Let Me Chase You (Completed)

Chapter 26: The Final Push

You're an 'Adult', they say; You should know better, they expect. Yet when the waves come crashing down, even the lecturers may freeze from shock, appearing as lost as a headless corpse.

Xiao Zhan was a twenty-nine years old man who lost his parents at a young age. Even with extended hands from the Jiangs, he tried to support himself to not be a hindrance. Xiao Zhan made it through sleepless nights of college life and the mountainous stress of medical residency. He experienced near death, witnessed the passing of his parents, and stood on the other end of the surgical knife when the monitor beeped an inevitable flatline. Xiao Zhan was not a naive child.

Yet he often found himself in a self-depraving grave whenever people around him were negatively impacted by his actions. Xiao Zhan can recite Jie-jie's supportive conversations whenever he retracted into his shell and he understood that if someone repeatedly told you the same thing, it was probably true. But humans were creatures of habit. Even when we know it's deadly, we deliberately step into the trap again and again.

Xiao Zhan worked hard to be where he was today: He was proud of what he has done to earn his current title. So, if Mrs. Yu had attacked that aspect, Xiao Zhan would have fought back in a gentleman's tone. However, what she aimed at was his family... and Yibo.

"How..." Zhuo Cheng started but was disrupted by another's rage.

"How dare she??!! Just because she has status? So what if her daughter is famous? What the fu..."

"She's not wrong," Xiao Zhan interrupted Zoey's rampage. "I'm not from their world. I'm no one," Xiao Zhan whispered.

"You. Are. My Brother. You are not a nobody," Zhuo Cheng squeezed out each syllable so Xiao Zhan doesn't miss a single breath. "You choose to not be known, but it takes little to no effort to gain attention as demonstrated from the concert. You choose to not be in their world. Our world."

Xiao Zhan flinched at the hurt tone that Zhuo Cheng rarely displayed. Again, he understood well how his self-sufficient mind created a wall that even Zhuo Cheng and Jie-jie couldn't breakthrough. Xiao Zhan just can't seem to open up to anyone completely. He puts on a prideful facade; a headstrong personality; but really, was just a scared child at heart.

Since Xiao Zhan provided the information that Zhuo Cheng wanted, he was spared from the interrogations of Uncle and Aunt Jiang. However, he was a fool to hope that Jie-jie would be kept in the dark, even if it was just one day.

The three siblings found themselves in Xuan Lu's backyard, each holding a bottle of beer. Being a gracious lady that Xuan Lu was raised to be, Mrs. Jiang would have a fit if she saw Xuan Lu holding such a barbaric drink. However, when the situation gets this serious, no one cares about etiquette.

With a bottle in hand, the siblings stared off into the distance with the sounds of crickets partying through the night. Perhaps they were replaying the events in their heads; perhaps they were thinking about what new things they have not comforted Xiao Zhan with already; perhaps they were simply enjoying the peace before someone made an outrageous remark. In the end, it was Zhuo Cheng who threw a boulder into the calm water.

"I still need an assistant for the trip."

"..."

"A-Cheng," Xuan Lu.

"What? At least we'll know where he "runs off" to and I'll be able to keep an eye on him."

"..."

"..."

An outrageous idea that supported the "runaway" act in which Xiao Zhan had pulled off a few times when he was younger. They were outlandish words from Zhuo Cheng, but it also proved how pathetic Xiao Zhan was to place his siblings into such a spot. At the end of the day, he truly was still a child.