Chapter 2
Chapter 2
The System said I was running out of time.
After all, in a PO novel, the first chapter was supposed to get straight to the point.
But in the several attempts that followed, I never saw the slightest flicker of emotion on Ye Qingshi’s face.
He thought I was playing some kind of provocative game.
The more deliberately I crossed the line, the calmer he became.
All he would do was pull my clothes tighter around me, turn up the air conditioner, and say indifferently, “Don’t let it happen again.”
Until I pried open the door to his room in the middle of the night.
And woke him up.
He opened the door and looked down at me, crouched on the floor with a wrench in my hand.
“Brother…”
He tilted his head slightly, his cool gaze sweeping over every inch of me.
“Get up.”
His voice was low and gentle, but his tone was extremely dangerous.
At a loss, I rose to my feet, enveloped in his shadow.
Gently, he took the wrench from my hand, then flung it hard into the corner of the wall.
He pointed at the bed in his room and said softly, “Go over there yourself.”
Ye Qingshi didn’t touch me at all.
But his eyes stayed fixed on me as I walked to the bedside, step by step.
“Sit,” he said.
I sat obediently and looked up at him.
Waiting for what he would do next.
“What do you want your brother to do?”
His expression dimmed with self-mockery and restraint. “Er’er, what could I possibly do to you?”
I took his hand.
Guided it to the very top button.
And undid it.
He lowered his eyes and let me fool around.
But I could see it clearly-the disgust in his eyes deepening inch by inch.
I stopped.
“Scared?” he asked.
“Brother, please don’t hate me.”
He froze, then turned his face away.
“Have you ever thought about what people would say about you after tonight if I let myself take even one step forward? How would we face each other afterward?” he said to me. “Ye Shi’er, I am not some toy you picked up on a whim.”
“Brother, if I’m being controlled by some kind of System, and I have to make you-”
“Never,” he cut me off. “Er’er, I’m your brother.”
“Even if I’ll die?” I asked.
My cruel words made him so furious he laughed instead. “Then go die.”
The moment the words left his mouth, both of us fell silent.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Outside, the rain gradually eased.
I forced a smile and softened my tone. “I was wrong, Brother.”
He looked at me.
He seemed about to touch my hair, but withdrew his hand.
“Swear it.”
He sounded as if he were speaking to me, and also to himself. “Swear that in this lifetime, you will never have any immoral thoughts about me.”
The System issued a severe warning.
[Failure to complete the strategy mission will result in immediate replacement.]
“I swear,” I said.
The moment I finished speaking, a knock sounded at the door.
Mom and Dad were back.
They asked, “Qingshi, is Er’er in your room?”
His hand still came to rest on my hair, indescribably gentle and lingering. “Don’t be afraid.”
Then he walked out and closed the door behind him.
He explained things to my adoptive parents for me.
He said, “My sister was afraid of the thunder, so she came to my room.”
After the three of them talked outside for a while, Ye Qingshi walked back into the room.
“Go back to your own room,” he said.
I gave him a sweet smile and said, “Brother is the best.”
His steps paused.
His dark gaze settled on me, sitting on the bed in his room.
“What is it, Brother?”
“Nothing.”
Outside, the rain faded to a drizzle.
Inside, everything remained as it had always been.
Only Ye Qingshi didn’t know that the sister before him had already been replaced by someone else.
In the instant I was replaced, I heard another girl’s voice inside the System.
“That’s it? Just because she couldn’t do it doesn’t mean I can’t.”