When Jiang Yanchu climbed down from the trailer, his legs gave out, and his knees slammed straight into the mud.
No one helped him. With a pipe clenched between his teeth, the tractor driver drove off with a putter, the ember flickering in the mist after the rain, leaving him with a cloud of black exhaust and a face full of mud splatters.
Jiang Yanchu pushed himself up off the ground. The hem of his trench coat had soaked up the muddy water and dragged heavily behind him.
Several crew members were squatting in the courtyard, taking inventory of the equipment. Seeing a mud-covered man barge in with a livid face, they instinctively moved to stop him. Jiang Yanchu did not even lift his eyes, walking around them and heading straight inside.
His handmade Italian leather shoes sank unevenly into the yellow mud. The sludge coating them had already obscured the leather's original color.
The door at the end of the corridor stood ajar.
He shoved it open.
The door struck the wall and bounced back, and he stopped it with his palm.
His younger brother was crouching on the floor, his face tilted up as he smiled at an unfamiliar man, his eyes curved into crescents.
The man sat on a bench with his trouser leg rolled up to his knee. The gauze half-wrapped around his knee hung loose, with a crooked bow tied at the end-clearly Jiang Xun's handiwork.
The last thread of Jiang Yanchu's restraint snapped.
"Jiang Xun!"
Jiang Xun turned his head. Seeing the bedraggled figure standing in the doorway, he froze for a moment, then knitted his brows.
"What are you doing here?"
Jiang Yanchu stood in the doorway, water still dripping from the hem of his trench coat. Dried yellow mud caked his trouser legs, his hair was windblown and disheveled, and dark circles lay beneath his eyes.
He looked nothing like the Jiang family's second young master, who usually wore immaculate suits and exuded polished professionalism down to the last strand of hair. The refined young gentleman from the covers of financial magazines now looked like a flood victim who had just been carried away from the front lines.
Duan Qizhao came slipping over with his meal, drawn by the commotion. He nearly spat out the self-heating rice in his mouth, his eyes darting back and forth between Jiang Yanchu and Jiang Xun several times.
"Brother Yanchu? What are you-"
Jiang Yanchu did not look at him. He strode inside, seized Jiang Xun's wrist, and hauled him up from the floor.
Jiang Xun stumbled from the pull. The roll of gauze he had yet to finish wrapping fell from his hand and rolled into the corner.
"Come home with me."
"Are you out of your mind?" Jiang Xun struggled once but could not break free. His expression darkened. "Let go."
"I said, come home with me!"
"You're done filming this lousy show." Jiang Yanchu kept his voice very low. His eyes were bloodshot from staying up all night, and the fingers gripping Jiang Xun's wrist trembled from the force. "This Thirty-Day Transformation Experience, whatever it is-I don't agree to it. You're leaving with me right now."
Jiang Xun tilted his head at him.
"You don't agree?" His tone was airy. "Who the hell do you think you are?"
Jiang Yanchu's fingers stiffened, as though someone had slapped him across the face. Something surged in his eyes, impossible to tell whether it was anger or hurt. His Adam's apple bobbed several times before he forced out a sound.
"Who do I think I am? I'm your second brother!"
"Oh, my second brother." Jiang Xun drew out the words, his smile growing wider. "What suddenly reminded you of me? What happened to hugging Jiang Yu and calling him your little brother?"
Jiang Yanchu's face went deathly pale.
"Now you remember you're my brother?" Jiang Xun sneered. "Why didn't you remember on my first day back with the Jiang family? Why didn't you remember when Jiang Yu blocked me at the door and called me a bastard? Why didn't you remember when Liu Wanying drugged me unconscious and dumped me here?"
Jiang Yanchu's pupils constricted. "What did you say? Drugged?"
"You didn't know?" Jiang Xun raised his brows. "Right, of course Liu Wanying wouldn't have told you she put drugs in my milk and stuffed me into the production crew's car in the middle of the night."
He paused, watching Jiang Yanchu's bloodless face, and his tone suddenly brightened. "But you definitely won't believe any of this. After all, that Aunt Liu of yours is the gentlest, kindest woman in the world in your eyes. How could she do something like that? So I can't be bothered to explain."
Jiang Yanchu's lips moved, but it felt as though a wad of cotton had lodged in his throat.
Before coming, he had rehearsed countless words on the plane, working out how to apologize to Jiang Xun, how to explain his previous attitude, and how to persuade Jiang Xun to go home with him.
But standing here, facing Jiang Xun's eyes, so clear they reflected all his guilty unease, he could not get a single word out.
"Enough. Stop putting on this tragic act." Looking at Jiang Yanchu's reddened eyes, Jiang Xun's sneer faded a little. Even mocking him felt like a waste of effort.
"I'm doing just fine here. No need to trouble yourself over me. You'd better hurry back, before your little brother Xiao Yu gets home from school, can't find you, and starts crying again."
"Xiao Xun..."
"Don't call me Xiao Xun." Jiang Xun's voice turned utterly cold. "My name is Jiang Xun. We're not that close."
A draft swept through the corridor, gently stirring the muddy hem of Jiang Yanchu's trench coat. He simply stood there, deathly pale, looking wretched and out of place.
Duan Qizhao squatted in the corner holding his self-heating rice, so absorbed in the spectacle that he forgot to chew the food in his mouth.
He had known Jiang Yanchu for more than a day or two.
Among Capital City's wealthy elite, the Jiang family's second young master had always been associated with words like "refined" and "courteous." He had never looked like this, covered in mud with dark circles around his eyes, like a refugee who had just crawled out of a mudslide.
"Brother Yanchu," Duan Qizhao ventured cautiously, "why don't you sit down and have something to eat first? This self-heating rice is pretty good. The beef cubes are a little small, but the sauce goes really well with the rice-"
Jiang Yanchu did not spare him a glance. His gaze remained fixed on Jiang Xun's face, his Adam's apple bobbing several times. In the end, he said nothing more, turned around, and pushed the door open to leave.
Duan Qizhao stood frozen with his meal box in his hands, then turned to look at Jiang Xun.
Jiang Xun had already crouched back down in front of Shen Wangjing. He picked up the gauze that had fallen to the floor and wound it around the bow once more.
"Your brother came all this way to get you, and you just sent him packing?" Duan Qizhao leaned over.
Jiang Xun snapped, "If you feel so sorry for him, you can go back with him."
"Who feels sorry for him! I just think..." Duan Qizhao scratched his blue hair. Unable to find the right words, he simply stuffed a mouthful of rice into his mouth and chewed instead of speaking.
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