The sickly one in F4 was the group's darling.

The tea room was quiet, with the fragrance of sandalwood wafting through the air.

Bai Yanzhi was sitting upright preparing tea. He was usually aloof and rarely served tea to guests himself, but today was an exception.

Zhou Yan said they would be arriving soon. He had made tea in advance for everyone, which was a rare gesture of respect for his old friend.

The rosewood tea table was as smooth as a mirror, with a set of celadon tea utensils neatly arranged. On a small clay charcoal stove to the side, a copper kettle sat quietly, boiling water bubbling, and the rising steam softened his usually cold and stern features.

The water in the copper kettle reached its second boil, with dense, bubbly bubbles rising to the surface, indicating the perfect temperature.

Bai Yanzhi picked up a pinch of Yunjianxue tea leaves and dropped them into a white porcelain gaiwan. The tea leaves settled at the bottom with a soft rustling sound. He lifted the teapot, poured in water, and the water flowed slowly and steadily. The tea leaves tumbled, unfurled, and sank to the bottom in the hot water. A layer of fine white down floated to the surface, was then dispersed, and finally condensed into a pool of emerald green tea soup.

Boiling water, rinsing cups, placing tea leaves, and pouring water – the entire sequence of movements is fluid, elegant, and skillful, demonstrating masterful technique.

Even Uncle Chen, who was serving nearby, secretly praised him in his heart: Elegant, so elegant! The young master's tea ceremony skills are enough to open a high-end tea ceremony class, with a fee of five figures per class.

The tea soup is a pleasing emerald green, and its elegant aroma permeates the air.

He picked up one of the cups, blew away the foam, took a small sip, and found it slightly astringent at first, but with a lingering sweet aftertaste.

Bai Yanzhi leaned back in his rosewood armchair, holding a teacup in one hand, his gaze passing over the French windows and landing on the last rays of the setting sun on the distant mountain ridge.

Everything was perfect: the tea was good, the scenery was beautiful, and I was in a good mood.

Uncle Chen watched from the side, silently sighing to himself: It's rare for the young master to be so relaxed all year round.

The last time I saw him like this was last year on the day the large-scale energy project was finalized. He spent the whole afternoon brewing tea in the tea room, and suddenly laughed when he was drinking the third infusion.

He was so startled he almost knocked over the teapot. He had followed the young master for thirty years, but he still wasn't used to the young master's smile.

The lamplight, the smoke from the tea, the twilight, the mountain breeze, and the aroma of tea all mingled together. He sat alone among them, wearing a dark gray custom-made suit with silver falcon patterns on his cufflinks. His entire being, from his hair to the tips of his shoes, exuded an air of unapproachable nobility and composure.

If a painter were present at this moment, he would surely have painted it, and the title would have been "The Young Master of the Bai Family Enjoying Tea".

This painting is only missing one final seal.

My phone vibrated.

Bai Yanzhi put down his teacup and picked up his phone.

A message popped up on the screen; it was from Zhou Yan.

He had a slight smile on his lips before he clicked on it. Zhou Yan was the kind of person who, when he got to the door and couldn't find his way, would say something like, "Your house is too big, send someone to pick me up."

Last time, he wandered around the orange grove for twenty minutes before being led out by the gardener, and Bai Yanzhi laughed at him for a whole month because of it.

He had even prepared a reply in his head: "Walk in yourself; no one will lead you this time."

He clicked on the picture.

The smile froze.

solidification.

Re-solidify.

If a camera were to be pointed directly at his face at this moment, you would see that the entire process of a human going from "feeling happy" to "questioning life" takes only about 0.5 seconds.

The boy in the photo, his adopted younger brother, is standing in the stained-glass reception corridor.

The background is a whole piece of hand-painted stained glass with a history of over a hundred years. Light shines through the stained glass, casting solemn and sacred shadows that spread out in a dazzling array of colors on the ground. If you only look at the background, this is a standard "century-old family heritage photo" that can be directly printed on the title page of the Bai family genealogy.

But the moment his gaze fell on the boy, the painting "Young Master Bai Enjoying Tea" shattered.

The perfect picture in his mind began to crack from the very center, the cracks spreading along the veins of the mountains and rivers, and finally shattered into pieces with a crash.

The sandalwood tea table is still there, the celadon tea set is still there, the tea smoke is still there, and the twilight outside the window is still there, but he is no longer the person in the painting.

He was kicked out of the painting and into a dimension he couldn't understand at all.

The dark gray sweatshirt features a cartoon tiger with a round head and two small fangs, alongside four large characters: "猛虎下山" (meaning "fierce tiger descending the mountain"). The characters are in a childish handwriting style, with each stroke round and plump.

The pants are even more outrageous, printed with a row of colorful cartoon dinosaurs, each grinning and with its tail held high, as if they're having a prehistoric carnival party.

The shoelaces on the old sneakers on my feet were different colors, one white and one gray, obviously the original shoelace had broken and a replacement had been found at random.

He was carrying a transparent plastic bag.

The boy stood ramrod straight, his hair was cut short, his eyebrows and eyes were clean and neat, and his light brown pupils looked like two amber beads in the afterglow of the setting sun.

But no matter how beautiful her face is, it can't save this disastrous outfit.

Bai Yanzhi stared at the photo, his pupils dilating slightly.

He subconsciously moved his phone further away, as if increasing the distance would change the content of the screen.

But the tiger still bared its little fangs, and the row of dinosaurs still laughed heartlessly.

Bai Yanzhi suddenly felt a throbbing pain in his temples.

He put down his phone, picked up his teacup, and his fingertips trembled slightly. The Yunjianxue tea, which had just tasted sweet and lingering, now tasted like plain water.

He swallowed blankly and put the teacup back on the table.

The force wasn't controlled properly, and with a "clang," the celadon cup hit the sandalwood, making a crisp sound that was particularly jarring in the quiet tea room.

The remaining tea in the cup sloshed around a few times, splashing out two drops that landed on the rosewood tabletop.

He used a porcelain cup to chip a mark into the relatively hard rosewood.

My phone vibrated again, and a message from Zhou Yan popped up: "Your brother has arrived."

The four simple words, seemingly ordinary, combined with the photograph from earlier, acted as a fuse, completely igniting Bai Yanzhi's tense nerves.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and placed his phone face down on the tea table. He pressed his knuckles firmly against his temples, rubbing them repeatedly in a clockwise direction, with such force that it seemed he wanted to completely erase the cartoon tiger from his mind.

"Uncle Chen."

Butler Uncle Chen was waiting at the door, and upon hearing this, he immediately responded, "Young Master."

"Make a cup—" Bai Yanzhi paused. He wanted to say "make a fresh cup," but when he looked down, he saw that there was still more than half a cup of tea left in the teacup, and it was the one he had personally brewed five minutes ago.

He lowered his eyelashes.

"...Never mind. No need to soak it."

Uncle Chen paused slightly. The young master had forgotten he'd just brewed tea? Bai Yanzhi, the eldest son of the Bai family, the CEO of the Bai Group, a man who could recite the original text of page seven, paragraph three of a contract from three years ago in front of over sixty board members—had just forgotten the tea he'd personally brewed?

What surprised Uncle Chen even more was Bai Yanzhi's next move.

The young master flipped his phone over, placing it face down on the tea table, and then pushed it two inches to the side, as if moving it further away would calm him down.

Finally, he picked up the teacup again and brought it to his lips, but he only touched the rim of the cup before putting it down without drinking it.

Alarm bells rang in Uncle Chen's mind.

"Go to the entrance and meet Zhou Yan and the young master, then bring them to the tea room."

"Yes."

"Uncle Chen."

"exist."

Bai Yanzhi's voice sounded calm, but upon closer listening, one could detect something unusual.

It's a subtle sense of vulnerability that comes from having lived for decades, believing oneself to have seen it all, only to have one's understanding unexpectedly shattered in the end.

"Young Master's outfit today is... rather unusual." Bai Yanzhi paused, seemingly considering his words, before finally abandoning all embellishment and uttering only a few words: "Be prepared."

Uncle Chen's eyebrows involuntarily twitched upwards.

Special? The young master used the word "special"?

During his thirty years as the steward of the Bai family, he knew the eldest young master's vocabulary like the back of his hand: "average" meant dissatisfaction, "not so good" meant great dissatisfaction, "needs improvement" meant he was preparing to replace him, and the eldest young master almost never used the word "special".

The last time it was used was the day the third young master said that the politician's wig looked like a squirrel's tail. The eldest young master later commented, "The third young master's performance today was quite special."

After that "special" incident, the third young master was confined to his quarters for three months.

Now, the eldest son uses the same words to describe the youngest son's attire.

Even more outrageous is that the usually calm and composed young master actually wanted to give him a heads-up beforehand.

Uncle Chen mentally broke down those words and chewed them over and over again several times.

Bai Yanzhi, the eldest son of the Bai family and the CEO of the Bai Group, is a man who remains unfazed in the face of a multi-million dollar acquisition and a head of the family who can calmly drink tea even when attacked by several shareholders at a board meeting. What storms hasn't he weathered? Yet, this man actually needs to mentally prepare himself before meeting his younger brother.

Uncle Chen took a deep breath, straightened his back, and said in a calm tone, "Young Master, don't worry. I've been in the Bai family for thirty years and have seen all kinds of situations."

Bai Yanzhi glanced at him, his eyes full of meaning. Uncle Chen interpreted it in several ways: the first was "Really?", the second was "Are you sure?", the third was "Never mind, I can't bear to shatter your confidence", and the fourth was "You'll soon find out what it means to have never seen anything like this before".

He lowered his eyes and subtly moved the teacup, just enough to cover the shallow scratch on the table.

"Go ahead," he said.

"Yes."

Uncle Chen turned around, walked steadily out of the tea room, gently closed the door, and headed towards the corridor.