Chapter 105: THE TRUTH ABOUT HIS MOTHER

Li Hanye sighed and rubbed his forehead, looking at Li Yan with an expression that carried more helplessness than anger. His younger brother had always been stubborn, but seeing how firmly Li Yan had pushed him away made him realize that forcing the matter would only make things worse.

After a moment, he lowered his hand and spoke in a quieter voice. "You truly are Mother’s son. You are just as stubborn as she was."

Li Yan raised a brow at the unexpected statement. No one had ever compared him to his mother before, and the remark immediately caught his attention. He had always been curious about the woman who had given birth to him, but the Li family had never seemed interested in telling him anything about her. All he knew was that she had died after giving birth to him.

That small piece of information had never been enough to satisfy his curiosity. He wanted to know what kind of person she had been, what she had looked like, what she had been like when she was young, and whether there was anything about him that he had inherited from her. Unfortunately, no one had ever cared enough to answer those questions.

Li Yan looked at Li Hanye for several moments before the bitterness he had been holding back returned to his expression. "How can I be? I was the one who killed her. Is that not why you all hate me? The powerless Ger whose birth took his mother’s life?"

Li Hanye pursed his lips after hearing those words. He seemed to understand that Li Yan had carried that belief for a long time, and he did not immediately answer.

Instead, he slowly stood from the stone seat and faced his younger brother with a serious expression.

"I never once blamed you for Mother’s death. It was Father’s fault. Mother had already become quite sickly after giving birth to two children, but Father wanted a daughter. They tried for the third time, and you were born instead. Mother passed away after giving birth to you, but Brother Duhe and I never blamed you for what happened."

Li Yan remained silent as he listened. He had expected many things from this conversation, but hearing his brother say that neither he nor their oldest brother had ever blamed him was something he had never considered.

"We were simply too busy with our own lives and believed Father would take care of you," Li Hanye continued. "When Father told us that he had adopted Li Wei, he said that you were lonely and needed someone to play with. We believed him because we had no reason to think otherwise. I never imagined that the person he brought into the family as your companion would grow up to bully you."

Li Yan’s fingers curled slightly at his sides. For years, he had assumed that the Li family had looked at him and seen the person responsible for their mother’s death. He had accepted that belief so completely that he had never questioned whether his brothers had actually thought that way.

Now Li Hanye was telling him that the hatred he had attributed to them had never existed in the first place. Li Hanye stepped closer when he noticed Li Yan’s silence. He raised a hand and gently placed it against his younger brother’s head before leaning forward to kiss his forehead.

"I have never hated you. You are my lovely younger brother, and that will not change because of what happened to Mother. If you ever feel wronged or bullied, trust that I will defend you to the very end. I know you may not want to accept me as your older brother right now, and I will not force you to do so. I only wanted you to know that I have never hated you."

Li Yan did not move as he listened. The words should have made things easier, yet they only left him more confused. He had spent so long believing that his older brothers had looked down on him that he had never imagined Li Hanye might have been carrying a completely different understanding of their relationship.

Li Hanye did not ask him for an answer. He took the small container of soothing cream that he had used earlier and placed it into Li Yan’s hand.

"Keep this with you. Your cheek is still swollen, so apply it again later."

After saying that, Li Hanye stepped back and gave him one last look before walking away. Li Yan remained beneath the oak tree, watching his brother’s figure disappear between the buildings while the container of soothing cream rested in his palm.

Xiaoxiao remained quiet until Li Hanye was far enough away. She finally spoke, her tone carrying none of her usual teasing.

"Perhaps you should give your brother a chance. I detected no lie in what he said."

Li Yan lowered his gaze toward the soothing cream as Xiaoxiao’s words settled in his mind. He trusted her ability to detect lies, which meant he could not simply dismiss Li Hanye’s explanation as another attempt to deceive him. If everything his brother had said was true, then he had spent years hating someone who was just as clueless as he was.

His thoughts became tangled as he considered another possibility. Could his father have resented him because he had been born a boy instead of the daughter his father wanted? Or did the loss of his wife during childbirth make his father associate his birth with the death of the woman he had wanted to keep alive?

Li Yan had always assumed that his father treated him differently because he was a weak Ger. He had never considered that his very birth might have reminded his father of losing his wife. If that was the case, then perhaps the coldness he had received from his father had never been entirely about his cultivation talent or his status as a Ger.

That realization did not erase what had happened to him. His childhood had still been lonely, and his family had still failed to notice how badly Li Wei treated him. Li Hanye had also admitted that he and Duhe had been too busy to pay enough attention to their younger brother. Li Yan could not simply pretend those years had never happened because his brother had finally explained himself.

At the same time, he could no longer hold onto the belief that Li Hanye had always looked down on him. The truth was more complicated than that, and Li Yan did not know what to do with a truth that conflicted with everything he grew up believing.

Still, Li Yan could admit that the conversation had changed something inside him.

His head began to ache from thinking about it, and he decided to return to his residence and rest. He had dealt with enough for one day, and continuing to sit around would not suddenly give him an answer.

"I’ll head home first. I need to lie down."

Li Yan had barely started walking when he remembered that he had not seen Gu Jun since morning. He had been so occupied with his Master, the Rewards Pavilion, Li Wei, and Li Hanye that he had forgotten to find out what had happened to him.

Li Yan slowed down as he considered where Gu Jun could be. Since he was already heading back toward the residential area, checking on his friend first would not take much effort. If Gu Jun had skipped class for some reason, Li Yan wanted to know what had happened before returning to his own residence.

"Let’s see Gu Jun first."