312 Li Yuan Age: 10

His mother's every effort to draw herself closer to him was responded with a cold shoulder. He hardly bothered with her. What kind of relationships are those that had to be shoved in the face for people to realize what it means to them?

Those are rented happiness and faded with time. If it would have been a movie it would be 'THE END' with everything that becomes alright but it was reality. It was his reality and he had just made peace with it.

He was the most important chess piece in the game but still a chess piece...

He wasn't a priority and his guardians never failed to remind him of that vivid fact. He was cautious to draw closer to a woman who had a concentration span of a squirrel, it was just a matter of fact she would move on from him or maybe he will have another bastard sibling, this time from her.

She wasn't there when he needed her and now when she was there, he didn't need her. 

Don't we all get what we want somewhere at some point in life but then you feel numb to it, no happiness, and no satisfaction.

Needless to say, his Grandmother was immensely pleased with how he wasn't close to his mother but was rather close to her, or she thought so. To her closeness meant he tolerated her on lunch every day.

The drive was a short distance from his Grandfather's estate to theirs, but it was his only daily interaction with the outside world. Even the sound of rushing cars and dumpster rattling was compelling in comparison to the silence of his dwelling that could compete with graveyards.

He paraded down the familiar path as his nanny followed behind then changed the path to inform the kitchen of his arrival so they can prepare dinner. Just when the similar walls were guiding him to his room he heard his mother hissing and yelling profanities.

He wanted to continue his way up when he heard the word 'Bastard'. More than concerned he was intrigued and decided to see what the fuss was about. You didn't see the glamorous Madam Li lose her cool and it was a different story when her husband was concerned.

He entered the room to see her shaking and yelling at a five-year-old frightened cute boy who had his lips pouted as he glanced up at her with innocent eyes not able to understand why he was treated as he was.

"… Your w*re of a mother left you to do the gold-digging she couldn't…" She was shrieking profanities and shaking the boy a little further with her every harsh word. 

Though the boy didn't understand most of her words the hatred her words carry was too sound to be not comprehensible.

"What do you think you are doing?" His cold voice from the doorframe froze her before she turned to him with a helpless expression of a victim because in a sense even she was nothing but a victim too.

She sniffed as the grief at looking at the proof of the infidelity of her love came crushing in her heart. Today would mark the last day she had self-confidence or respect at all. From now on she was going to be greeted with wide smirks on the fronts and ridiculed behind her back in every circle.

They had ripped her heart out of her chest and stomped on it and now they wanted to burn it every single day! Everyone was granted what they wished in the end and what she got was the shorter end of the stick in every aspect.

Her brother was happy and so was his wife, even her absent husband was having the time of his life, only she was left in depression and misery!

She let go of the boy with a jerk, making him fall on the carpeted floor and spill silent tears. His teary eyes searched every face to look for a leg to hug when he wailed his loss.

Taking several steps in his direction, her lips wobbled as she pointed at the boy accusingly, "Li Yuan, he is your bastard brother…"

With a sharp glare, he cut her off, "And whose fault is that?"

Her point was sound but even if she didn't want him around her she had scarce right to treat the boy like that.

The pain on her face broke her strong angry façade and she burst out shouting like a lunatic, "You don't understand! His mother took your father from me and he will take everything else from you! He will ruin us!"

He walked toward her as his eyes flickering between the boy half his size and his mother a couple of inches taller than him, both eyes fixed on him waiting for the final verdict.

He listened to her vent with a straight face, then sighed and retorted, "Don't fool yourself. What his mother took from you was just a night willingly or not still questionable." 

Madam Li broke down further but before she could say anything else heinous he walked past her to the boy who was isolated than deflated and dispirited in the crowd of strangers.

One look at his feature he knew he was indeed his brother. A smaller version of him, if not for the grey sorbs he had. One look at his attire, he knew the last he was dressed, it was by his own mother.

He furrowed his brows at the pink rabbit onesie he was wearing. It even had the big rabbit ears dangling from his head. Much to his dislikes as he glared at the boy on the floor, Li Qiang raised his chubby hands to him to pick him up with a prolonged helpless expression tugging several heartstrings in the room.

With an eye roll he did give him his one hand and then pulled him up, the boy tumbled and crashed on his body. 

He kept his hand on his back to keep him from looking. He turned to his mother and said pensively, "He didn't take anything from you and since you had been too busy to have concerned with my affairs earlier please don't bother now."

Without exchanging another glance, he dragged the boy to his own room. Mostly because the boy was clutching his shirt in his small fists too tightly as if his life depended on it. 

The nanny knocked to inform him of the situation but when she saw the circumstances inside she nodded to make the arrangements right away.

He lifted the light boy on his bed but the boy still refused to let him go. He sighed irritably and stood by the bed the boy was sitting on. Although he was cramped in his training suit, he relented saying anything to the little boy in his arms.

"Thankwu You, Big Browther!" With a pout, the boy was holding back his tears. 

He wanted to be cruel and push him away but his doey-pleading eyes got to him. The boy was a mirror image of him and his situation was no different than him.

Instead, He looked up at the ceiling and muttered, "God! I am going to regret this." With a frustrated sigh, he pulled the boy in a hug.

The boy burst out sobbing and hiccupping, "Mowmmy… Mowmmy… Thewy took herw…"

He stiffened but kept rubbing his back. He had heard his Grandfather being informed about the road accident she had. 

The woman had fractured her spine and was long dead before she was brought to the hospital.

When he had known he had readily assumed the boy would be brought to his Grandfather's estate but instead he was brought here.

Which could be their way of getting rid of a road breaker, the unplanned bastard or to frame his mother, if he hadn't interfered, with an assault on a Li heir: It would be killing two birds with one stone but it seemed to be a blessing in disguise because now he could keep a close on his little brother.

"It's alright, you have your big brother here." He promised him and he was going to hold this vow to death.

After crying his heart, he sniffed and looked up at his brother, "Shwe… Shwe is not comwing back?"

He sighed and held his shoulders and firmly elaborated, "Listen, Li Qiang! From now on it will be only you and big brother. We, against the world! No one else, just you and me! Will you help your brother?"

The boy pouted and a tear slipped his doe eyes but he bobbled his head fervently up and down.

"Don't leavwe mwe…" He sniffed, his eyes heavy with unshed tears, "Big Browther."

"Your Big Brother will never leave you." He told him firmly.

That night he slept in his brother's bed beside him. Li Qiang's mother read him stories to bed which wasn't something Li Yuan knew so he told him censored historic events every night to put him to sleep.

His brother's bed was placed in his room. The little bundle followed his big brother everything. His Big Brother taught him everything himself instead of tutors and trained him instead of instructors.