebook Li Wei had left behind.

The first thing that caught her eye was a line of dedication:

"For you, Mr. Li Wei."

The handwriting was firm and forceful, the strokes distinct—nothing like what her rough-and-tumble brother would write.

"When did my brother's handwriting get so good? And this dedication—why is it written to himself?"

Lina was utterly baffled, but the preface after the dedication read:

"The Goddess Janna is real."

It was a thunderbolt right from the start.

"The author has had the honor of several long conversations with the Goddess Janna, blessed by her grace to gain enlightenment, and has initially learned and mastered a revolutionary tool of thought for understanding the world."

"Huh??" Lina stared in disbelief.

Her brother actually claimed to have seen Janna with his own eyes? That legendary Guardian of Zaun, the Storm's Fury Janna?

What a joke!

Janna was nothing but a story to trick kids!

Even if she were real, so what?

Calling her the Guardian of Zaun—Zaunites had been living like this, and she'd never clocked in for a single day!

"Oh no, he hasn't been duped by some charlatan, has he?" Lina worried.

Yet, as she read a little further, she found:

"First, I must make it clear: Janna is real, and she is indeed a god."

"But gods are not omnipotent. A god is merely a powerful magical being, with no essential difference from humans."

"Huh?" Lina was confused again.

First it was all mystical, and now he was writing gods like this? Turning gods into humans—who would still fall for that?

Then Li Wei wrote:

"Janna granted me her divine grace not to use me as a mouthpiece to promote herself, but to spread wisdom to the world and share her thoughts and ideals."

"As a goddess of compassion and equality, the protector of countless people, her spirit has drifted over Runeterra for thousands of years."

"She has observed the development and changes of human history, analyzing the past, present, and future of society. After long research and contemplation, she has distilled a set of thinking tools to help us understand and reshape the world."

"Here, I will simply summarize this as Janna's Ideology—the true meaning of the Goddess Janna."

"Now, I will attempt to use Janna's Ideology to briefly sort out and analyze the history of Zaun and Piltover over the past 7,000 years—"

By this point, Lina was deeply intrigued.

Janna's ideology? A god not bothering to convert believers but playing philosophy teacher instead? Now that was something new!

She continued flipping through.

There, Li Wei had written a striking headline in plain, accessible language that anyone could understand:

"Zaun—Where Did It Come From?"