Because I Cannot Hurt You

"Yup."

"But when did you do this?"

"Well, before Mrs. An disguised as the nurse and poisoned me. I had already taken care of everything with Yunru."

"Yunru also knows?"

"Yes."

Xinyi was quiet.

"So this means…"

"What you are thinking is right, wifey," he smiled.

"Then why are you still doing this? Why did you take on the challenge?"

"Because I really do want to give Keung a chance. He won\'t understand some things until he sits on that CEO\'s chair. I am not doing this to prove that he is useless or that running a company isn\'t his cup of tea. Seeing someone lead a company but actually taking that lead yourself has a huge difference. I want to see if he really understands that. Keung is capable, Xinyi. But it\'s because of Aunt Guang\'s influence that he tends to take the wrong shortcuts."

Zhiyuan laid beside her and hugged her. "Do you know that Keung actually likes me a lot? And I am not being delusional or narcissistic."

Xinyi pursed her lips. "I find it hard to believe. If he likes you, then he wouldn\'t have planned to take your life so many times."

Zhiyuan had a sombre expression. "That is something I don\'t understand either. I can never imagine him hating me to the point that he would want to kill me."

"Then why do you say he likes you?"

"Because as siblings, Zizi, Keung and I were always close. He used to follow me everywhere. He used to say many times that I am his idol. But Aunt Guang never liked our closeness. So as we grew up, she started interfering more. She always wanted Keung to get everything, so she began to divide Keung from Zizi and me."

"Oh."

This was the first time Xinyi was hearing their siblings\' bond from Zhiyuan.

"Yes. Then Keung also began to slowly understand that Grandpa doesn\'t like his parents at all. He didn\'t know why, but it was clear, and Grandpa isn\'t the type to hide his distaste, which Keung started to fear that he would be hated too. I remember him coming to me one night and crying that he doesn\'t want Grandpa to hate him and throw him out of the house because he doesn\'t want to be apart from Zizi and me. Naturally, I consoled him that it would never happen."

Zhiyuan sighed. "But Aunt Guang kept confusing him. Even if he didn\'t want to, he really began feeling that he wasn\'t being liked either.

Like this one time. I came first in my class in the final exams. But Keung had a low rank in his grade. Well obviously he is younger than me, so there shouldn\'t be any comparison, yet he felt that way. Now, Grandpa just shrugged and said I did a good job. But to Keung, he just waved his hand and said, \'Don\'t bother.\'"

Xinyi blinked her eyes.

Zhiyuan pressed his brows. "I know what you are thinking. It seems discriminatory and harsh, and Grandpa never differentiates like that. It\'s true. He never treated Zizi, Keung or me differently. He wasn\'t being biased at that time either."

His mouth twitched. "When Grandpa said \'Don\'t bother\', it wasn\'t because he didn\'t care about Keung. It was because he didn\'t care about marks in general. Grandpa never forced us to get good marks or be the first rank in the class. He didn\'t care if we got good or bad marks in tests because to him, academic marks meant nothing. He used to say,

\'Getting first rank in class doesn\'t equate to getting first rank in life too. For that, you need a different kind of brain, which I doubt most people even have.\'"

Xinyi coughed.

That was just like what Grandpa would say…

"So you see. Grandpa wasn\'t being clear. He didn\'t mean to demean Keung. What he actually meant was, \'Don\'t bother. Marks are useless anyway. Don\'t give a shit about it.\'"

Xinyi suddenly felt a headache coming.

"You can see how easy it was for Aunt Guang to misinterpret his words and actions to imply that he doesn\'t love Keung. It\'s easy to misunderstand. It\'s not like Grandpa was any thrilled with my first rank either. But...you can imagine what Keung, at that age, would have felt when he heard Grandpa saying \'You did a good job\' to one brother and \'Don\'t bother\' to another, and how Aunt Guang would have convoluted the whole situation."

"Grandpa has…"

"A lot of communication issues, I know," he helplessly nodded.

She sighed.

"That\'s how Keung began to grow more agitated and conscious. In the next test, Keung cheated, but it was found out. Naturally, Grandpa was furious, and he scolded him. But then again...it wasn\'t because he cheated. He said to him, \'Cannot even do a simple thing right!\' Keung thought he meant by scoring good marks honestly."

"Huh? It wasn\'t that?"

"No. I also didn\'t quite understand it myself, so I went to ask Grandpa and he said,

\'What else should I say then? It\'s just cheating in a stupid exam and he was found out? How can anybody let himself be caught? Look at me. I was never caught even once in my days! Keung is blowing away my reputation!\'"

Xinyi choked in disbelief.

Grandpa was an exam cheater!?

She knew she shouldn\'t find it so hard to believe, yet it somehow did.

"Such incidents just caused more miscommunication. I tried my best to hold the situation together. But in the end, Aunt Guang was his mother, and it was hard for him to stand against her. He kept getting wound up in her negativity. I tried my hardest, but he just went further and further away from Zizi and me…I even told Grandpa that Keung is misunderstanding us, but he asked me back, \'What is there to misunderstand?\'"

Zhiyuan faintly smiled. "That\'s why I was never really angry when Keung embezzled money. He is just misunderstanding everybody\'s feelings for him. Embezzling money was like being in a rebellious phase to him.. It was a serious mistake, I know, but as a brother, I couldn\'t be furious at him because I know what he was thinking."