Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I had been blacklisted.

Clarifying things did nothing.

My projects were taken down, my endorsements were canceled, and I was facing a massive amount in damages.

No one had any real evidence, but no one was willing to offend the Ye Family for my sake, either.

Ye Shi’er, on the other hand, gained a wave of public goodwill. Her new drama aired and became a smash hit, and a top-tier luxury brand officially announced her as its ambassador.

Everything was going so smoothly for her, it was as if she were walking toward a happy ending someone had written just for her.

“She really won the birth lottery,” my agent said as she drove me home. “Ye Qingshi is famously restrained and proper in the industry, but when it comes to promoting her, he goes all out like his life depends on it, throwing resources at her like crazy.”

“Before, you were proud and refused to lower your head to beg for resources. I understood that. But in your current situation, people still have to eat. You can’t survive without money.” She tried to persuade me. “You need to find someone willing to protect you. Maybe you won’t find a big-shot sponsor like Ye Qingshi, but at least someone who can get you into a few small web dramas.”

Outside the car window, muffled thunder rolled inside the heavy, dark clouds.

It was going to rain.

After a moment’s hesitation, I said to my agent, “I want to go somewhere.”

Traffic was bad in the rain.

An hour late, the car finally stopped in front of a riverside luxury apartment building in the CBD.

My agent stared at the building’s exterior and swallowed. “I told you to find someone, and you actually went and found someone?”

I got out of the car and said to her, “You go back first. No need to wait for me.”

“No, I can’t. What if…” She was still worried about me.

“It’s fine.” I smiled. “He might have designs on anyone else, but with me-absolutely not.”

I had been to the penthouse here once when I was sixteen.

It had also been a stormy night filled with thunder and rain.

Holding an umbrella, I walked more than ten kilometers to come here and find Ye Qingshi.

Back then, his relationship with his parents was terrible, and he had moved out on his own for the summer.

Since childhood, his identity as the heir had boxed him in. Every step he took had to be proper and within the rules. He was not allowed to make the slightest mistake.

When it came to feelings, the demands on him were even stricter. He had to be restrained, cautious. He could not indulge himself.

So while he was back at school taking exams, Father Ye took away the only calico cat his grandmother had left him.

Because he liked it too much, it had to be taken away.

In the Ye Family, his affection was an original sin.

By the time I found him, half my clothes were soaked through.

He brought me a towel, but he would not let me inside. With his face full of wariness, he asked, “Are you here to tell me to go home too?”

I shook my head.

“Brother, can I live with you?”

Wherever Ye Qingshi was, that was my home.

And then, because of that one sentence from me, he moved back home.

Everyone was curious how I had persuaded him when no one else had been able to.

Ye Qingshi never said, and no one dared to ask.

But I knew. It was because he only wanted to give me a complete home, like other children had.

After all these years, I could still find that apartment number.

Only the face reflected in the front door was Jiang Cun’s face.

I rang the doorbell, but no one answered.

In truth, I had only been guessing.

Maybe he had stopped living here long ago.

He was probably living with that Ye Shi’er in a new home that belonged to the two of them.

The home I had once longed for more than anything.