25: Shattered.
Thud.
The strap of Shen Xie’an’s bag slipped off his shoulder and fell to the floor.
What kind of cursed crow mouth is this.
Brother-in-law is really gone.
Xie Yan’s smiling face froze.
No wonder the Ke family, who had still been bringing up the engagement before, had been so quiet lately.
Originally thought they were planning to discuss it later. Who knew they couldn’t even wait those few days and directly approached Shen Jin.
Once Shen Jin said it out loud, he felt much lighter.
Seeing that both of them still looked like they hadn’t processed it, Shen Jin went upstairs and brought down the letter of annulment he’d received.
Annulments between families weren’t only verbal.
They had to be submitted to the relevant authorities for official notarization.
The process took a few days, and during that period there was still room to turn back.
Yet this document already bore an official seal.
Xie Yan stammered, which was rare for her. “W-when did this happen?”
Shen Jin said, “It’s been a while.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“……”
For such a long stretch of time, were you waiting until it was a done deal?
Shen Qing finally reacted.
Expressionless, he walked toward Shen Jin.
An Alpha’s furious pheromones stabbed into the skin like needles.
Shen Jin was in the late stage of differentiation, and his sensitivity to pheromones was high.
In the instant pain hit, Shen Jin moved on instinct.
He stepped in front of Shen Xie’an and met Shen Qing head-on.
Shen Qing noticed Xie Yan tugging at him, and that was when he reined in his pheromones enough for the two brothers to breathe again.
His brow was tightly furrowed.
“Pack up. We’re going to the Ke household in a bit.”
The cold in Shen Jin’s eyes looked like it could freeze someone in place.
Shen Xie’an behind him was so chilled by it that he didn’t dare to say a single word.
“Does Father hope I’ll go beg them to ‘revoke their decision’?”
Shen Qing didn’t answer right away. In truth, he was disgusted by the Ke family’s underhanded methods.
They had chosen the most efficient approach. If they negotiated with the Shen family, it would be a long, drawn-out process of wrangling.
Solving Shen Jin alone was far easier.
They were counting on the fact that this foolish boy had strong self-esteem, but was young and easy to fool. This clearly showed they didn’t take Shen Jin seriously.
Once Shen Jin lost his Omega status, they discarded him like worn-out shoes.
What angered Shen Qing even more was that Shen Jin hadn’t thought to look for his parents over something this big.
Had Shen Jin completely stopped trusting them?
Shen Qing’s tone softened. “I want an explanation from the Ke family. If there’s a way to salvage it, of course that would be best. Still…”
“Still what?”
In that moment, Shen Jin’s presence flared wide open.
His gaze sharpened so hard it almost forced Shen Qing to step back.
“Is it that hard to accept reality? Can’t you see it? The Ke family’s attitude!”
Shen Jin enunciated each word. “I’m not going.”
After speaking, Shen Jin walked away with firm steps.
He was carrying the instinctive submission toward an Alpha, yet his legs didn’t soften even slightly.
When he opened the front door, he left behind one sentence.
“I’m not giving them a second chance to look down on me.”
Look down on.
That was a heavy phrase.
Maybe because he’d grown up eating from a hundred households, his feelings toward people ran thin.
If he hadn’t truly felt it from the other person’s attitude or words and actions, he wouldn’t have used a description like that.
Maybe it wasn’t the first time.
Maybe it was an accumulation of instances.
Shen Jin left the Shen household as if ghosts and monsters were chasing him, fleeing like he was escaping.
Before powering off his phone, he sent Shen Xie’an a message, telling him he was only staying at a classmate’s place for the time being and not to look for him.
Shen Xie’an replied, and the message sank into silence, like a stone dropped into the sea.
He was furious at Ke Minghuai. He told him long ago to stop saying things like he treated his older brother like a child.
Now look. You don’t even get to be his dad anymore.
He understood his older brother too well. This time was different.
Every year at family gatherings, the Ke relatives privately picked his older brother apart, this and that. The branch-family cousins on the Xie side also couldn’t wait for them to split up.
He even remembered one female cousin’s online handle.
“Did Huai-ge break up today?”
In this engagement, his older brother wasn’t actually happy.
He had never shown it because every time, he made it look like he didn’t care.
Even Shen Xie’an had almost believed his older brother never cared about the engagement at all.
Now Shen Xie’an was more worried about his brother’s safety.
He vaguely remembered his brother still had contact with the Xie family heir. After all, Xie Ling had raised his brother for several years when he was little.
That bond was different, yet there was no contact information.
He was technically a cousin too, but Xie Ling didn’t spare him so much as a glance.
It wasn’t only him.
The branch household had pulled too many shady moves in the past.
Xie Ling didn’t care about branch-family people at all.
Shen Xie’an anxiously flipped through his contacts, then suddenly saw an avatar of a landscape painting.
It was that handsome guy who’d ridden the elevator with him, the one who lived across from his brother’s dorm room.
Thank goodness there was still an inside informant.
He quickly typed out a message.
[Handsome guy, are you in the dorm? Can you help me check across the hall? Did the person in that room come back yet?]
No reply.
Shen Xie’an waited in mounting anxiety.
Hearing his parents arguing downstairs, he shut his door completely.
Only now do you realize it.
Older brother has already cut his heart away from you.
*
Shen Jin wandered the streets with no destination.
It was the weekend, and there were people everywhere.
In the distance, a business had just opened, and an inflatable tube man swayed outside in the air.
Staff were handing out balloons to children passing by.
A little girl’s hand loosened. The instant the balloon slipped free, a tall, slender figure grabbed the string.
The girl stared blankly at the unreal-looking older brother in front of her.
“Wow. Th-that’s amazing.”
Her mother pulled her close and thanked him, but Shen Jin had already walked far away.
Shen Jin steadied his mood, then finally started thinking about where to go.
He’d wanted to go to the Xie household, then remembered that last night Xie Ling had said he’d be traveling for three days.
Shen Jin looked at the traffic-filled street and couldn’t decide which direction to take.
The clouds darkened and sank, swallowing the daylight.
Watching the sky, Shen Jin went to a bus stop and boarded a bus headed for school.
He went to the school library.
When it was time to show his library card, he couldn’t find it.
He wracked his brain and still couldn’t remember where he’d put it.
In the end, the administrator recognized him and scanned his student ID card, barely letting him in.
There weren’t many people in the library. Everyone was quiet, reading or doing homework at their seats.
He randomly found a spot and sat down.
He wanted to find an analytic geometry book. After searching around without finding it, he asked the administrator and learned that just moments ago, three copies in a row had all been borrowed.
When he asked, the administrator told him that just now, three copies in a row had been checked out.
If he couldn’t borrow a book, he’d do practice papers.
When he pulled them out, he realized his bag was almost a river.
He had been flustered about the missing library card, so he took a drink of water to steady himself.
He hadn’t tightened the bottle cap.
The entire backpack was soaked like a drowned rat, and several pages of practice papers were wet, torn, and ruined.
Shen Jin took everything out one by one and slowly blotted them dry with tissues, yet many characters had already blurred.
The more anxious he got, the harder it was to wipe them clean.
Outside the window, storm clouds piled up. A thick bolt of lightning split down.
Inside the bright room, the flash washed across his face. Shen Jin wanted to make it back to the dorm before the downpour.
He hastily gathered everything, stuffing the half-dry items into his bag in a rough bundle.
The dorm area wasn’t far. It was a ten-minute walk at most.
Shen Jin just didn’t expect that the moment he stepped out of the library, a drifting, torrential rain would suddenly crash down.
Raindrops smacked against him, loud and relentless. Even the wind and rain came too fast, pouring like madness.
The umbrella he’d just opened flipped inside out.
Shen Jin bent the ribs back one by one. This umbrella had been with him for more than ten years. Thus, it didn’t survive the next gust and the canopy tore away and flew off.
Shen Jin was distracted that he tripped by a pit in the road surface and fell to the ground. Splashing water soaked his clothes.
This time, he didn’t get up right away.
He stared at the umbrella that was only bones now and thought, why couldn’t it hold on a little longer?
It was a thing so small it couldn’t be smaller.
Normally, he would’ve laughed it off.
All of a sudden, he didn’t want to move.
Rain hammered down.
On the silent campus walkway, a slender figure crouched halfway down.
A thin stream of water flowed past his side, carrying fallen leaves along with it.
*
An umbrella appeared above Shen Jin’s head, blocking out the wind and swaying rain.
Only after a long moment did Shen Jin react.
Why was the rain gone?
He slowly lifted his head. Rain slid from his bangs and clung to his eyelashes.
He blinked, and a drop slipped into his eye and stung.
Mist blurred his vision.
The person who came was breathing a little hard, like he had rushed over.
On that sharply defined, handsome face, there was a trace of urgency. Once the haze cleared, Shen Jin finally saw who it was.
Said person crouched down, meeting his eyes at the same level.
“What are you doing?”
Shen Jin didn’t answer.
The person very patiently repeated it again.
Shen Jin looked toward the lonely umbrella frame not far away and said calmly, “The umbrella blew away.”
It carried a thread of grievance, and confusion.
Qian Kun shifted the umbrella in his hand.
“There’s another one.”
He helped the person up, checked him over in a circle, seeing several scrapes.
Seeing that Shen Jin’s reactions were a beat slow, his voice softened, like he was afraid of startling something.
“Going back?”
Author’s Note:
Jin-Jin: Going back.
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