Why Should It Be Like This?
“Why are you…” Jun Yue’s words stopped. Supposedly, the eldest young master of the Fang family was deaf and mute.
But Fang Anyu quickly walked over to her and stood in front of her. He took a small notebook out of his pocket. It was palm-sized, and there was even a pink, three-dimensional little butterfly on it…
Fang Anyu handed the notebook to her. The corner of Jun Yue’s mouth twitched, but she still took it and glanced at it.
The handwriting on it was neat and proper. The strokes were rounded, without the slightest aggressiveness, just like the feeling Fang Anyu himself gave off.
— I’m sorry about what happened that day.
Jun Yue pursed her lips and looked at him as if he were an idiot. She gave a scoff, took Fang Anyu’s pen, and was just about to reply when she heard a car door open not far behind him. The two Fang parents came over as well. Mother Fang smiled as she explained to Jun Yue, “What happened that day was our Anyu’s fault. I’ve already scolded him, but he absolutely couldn’t have had any improper intentions. You’ve heard about it too, he’s deaf and mute. He’s been a little silly since he was young…”
“Um, is your grandfather at home?” Father Fang asked Jun Yue.
Jun Yue nodded. “He is.”
“Could you help us speak to your grandfather and let us go in to explain?” Mother Fang’s expression was humble, while Jun Yue frowned.
“Explain what?” She handed the little notebook back to Fang Anyu and smiled slightly. “If it’s about what happened at the birthday banquet, there’s no need. I’ve already explained it to my grandfather. I said it was all a misunderstanding.”
“Ai, what a sensible and understanding good girl you are. But look, we’re already here, and about what happened that day, we really should properly explain…” If the Jun family did not let this go, their business in Qiuhai City would truly become difficult.
Jun Yue was not completely ignorant about matters in the business world; she simply had no interest in paying attention to them. She did not have much sympathy either, but after glancing at Fang Anyu, who looked utterly dejected, his eyes carrying a pleading look, she eventually still helped him with this favour.
Inside the living room, the three adults were discussing something. Old Master Jun looked indifferent, while Father Fang and Mother Fang both wore flattering expressions. Jun Yue and Fang Anyu stayed in the courtyard. She swung on the swing, looking through the living room’s floor-to-ceiling windows a few times, then looked at Fang Anyu, who was standing foolishly not far from her and did not even know to come over and push her. In her heart, she could roughly guess what had happened that night. This piece of wood, who did not even understand how to come and apologise properly, could he really have been acting like a hooligan?
Jun Yue clicked her tongue. She was somewhat annoyed that Fang Anyu had been staring at the succulents in the flowerbed for ages instead of coming over to comfort her, the “victim.” So she got off the swing, walked over to Fang Anyu, snatched the little notebook he was holding, and muttered disdainfully, “What era is this, and you’re still using this thing? The dignified eldest young master of the Fang family, yet you don’t even have a phone…”
She flipped through Fang Anyu’s little notebook and saw that before the apology, there was also a conversation between him and someone else.
— I didn’t do it on purpose. At the time, I only wanted to stop her. It was all an accident.
The handwriting was the same as the apology, so it should have been Fang Anyu’s.
Underneath was someone else’s handwriting.
— Didn’t I tell you to hide properly at night? Don’t cause trouble. Don’t come out. Your brother’s birthday banquet was ruined by you. Now his classmates at school are all excluding him. The Jun family is very hard to deal with in Qiuhai City. You’ve caused a huge mess for the family, and your father’s and my work has become difficult too. No matter what actually happened, you have to go and apologise.
Jun Yue frowned, not only because of the sharp strokes of this person’s handwriting, but also because the tone truly made her uncomfortable.
She continued looking down. Fang Anyu’s handwriting was left with only one word.
— Okay.
Jun Yue’s heart suddenly felt very uncomfortable. With just a few sentences, she could see exactly what sort of position Fang Anyu held in the Fang family. Eldest young master? His younger brother’s birthday banquet was full of guests laughing and chatting in front, yet he had to hide inside a dirty flower shed?
No matter what happened, he had to apologise. This sentence almost pierced Jun Yue’s reverse scale with absolute precision.
From childhood until now, wasn’t she, the eldest child, and the eldest child with all four limbs intact and no disability, treated the same way? No matter what the truth was, as long as Jun Yu was involved, the family would always make her step back. Always!
The Fang family was rather interesting. Their favouritism happened to be the opposite. The disabled one did not receive his parents’ favour. Or was it that being the eldest was just naturally a miserable fate?
Holding the little notebook, Jun Yue irritably flipped through it again. There were also some conversations from before the birthday banquet. The notebook was clearly almost used up. The earlier pages were all from before the birthday banquet, when the Fang family had been persuading him not to show his face that day.
As Jun Yue read, veins throbbed on her forehead. When she looked at Fang Anyu again, her gaze was like she was looking at a soft, easily bullied bun.
But this was someone else’s family matter. What did it have to do with her? Jun Yue paused for a moment, then sat down at the edge of the flowerbed, just happening to block the succulent Fang Anyu had been staring at the whole time. Fang Anyu froze for a moment and met Jun Yue’s eyes.
Very few people could look at someone from such a condescending angle and yet still have not the slightest bit of aggression. Fang Anyu’s soft gaze suddenly made Jun Yue think of her mother.
It had been a long time since she had thought of her. She did not have many memories of her father and mother, but… she remembered that before Jun Yu existed, her mother often held her and smiled gently.
Later, the one she held and smiled gently at became Jun Yu…
Jun Yue patted the space beside her, gesturing for Fang Anyu to sit. Fang Anyu could not understand at all, so Jun Yue simply pulled him down to sit beside her.
Then, in the little notebook, she used extremely wild, flamboyant handwriting that took up half the page to ask:
— Why did you turn on the light that day?
Fang Anyu’s reactions had been fairly quick recently, because he had been continuously doing all kinds of training. Although he was very slow, he was still much faster than before. So after looking at it a few times, he took the notebook and replied:
— I thought you were lost.
Jun Yue rolled her eyes, snatched it back, and wrote:
— Then why did you turn it off afterwards? Were you messing with me?!
Fang Anyu replied unhurriedly:
— You found me, so I turned it off.
Jun Yue thought, what kind of bullshit reason was that? Who was playing hide-and-seek with him? But very quickly, she remembered the previous conversation between Fang Anyu and his family in the notebook, and suddenly it was as if an ice-cold boulder had been stuffed into her stomach. She choked and could not say a word.
Fuck.
It was because his family did not want him to be discovered. They had told him to hide properly.
Jun Yue found it unbelievable. What era was this? Fang Anyu looked perfectly presentable at the very least, so why was he so shameful that he could not be seen?!
She remembered that her grandfather often looked at her with disappointed eyes, simply because her grades could never catch up to Jun Yu’s.
Jun Yue was stifled for a while before she finally pushed that uncomfortable feeling away and continued writing:
— You stopped me from going left. I know that was because of the mud pit, so that was a misunderstanding. Then what was going on when you touched my lips in the greenhouse?
After Fang Anyu finished reading it, he was confused for a while before replying:
— I just wanted to know what you said…
Jun Yue did not believe this reason at all. He was deaf and mute, but he was not blind. Even if he read lips, did he need to touch them?
But when she met Fang Anyu’s crystal-clear gaze, with the fragmented sunlight reflected inside it, Jun Yue could tell that what he said was true.
He really was just a piece of wood, a soft bun. He probably did not know what acting like a hooligan even meant…
After confirming everything, the last bit of discomfort Jun Yue had toward Fang Anyu also disappeared. Instead, when she looked at him, it was like she was looking at herself. They were both unfavoured at home, though Fang Anyu’s situation was even more serious.
Why should it be like this?
Jun Yue had asked this more than once before. She was not an illegitimate child, and clearly, Fang Anyu was not either. Was it just because he was incomplete? But she was not incomplete, and she still did not receive her family’s favour.
As the breeze moved the tree shadows, sunlight scattered quietly over the young man and young woman. Their expressions were exactly the same kind of melancholy. The only difference was that Jun Yue was lamenting fate, while Fang Anyu was melancholy because the succulent he had been searching for so long actually existed in the Jun family, but he was destined not to get it.
It would be too rude to ask for it. Fang Anyu pursed his lips and sat side by side with Jun Yue, but his head was practically twisting one hundred and eighty degrees back toward the flowerbed.
Jun Yue soon noticed Fang Anyu’s gaze, and following it, she saw exactly which plant he was staring at. Jun Yue had no particular feeling toward the thing. It had been planted by their family gardener. However, this thing had especially tenacious vitality. She had once watched the gardener snap half of this little thing off and bury it nearby. Before long, the one beside it had grown too.
Jun Yue reached out and waved her hand in front of Fang Anyu’s eyes. Fang Anyu shifted his gaze back onto her face. He truly had not the slightest awareness that he had come to apologise. Although what happened that night had been a misunderstanding and coincidence, it was still a fact that Fang Anyu had buried his face in her chest.
His shirt was still inside her wardrobe now, washed fragrantly and neatly folded by the servants. Jun Yue had originally wanted to take it and throw it away, but for some strange reason, she had only kicked it into the corner of the wardrobe.
Was it to commemorate her purity that had died unexpectedly?
Jun Yue amused herself with that thought. If it were anyone else, they would at least say something pleasant. After all, in the living room, his parents were practically one step away from kneeling down and licking her grandfather’s shoes.
But Fang Anyu was thinking about her family’s succulent.
Jun Yue felt that Fang Anyu was very magical. It was not only because he himself was like a living white lotus, but also because the way his brain worked was very amusing.
Jun Yue could not help wanting to tease him, so she deliberately wrote in the little notebook:
— Your apology is a little perfunctory. After all, you buried your face in my chest. Didn’t you know you have to take responsibility for something like that?
If it were anyone else, Jun Yue would truly wish she never had to remember it for the rest of her life. She would even get angry if the other person mentioned it. But Fang Anyu was soft, timid, silly, and pure, so she could not help wanting to know whether he was deliberately avoiding this question or whether he genuinely did not understand.
Very clearly, it was the latter. He looked at the little notebook for a long time. Just when Jun Yue thought he would not reply, she watched Fang Anyu swiftly write on the paper:
— I’m really sorry!
He even added an exclamation mark. And under Jun Yue’s curious stare, his originally gentle and calm brows and eyes gradually became dyed with a blush, starting from the roots of his ears.
His cold-white skin was tinged with a faint pink. Fang Anyu seemed to instantly “come alive.”
He slowly bit his lip in front of Jun Yue. If any other man did that in front of her, Jun Yue would either slap him to death or be disgusted enough to vomit. But when Fang Anyu did this somewhat feminine gesture for a boy, it did not feel out of place at all.
Jun Yue stared at the corner of his mouth, which had become even redder after he bit it, and suddenly, as if her brain had short-circuited, thought:
This kid… he isn’t deliberately seducing me, is he?
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