Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Mine was a blended family.

When my parents married, Mom brought my eldest brother, Shen Xingyuan, and my third sister, Shen Qingzi. Dad brought my second brother, Yu Yixing, and my fourth sister, Yu Mingwei. I was the sole biological child born of their earthshaking second marriage.

Blended families were supposed to be complicated. Ours had gone far beyond complicated.

All four of my older siblings doted on me, yet treated one another like mortal enemies. The first time my brothers met, they nearly smashed each other’s heads in. Apparently they hated each other so much they wanted to tie each other down and torment each other for life.

My sisters had competed since childhood-grades, talents, even whose dress was prettier. They behaved like sworn rivals. Their relationship was so awful that my parents eventually stopped trying to reconcile them and settled for one family dinner a month after everyone started working.

One evening, I was admiring the newly planted roses with my parents when we found my sisters behind the bushes.

They were not arguing. They were not fighting.

They were kissing-very passionately, with plenty of tongue.

My eyes nearly popped out. The sunflower seeds spilled from Mom’s hand.

After three seconds of silence, Dad tried to save the situation. “Such… sisterly affection. Wonderful. Wonderful…”

My sisters sprang apart as if electrocuted, their lips still wet and glossy. Qingzi instinctively shielded Mingwei behind her, her face turning red, then white. She opened her mouth, but Mingwei took her hand and announced with absolute conviction, “We’re together.”

Mom clutched her forehead and swayed. Dad caught her, his voice weak. “Let’s… let’s go inside. We’ll talk inside.”

* * *

In the living room, my parents sat side by side on the main sofa like two volcanoes on the verge of eruption. I curled into the corner armchair and tried to make myself invisible. My two sisters knelt before them.

Mom drew a deep breath. “Qingzi, tell me what is going on.”

Qingzi answered calmly, “Exactly what you saw. We’ve been dating for three years.”

Mingwei immediately added with a cold laugh, “Three years and six months, to be precise. Shen Qingzi, you can’t even remember how long we’ve been together?”

“You remember? Who was so busy with a project last month that she didn’t buy an anniversary present?”

“Because some idiot spent the previous week hinting that she wanted a limited-edition bag, and I searched the whole city for it!”

“Are you complaining?”

“I am stating the fact that someone is inconsiderate!”

Mom and Dad stared at them in silence.

The two women traded blows with their words, arguing as if no one else existed, then stopped at the same moment and cried in unison, “We’re truly in love!”

My second brother suddenly laughed. He nudged my eldest brother’s leg. “This opportunity doesn’t come often.”

For once, alarm flashed through Shen Xingyuan’s usually impassive eyes. “Yu Yixing, you-”

Yixing dragged him up, hauled him over, and dropped to his knees with impressive speed and precision, as though he had rehearsed it many times. Xingyuan stumbled after him and barely caught himself on one knee, looking like a man being forced into a marriage proposal.

His face darkened like the bottom of a burned pot. He tried to shake Yixing off and failed. Yixing gripped his hand, laced their fingers together, held them before his chest, and faced my stunned parents with the courage of a man marching to his death.

“The two of us,” he declared, “are together too.”

I refused to remember the chaos that followed. All I knew was that the night ended with our entire family seated in a deathly silent living room.

Mom looked at her four older children with a face full of despair, as if she could already see the bloodlines of the Shen and Yu families ending there.

Dad smoked half a cigarette in silence. Then he slapped his thigh, his eyes blazing with the light of a man who had found salvation at the edge of doom.

“It’s fine! We still have Little Five! She has a boyfriend-a perfectly normal one! There’s still hope for this family!”

His eager gaze fixed on me like a searchlight, as if I were the last living ember of both families. My brothers and sisters all turned toward me too. Their complicated expressions seemed to say, You’re the only one left who can keep this family looking normal.

At that exact moment, my phone lit up.

A notification appeared from my “perfectly normal” boyfriend.

“The new collar is here. Mommy, put it on me.”

I stared at the message for three full seconds, then locked the screen without expression.

Under the hopeful, almost worshipful gaze of my entire family, I slowly raised my head and forced out a smile.