Chapter 2
The child was so small and thin. Dressed in loose, ill-fitting clothes, he struggled to lift a pair of shears bigger than himself to prune a rose.
The rose glowed with the lush vitality of spring, in stark contrast to how utterly worn out the child looked.
Bai Nianqiu’s chest felt tight. Most children Yu Qi’s age whom she had met were like Yu Lengye and Bai Muxia.
They were either spoiled beyond reason, radiating the certainty that they were loved,
or sweet and well behaved, their good manners a clear sign of the loving care behind their upbringing.
None was like him. He only had to stand there alone for her to feel his loneliness, as though he were facing the entire world by himself.
The world shouldn’t be against him, Bai Nianqiu thought.
Yu Qi put down the shears, far too heavy for him, thinking that he had finished his work early today.
When he turned, he saw a pretty little girl in a full-skirted dress, as delicate as a doll. Her eyes were red as she looked pitifully at him.
Usually, banquets were the only times he could openly help himself to food and fill his stomach. He had seen Bai Nianqiu at those gatherings.
The tiny, exquisite girl had clung to her older brother, acting spoiled and smiling mischievously under everyone’s adoring gaze.
Someone like him could never approach a person like her.
He glanced at her slightly dirtied hem. She had probably been upset somewhere, he thought.
Yu Qi pretended not to see her and turned to leave.
Bai Nianqiu called out to him without thinking.
“Hey, big brother.”
At the endearment, Yu Qi paused and turned back to look at her.
Only then did Bai Nianqiu notice that, thin and frail as he looked, he had exquisite features. His eyes held a coldness unlike that of an ordinary child, but even so, it was hard not to notice how strikingly beautiful he was.
“Your hand is bleeding…” She sniffed and pointed at the cut on Yu Qi’s hand. Who knew how long it had been bleeding?
“I’ll clean it up.” His voice was childish, his tone calm.
It took Bai Nianqiu a couple of seconds to realize he thought she was disgusted by his blood dirtying the white pebbled path.
Putting her heartache aside, she stopped him again as he tried to leave.
“Use this… I’ll wrap it for you.”
Under Yu Qi’s astonished gaze, she took out her little handkerchief and carefully bandaged his wound.
Confusion filled his pretty little face. He stood frozen, letting the girl’s soft little hands work over his own.
He had always been good at reading people. He could see the distress filling Bai Nianqiu’s round eyes.
Did she want something from him?
He remembered how some servants had pretended to care about him to trick him out of his things. The instant he fell for it, they would show their true colors.
At an age when he should have been basking in a parent’s affection, he was already using his own experiences to imagine the worst possible intentions in the girl before him.
Yu Qi had meant to reject this “kindness” as he always did and turn away, using silence to fend off any hurt.
“Big brother… does it hurt?”
Then the girl’s soft, sweet voice, faintly thick with tears, brought his defenses crashing down in an instant.
No one had ever asked whether he was in pain.
He was only six, after all. Yu Qi felt tears welling in his eyes.
He gently pushed Bai Nianqiu away, as though unwilling to let anyone see his weakness, and turned to leave.
Bai Nianqiu was completely baffled, but she didn’t stop him.
She looked at her own pale, plump little hands, then compared them with Yu Qi’s equally small but bony ones.
The little girl sighed.
Inwardly, she began making a plan to feed Yu Qi and nurture him as he grew.
She was still lost in fantasies of feeding him, racking up his affection, and riding his coattails all the way to the top.
By the time she came to her senses, she found the scenery around her melting, thinning, and running together.
Finally, the whole scene twisted out of shape.
Bai Nianqiu went white with shock.
WTF??