Ever since receiving those two voice messages from Little Uncle that afternoon, Cheng Huanzhen’s mood had been so chaotic he couldn’t calm down enough to work.

He couldn’t help thinking about what method Little Uncle would use to “leave the stage” this time.
Would it be illness again? But how exactly did Little Uncle act out being sick?

Back when Little Uncle couldn’t see… when there was a tumor in his brain… when Little Uncle, as Li Shuyun, lay on the operating table with “cancer” — how did he get through all that?

If the illnesses were fake, then how did the CT scans come out like that?

If Little Uncle’s studio could bribe hospital staff, then when Li Yunhui recruited so many medical experts worldwide, had Little Uncle’s studio really bought off all of them?

…No idea.

No idea.

He couldn’t figure it out.

Countless questions flooded Cheng Huanzhen’s mind.

He couldn’t calm down, and he couldn’t clear his thoughts.

He tried replying to Little Uncle’s messages.
He asked when he planned to start, how he planned to do it, if he was going to fake an illness then how long it would take to recover, whether everything was perfectly prepared so no real accident would happen…

But clearly, Little Uncle did not reply.

Cheng Huanzhen forced himself through half an afternoon. His emotions simply would not settle, so he grabbed a subsidiary company that needed oversight and hastily convened a senior management meeting, trying to use the meeting to force his attention back onto work.

The meeting actually worked pretty well.

When he walked out of the conference room, his head was finally filled with work again. As long as he could maintain that state, his efficiency for the evening would at least be guaranteed.

And just then, a call came in.

He glanced at the caller ID, frowned slightly, and picked up. “Hello?”

A panicked voice came from the other side. “Mr. Cheng, bad news! Mr. Cheng, something bad happened! That young Master Wen you told me to keep an eye on — he was just hit by a car in West District Three! He’s in emergency care at Imperial Capital Third Hospital right now!”

That flustered voice stunned Cheng Huanzhen on the spot.

His steps stopped abruptly. He widened his eyes in disbelief and repeated, “Who was in a car accident? Who’s in emergency care?… Are you sure you didn’t mistake him for someone else??”

The person on the phone stammered, “It’s the young Master Wen, Young Master Siheng! A friend of mine at Imperial Capital Third Hospital told me. He said Young Master Siheng was hit very badly, lost a lot of blood, the blood bank has used up quite a bit already, and right now he’s only barely out of immediate life danger — they’re transferring him to Imperial Capital First Hospital!”

The phone was still buzzing with other details.

But Cheng Huanzhen couldn’t take in a single word. He stared blankly at the phone, with a loud ringing in his ears sweeping from left to right, tangling his entire brain into a mess.

…Hit by a car?

This was what Little Uncle called “acting”?

A car accident, massive bleeding, being wheeled into emergency care… was this really something that could be faked as “acting”!?

Stumbling, Cheng Huanzhen rushed to the parking lot, canceled all his evening plans, and pressed the driver to get to Imperial Capital First Hospital as fast as possible.

On the way, he pulled every string he had, contacted the president of Imperial Capital First Hospital, got the room number where Little Uncle was being treated, and identified which window belonged to that ward.

By the time all this was done, dusk had fallen.

The moon was mostly shrouded behind a hazy layer of dark clouds.

At last, Cheng Huanzhen reached the window outside the ward.

He clutched the trunk of a tree with trembling hands and leaned out, trying to see into the room.

Inside, the ward was completely quiet. The unconscious young man wore a breathing mask; the monitor beside him glowed softly.

His hair spilled to either side of his face, messily covering most of it. The strands seemed to have lost all luster, weakly spread out on the pale bedsheets.

Little Uncle’s face was half covered and hard to see, but his collarbones and the pale wrist exposed at the edge of the quilt still sharply caught Cheng Huanzhen’s eye.

The color and sheen under that skin were clearly several shades paler than Little Uncle’s usual look. The wrist lay limp and motionless against the bed, the IV needle pushing the fragile skin up in a little bulge.

…That was Little Uncle’s hand.

This was what Little Uncle called “acting”?

Lying in the ICU, hanging from IV bags, skin so pale it had no trace of blood — all of this was just “acting”!?

Blackness pulsed at the edges of his vision. A heavy, suffocating pressure filled his chest to bursting.

The winter night’s bitter wind slapped against his cheeks, but he felt nothing. His eyes were nailed to Little Uncle’s body, dry and aching, yet he didn’t dare blink.

Little Uncle. Little Uncle. Little Uncle.

Acting. Acting. Acting.

Over and over, Cheng Huanzhen shouted the words in his mind, trying to hypnotize himself.

But his rational mind was tough and stubborn. For every repetition in his mind, reason roared back one level louder in rebuttal.

Within just two minutes, his breathing had turned rough and labored, and a splitting headache pounded against his skull.

Little Uncle. Little Uncle…

Was this really acting?

Little Uncle, Little Uncle… Little Uncle had clearly promised him that nothing real would happen, that he wouldn’t truly be sick.

Little Uncle had promised him!

The nerves in his brain throbbed hard, one jolt after another.

Countless voices yelled inside his head: Go into the hospital! Go to Little Uncle!

His legs itched to move, steps wanting to rush toward the building.

But the voice messages from that afternoon rang again by his ear, warm and calm.

“Don’t worry.”

“Don’t panic.”

“It’s all acting.”

“Don’t come looking for me.”

“Otherwise, I will come after you to settle the score.”

Outside the ward, Cheng Huanzhen struggled and hesitated, not knowing how he should act. His heart hurt so much he was afraid it might stop beating. The sadness in his chest pressed so heavily that even breathing felt difficult.

…No.

No.

He had to get a clear answer!

Was Little Uncle lying to him? Was Little Uncle truly unconscious right now? — He had to figure this out!

He bitterly regretted not getting contact details for anyone else in Little Uncle’s studio beforehand.

Now he could only think, chaotically and desperately.

Thinking, and thinking.

No idea how long it took, but eventually he managed to snatch one name from the tangled web of personal connections.

Someone who, in his view, might be the most likely to know the answer.

He called.

The line connected quickly, and a steady male voice, tinged with confusion, came through. “Hello? Huanzhen?”

Hoarsely, Cheng Huanzhen greeted him. “Hello, Uncle Jingming. There’s something I want to ask you…”

…

Wen Shaozhuo stayed at his brother’s bedside without leaving for a single step.

For three days straight, his brother had remained unconscious, and his condition fluctuated constantly. Besides the emergency surgery on the first afternoon, he’d been wheeled into the operating room again on the second and third days due to various complications.

Every time his brother came out of surgery, there was always fresh blood on him.

It wasn’t like Wen Shaozhuo rarely saw blood. He had often seen bright red blood on his own body.

When those wounds were on himself, he had never felt it was all that painful. If anything, he felt pain gave his mind somewhere to hide and breathe.

But when the wounds and blood were on his brother, just a single glance made his own heart tremble.

Ever since the accident, his brother’s face had been utterly bloodless.

Like a watercolor that had faded, with every corner and gap of the paper filled with dullness. The once brilliant, glossy colors seemed to have become a pale, unreachable piece of history.

But in his memory, his brother’s lips were supposed to be rosy, his brother’s cheeks slightly flushed, his brother’s spirit vigorous, his brother healthy and lively.

Brother…

His brother shouldn’t be this pale.

Dazed, Wen Shaozhuo sat at his brother’s bedside.

He had been sitting there like this for days.

Unable to eat, unable to sleep, let alone review for exams.

His whole heart, his whole mind, held just one thought — he had to wait for his brother to wake up!

But his brother never woke.

Just like… just like what he overheard in the hallway last night when the doctors were talking in worry.

They said that even if they could manage to stabilize his brother’s vital signs, if his brother still didn’t wake up, then he might… become a vegetable.

A vegetable… a vegetative state! How could someone as alive as his brother become a vegetable!!

Just then, Wen Qingcai pushed open the door and came into the room.

Seeing him still sitting there, she sighed and took a seat beside him.

She patted his knee gently and said in a soft voice, “Shaozhuo, you’ve stayed by Siheng’s bed for three days now. How much have you eaten in these three days? You can’t go on like this. Be good, drink some congee first.”

Head lowered, Wen Shaozhuo said nothing.

Wen Qingcai’s brow furrowed. “I know you’re worried about Siheng, but if you wreck your health like this, and you collapse before he even wakes up, then what?”

“And also, don’t you have exams tomorrow? You just transferred to the Academy of Arts this term. If you’re absent or fail your first set of exams, how are the teacher who helped you transfer, and Dean Gong, supposed to face people?”

Lips pressed tight, Wen Shaozhuo clutched his brother’s hand even more tightly.

After a long silence, he answered in a low voice, “I’ll take the exam tomorrow, Mom. But I’m not hungry yet. I want to eat later.”

Wen Qingcai’s anger flared. “Later, later — you’ve been putting it off for three days! If you keep this up, even if Siheng wakes up, he’ll probably faint again from being mad at you!”

The deathlike stillness in his expression wavered.

Seeing this, Wen Qingcai took her phone from her pocket, opened the front-facing camera, and pushed it in front of his face, snapping, “Look at yourself right now! How do you think Siheng will feel if he wakes up and sees you like this??”

Caught unprepared, Wen Shaozhuo saw his reflection.

Pale, thin, dark shadows under his eyes, no light in them at all…

How could Brother look like this?

Wait, no — that wasn’t Brother.

It was him…

He covered his eyes in pain, his voice hoarse. “I know, I know, Mom. I’ll eat, I’ll eat…”

Wen Qingcai grabbed his wrist. “You’ll eat? How many times have you said that already? Get up now and go to the restaurant next door and have a real meal, then come back to sit with your brother.”

Wen Shaozhuo didn’t want to go. With his head down, he rasped, “Mom, I… I want to stay with Brother a bit longer. I’ll go eat in a while, okay…”

Wen Qingcai refused.

She yanked him up from the bedside in anger, dragging him toward the door. “Siheng’s condition won’t change in just half an hour. But if you still don’t eat, you’ll go before your brother does!”

The words had barely left her mouth before she regretted them, feeling as if she’d jinxed it. She quickly added, “If you starve yourself into some problem and your brother wakes up, who’s going to take care of him then? Let’s be clear, your dad and I are extremely busy during this time. If you can’t take care of him, then…”

Those words were only meant to scare a boy like Wen Shaozhuo, who’d lived twenty-odd years in a wealthy family yet had never thought of “hiring people.”

Frightened by his mother’s words, his struggling weakened noticeably.

But even at the door of the ward, he still hovered, unwilling to step out. Just when Wen Qingcai was about to scare him further, he whispered, “Mom, can I eat in the room instead? I… don’t want to go out.”

Wen Qingcai frowned tightly. “Just half an hour!”

On the brink of collapse, he blurted, “But, Mom, these days I keep feeling like something is staring at this place, staring at Brother! That thing stares so hard — it feels like it’s there day and night! Mom, I’m… I’m scared. I’m scared it’s Death, wanting to take Brother away, or something else that wants to hurt him… I don’t dare leave, Mom!”

Wen Qingcai’s expression changed. “???”

Had her son even started hallucinating?

Death? Someone wanting to hurt Siheng? …Forget Death for now, but Siheng was in a special care ward. This area wasn’t a place just anyone could approach!

But given the huge fright three days ago, Wen Qingcai didn’t dare agitate her son now.

She could only go along with him. “It’s okay, Shaozhuo. You go eat. Mom will stay here in your place and won’t let anything happen to Siheng, alright? Mom absolutely won’t take a single step away!”

Hearing this, he finally had no excuse left to refuse.

…He really hadn’t eaten properly in a long time.

After eating, he was forced by his father to walk a few laps in the ICU corridor outside and get some sun. His stalled mind finally started moving again, just a little.

So when he came back to his brother’s room and looked at him closely, his brain, belatedly, remembered something.

Three days ago, someone had said in his ear that his brother’s death energy was too heavy, and mentioned some kind of “only solution”…

…

A solution?!

His eyes widened, and the sudden surge of emotion knocked him off balance.

The chair wobbled. He yelped softly, flailing his arms to steady himself, but failed; the chair toppled backward, and he hit the floor with a thud.

The nurse outside jumped in fright, quickly opening the door. “Are you alright?”

Flustered, he stammered, “I’m fine, I’m fine, just slipped!”

He sent the nurse back out, then sat back down in the chair, staring at his brother with unfocused eyes.

…What had that scammer said again?

Something about “disperse wealth to change qi” and “using wealth to connect fate”?

He remembered the Taoist muttering quite a lot.

He hadn’t understood most of the jargon at the start, so it never stuck in his mind.

But the plain explanation the Taoist gave at the end, he could more or less recall.

Something about a deficiency in life qi and an excess of death qi.
Something about scattering wealth to wear down the death qi.
Something like, “The money isn’t for me, give it to your brother”…

Give it to his brother? Give Brother money? What money?

And something else: “disperse thirty percent of your wealth every year”?

Blankly, yet desperately, he tried to stitch the scraps of memory together, forcing an answer:

If he transferred the money to his brother, he could suppress Brother’s death qi!

…Right, the Taoist had also given him a talisman!

Only after three days did Wen Shaozhuo finally remember the talisman and his phone. He turned the ward upside down until he found them both, then nervously slid the talisman under his brother’s pillow. Without another thought, he transferred every cent he could scrape together from his WeChat, Alipay, artist-platform account, and bank card — all of it — into his brother’s Alipay!

Brother, Brother… as long as it can wake Brother up, as long as Brother stays safe…

What money, what belongings — as long as he had it, he could give Brother anything.