Rebirth: Different Way [(重生) 殊途]

Chapter 8

Along flight is actually a very boring thing.

Shen Xi was originally planning to sleep all the way back to Zhongjing, but he didn't expect to meet Li Mingxuan on the plane. After holding on for dear life, Shen Xi could not endure in the end and fell asleep without realising it.

When Li Mingxuan turned his head, he saw Shen Xi's sleeping face leaning against the back of the chair. It seemed that because of the flight, Shen Xi slept very restlessly, his long eyelashes fluttering incessantly.

Li Mingxuan stared at Shen Xi with complicated eyes for half a second, then bent down and took out a prepared blanket from the table cabinet next to the seat and gently covered Shen Xi's body.

This was the first time in his memory that Li Mingxuan had been so close to Shen Xi. Compared to the young man he remembered meeting outside the coffee house, the current Shen Xi had changed a lot. Perhaps because he was less repressed by the Shen family, or perhaps he had lived a good life abroad, Shen Xi's bearing had become peaceful instead of violent like in the past. In addition, he had grown up into a unique appearance in the Han family and no one would associate him with the pale, gloomy teenager from before.

If it wasn't for the fact that Shen Ji would regularly follow Shen Xi's movements, Li Mingxuan wouldn't have recognised him at first glance.

Although Shen Xi called Li Mingxuan "Cousin", their relationship was not much different from that of strangers.

When Shen Xi was born, Li Mingxuan was still a child. Due to the cold attitude of the adults towards Shen Xi, coupled with Shen Ji's hatred of his younger brother, Li Mingxuan couldn't help being affected and also rejected Shen Xi. By the time Shen Xi had grown from a baby to a child, Li Mingxuan and Shen Ji went to primary school together, hand in hand. How could a cousin who was not close to him at all be comparable to Shen Ji, with whom he played every day?

As Li Mingxuan grew, he began to understand things. By then he had learned about the complicated situation of his uncle's family from his parents. Although it was inevitable that he had a touch of sympathy for Shen Xi, human hearts are biassed. Weighing his best friend against his younger cousin, the scales of his heart unsurprisingly chose to tilt.

Not long afterwards, Li Mingxuan went abroad to study and had no contact with Shen Xi at all. When he occasionally heard Shen Xi's name, it was only from Shen Cheng's words that Shen Xi had gotten into some kind of trouble again.

Li Mingxuan sighed in his heart. The words "blood bond" were nice to say but how could there be any love without a reason in this world? Any kind of relationship, be it affection or love, would soon scatter like a withered flower without the care and attention of both parties.

Wasn't it the case with him and Shen Xi?

As his eyes fell back on Shen Xi's sleeping face, Li Mingxuan only hoped that Shen Xi was telling the truth and was going back to China because he was tired of staying abroad, rather than because he was thinking of something he shouldn't have.

The Li family and the Shen family were linked by marriage and business interests, so they could be said to be united in glory and in the loss. Whether from a personal or business point of view, Li Mingxuan hoped that the Shen family would remain stable and that there would not be any upheaval, especially in terms of inheritance rights.

However, when he thought of Shen Xi's choice to return to China at this moment, Li Mingxuan had a subtle feeling in his heart. He just wondered if Shen Xi was doing it intentionally or unintentionally.

There was also Shen Rong. Thinking about the phone call from Shen Ji in the middle of the night a few days ago, Li Mingxuan was very flabbergasted. He didn't know what his uncle was thinking. It was just an illegitimate child, did he really want to recognize Shen Rong? If that were to happen, the Shen family would become a joke in Zhongjing.