Chapter 46
Jiang Mi had no choice after being pestered so relentlessly.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Brother, move back next Monday,” Liang Jinyi said.
Liang Jinyi straightened, the corners of his lips curving upward. “Otherwise, I’ll come to Uncle and Auntie’s house every day.”
“You…”
At the same time Jiang Mi spoke, his phone began vibrating.
He turned slightly, avoiding Liang Jinyi’s gaze, took the phone from his suit pocket, and answered it.
“Little Mi, come downstairs for dinner.”
It was Father Jiang calling from downstairs.
Jiang Mi agreed, then hung up.
“Dinner’s ready. Let’s go downstairs.”
Jiang Mi took off his suit jacket and hung it on the coat rack.
“Okay, Brother.”
Both Father Jiang and Mother Jiang knew how to cook, though Father Jiang cooked more often.
After Jiang Mi and Liang Jinyi went downstairs, Liang Jinyi walked into the kitchen and busied himself helping Father Jiang bring out the food and dishes. He looked perfectly obedient, with no trace whatsoever of the madness he had displayed upstairs earlier.
Jiang Mi sat silently at the dining table.
Yet although Jiang Mi was quiet, the atmosphere at the table was anything but.
Liang Jinyi chatted and laughed easily with his parents. Jiang Mi looked up at the three smiling faces and, for one brief moment, even felt as though he were the outsider.
After dinner, Liang Jinyi helped Father Jiang wash the dishes and clean the kitchen.
Even from the living room, Jiang Mi could hear Father Jiang and Mother Jiang repeatedly praising him for being such a diligent, well-behaved child.
At nine-thirty that evening, Liang Jinyi finally announced that he was leaving.
Jiang Mi let out a slight breath of relief.
Mother Jiang checked the time. It really was getting late.
She called to Jiang Mi, who was sitting alone on the sofa near the floor-to-ceiling window.
“Little Mi, Jinyi is going home. Go see him off.”
Finally able to send this little nuisance away, Jiang Mi’s tense body relaxed.
He stood.
“I’ll go upstairs and put on a coat.”
Jiang Mi went upstairs, put on a jacket, grabbed his keys, and left the house with Liang Jinyi.
He was about to head toward the nearby garage to get the car when Liang Jinyi stopped him.
“Brother, you don’t need to drive. Just walk me to the entrance of the neighborhood.”
Jiang Mi: “?”
Liang Jinyi said, “I already asked Uncle Li to come pick me up. He should be almost at the entrance.”
Jiang Mi paused, slipped both hands into the pockets of his dark coat, and said, “Okay.”
The two walked toward the neighborhood entrance together.
Liang Jinyi looked at Jiang Mi’s profile again.
“Brother, aren’t you going to ask why I didn’t want you to drive me and asked Uncle Li to pick me up instead?”
Jiang Mi did not want to ask.
Liang Jinyi answered anyway.
“Because I worry about Brother.”
“Brother worked all day, and you already drove for more than three hours today. You must be tired, so I couldn’t bear to make you work even harder.”
Jiang Mi’s footsteps paused.
Liang Jinyi’s expression was entirely sincere.
“Even though I still really want Brother to take me home, I thought about how the round trip would cost you another hour of rest. I really couldn’t bear it.”
Jiang Mi’s breathing quickened slightly.
Liang Jinyi was not related to him by blood at all.
He was also excessively clingy. When he was little, he had practically clung to Jiang Mi so tightly that Jiang Mi had no room to breathe.
Yet sometimes, his younger brother was truly thoughtful.
Truly… concerned about him.
Jiang Mi had always been too capable.
Smart, independent, strong.
People like him were often admired.
But very few people ever worried about whether he was tired.
“This is enough to tire me out? Liang Jinyi, are you underestimating my stamina?” Jiang Mi said coldly.
As he spoke, the two reached the entrance to the neighborhood.
Jiang Mi saw a familiar car approaching and stop in front of them.
He urged, “Get in and go home.”
“Brother.”
Liang Jinyi stared at him without blinking.
“I’m going back.”
After saying that, Jiang Mi turned and walked into the neighborhood.
The entire way, he could feel a gaze fixed on him.
Only after he entered the neighborhood, turned a corner, and disappeared from Liang Jinyi’s line of sight did that clinging gaze finally vanish.
Jiang Mi let out a breath.
He turned to glance back toward the entrance, then slowly walked home.
It was Thursday.
In the blink of an eye, three days passed, and Monday arrived.
After work on Monday, Jiang Mi sat in his office for a long time before finally picking up his keys and driving back to Shimao Tingfang.
He opened the door and stepped into the entryway.
The moment he changed his shoes, he smelled the aroma of food drifting from the kitchen.
Jiang Mi straightened.
Liang Jinyi’s tall, slender figure appeared between the entryway and living room, wearing the mushroom-patterned apron.
“Brother, you’re back. I was just about to call you. Dinner is ready.”
Jiang Mi gave a flat acknowledgment.
He took off his coat and jacket, hung them on the rack, went to the bathroom to wash his hands, and returned to the dining room.
By then, Liang Jinyi had already placed three dishes and one soup on the table.
Jiang Mi had no choice but to sit down and eat in silence.
But although Jiang Mi remained silent, Liang Jinyi certainly did not.
One moment, he asked whether the squirrel-shaped mandarin fish he had learned to make tasted good.
The next, he wondered whether today’s mushroom soup was a little bland.
Then he mentioned that he had taken a placement test on his first day back at school and felt that he had been in good form, so his score should also be good.
Jiang Mi finally looked up.
“Don’t forget what you said. You’re only coming two or three times a week. You can only come one more time this week.”
Liang Jinyi frowned.
“Brother, I said two or three times, not twice. I can still come twice.”
Jiang Mi put down his chopsticks.
Liang Jinyi immediately changed his tune.
“All right, all right. I can only come one more time this week.”
After getting Liang Jinyi’s promise, Jiang Mi lowered his head and continued eating.
This time, Liang Jinyi stopped talking.
But Jiang Mi could feel a sticky, lingering gaze falling on him.
He pretended not to notice and finished his meal under Liang Jinyi’s increasingly brazen stare.
Then he stood.
“You wash the dishes today.”
“Okay, Brother.”
Liang Jinyi was as obedient as a harmless cat.
Jiang Mi strode back to his room.
Once inside, he closed the door, shutting Liang Jinyi out.
Then he let out an irritated sigh and collapsed onto the edge of the bed.
To Jiang Mi, Liang Jinyi had become an unsolvable problem.
He was restless and had no idea what to do.
More than half an hour later, his mood finally improved a little.
He got up, went to the bathroom, took a shower, and dried his hair.
After coming out, Jiang Mi opened the laptop bag he had brought home, took out his computer, placed it on the desk beside the bed, and found the unfinished document in his cloud storage.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.
Before Jiang Mi could even say “Come in,” Liang Jinyi turned the handle himself.
He entered Jiang Mi’s room without the slightest hesitation.
Curiously, he asked, “Brother, are you working? Why aren’t you working overtime in the study today?”
Jiang Mi normally worked in the study whenever he had overtime.
Jiang Mi deliberately sounded impatient.
“What are you doing here?”
Liang Jinyi said, “Brother, you didn’t think spending twenty minutes with me over dinner would be enough to relieve how much I’ve missed you, did you?”
Jiang Mi took a deep breath and moved his gaze back to the computer screen.
Seeing this, Liang Jinyi sat down on the edge of Jiang Mi’s bed and stared intently at him.
Jiang Mi had always been the center of attention.
A favored child of heaven.
Even in elementary school, he had already grown accustomed to standing on podiums while more than a thousand students watched him.
As he grew older, the people whose attention gathered on him became professors, law firm partners, and wealthy business partners.
Jiang Mi had been watched by countless people.
But never had anyone’s gaze made him as unable to remain calm as Liang Jinyi’s did.
“Brother, you’re so beautiful,” Liang Jinyi said, sounding almost unable to restrain himself.
Jiang Mi’s fingers faltered on the keyboard, and he typed the wrong character into the document.
Liang Jinyi continued, “Brother, I really like you so much.”
Jiang Mi turned his head and gritted out, “Liang Jinyi, if you have nothing to do, take out your Chinese textbook and study properly.”
Liang Jinyi thought for a moment.
“All right. I probably should study.”
With that, Liang Jinyi stood and temporarily left Jiang Mi’s room.
The moment he was gone, Jiang Mi finally let out a quiet breath of relief.
Two minutes later, Liang Jinyi returned carrying a tablet.
He held it up.
“Brother, I’ll study on my tablet.”
These days, everything was becoming digital.
Jiang Mi was not surprised that the tablet contained study materials.
He gave a faint hum.
Liang Jinyi sat down again on the edge of the bed, as close to Jiang Mi as possible.
He put on his earphones and turned on the tablet.
Seeing that Liang Jinyi had finally stopped staring at him so intensely, Jiang Mi relaxed slightly.
The two of them had shared the same room like this countless times over the previous few months—Jiang Mi working while Liang Jinyi studied.
Jiang Mi did not dislike those moments.
In fact, he had liked them.
So he returned his attention to work and concentrated on the document.
At last, the work was nearly finished.
Jiang Mi had just begun to relax when a strange moaning sound suddenly came from nearby.
His entire body jolted.
He whipped his head toward Liang Jinyi’s tablet.
“Brother, sorry. My earphones seem to have suddenly broken.”
Liang Jinyi took the black earphones out of his ears.
Jiang Mi stood, picked up the tablet from Liang Jinyi’s lap, and glanced at the screen.
The moment he saw what was playing, his eyelids twitched violently.
He immediately shut off the tablet and flung it forcefully to the side.
Even his usual composure completely shattered.
“Liang Jinyi, what the fuck are you watching?”
Liang Jinyi actually looked aggrieved again. “Brother, I’m studying.”
“Studying? You call this studying?!”
Liang Jinyi nodded as though it were only natural. “Of course. After all, I couldn’t bear to hurt Brother.”
Jiang Mi froze for a second.
Then his mind began racing, trying to come up with the best way to deal with this situation.
In the end, however, he realized there seemed to be no good solution at all.
“Get out,” Jiang Mi said coldly.
Liang Jinyi looked aggrieved. “Brother.”
“Out,” Jiang Mi repeated.
“All right, then. Good night, Brother.”
After Liang Jinyi left, Jiang Mi stood in the room, staring at the tablet lying in the corner.
He had never believed in using violence to educate children.
But at this very moment, he was genuinely considering whether he should tie Liang Jinyi up and give him a beating.
Maybe when a kid started learning the wrong things, one good beating would set him straight.
