Luo Jun thought he would forget this matter very quickly.

He didn’t remember many things, mostly because it was unnecessary. This was especially true for his impressions of Luo Zhi; he and Luo Zhi were not really that close—a business partner had once been quite surprised to hear him mention this.

But in fact, no matter what others thought, Luo Jun and Luo Zhi were just not very close.

Their age difference was significant. When Luo Zhi was born, he was studying abroad. When he returned for summer vacation, he went to the company for an internship, spending very little time at home.

What was Luo Zhi like back then?

The impression was truly not deep. He only remembered that he must have been a rather lively and cheerful child who loved to follow him everywhere. When he saw him reading a book, he would also pretend to read along.

Two years later, a younger sister was added, and it became two little ones chasing him everywhere, giving him a headache and forcing him to hide in the study for some peace and quiet.

Then one day, reminded by Ren Chenbai, he suddenly realized that whenever he was at home, Luo Zhi became not noisy at all.

Not only was he not noisy, but the moment he noticed his older brother wanted to read, Luo Zhi would quietly lead his little sister to the playroom.

Not even as tall as the table, he would hold up a toy on his tiptoes to amuse his sister, hold her and patiently rock her gently, coaxing her until she fell asleep.

…When was the last time Luo Zhi had been mischievous in front of him?

Luo Jun thought he wouldn’t find an answer, but a person’s memory never does things at a convenient time.

The more uncontrollably irritated he became, wanting to clear the incessant thoughts from his mind, the more those memories replayed endlessly in his head.

It was Luo Zhi’s sixth birthday. He knew, he knew, so there was no need for it to keep jumping out and annoying him.

He knew it was Luo Zhi’s sixth birthday.

That day, he didn’t go back to the study to read. He watched Luo Zhi anxiously pace back and forth because his parents had hidden his gift and he didn’t dare to rummage around to find it because he was there.

He found this game to be utterly boring, so he put down his book, went over, picked Luo Zhi up, and placed him on his shoulders, allowing Luo Zhi to discover the gift on top of the bookshelf.

Luo Zhi was truly over the moon with joy that time, sitting triumphantly on his shoulders, waving the gift around endlessly, and even singing loudly in high spirits.

When he finally vented his excitement and calmed down, Luo Zhi remembered that his older brother didn’t like noise. He slid to the ground holding the gift box and peeked at him cautiously.

Luo Jun hadn’t expected to remember so many details.

He even remembered that he wasn’t angry, and had even unwrapped the gift with Luo Zhi and wished him a happy birthday.

He seemed to have also casually promised Luo Zhi that he would wish him a happy birthday every year.

Little Luo Zhi wore a golden birthday crown, piously closing his eyes to make a wish at the candles on the cake, for every future birthday to be happy.

To have every future birthday be happy, and to spend it with his big brother, parents, and little sister.

…

That was the last birthday Luo Zhi ever had.

Luo Zhi went missing on the day of his seventh birthday. That day, his mother had taken him and his little sister to the aquarium. When she returned, she was so distraught she could barely stand, clinging to their father and crying hoarsely.

It took them a long time to finally calm his mother down and learn the full story of that day’s accident from her broken narrative.

Both children were gone. Coming out of the aquarium, Luo Zhi had insisted on buying a snack from a street vendor. His mother had refused, thinking it was unsanitary, and Luo Zhi had gotten angry. Even though they had already walked quite a distance, he had secretly taken his little sister and turned back to buy it while his mother wasn’t looking.

His mother was scared out of her wits and hurriedly chased after them, but just after turning a corner, the two children had vanished.

Then came reporting to the police, offering rewards, and investigations… they went through one agency specializing in finding people after another, but it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Fortunately, his little sister was sent back by the police more than a month later.

Luo Cheng wasn’t injured and was physically fine, just badly frightened, and couldn’t clearly explain what had happened.

Their father hired a preschool teacher specializing in child psychological counseling, who worked with her for a long time before she recovered.

But even just over a month had caused an exceptionally severe trauma to his mother.

Mrs. Luo started having auditory and visual hallucinations from time to to time, having nightmares all night, and would sometimes suddenly cry out, unable to be comforted.

Although this situation improved slightly after Luo Cheng returned, Mrs. Luo’s state was too unstable for anyone to dare let her take care of Luo Cheng. Luo Cheng was not very close to Mrs. Luo either, and soon began crying for her second brother, murmuring for her second brother to be with her even in her sleep.

Perhaps inspired by Luo Cheng’s situation, Luo Chengxiu coaxed his ailing wife by telling her he was going to pick up their son from school, and then took Mrs. Luo to an orphanage.

A group of specially selected children, all around Luo Zhi’s age, were brought to the reception room. Mrs. Luo, in a daze, grabbed and hugged Jian Huaiyi from among them.

And so Jian Huaiyi was brought back to the Luo home, given the status of the Luo family’s young master, and everything that came with that status.

The Luo family’s young master was not originally named Luo Zhi, and certainly not Jian Huaiyi. The name had been chosen by Ren Chenbai’s mother; the ‘zhi’ character had a fire radical, meaning blazing hot, bright, and pure.

Three years later, the lost child returned to the Luo home. Amidst his mother’s collapsing and hysterical, terrified cries, his little sister also burst into tears. Luo Chengxiu hastily added a stroke to the name on the re-registered identity form, and the fire radical became a crooked wood radical.

The boy who was brought back no longer looked the way he did in their memories. He was a head shorter than the adopted son, thin and silent, standing out of place in the chaotic farce.

The boy’s chest slowly rose and fell. He looked at each family member, and finally rested his quiet gaze on Luo Jun.

This time, Luo Jun’s memory didn’t bother him.

Because he had done nothing at all.

Why had he done nothing at all back then?

Perhaps, just as Jian Huaiyi said, he was eager to find someone to take the blame for not taking proper care of his mother and not protecting his sister.

…Perhaps even Jian Huaiyi thought too highly of him.

He just felt that this matter had nothing to do with him.

In the seven years Luo Zhi had been growing up, the total time he had spent with him was less than half a year. But after Jian Huaiyi was adopted, he had returned to the country to be with his mother and sister, slowly learning how to be an older brother.

At that time, he couldn’t help but feel that Luo Zhi was being willful. Why throw the whole family into turmoil over just a name? Why care so much about such a trivial matter?

Thinking this way, his gaze probably carried impatience and condemnation.

Ten-year-old Luo Zhi stood under his gaze, the color draining from his face bit by bit, until he was completely pale. He slowly lowered his eyes, the tip of his canine tooth biting a small, inconspicuous wound on the corner of his lip, and a bead of blood quietly seeped out.

Then Luo Zhi walked to the counter, grabbed the pen, and traced over the name his father had changed, again and again, making it solid.

That sudden, unprovoked disaster had ultimately and completely changed the fate and life trajectory of everyone in the family.

After that, Luo Zhi never had another birthday.

…And now he was sitting here, doing something he found ridiculously absurd.

Luo Jun slowly extinguished the cigarette between his fingers.

Just on the ship, he had spoken coldly to Luo Zhi, thinking Luo Zhi was playing tricks on him, questioning why Luo Zhi had secretly followed them onto the ship.

He hadn’t noticed at all that Luo Zhi’s condition was not right. Was it that hard to see? Looking back now, he could find so many abnormal details, but at the time, he had just thought Luo Zhi’s strangeness was from being drunk.

Jian Huaiyi was right. Even now, he was still selfish.

Because of the possibility that Luo Zhi was dead, he began to endlessly trace back his own memories.

He kept searching for Luo Zhi in his memories, trying to prove that he wasn’t the one who had been worst to Luo Zhi.

Even at this point, he still just wanted to prove that he wasn’t the main culprit.

…

The ferry’s docking time was actually shorter than he had imagined.

As soon as he got off the boat, Luo Jun realized why Jian Huaiyi had gone through the trouble of putting on such an act.

Because of that “shove,” Jian Huaiyi had fallen into the water—although the boat was about to dock and the water wasn’t deep, and he was quickly rescued, the ship’s owner reported it to the police as a precaution.

He was suspected of an act of intentional injury on the ship, so before he could see his family, he had to be taken away for questioning.

The questioning was purely procedural, just an investigation of the situation at the time. Luo Jun wasn’t given a hard time. He knew Jian Huaiyi hadn’t done it to give him a hard time, but to create a time gap.

With this time gap, Jian Huaiyi would see the family before him, see their parents and Luo Cheng before him.

Luo Jun had no doubt about Jian Huaiyi’s ability to spin a story.

So, when he walked out of the interrogation room, looked at the empty waiting area outside, and confirmed there were no new messages or calls on his phone, he had pretty much guessed what had happened during the two hours he was being questioned.

Now Luo Jun sat on the bench, continuing to sift through his memories, continuing to rack his brains to find someone who had been worse to Luo Zhi than himself, as evidence that he wasn’t the main culprit.

Not long after they landed, a sudden downpour started outside. While the police were questioning him, the storm was almost flipping the trees outside the window, making one wonder if a typhoon had made an unexpected landfall.

After the rain stopped, the weather, which had been gloomy for days, suddenly cleared up.

The sunlight was scorchingly bright, and the sky looked as if it had been thoroughly washed. The gloomy, piled-up clouds seemed to have all rained down, leaving the blue unusually piercing.

Then he suddenly remembered that he actually did remember what Luo Zhi was like when he was drunk.

When Luo Zhi was drunk, he was very well-behaved, very talkative but with a very soft voice. His eyes were misty, and he was always smiling with his eyes curved.

Luo Jun’s team had just signed an important deal at that time and were having a celebration at a winery, where they happened to run into people from Huaisheng Entertainment who were also there for a team-building event.

There was a department head on Luo Jun’s team, a female manager in her early thirties at an elite level. Usually a formidable and decisive figure, she was instantly melted by Luo Zhi’s sweet demeanor and dragged her entire department over to listen to him tell stories.

The weather that day was also this piercingly blue. Luo Zhi sat under a tree, telling a story about a nightmare he had.

The nightmare was about him playing a game of hide-and-seek with a group of people.

The rules of hide-and-seek where they were from were a little different from other places. Everyone would walk in a circle singing a nursery rhyme, and when they sang the last line, everyone would raise their hand and randomly point to one person.

The person who was pointed at the most had to stay completely still for ten seconds.

During these ten seconds, everyone else would scatter and disappear, leaving only the person who was pointed out standing there alone.

“That’s not a nightmare,” a new girl on the team listened with curiosity. “Isn’t hide-and-seek fun?”

…

Luo Zhi didn’t answer her question, just kept smiling with his eyes curved, but the mist in his eyes grew deeper and deeper.

The hazy moisture ultimately did not accumulate.

It was only now that Luo Jun finally understood why it was a nightmare.

Luo Zhi was pointed out by everyone, as the main culprit who lost his sister and made his mother sad.

Then they could all hide successfully, without being found by guilt and self-blame, and continue to live their lives with peace of mind, leaving Luo Zhi standing in place.

And they had left Luo Zhi standing in that same place ever since.

Luo Jun stopped the ridiculous act of searching through his memories. He had already read the list of all rescued personnel ten times, word by word, and had not found the name he was looking for.

Luo Zhi was not good at this game. Now, Luo Zhi was out.

This excessively long nightmare had finally ended for Luo Zhi.

Luo Jun flipped through his phone over and over. He didn’t know what he was trying to find. A lawyer to sue Jian Huaiyi? It was meaningless. Jian Huaiyi knew his temper and character too well, and understood exactly what he would do.

On that rescue boat, listening to Jian Huaiyi state his inner thoughts without missing a single word, he suddenly realized what kind of person he was.

He was this kind of person. Because he refused to face the fact that “he didn’t protect his younger brother,” he didn’t want to see Luo Zhi at all. He resented Luo Zhi more than anyone, wished Luo Zhi would disappear, and used all the evidence to prove that Luo Zhi was not a brother who deserved to be treated well in the first place.

Because he refused to face the fact that “he didn’t protect his younger brother,” he only dared to stand on the sidelines and watch coldly as the child whose name had even been stolen was thrown into a forgotten corner.

…

Luo Jun scrolled through his phone, and his eyes landed on a number saved in his contacts.

He suddenly sat up straight, as if grasping at the last straw. The hand holding the phone had faint veins popping out, and he had to take several deep breaths before slowly pressing the call button.

The other side did not pick up the phone.

Luo Jun was not surprised. He plugged in his earphones and dialed a few more times.

The connection tone finally came through the earphones.

Luo Jun’s heart began to beat violently.

He squeezed the phone tightly, making his voice steady enough. “Mr. Ming.”

He introduced himself as concisely as possible, then got straight to the point. “I don’t mean to disturb you… my younger brother was on the cruise ship from your company that had the shipwreck.”

Luo Jun struggled to choose his words. He didn’t know the other person. The circle the Ming family belonged to was not one that allowed easy entry; this contact was just a small reward from a business negotiation he had once had.

If this were still a business negotiation, Luo Jun could calmly adopt the most appropriate, neither servile nor overbearing attitude.

But he was still a culprit on the run, still holding onto that ridiculous, selfish thought, trying to clear his name.

“His name is not on the rescued list,” Luo Jun continued in a low voice. “I would like to ask you to check…”

The person on the other end paused, seeming to pick something up. “What’s his name?”

“Luo Zhi,” Luo Jun unconsciously held his breath, the air almost completely stuck in his chest. He could almost hear his own heartbeat, and the hand holding the earphone was ice cold. “With a wood radical, the ‘zhi’ of…”

The sound of paper rustling came from the other end of the phone.

The person said, “Sorry.”

Luo Jun’s throat moved slightly.

He wanted to say more, opened his mouth, and tried his best to smile calmly. “What?”

Why apologize?

Apologize for what?

He was sure Luo Zhi was not on the rescued list; he had almost memorized that list… The other person answered so quickly, where had he seen Luo Zhi’s name?

Besides the rescued list, what other list was there?

“The family should have been notified,” the person asked. “They didn’t inform you?”

Luo Jun was speechless. He sat motionlessly, a chill creeping up from his palm, clamping down on his entire arm.

He didn’t speak, so the person on the other end apologized again and hung up the phone.

…

The sky was as blue as if it had been washed, the sunlight scorching.

It was as if sunlight had been stirred and dissolved into it; the seawater had also turned a clear, translucent blue-green, lapping against the ship’s hull and brushing away white foam.

The overly young “Mr. Ming” hung up the phone.

He handed the phone to a crew member beside him, left the deck, and returned to his private suite.

The sea breeze pushed aside the curtains, and a sliver of sunlight slipped in unnoticed, landing by the pillow.

The person on the bed was sunk into the soft bedding, pale and quiet. If not for the faint rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, there was almost no sign of life to be found.

He was probably truly exhausted. He was completely unaware of the few sheets of music paper that had been placed back by his pillow, still sleeping soundly and unknowingly.

A guitar and a drawing board were squeezed pitifully by the bed. The not-so-expensive but good-quality travel bag hung on a solid wood hanger, perhaps bragging to its new neighbors about the great storms it had been through.

That expensive work from a certain “Mr. Huo Miao (Flame)” who wished to remain anonymous, the “I haven’t done anything bad” piece practiced in the rain, was back on the drawing board.

It had been crumpled so badly and soaked in water several times that even after being treated by the professional artist stationed on the cruise ship, the writing on it was already very blurry.

So the “Mr. Ming” who had not yet succeeded in paying for it could only sit by the bed.

Mr. Ming moved lightly, took his dangling hand, and slowly wrote the forty-seventh “en” in his palm.