Chapter 68: The three Bai siblings’ secret meeting

"What the hell, Jianning, are you trying to kill your brother?"

"Brother, third brother is still alive!"

Bai Jiancheng, the second brother, sat up while holding his aching waist. The groggy eighteen-year-old boy rubbed his eyes and scratched his already messy head. "Of course he’s still alive. Didn’t Grandpa say that he’s just recuperating somewhere?"

"Well, I always suspected he was pushed to death by those scums," the girl, Bai Jianning, sheepishly admitted. After receiving a reprimanding flick on the forehead, the little girl said, ’Ouch!’ and held her red forehead, pouting.

Then she remembered what she had heard.

Her eyes suddenly grew very bright, like a high-wattage bulb. "Second brother, you wouldn’t believe what I heard!"

Bai Jiancheng lazily rose from the bed, stretched, and went to the wardrobe to casually pick up a sweatshirt. "You brat, did you eavesdrop on Mom and Dad’s conversation again?"

"If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have known that third brother was actually kidnapped!"

The hand holding the sweatshirt paused.

Soon, the two siblings, Bai Jiancheng and Bai Jianning, went to find their eldest brother, Bai Jian’an, who was studying several papers in his room.

Hearing their youngest sibling describe in detail everything she had heard, Bai Jian’an pushed up the silver-rimmed glasses on his face.

"Are you certain that you didn’t mishear?"

Bai Jianning nodded firmly. "I’m sure, big brother."

The room fell silent in an instant.

Lin Feng, the third brother of their generation in the Bai family.

He was someone they held inexplicable feelings for. Because they all used to live in separate houses scattered throughout the capital, they hadn’t actually had many chances to interact with him.

Adding to that, Lin Feng was a very quiet and private person, gentle and soft-spoken like his mother, their Aunt Yufei. But precisely because they were all gentle people, all three of them had favorable impressions of him.

But this soft and gentle impression shattered the moment they saw the scandal unfold in front of their eyes in great detail.

At first, they were worried about Lin Feng and felt sorry for him, especially when they learned that their aunt had died while witnessing the affair and that Lin Feng had failed to save his mother. Although the scandal also caused people to point fingers at them wherever they went, forcing them to stay at home, they still felt that he was pitiful.

They had also seen the video of him being pushed down. According to their grandfather, he was injured and needed to recuperate in silence.

However, people’s tolerance was not unlimited. When Lin Feng vanished into thin air in the eyes of the masses, many speculations arose. Some said that the Bai family had expelled the victim from their home. Others said that they couldn’t tolerate what the boy had done and had taught him a lesson.

In any case, the scandal grew out of control, and eventually, all three Bai siblings felt that they had to stand on the front lines, enduring all the assaults while the source of it all hid safely in the rear.

Although they still felt that their cousin was pitiful, they also felt that they themselves were innocents who had been dragged into the mess and made to suffer without reason. Their sympathy slowly waned until they were finally numb to it all.

Imagine finally being able to step out of the house comfortably after everything had passed, only for—boom!

Lin Feng was back!

They felt conflicted when they saw how peaceful and comfortable their cousin appeared in the viral erhu video.

Then, just as they were starting to hold a grudge—boom!

Someone threw sulfuric acid on Lin Feng, and it turned out that he was gay.

At this point, all three siblings didn’t even know how they felt.

Now, another, even bigger bomb had just dropped.

Instead of recuperating in secrecy, their cousin, the third brother, had actually been kidnapped by human traffickers and taken to the Tibetan mountains!

Bai Jiancheng crossed his arms, feeling speechless after they had sorted through everything so far. "Damn, at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s actually the protagonist of some melodramatic drama or something."

"And it’s even a BL drama," Bai Jianning sighed.

All their sighing made the air in front of Bai Jian’an humid.

Bai Jian’an took off his glasses, wiped the lenses, and laid them on the table. He looked at his brother and sister.

"Now that he’s coming back, we must not bring up our previous grievances. He has suffered way too much. Compared to being talked about and having to hide at home for a month, what we experienced is nothing compared to everything third brother had to go through."

Bai Jiancheng: "Tsk." He had been hoping to teach that kid a lesson.

Bai Jianning pursed her lips. "Big brother, is third brother really gay?"

Bai Jian’an looked disapprovingly at the youngest. "Fourth sister, don’t speak such nonsense in front of third brother."

"He’s not here yet."

"I don’t know, and we shouldn’t care about it." Bai Jian’an’s tone was firm. "You must remember that we’re all from the Bai family. Our duty is to protect each other."

Bai Jiancheng and Bai Jianning resisted the urge to roll their eyes. If they did, their brother would nag them to death.

"Your answer?"

"Fine!" Bai Jianning replied angrily.

The eldest brother looked at his second brother.

Bai Jiancheng languidly waved his hand. "Whatever. As long as he doesn’t cause me trouble, I won’t cause him trouble."

.....

Inside the study, for three whole hours, Hou Yizhen and Lin Feng snuggled against each other, whispering to each other and kissing every now and then, enjoying their last moments together before parting.

They didn’t know when they would next be able to meet, but they promised to call each other.

Only after Grandpa Bai grew impatient and knocked on the door repeatedly did they finally leave. The old man even insisted that Hou Yizhen must not accompany them to the inner capital.

Surprisingly, Master Hou did not argue.

Housekeeper Yang was very astute. After the servants had hauled everything into the vehicles, he gave them the task of going to the backyard to plow the land and plant the seeds that had arrived for the young master’s initial plan, which had now clearly fallen through.

In order not to waste the seeds, they decided to plant them all anyway.

Now, in the garage, only Grandpa Bai, Lin Feng, Hou Yizhen, Housekeeper Yang, and the bodyguards remained.

As expected, Master Hou did not let go of the boy’s hand until the last minute.

When the convoy finally left the gates and exited Beigou Village, Housekeeper Yang almost thought he saw his master’s back looking forlorn and lonely.

But that was just an illusion.

The moment he turned around, his gaze was like that of a wolf, predatory and sharp.

"Since I now have free time, it’s time to clean up some pests."