If The Deep Sea Forgets You

chapter 20

21. The hero with the stone-cold face

After signing her name, she turned and smiled at the man sitting behind her on the sofa and reached out her hand. "Brother... I'm relying on you for my livelihood now."

Having lived for over thirty years, it was the first time Mo Han had heard someone calling him 'brother'. He had no brothers or sisters himself; in fact, he was always silent. When he was young, there would be some people who were so-called daughters of his father's friends who would speak in dainty voices and tug at his sleeves, calling him "Brother Mo." Back then, the only sensation in his heart had been irritation. Those little girls who wore sundresses and revolved around him were each more annoying than the last... When he grew up a bit and started school, because of his good looks, he was always firmly one of the top three guys in his year. There would be some girls from the other classes who ran to his classroom and gossiped about him, while stealing glances at him secretly.

He would overhear them saying, "Look! It's the hunk with the stone-cold face."

The only person who still kept in contact with him and whom he had a good relationship with was his friend Bai Yu. Bai Yu often said, "Your stone-cold face is most appropriate for those little girls with their crushes. They would look up to you as a crush. But on the other hand, you would never ever be someone who is brother or boyfriend material."

The experience of putting Mo Han in the role of a boyfriend was one that Shen Rou had taken on in the place of countless girls out there. Having him as a boyfriend was every bit as good as not having one. Worse still, she had left for America. With the two of them staying in different countries, always busy with work, they could go more than half a month without being in contact.

The lucky thing was that nobody had had the misfortune of being a sister of his. From the time they were kids, be it at school or at home, they would have had to face his stone-cold face everyday. Heck, he wouldn't even have shown them any words of concern at all!

But what Bai Yu didn't know was that the identity of Brother had in fact already been assigned to someone, for them to go through a round of that misfortune!

Mo Han arranged the paperwork on his desk before rising to remark, "Let's wait for your identification to come back to us. When you're feeling better, I'll send you to school."

Xia Qingyi was shocked and was caught in a daze for a moment or so. "I'm going to school?"

Mo Han didn't understand her expression. "What is it?"

She asked him, "You're allowing me to go to school?"

"Aren't you a high school student? If you don't go to school, what will you do?"

She pressed her lips together in helplessness and walked up to him. She puffed up her chest and raised her eyes. With a steely glare, she looked at him with a sort of invisible confidence in her tone. "What I can tell you with certainty is that... I'm an adult now."

Xia Qingyi stood very close to him. Mo Han only had to lower his head to make out her curled eyelashes and that faint breathing of hers. Unknowingly, he took a step back and smiled gently. "Sorry, can't tell."

Dissatisfied, she harrumphed and glared at him in a huff. "I've already passed the age for high school enrollment. Besides, it's too childish to go to school. I'm not going."

Mo Han looked at this little girl who was talking about maturity in front of him and laughed. "So what do you want to do then?"

"Go out to work," she replied.

Mo Han looked her over. "What do you know?"

"I don't know, but I can learn." Even when she said she didn't know, she was feisty. She didn't want to be like the rest of those small children,sitting in a classroom memorizing academic material and answering questions. That would be way too burdensome.

"You still look like a student. You'll know nothing heading out into the working world. It's too early." Mo Han's face was stone-cold.

"If you really want me to go to school, then you have to be prepared that I'm going to miss school everyday. I don't want to cause trouble for you," Xia Qingyi said with some seriousness, looking at Mo Han's face without any sign of relenting.

"That's impossible. You're too young. Go to school." Mo Han's tone was unrelenting, too.

Xia Qingyi stared at him, and her voice grew louder. "I told you. I'm no longer a little child. I've already come of age. I have my own opinions, and I have the right to be responsible for my own actions too. You cannot stop me!"

"I can't stop you? Right now I'm your legal guardian. I'm your brother. I have the right to watch over everything you do alongside providing guidance to you." Mo Han had no idea why he was suddenly saying all this. It was as though he was suddenly going with the flow and accepting this sister of his that had popped out of nowhere!