Bright Sunday morning with clear blue sky, surrounded by her precious children, of course it will be another perfect way to start off the day for Niu, much better than yesterday. Now the four of them are enjoying their breakfast together as they are talking about yesterday and planning about today’s activities. As usual, Heng and Jieru are the most excited one in this early conversation, putting aside that they just woke up few minutes ago. All of them want to spend the entire day and night together like there is no tomorrow. “Let’s go fishing today!” Heng suggests excitedly in the middle of their planning. “Let’s go!” Jieru follows right after while Shoi-ming as the eldest sibling just nods and smiles to agree with the suggestion. Seems to be a boring activity but it’s actually so relaxing and all of them enjoy it. The pleasant lake view along with the wind breeze around is enough to make such a relaxing atmosphere for them. Afterall, they all prefer this way, spending time by talking and accompanying each other. Just to be present is actually enough. “It’s settled then. I’ll prepare the things with Qiu. You guys take some rest before we spend the whole day outside. Sounds good?” Niu answers and the children cheer excitedly right away. However, after that cheer, Jieru looks down at her plate. “If only father could join us today…” She mumbles with her saddening face. Hearing that, obviously it draws everyone’s attention to the dining table and the mood changes a little bit. On the other hand, actually Niu hides the fact that her children will come. In the matter of fact, knowing or not, Quan will put his work as the priority anyway. That’s why she chose not to tell him about their children's visit. “I’m sorry that father got some extra errands for this week, sweetheart.” Niu replies and tries to reach her hand out to caress Jieru’s soft hand. That doesn’t count as lying. It’s true that Quan has some work to do there since he needs to catch up on a lot of things there as a consequence of taking his boss' offer. Thankfully, her furrowing face doesn’t last that long as Jieru looks up with a smile on her face. A genuine one that she accepts already. After that, just like what Niu told them to do, Jieru and Heng get into their rooms to get some rest while she and Qiu are preparing their needs for today’s agenda. In the middle of that, suddenly Niu notices that Shoi-ming who is nowhere to be found. Hence, she tells Qiu to continue making the fish bait while she is gone looking for his eldest son. It doesn’t take long because Niu still remembers where Shoi-ming usually goes whenever he wants to be alone. Correct, the backyard field with his body leaning forward on the fence, getting mesmerized with the view. “Smart head business?” Niu says and softly taps on his shoulder then stands up beside him. Shoi-ming turns his head for a bit then gets back to the previous spot. “Nothing, Mom.” He chuckles and replies casually. However, Niu just knows her children so well that she will get it in no time whenever they try to hide something. “You know I can read you like an open book, right?” Tries to convince him once again and of course, Shoi-ming’s walls are not that strong whenever it comes with his own mother. Hence, he just sighs with a defeated smile and shakes his head lightly. “Just no matter how many times I try not to think about it, it still haunts me down even to my sleep, Mom…” Straight telling his thoughts right away which Niu knows exactly what she is referring to. “Well… everything seems to be just fine, my dear. I don’t know what else I can say but I’m completely fine. It’s true sometimes whenever he gets back home, he will yell or get angry at me but thankfully he doesn’t attack me. Physically.” She replies, emphasizing the last word. “How often is he like this again? Leaving you alone here with Qiu?” This time Shoi-ming’s voice sounds more intimidating and coupled with irritation. Hearing that, Niu understands right away how worried he is toward her. “Hmm… a few weeks if I’m not mistaken. He has a lot of things to do there.” Niu answers calmly and joins him leaning her body on the fence as now both of them are facing toward the residential area’s view. “Works or something else?” He turns his head to look at Niu with his sharpened eyes, remembering what Quan has done to this family a while ago. Even though there’s no updated news or rather anyone knows about if Quan still has another affair behind them, it seems like Shoi-ming just can’t let it get through easily like that. It keeps fresh in his mind no matter what it is. To answer that, Niu can only make sure one thing, it’s true that Quan is busy with his work. Meanwhile the other one, nobody knows about that hidden relationship unless someone caught them again. “Well… I guess you need to know about this, my dear.” Niu answers and turns her head to look at the front. “It’s true that he is busy with work. I know that for sure because he is taking his boss’ offer.” From here, Shoi-ming narrows his eyes in confusion. He knows that his father is such a hardworking person but Quan won’t be struggling doing his works from Han. “To make it short,” Niu looks back to his son, “Han is going to retire soon and gives an offer to your father to take over the company. That’s why he is packed up with the work to keep up with everyone and not only on one or two things like how he always has been.” By this, Niu reads Shoi-ming changed expressions closely. Most likely he must be shocked hearing the news and thinks how things can turn out to be like this. While waiting, Niu returns her gaze to the view “Meanwhile for the other one, I don’t know and don’t want to know about it. If their relationship is still up or not, either is fine for me. Technically, I don’t care about it anymore.” That’s the end of her answer which leaves Shoi-ming to stay silent as he just stares toward her mother’s face. After blinking his eyes repeatedly, he gets back to his senses and the anger that just pumped up earlier cooldowns. “Isn’t that… too much for him…?” A sudden question that sounds totally the opposite from the previous one. This one sounds to be full of worries which makes Niu chuckles and shows a tiny smile on her face. Both of them might not make the exact same expression but their feelings are the same, there is a slight feeling of pity. “I know, right? But, well… he made his decision already. You know what comes after. Best of luck for him, I guess?” Niu replies defeatedly. Once again, it leaves Shoi-ming speechless as his body slowly gets back to leaning on the fence. They stay there for a while, enjoying each other's company along with the residential area view. Actually from this small conversation, Shoi-ming catches something off. Only one thing which is the reason behind his father's decision. Why would his father take a very risky offer? He knows that his father always thinks twice, even more than that, to take such a huge responsibility along with other things he has. His family, his siblings, and now taking over a business? Shoi-ming can’t even imagine how energy drains Quan’s position right now. This side seems to have a perfect Sunday morning meanwhile on the other side just the complete opposite of it. Inside a messy room that looks like a working place, the curtains are still closed but there is a slight gap in it which gives an access for sunlight to brighten the room a little bit. The clock on the desk shows time has already passed nine and in front of the desk there is a long glass table with two couches beside it. On one of those couches, there is someone laying down with papers covering his body and face. That person is still wearing his wrinkled shirt with loosened necktie. Totally awful and exhausted as he probably needs extra time to rest. Unfortunately, that won’t happen because his phone rings loudly which makes his eyes open wide in an instant. “Arrgghhh!! Turn it off!” He whines frustratedly as his hand tries to reach his phone to turn it off. Without realizing it, he accidentally puts his phone a bit too far away which makes him can’t reach his phone. A little bit pushed from him, without realizing it, he is already on the edge of his couch. As expected, Quan falls from the couch which makes him whine even louder to the point he is cursing. “Arrggh! Darn it!” He shouts then whimpers in pain while the alarm’s sound is just getting louder. Because of that short chaotic moment, it makes Hui knock on his door, asking permission to get inside as she still can hear the alarm from the other side. “Gege Quan? Are you okay?” Hui asks with both a worried face and voice. Even though Hui is just a housemaid, everyone tells her to call them as if she is a part of the family. No answer which automatically makes her even worried so she decides to slowly open the door. Quan never locks his working place unless he is not in there or leaving the room. When Hui steps inside the room, she gets shocked by how Quan’s room looks like a disaster. After that, her eyes wander around the room and stop at the place between the table and the couch where Quan just fell down. This is her first time seeing him like this. “Gege Quan?!” Hui repeats with raised voice as she rushes in to get closer to Quan who is still on the floor. “Ugghh… I’m fine, Hui… No need to worry about me…” Quan replies with his eyes close tightly while he is rubbing his forehead. That’s the total opposite with his current condition right now. But no matter how much the others try to argue with it, Quan won’t admit it. That’s how Quan is, always trying to bear everything by himself and won’t tell anyone about his problems. Hence, Hui can’t say anything back at the moment as she just stares at him worriedly and waits for an order of what he wants her to do for him. “What time is it?” Quan asks, still with the same position, but one eye opens then tries to look at the nearest clock on the wall. “It’s ten past seven, Gege Quan.” Hui answers it right away, knowing that Quan is probably going to ask the first time he wakes up. Hearing that, Quan jolts and his eyes are wide open as if he just got an electric shock. He turns his head toward the clock, making sure if he just heard it clearly, and it’s correct. With that widened eyes, Quan stands up instantly from the floor. “Shit, shit, shit, shit!” He says repeatedly with his panicked voice while rummaging the mountain of papers on the glass table. Leaving Hui without any idea of what he is doing as she just stands there while staring at him worriedly. After a while, Quan finally finds some of the papers he is looking for then he quickly brings it toward his desk. “Is breakfast ready yet?” Quan asks while checking the papers that he just got and some from one of the folders. “I made wheat noodle soup this morning, boiled eggs, and steamed tofu, Gege Quan.” Hui answers. “Can you bring a bowl of that with two eggs to my room?” Finally the first order that Hui has been waiting for. Thankfully, even in these hectic moments, Quan still pays attention to his health. “With pleasure, Gege Quan. Please wait for a moment.” Hui answers and bows lightly before leaving the room to do Quan’s order. Leaving his room, Hui goes straight to the kitchen to heat up the wheat noodles and the tofu then prepare the bowl as well as putting the veggies on it. In the middle of that, she suddenly hears someone just unlocking the front door which makes Hui confused and puts her guard up. But what shows up when Hui takes a peek toward the front door direction, she only finds out that Wuying just came back home. Her hair and outfit look a bit messy as she tries to take off her heels in a hurry. This view obviously makes Hui even more confused with the situation of why Wuying acts up like this? However, what’s more important is where she was up to last night? When Wuying turns her head to look around, Hui quickly hides back in the kitchen and pretends that she doesn’t witness that. Getting no one in her sight, Wuying hurriedly runs to her room. The closed door’s sound can be heard, Hui finally can let out her breath that she has been holding on. Not wanting Wuying to notice her earlier. Obviously, she wants to inform Quan about it but at the same time she is afraid to do so. Meanwhile back to the person who just rushed to her room, she locks it once she gets in then presses her body on it. Both of her fists squeeze tightly, her breath is unstable, probably because of the adrenaline in that short of time getting home, and her eyes look furious. There is frustration, disgusted, and anger on it which makes it hard to describe her current condition. She slowly walks toward her bed and sits there with her face covered with her hands. Not long staying like that, she lets out a heavy sigh then looks down to her feet. Seems like last night just didn’t go as well as how she wanted it to be. The vibration from her phone makes her jolt from her position as she glances toward her phone’s screen. There is a message notification from an unknown number. ‘Hey, are you okay? Please take a lot of rest today.’ That’s what shows up on the notification’s text. Wuying squints her eyes then the notification goes away from the screen as she closes her eyes tightly once again along with another heavy sigh. She pitches the bridge of her nose, seems to be someone who is in a lot of trouble just from one night. “What should I do…?” She whispers, asking herself who is in the middle of deep thoughts. Even though she doesn’t save that certain someone’s contact, she knows exactly who sent that to her. Not long after the first notification, her phone vibrates once again which makes her glance back. ‘Sorry about last night. Let’s talk it out when you’re ready.’ Reading this, Wuying’s expression furrows and is full of anger. Her mind seems to be showing what happened last night which pushes her to the limit and starts ruffling her hair out of frustration. Not long staying like that, she suddenly hears someone knocking on her door. “Excuse me, Jiejie Wuying? Breakfast is ready.” A female voice, their housemaid, Hui. Hearing what she just called her, it lifts up a little bit of her burden in her chest. In her perspective, she thinks that Hui doesn’t notice that she just got home a few minutes ago which means no one in the house knows that she went out somewhere last night. However, the truth says it all the way around. “Okay~ I’ll be there in a minute~” Wuying replies childishly like usual and pretends her voice as if she just woke up. After that, she can hear Hui’s footsteps getting away from her door, then she lets out another sigh. This one is a sigh of relief as she plops her body to lay down on the bed for a bit. Her face looks like she has a lot in mind but she needs to put all of thoughts away for a bit then proceeds to change her clothes into pajamas. It only takes a couple of minutes then she goes out from her room and heads toward the dining table. Surprisingly, her brother is not there yet which makes her look at Hui who is still making up the table confusedly. “Where is Gege?” Wuying asks as she approaches her seat. “Oh, good morning Jiejie. Gege Quan is having his breakfast in his working room. Seems like there are still a lot of things to do.” Hui answers with a smile on her face. Just as natural and casual it is which makes Wuying even more relieved that Hui seems to not know anything about her. However, what bothers Wuying in an instant at the moment is hearing her brother’s condition. It’s Sunday morning but Quan is already working? What an insane thing, she thought. “Ohh… I’ll try to call him then.” Wuying replies and looks over Quan’s room. Hui doesn’t say anything back as she just bows lightly, letting Wuying to come to her brother’s room. “Gege~ Let’s have breakfast together~” Wuying says when she rushes into the room. One of her bad manners, she never knocks before getting inside which makes Quan shocked and looks at her in an instant. But then Wuying gets surprised by how disastrous Quan’s room is as she looks around every corner of the room with widened eyes. Noticing that, Quan immediately puts down all of the papers on his hand and stands up from his seat. “Ah, Wuying. What are you up to? Do you want to have breakfast now?” He says while rushing himself to approach his sister, trying to get her attention from his messy room. “What happened to you, Gege? Did you really work so hard to take Han’s offer?” Wuying asks and looks at Quan with a worried face. Hearing and seeing that, it makes Quan’s heart ache because he doesn’t want Wuying to worry about him. “I’m completely fine, Wuying. There are just some things that I need to catch up on since I’m taking Han’s offer, right?” Quan replies firmly, not wanting to make his sister worried “But aren’t you working too hard? Look at your room… This is the first time Wuying seeing it like this…” The worries on her face slowly turn into the pity one which makes Quan’s heart ache even more. “Please don’t worry too much about me, Wuying. I’m fine. I can handle this. You can trust me. After all, I’m doing all of this because of you, right?” Quan replies, trying to reassure her. However, those words turn out the opposite way as Wuying looks at him weirdly. Those words just don’t sound quite right for her at the moment because probably her emotions are still boiled up from the pressures she just got. “What?” She replies in an intimidating voice which makes Quan change his expression as well, not expecting to get such a cold reaction. Something must be wrong, Quan thought. “Are you trying to say that I’m the reason why you are suffering like this? Are you blaming me because I encouraged you to take the offer?!” Continues by raising her voice a little but as she slowly walks a bit from him. “N-no, Wuying. Why would you say such a thing? I would ne–” Quan says and tries to reach his hand to grab Wuying’s arm. But seeing his movement, it suddenly makes Wuying horrified, then she slaps his hand right away. Obviously her sudden action surprises both of them. For Quan, it seems to be like Wuying is overreacting or simply because his words are just too much for her. Meanwhile for Wuying, she doesn’t expect that she is going to act like that toward her own brother. “That’s it! I don’t want to talk with you anymore!” She yells at him before storming out of the room. Don’t want to make her brother notice if something happened to her last night. However, she never knows whenever she acts like this, it only gives Quan another pressure, heavier one than any other things he faced. Once Wuying leaves the room, Quan drops his body at the nearest couch then lets out another heavy sigh with his eyes closed tightly. “I’m the worst…” He whispers to himself. Cursing and blaming himself for the things that just happened. The pressure just keeps coming from nowhere to Quan.
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