My sister never calls me brother.

"Huh? What's wrong?" Han Ying was still thinking about Liu Yue's inability to sing.

"If Liu Yue proposes to leave the club, can you persuade her to stay?" Lin Nianwei asked, uttering a puzzling question.

"Well..." Han Ying thought for a moment, then shook her head and said, "If what you say is true, and Liu Yue can't sing, then there's no need for her to stay in the guitar club anymore."

"I'd like to ask you to reconsider," Lin Nianwei said, blushing slightly, in a very soft voice, "Please...please..."

Han Ying stared blankly at Lin Nianwei's blushing face for a moment, then covered her mouth and laughed, "You...you've never actually asked anyone for anything, have you?"

"..." Lin Nianwei picked up a book to cover half of her face, her eyes darting away.

"Seeing how hard you're trying, I can't bear to refuse you." Han Ying pondered for a moment, then smiled and said, "Okay, I'll try my best to keep you, but can I ask why?"

Lin Nianwei closed the book and said quietly.

"There's nothing wrong with living with a mask on, but it's wrong to never take it off."

Han Ying paused for a moment, then didn't press the matter further.

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Talk Between the Brother and Sister

Liu Yue gently closed the door to the guitar club, her expression not looking too good.

She let out a long sigh, shook her head, picked up her guitar, and silently left.

As I reached the corner of the stairs, I saw Zhou Han leaning against the handrail, as if waiting for someone.

Zhou Han also noticed Liu Yue, and the two exchanged a glance.

"Hi!" Zhou Han spoke first, waving to Liu Yue, "I've been waiting for you for a long time..."

"Waiting for me? What are you waiting for me for?" Liu Yue walked down the stairs step by step, then suddenly stopped, crossed her arms, and said warily, "You're not... trying to harass me, are you?"

Zhou Han raised an eyebrow and said awkwardly, "Do I really look that much like a bad person?"

"Is there even a need to ask? Of course not." Liu Yue nodded emphatically.

“I’m not here to bother you.” Zhou Han sighed, rubbing her forehead, and said, “I’m here today because of your request.”

"There's a solution? Wow, that was fast..." Liu Yue was somewhat surprised.

Zhou Han nodded and said, "It's basically resolved. Now all you need to do is sit down with your sister and have a good talk. Lin Nianwei and Miyazaki have already gone to pick up your sister. Let's go over there too..."

"Hmm..." Liu Yue hesitated for a moment, then slowly followed. She felt a little disappointed, thinking, "What kind of help is this? In the end, it's still such a simple method. It looks like I'm going to have another big fight with my sister, just like always..."

"Can I talk to you before I see your sister?" Zhou Han suddenly said as she walked ahead.

"Huh!?" Liu Yue was stunned for a moment, then suddenly realized and said, "So you really still want to harass me, don't you?!"

"No!!!" Zhou Han said with a pained expression, waving her hands repeatedly, "It was just a normal chat..."

"What are you going to talk about?" Liu Yue asked warily.

"Let's talk about...my sister," Zhou Han said, adopting a very serious attitude.

"Let's have a proper talk, from the perspective of the older brother and sister."

Inside a dessert shop, Miyazaki Airi and Lin Nianwei were sitting side by side.

Lin Nianwei quietly read her book, seemingly oblivious to the world around her, while Miyazaki Airi looked helplessly at the elementary school student opposite her wearing a yellow wig, who was none other than Liu Yue's younger sister, Liu Qing.

"Why should I help that idiot?" Miyazaki Airi tapped the table with her fingers in annoyance.

"Yesterday they sent an idiot, and today they sent a flat-chested girl and a gloomy woman." Liu Qing shrugged and said with a sneer, "Hehe, what kind of weirdos have you hired, sister?"

"Fly...fly...flat-chested!?" Miyazaki Airi was somewhat agitated, her voice trembling slightly. "A mere elementary school student! How dare she look down on me..."

Miyazaki Airi was about to retort, but out of the corner of her eye she saw Liu Qing's chest. Despite being a primary school student, her chest was surprisingly well-developed!

"Genes are a good thing..." Miyazaki Airi said with a dark face, but tears were streaming down her face. She felt completely defeated by an elementary school student, which was too humiliating!

Miyazaki Airi glanced at Lin Nianwei beside her, who remained calmly engrossed in her book, seemingly oblivious to the world around her.

As expected of Vi-chan, she doesn't even get angry when verbally attacked by elementary school students, Miyazaki Airi thought to herself. But when she looked down, she saw that Lin Nianwei's hand holding the book was trembling incessantly.

Uh, I guess I was overthinking it. Anyone would be angry, right? Miyazaki Airi thought to herself, and gave an awkward laugh.

"How many of you ordered the strawberry sundae?" The waiter placed the sundae in front of Liu Qing.

Liu Qing was overjoyed to see the strawberry sundae, her eyes sparkling, but then she crossed her arms, looking haughty, and said, "Let's make this clear first, you're paying, otherwise I wouldn't have come."

"Yes, we'll pay. Shut up and eat quickly..." Miyazaki Airi said helplessly.

Liu Qing secretly opened one eye and was surprised that Miyazaki Airi was so easy to talk to. She couldn't wait to pick up her spoon and start eating, with a happy expression on her face.

Airi Miyazaki sighed, resting her chin on her hand as she gazed at the view outside the shop window, thinking—

I wonder how that idiot is doing?

Zhou Han and Liu Yue walked down the street, one after the other.

As the sun gradually sank in the west, it dyed the clouds on the horizon a blood red.

The July breeze, not yet cold, gently caressed the city, carrying the lingering warmth of midsummer.

The two had been silent for a while, neither of them speaking.

Looking at Zhou Han walking ahead, Liu Yue, who was impatient, couldn't hold back any longer and said, "What do you want to say? Stop being so long-winded."

"I don't even know where to begin, hehe..." Zhou Han chuckled dryly.

"I have nothing to say, I'm leaving now." Liu Yue slung her guitar over her shoulder and tried to leave quickly.

"Wait a minute!" Zhou Han called out, paused, took a deep breath, and said, "Can you take off that disguise?"

Liu Yue stopped and turned around, saying, "What do you mean?"

"Your singing is actually quite bad, isn't it?" Zhou Han smiled.

"What...what are you saying? It's incomprehensible." Liu Yue said somewhat awkwardly.

"Let me help you remember..." Zhou Han licked his lips and slowly said, "April 14th, 200X, around 2 PM, at Zhongqing City No. 3 Middle School, Class 7, Grade 2, there was a girl who stood up to sing at everyone's request, but unfortunately, her singing was terrible, and she was ridiculed by everyone. That girl's name was..."

A crisp "snap!" sounded—

With a gloomy face, Liu Yue slapped Zhou Han hard across the face.

Zhou Han touched her face, her mind blank. The slap came too suddenly and without warning. This was the first time in her life she had ever been slapped by a man other than her mother.

"Shut up..." Liu Yue's voice was somewhat agitated, "I asked you to mediate the relationship between my sister and me, but I didn't ask you to investigate my privacy. This is despicable..."

“Investigating your privacy is my arbitrary decision and has nothing to do with them. But speaking of despicable things…” Zhou Han looked at Liu Yue and said calmly, “You are actually quite despicable too. You joined the guitar club and pretended to be very good at music, but you can’t even find the right pitch when you sing and it sounds terrible. Even when your sister has problems, you still insist on wearing this disguise. You and I are the same.”

Liu Yue kept her head down, so her expression couldn't be seen. After a moment of silence, she turned to leave.

"Do you think this is enough? You've been planning to live with this pretense all along, just like your sister said, just playing your broken guitar," Zhou Han said.

Liu Yue did not turn back and continued to distance herself from Zhou Han.

"You care so much about what others think? You were only ridiculed once? I've been ridiculed so many times since I was a child that I could write a whole collection of stand-up comedy routines. If I were like you, wouldn't I be a clown with a hundred faces by now?" Zhou Han hadn't given up yet.

Liu Yue quickened her pace, her mood becoming increasingly agitated as she listened to Zhou Han's words.

"Think about your sister, okay? Is your pretense really more important than your sister?!" Zhou Han watched Liu Yue walk further and further away, feeling anxious. "Your sister gave up a better life for you, insisting on leaving her relatives' house to follow you! Don't you understand? You are the closest person to her besides her parents. For her, being with you is her true home! Think more about your sister! Aren't you her older sister?"

Liu Yue stopped, head down, looking at her little brown leather shoes. Zhou Han's words touched a soft spot in her, a feeling that had been there for her as the older sister. She remembered the night she decided to leave her relatives' house alone—

At their parents' request, the Liu sisters moved into a relative's house.

There was a boy in a relative's family who was about the same age as Liu Qing. He would bully Liu Qing for fun, so Liu Qing would often cry to Liu Yue about being bullied. However, since they were living under someone else's roof, Liu Yue was too embarrassed to accuse her relative. But this sense of humiliation accumulated little by little.

Until one day, Liu Yue overheard a relative complaining about taking care of the two sisters.

At that moment, the humiliation that had been building up for so long finally erupted!

That night, the two sisters slept in bed.

"Xiao Qing, are you asleep?" Liu Yue asked.

"No," Liu Qing replied.

"I have something to tell you," Liu Yue said after a moment's hesitation.

"Hmm? Are you going to buy me something delicious? Sister, you're so kind! I'll reluctantly accept it." Liu Qing was already drooling uncontrollably.

“No…” Liu Yue paused, “I plan to move back home tomorrow, I won’t be here anymore.”

"Why!?" Liu Qing asked in surprise, raising her little fist with a determined look. "There are people here who take care of us. Although I'm often bullied, I'll learn to be patient."

"There's no reason why, I just suddenly wanted to move out, there's no explanation." Liu Yue lied because she couldn't bear the feeling of being dependent on others, and how could she tell her sister about this?

“Then I’ll move back with my sister too,” Liu Qing quickly said.

“No! There’s no one to take care of you if you go back. You’re better off here,” Liu Yue said firmly.

"I don't want to! I want to be with my sister!" Liu Qing was very stubborn.

"I'm the older sister, what I say goes, so you have to listen to my arrangements. That's it, go to sleep!" Liu Yue said, then turned off the light, ignoring her sister's complaints.

In the quiet of the night, the sound of sobbing could be heard.

Liu Yue opened her eyes, helplessly turned on the light, and looked at her younger sister Liu Qing, who was hiding under the covers, crying incessantly.

"Don't cry, I'm just moving out, it's not like I won't come back to see you." Liu Yue patted her younger sister through the blanket.

"I'm going to cry! I'm going to cry! Waaah..." Liu Qing threw a tantrum under the covers, crying very sadly, "My dad and mom aren't here, and now my sister doesn't want me anymore. It's so pitiful for a child who's unwanted, waaah..."

Liu Yue looked at her crying sister and rubbed her forehead. Even if she had a heart of stone, she couldn't bring herself to be cruel to her sister when she heard her crying.

Liu Yue sighed and made a decision in her heart.

The next day, the two sisters left their relatives' house together, carrying their suitcases.

It was also the time when the sun was setting, and the blood-red sunset dyed the clouds red.

"Don't regret it, living with me will be very hard," Liu Yue said earnestly.

"I won't regret it at all!" Liu Qing smiled, her smile warm in the setting sun. "Because I love being by my sister's side the most! Hehe!"

"Is...is that so..." Liu Yue blushed.

The two sisters held hands and decided to go home together to live.

Liu Yue was touched by Zhou Han's words, wiping away her tears. She turned back to look at Zhou Han stubbornly and said before the sun had set—

"I love my sister very much too! But only when I'm pretending can I forget the day I was laughed at..."

Chapter Twenty-Four: Sharing Weal and Woe