Su Zixiao looked utterly exasperated. She’d finally gotten some time alone with her brother—so why did Yuche always manage to interrupt from miles away?

This wasn’t the first time, either. For pretty much every day of the past month, her brother’s phone had been bombarded with messages from Yuche.

As Su Yuzhe listened to the notification chimes go off one after another, he felt inexplicably on edge.

He walked over, picked up his phone, unlocked it, and opened the app to see what Yuche had sent so early in the morning.

What he saw gave him a real shock. He’d gotten up early for once—it was only 7:40—and Yuche had already been messaging him for an hour. How had her messages not woken him up? That girl used to sleep until noon, didn’t she?

Curious, Su Zixiao leaned over to look at the phone screen too.

There were dozens of messages. In chronological order, they went like this:

“Brother! Are you up yet?!”

“Brother, if you’re still asleep, hurry up and get up! Don’t let Zixiao come wake you! She’s definitely up to no good!”

The next item was a video call. Su Yuzhe must’ve been fast asleep at the time.

All that remained was a missed video call.

“Wah... Brother, why aren’t you answering me? Why won’t you pick up? Did I wake you up and make you mad? Then I’ll... try again in ten minutes... (sad face)”

Like hell he was going to answer! Su Yuzhe was at a loss for words over his little sister. She’d sent that before seven!

And that girl really never learned! Sorry, I know I woke you up—and I’m still going to do it again in a bit!

Sure enough, the next messages came around 7:10.

“Brother... were you hoping Zixiao would come wake you up, so you deliberately slept in? You can’t do that... I won’t allow it! I’m your real little sister, after all! Hehe.”

7:20 a.m.

“Wahhh... I won’t say that again! Brother, please just answer me! I’ll let her come wake you, so don’t be like this. You can hold hands at most... No, you can touch fingertips at most! And Brother, could you at least reply with an ‘Oh’? Then Yuche would be perfectly happy!”

That long string of messages all boiled down to one thing: suddenly pathetically humble.jpg.

For some reason, Su Zixiao felt a strange sense of triumph when she read this. So what if you’re his real little sister? When it’s time to beg, you’re no different from anyone else! Hmph! That’ll teach you to use your “real little sister” title against me every time!

7:30 a.m.

“Father insists I go to school. I really don’t want to, but at least... at least I need to see Brother reply to me once! Otherwise, I definitely won’t be able to sit still at school all day!”

7:40 a.m. That was the latest message she’d just sent.

“I’m going to die without you, Brother!! I don’t care anymore—I’m not going to school! If Brother won’t answer me, I’m coming to West City right now!”

Wait, no!!

Su Yuzhe was genuinely panicking. No matter what, he couldn’t let Su Yuche come over. For one thing, he wanted her to go to school like she was supposed to. More importantly, there was his agreement with their father. If she really showed up during school hours, he’d probably have to pack his things and return to the main house that afternoon!

So Su Yuzhe immediately opened the chat and typed out a reply as fast as he could.

“Ah, sorry, Yuche! Brother just woke up. Don’t worry, Zixiao didn’t wake me—my alarm did. Listen to your brother and go to school properly, okay?”

Well, he really had been woken up by his alarm! He wasn’t lying!

Still, there was something oddly awkward about how he always had to coax this girl. She was already in her senior year of high school, so why did he always end up talking to her like she was a little kid?

After all, in front of other people, Su Yuche had the same image as Su Yuzhe: a genius among geniuses, seemingly ignorant of nothing. She’d left her innocence behind early, and practically had “heaven’s favored child” written across her forehead.

But no matter how cool and aloof she was around everyone else, this kid never seemed to grow up when she was with him. Her love of acting spoiled had never changed, from childhood to now.

Su Yuche replied within seconds of Su Yuzhe sending his message. Had she been staring at her phone the whole time?

“Okay! I understand, Brother. I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll come visit you when I’m on break. It’s getting late, so I should head to school now. That’s all for now, Brother. Love you!”

Before Su Yuzhe had even finished typing his reply, Su Yuche sent another message.

“Zixiao, you’re watching too, right? You and Brother have to keep your distance. Don’t think you can do whatever you want just because I’m not there!”

Su Zixiao’s eyebrow twitched as she read that. Whether Yuche had guessed right or not didn’t matter—those words were so irritating!

By then, Su Yuzhe had sent his reply too.

“Mm. Do your best at school. Come visit when you’re on break. Brother loves you too.”

Well, I do love you. I’d love you even more if you weren’t so noisy first thing in the morning!

“Sending hearts, sending hearts (emoji)”

After Su Yuche sent her last message, nothing else came through. It looked like she’d obediently gone to school.

Zixiao reached the door first. She opened it, then stepped aside to let Su Yuzhe go out ahead of her.

“I made breakfast before you woke up, Brother. Even if you’re not going to school, you shouldn’t mess up your sleep schedule. Come have something to eat.”

Her ruby-red eyes shimmered, full of affection and concern.

But Su Yuzhe could still see how stiffly Zixiao was acting. This kid... Did she think that now they’d left the main house and didn’t have any maids, she had to take care of her brother down to the smallest detail? What was this—did she want to be his sister and his mom?

“Mm-hmm.” Su Yuzhe got up and walked to the door, casually taking Su Zixiao’s hand. “I’ve told you so many times: just act the way you did at the main house. You say you have to take responsibility for looking after me, but you’ll always be my little sister. We’re just trying out life on our own. Why put so much pressure on yourself?”

She let all the tension drain out of her as she gazed at her brother’s devastatingly handsome face, momentarily dazed. She let him lead her by the hand to the dining table. After making sure she sat down first, he turned and headed to the washroom.

He’s so gentle... Brother really hasn’t changed at all.

It wasn’t like she wanted to be his sister and his mom. What kind of interpretation was that...?

It was just... now that they’d left the main house, she didn’t want her brother to suffer even the tiniest bit. She wanted to do the best she could. That was part of why she’d come with him. But... most of the time, no matter how much she did, she still ended up being the one looked after... just like a moment ago.

As she was lost in thought, Su Yuzhe came out of the washroom. His silver cowlick was flattened, and droplets of water still clung to his skin. No matter how many years she’d seen him, Su Zixiao still blushed and looked away, unable to meet his eyes.

But that only lasted an instant. She always turned back to look at Su Yuzhe soon after. If she didn’t, wouldn’t she be missing out?

Su Yuzhe, who rarely got up this early, looked over the table with interest. Everything on it was breakfast Zixiao had prepared.

Hm? A whole table of breakfast?

“Let’s see... scrambled eggs, toast, soy milk, egg-drop soup, and roujiamo?!”

That was a lot of food for just the two of them. He knew his little sister barely ate; she’d probably be full after a couple of bites at breakfast.

“Zixiao... this...”

As he spoke, Su Yuzhe picked up a piece of toast and put it in his mouth. It was perfectly toasted and really good!

“Isn’t this a little much for breakfast? Never mind how much there is... Mm, this toast is delicious... Oh, wait, this must’ve taken ages to prepare, right?”

Su Zixiao was eating toast too. At that, she hurriedly shook her head.

“No, it didn’t take that long. The machine takes care of the soy milk, soup, and toast automatically. I only had to make a few other things.” She thought for a moment. “It only took an hour!”

“An hour?!” The slice of bread in Su Yuzhe’s hand suddenly felt so heavy. “Doesn’t that mean... you started making breakfast at six-thirty, since you came to wake me at seven-thirty?!”

“Hehe, it’s nothing. I just thought I’d make a few more things so you could choose what you wanted to eat. I’m really happy whenever I make breakfast for you.”

Mm, she wasn’t going to tell Yuzhe that she’d actually started preparing everything before six.

She’d even spent half an hour in the middle admiring her brother’s sleeping face...