"So that means yesterday you and Shou-sensei lived together?"
"Mm, speaking of which you called me yesterday, right. Sorry, I was feeling tired so I just went to sleep, which's why I didn't pick up the call."
"It's alright, I only wanted you to play [Survive] with me to show those fellas our spirit of teamwork."
"That so. Oh yeah, do you know good-teacher rather well?"
"I guess, since my sister was one of the unlucky victims who couldn't return home that day."
"Eehh........ so it's that day when you overslept and missed the bus to school."
"Please don't say it like that, also, you called me up to the rooftop just to tell me about this?"
"Course not, here, take a look at this."
I took out two lunchboxes from the package that i was holding with my hands, one filled to the brim with rice, another with freshly-cooked dishes. Both lunchboxes though had such an enormous amount that I'm definitely sure that I can't finish all of them by myself.
"Actually I wanted to call over that brat Lu Bin to eat as well, but he was forced to stay back as he actually forgot to do his homework."
"Ha, it's his own loss then."
I gave a portion of the rice to Guan Guo, before beginning to chat leisurely.
"Oh, right. Actually, I wanted to ask you if you knew more stuffs regarding Shou-sensei."
"About the news regarding good-teacher, everyone already heard of it, and what I know regarding about this is almoat the same to what is being shown on the notice boards."
"Tell me about the portion that's different then."
"You're the same as ever, being a busybody and all."
"I'm not being a busybody, i'm just trying to know more about this 'onee-chan', that's all."
Guan Guo paused, before saying in soft tones: "Actually with regards to her, I only recently heard a bad rumor floating around."
"Heh, sounds interesting."
"You know that our school have a special building just for the medical facilities, right, and it was generally forbidden for students to enter that area, the only permitted people allowed to go in are the medical staffs, and a few days back........... probably a week ago, a huge amount of paralytic drugs were discovered stolen from there, and it was the same coincidental day that Shou-sensei obtained permission to enter the area."
"But this can't prove anything, right."
"That's right, that's what everyone thought too."
For a while, both of us kept silent, and this made me in fact think that nee-chan might be a suspect for the theft case. The question is, if it's really her who did it, what would she use those drugs on anyway?
"Onii-chan! Didn't we agreed earlier that you're to accompany me to the library!"
A girl who had the same facial appearance as Guan Guo but looking waaay cuter had suddenly kicked the rooftop's door open with a single foot; you could say that she appeared rather brusquely.
"Sorry sorry, I was slightly busy with some stuffs, so I've decided not to go."
The girl's face was filled with an expression of extreme rage, and she was about to voice out her anger when she discovered there was someone beside her brother.
"Yuchen onii-san!?"
She only just noticed me!?
"Yo, you're still the same aren't you."
"Of course not Yuchen onii-san!! Are you feeling better already?"
"Hey, it's just a small scratch only, you don't need to worry about that."
"Is it, well then alright."
Afterwards, we told the story of how Shou Yuqian become my onee-chan and our suspicion of her to Guan Guo's sister.
"Impossible!" Her head shook frantically like a sea wave, as if to deny this rumor with all of her might.
"That so..."
I slowly realized, the more I wanted to look for an answer to this question, the more the uneasiness in my heart grew; that what Shou Yiqian brought wasn't the warmth of having a family, but a more familiar kind of feeling, akin to the trauma I had ever since I was a child.
"I think you're over thinking about this, Yuchen. I know that when you're young that incident caused you quite an amount of shock, but don't you think that because of that incident, by becoming paranoid of all the girls around you, it will have a tremendous impact on your future next time."
"Hey, I wasn't paranoid of all the girls around me!"
"ah' Ting!"
[TL: the 'ah' (阿) here is an expression, to call the girl's name (ting) more informally.]
"Got it!"
Guan Ting then suddenly shifted close to me, and almost instantaneously, my body shot backwards in reflex, widening a gap between us.
"Told you."
"Don't you think a normal person would also try to dodge this kind of unexpected assault on him!?"
At this moment, the bell signifying the end of the lunch period rang, and Guan Ting stood up with a 'soh' sound.
(TL: the author likes to use sound effects for everything, just keep it in mind)
"Aah! It's all onii-chan's fault! You've made me forgot about going to the school's library!" After finished saying that, she dashed off like a shot arrow.
"As usual, quickly coming and leaving huh...."
"Not bad eh, my sister being so energetic and all."
After a while, a girl's scream could be heard from the stairs, accompanied by sounds of various collision sounds.
"Aren't you going to calm her down?"
"It's fine, it's fine."
Afternoon's class would be onee-chan's, and when she saw me and Guan Guo entering her class late, her face didn't show any expression of unhappiness, but she remained smiling gently as she gave us a warning before starting the lesson.
☆
"Want to stay over at my house today?"
"Ha? What are you talking about so suddenly."
"I said, come stay over at my house for today, wasn't it a very long time ever since the holidays that you came over to play."
"I'm not talking about that, i meant how would Guan Ting feel about this."
"I don't mind~"
What happened to these two siblings today?
"I've already began to understand, Yuchen if you don't cure your heart problem, then you'll be destined to be alone in the future!"
"So we planned to use this cohabiting with a girl of the same age plan to see if it would help you."
"Not again!?"
And so I was forcibly dragged over to their house.
Although I often came here in the past, but now when his sister Guan Ting is presently around, I could not help but to feel a little nervous, not because of embarrassment though, but due to me not being used to it.
But luckily, Guan Guo is aware of my trauma from childhood, so he tried to avoid placing me in situations where i would be alone with Guan Ting, or to have both of us in physical contact with each other; in which I deeply am grateful to him for, although I'm not so sure in that retrospect if it stems from whether if he's a siscon or not........
When it became midnight, it was my most hated period of time, because during this period of pitch blackness, any sound could frighten me awake.
Pa ta, Pa ta, Pa ta.
The sound of footsteps!
I immediately became wide awake, and I momentarily entered a state of battling mode. As the sound of footsteps became closer and closer, my body felt like it was struck by electricity, as I swiftly backed myself to the corners of the living room.
"Yu, Yuchen onii-san?"
"Ohh, it's Guan Ting, sorry, I scared you didn't I."
"No, I should be, sorry."
An awkward atmosphere engulfed all surroundings, and although I really wanted to head back to the sofa to continue sleeping, Guan Ting still stood there like a log, making me feel uneasy onto heading back.
"Can you listen to what I have to say?"
And so, the both of us moved to the living room, and after Guan Ting took out two cups of milk, she begun to say: "Yuchen onii-san you probably knew about it, the story about my onii-san's left eye."
(TL: it was "living room" in the original text, but I suppose the author could have meant that they were in the front porch of the house earlier, it being Yuchen had backed all the way till there due to fright)
"Mm, I've heard it from him before, it was done by a robber who had attempted to rob your house during midnight before, right."
"That's right, at that time that man had not only stolen our house' money, but had also planned to kidnap me too, but fortunately, my onii-chan heard the commotion from my room, then fought with the robber ferociously..... but because that time he was still a small student, he didn't have the strength to fight back, so he had one of his eyes stabbed blind by that man."
Guan Ting drank a mouthful of milk, as she dreamily described the scenario as if it was happening onto someone else.
Actually I've heard whatever she had just said from Guan Guo before, except that he had told me the hero version of him saving the entire family from fighting off the robber, and I suppose that Guan Ting's version is probably more realistically closer to the truth.
"Afterwards I became like this now, whenever it's 1 to 2 am I'm unable to sleep, so I'll find something to do right now.... like helping my childish onii-san cover his blankets, or go downstairs to learn some cooking and so on."
Actually.... thinking it through, they had a roughly similar situation to mine too......
"But tonight, I could sleep even more better than usual..... because Yuchen onii-san is around."
"Hahahahaha, you sure know how to joke around."
"It's not a joke~! Actually, I'm..... i'm always!!"
KluuuuhhTaaaangggg————————!
At this very moment, the kitchen windows suddenly erupted a sound of some kind of blunt object striking it, followed by the sound of glass shattering, and immediately, Guan Ting became as if she had lost her soul; her whole body became frozen as she just stood there dumbly.
"Wha- what happened!"
An unkempt Guan Guo ran out from his room, and immediately saw the frozen Guan Ting.
"I'll go to the kitchen to take a look!"
Allowing Guan Guo to look after his sister first, I quickly dashed into the kitchen, and what came into my sight was the floorful of shattered glass, and a bat that was bleeding profusely from it's head.
(TL: The adventures of Batchen and Guobin!!)
I heaved a sigh of relief: so this was just an accident after all.
The next day——————
"Sorry, my sister must have given you a fright last night. Nowadays whenever she got frightened in the dark she would just faint all of a sudden, and it would be the same even if she's in the midst of doing something."
"I understand, because that sort of thing happened before."
Guan Ting had already recovered from it, and she was now already sleeping. I didn't want to intrude on both siblings any further, so early in the morning I bade Guan Guo farewell.
"Well then, i'm off. For my precious Saturday, I'm thinking of sleeping throughout the entire day."
"True, after last night's events I also didn't really get to sleep well either."
"Well, see ya!"
(TL: I'd tried to make it as informal between the two best buds as close as possible, as you can tell)
Afterwards, I took a morning cab all the way back to my house district, the time now is about 5am plus, I've got to quickly go home and sleep when I still had the sleepiness in me.
But when I've walked to my house entrance, an unpleasantly tragic event appeared before me.
My house had caught fire........ and it was burnt down entirely to the ground......
"Ai~yah, you're 603's resident aren't you, luckily you're not at home yesterday, if not you'll be like the old man beside you, being burnt to ashes."
"What happened? Wasn't it fine yesterday?"
I couldn't believe it; it wasn't even a day and my house had turned into such a state.
"605's Chen-da'ye was boiling wine to drink, when he suddenly had his heart attack and fell over. He was coincidentally holding onto a bottle of white wine when he fell, and when he collapsed onto the floor an extremely large quantity of white wine splashed onto the gas stove that was still boiling water, and then 'bang' , it became just like that."
(TL: -da'ye is a term used to call someone respectfully of a more prestigious and possibly richer position than you)
My god! You can't be serious about this!?
"Xiao-chen!"
(TL: I decided to switch chen-chan to xiao-chen, basically it's an affectionate way to call someone close to you , think of it as a same meaning as -chan prefix)
I haven't returned back to my senses when I was suddenly tightly bear-hugged by a lady with a fresh fragrance surrounding her.
"Thank god...... thank god that you're alright....." It was nee-chan's voice, don't tell me that she was waiting for me here all the while.
"Nee-chan, you're hugging me too tightly... don't worry, I'm fine."
After quite a few moments later, nee-chan then unreluctantly let go of me, with an unsatisfied lingering expression on her face.
"The house....... is destroyed."
"Yeah......."
"Xiao-chen, do you still have any other place to live?"
"For now...... not yet..."
At this very moment, I saw something on my nee-chan's face that could only be described as 'delight'.
"Well then there's no choice, xiao-chen for now you'll come live with me together temporarily."
"Eehhh!? Can I??"
"Of course, we are a family~"
Family, this word etched into my brain like some sort of a magic spell.... as expected, nee-chan is really thoughtful and caring for me, yet I've kept suspecting her again and again; and at this very moments, I felt ashamed and angry at the me before who asked so many questions, but at the same time I was also thankful, looks like my dad found me an extremely good nee-chan.
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