Chapter 213: “Big Brother will always like you the most”
Hearing the voice, Yu Yin’s hand froze and instinctively withdrew.
Realizing the fear and guilt in his subconscious reaction, Yu Yin’s expression twisted slightly.
Damn it, why did he come so quickly?
Although he was unwilling to admit it, Yu Yin knew deep down that he was somewhat afraid of Yu Guang. It felt like encountering a natural predator.
A warm, strong hand rested on his shoulder as Yu Guang walked up beside him. “Put him down,” he said.
The cat hadn’t followed, so Yu Yin couldn’t see what kind of expression this “big brother” had.
Judging from his tone, he didn’t seem angry. Thinking carefully, Yu Guang had never truly lost his temper before.
Yu Yin knew that since Yu Guang had arrived, there was no way he could kill this little thing today.
Following his command, Yu Yin set Shi Bai down. The boy collapsed onto the ground in pain, letting out intermittent sobs.
Though he hadn’t been killed, the threads that had burrowed into his body wouldn’t be easy to deal with. He was in for a rough time ahead.
Yu Guang picked up Shi Bai, then took Yu Yin by the hand and led him away.
After handing Shi Bai over to Ban Ying and the others to care for, he led Yu Yin into a room.
The wooden door creaked shut.
The sound of the door closing made Yu Yin’s fingers twitch slightly. That same chilling sense of crisis he had felt when he’d been caught doing something wrong and suddenly heard Yu Guang’s voice crept back over him.
Could it be that Yu Guang intended to settle accounts with him later? But he hadn’t even managed to kill him!
Yu Guang seemed to be staring at him. As his silence and gaze lingered, the air grew heavy and oppressive.
“You wanted to kill Shi Bai just now, didn’t you?” Yu Guang asked.
His voice was still as calm as ever, with only a hint of seriousness.
Yu Yin weighed his options for a moment before decisively shaking his head in denial.
Yu Guang’s movements were so swift and unexpected that by the time Yu Yin realized what had happened, he had already been struck several times.
He lay sprawled over Yu Guang’s knee, his pitch-black eyes suddenly narrowing in disbelief, followed quickly by a surge of intense humiliation, anger, and shame.
Never in his life had he suffered such a profound humiliation!
Yu Yin abruptly turned his head, his usual placid, gentle expression now replaced with a terrifying rage. His pale, delicate face, which always seemed docile and unassuming, suddenly looked like the gaping maw of an abyss.
Swish, swish, swish.
In the dimly lit room, countless black threads materialized, weaving tightly together to divide the space into countless sections.
This was just an ordinary guesthouse room where they were temporarily staying, but Yu Yin had a peculiar habit: wherever he went, he would lay down threads to create a temporary nest where he could rest.
It was this tendency that earned him the nickname “Silk Nest,” for no matter where he went, layers of web-like threads would always follow.
These previously hidden webs now emerged and shot toward Yu Guang, aiming to entangle him.
Yu Guang raised his hand, catching the almost invisible strands of silk.
Compared to the threads he had easily torn apart before, these were much tougher now, with significantly increased resilience. They weren’t so simple to break anymore.
The threads, though seemingly delicate, could become razor-sharp when their tensile strength increased, capable of cutting through objects like a blade.
When woven together in bundles, they weren’t as sharp as a single thread, but they could bind a person tightly with ease.
Yu Guang tore apart several of the incoming bundles of threads, but the calloused palms of his hands were already marked with deep red welts from the tension.
The threads kept coming, surging through the room like countless writhing serpents, until they threatened to fill the entire space.
As Yu Guang pulled at the webs, a thought crossed his mind: Youngest has made remarkable progress lately. He must have been practicing in secret quite a lot.
Meanwhile, Yu Yin’s face was flushed with angry determination. His fingers moved with the precision of a pipa player, manipulating the threads within the room to attack Yu Guang.
As for himself, he had already moved several steps away from Yu Guang, keeping his distance.
The ground was covered in writhing black threads, and Yu Yin retreated, stepping lightly on the silk strands.
“I’m not finished yet,” Yu Guang said, violently tearing through the threads blocking his way. With one powerful tug, he grabbed Yu Yin’s leg and dragged him back.
Yu Yin kicked at him, his expression hardening with anger. The threads around them became sharper and more menacing, slicing through the air with increased speed and precision.
Yu Guang grabbed a chair to fend off the oncoming threads, but with a series of loud cracks, the threads shredded the chair into countless fragments that scattered across the floor.
“You won’t listen to your big brother, and now you’re even angry with me,” Yu Guang said.
He grabbed Yu Yin by the neck, leapt onto the table, and twisted his body to dodge the frenzied silk threads that were flying at them from all directions.
Bang! Bang! Crack! Smash!
The room descended into chaos. Tables overturned, chests broke apart, and even the walls and roof tiles trembled under the relentless onslaught.
The commotion was so loud that a group of young men couldn’t help but gather outside the door to watch the spectacle.
“Is Big Brother fighting with the youngest?”
“They’re going at it so hard! The furniture inside sounds like it’s all smashed. Is the house going to collapse next?”
“Isn’t the youngest really frail? How is he holding his own this long? I think Big Brother is just teaching him a lesson.”
“You just said he’s frail! If this keeps up, won’t he get beaten to death? Someone should step in and stop them!”
The group debated among themselves while the sounds of breaking furniture and shattering porcelain continued to echo from inside the room.
Finally, Pei Wenjue was pushed forward by the others. Clearing his throat, he called out from outside, “Big Brother, Yu Yin, are you two okay in there?”
Yu Guang’s voice came from inside, calm as ever: “We’re fine.”
Yu Yin, however, remained silent. He never liked making a sound, not even the faintest murmur.
The group outside began clamoring: “Big Brother, let’s talk this out! Don’t fight, okay?”
“Exactly, exactly! The youngest is so fragile—what if you accidentally hurt him too much?”
“Big Brother, if the youngest did something wrong, just scold him a bit, or maybe a couple of smacks on the backside. But don’t throw him into the walls!”
For some reason, after this round of persuasion, the commotion inside the room grew even louder.
The walls shook again, as if something heavy had just slammed into them.
When the group of boys outside could no longer hold back and were about to push the door open to intervene, the sounds finally stopped, and the room fell quiet.
Yu Guang opened the door—but the moment he pulled it, the door panel collapsed to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.
He stepped out carrying Yu Yin in his arms.
Yu Yin’s jet-black hair was a tangled mess, his clothes were wrinkled in places, and a few spots had even been torn.
His expression was a complicated mix of emotions—sullen anger that hadn’t quite subsided, humiliation he couldn’t conceal, and a trace of indignant shame. It was a fascinating sight.
As for Yu Guang, his neck bore faint red marks from the threads scraping against his skin, and his sleeve was torn.
His short hair was disheveled, as if someone had grabbed it hard, with bits of splintered wood and white dust scattered through it.
The boys gathered at the doorway craned their necks to peer inside, only to gasp loudly.
The room was in absolute chaos. The bed, table, chairs, cabinets, and chests were either broken or reduced to rubble. Even the roof had a large hole in one of its wooden beams. The floor was littered with shattered teacups and wood fragments.
It looked as if a wild storm had swept through or like the place had been ransacked by a dozen bandits.
Despite the wreckage, Big Brother and the youngest didn’t seem to be seriously injured, much to everyone’s relief.
As they glanced over the two of them, the observant Ban Ying noticed something unusual about Yu Yin’s foot.
“Is the youngest’s foot injured?”
“He got angry and smashed teacups all over the floor, and since he can’t see well, he accidentally stepped on the shards,” Yu Guang explained with a sigh.
He instructed Wu Shan to negotiate compensation with the innkeeper, then carried Yu Yin off to tend to his injured foot.
The two sat facing each other as Yu Guang lowered his head, holding Yu Yin’s ankle gently while applying medicine to the wounds on his foot.
“No more mischief next time, and no lying either,” Yu Guang said, his tone firm but calm.
Sitting cross-legged, he placed the freshly treated foot on his knee, then raised his head to glance at Yu Yin.
“Let’s talk, why did you want to kill Shi Bai?”
Yu Yin had mostly regained his composure, his lips pressed tightly together, wearing an expression that made it seem like he hadn’t heard a word.
But inside, he was seething. Why kill Shi Bai? Of course, it was to eliminate future trouble, to prevent that brat from growing up and teaming up with those annoying people to come after him.
“Shi Bai insulted me and threw mud at me. That made you angry, didn’t it?”
The moment Yu Guang said this, Yu Yin’s expression twisted involuntarily for a fraction of a second.
Damn it. Damn it!
Yu Yin loathed Yu Guang’s keen insight into people’s emotions. The anger he himself refused to acknowledge had been plainly seen through and, worse, spoken aloud by Yu Guang.
And to top it off, Yu Guang was using it as the basis to reprimand him!
Every time Yu Yin tested or attacked Yu Guang, the man’s reaction speed was infuriatingly quick. While Yu Guang never failed when sparring with the clumsy fools from the Tianchong Class, he’d embarrassingly ended up covered in mud from a child’s throw.
“And you’re upset because you think I’m planning to nurture Shi Bai, and seeing me care for him makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t it?”
Yu Yin’s jaw tightened, and he clenched his teeth.
Even the fleeting, subconscious flicker of discomfort had been dragged into the open by Yu Guang.
The shame of being emotionally exposed was even more unbearable than the spanking earlier.
If Yu Yin could speak, he would have argued back—he wanted to kill Shi Bai because the boy would grow up to oppose him.
But the truth was obvious: even if Shi Bai grew into an adult, he would never be a match for Yu Yin. Let alone now, as a mere child, Shi Bai posed no real threat to him whatsoever.
His intent to kill Shi Bai actually stemmed more from Yu Guang’s absurdly accurate guess than any other reason.
“You don’t have to admit it—I can still figure it out,” Yu Guang said, chuckling at the sight of Yu Yin so angry that his hair seemed to bristle. “You’re really something. You can get this worked up just by sulking with yourself.”
After wiping his hands, Yu Guang reached out, grabbed Yu Yin by the neck, planted a big kiss on his head, and ruffled his hair. Laughing, he said, “Don’t worry, Big Brother will always like you the most and care about you the most!”
“Don’t get jealous of other kids, don’t take your anger out on others, and definitely don’t keep fighting with yourself.”
Yu Yin: “…”
Seeing the rare variety of expressions flitting across his brother’s face, Yu Guang had a sudden idea. “If you don’t want me bringing Shi Bai around, why don’t we let Shi Bai stay under your care from now on?”
Yu Guang wasn’t entirely inexperienced in such matters.
With the more challenging younger siblings in their family, once they had a new younger sibling to care for, they often became reliable big brothers themselves.
The more Yu Guang thought about it, the better the idea seemed. He declared unilaterally, “Great, it’s settled then!”
“You nearly hurt him earlier, so you need to take responsibility for what you did. From now on, you’ll look after him—and I’ll be keeping an eye on you!”
This brilliant decision of Yu Guang provided days of entertainment for the teenagers in the Tianchong Class.
Because of Yu Yin’s unique nature, the others would cheerfully call him “younger brother,” but they never dared get close to him, nor did they linger their gazes on him for too long.
Whenever Big Brother was busy, Yu Yin would sit alone off to the side, his only companion being the gray-eyed cat that occasionally disappeared.
Now, with Shi Bai—another uniquely unaffected presence—the two younger ones could keep each other company.
Shi Bai was a bold child. He could sense Yu Guang and the others’ formidable strength but also their goodwill toward him, which made him fearless. He went about his mischievous antics with unbridled energy.
It was almost impossible to get Shi Bai to behave without Big Brother resorting to violent measures.
At times like this, one couldn’t help but marvel at how there’s always something that counters another.
The fearless little Shi Bai, who wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone, had become visibly wary of Yu Yin ever since he was almost strung up and dealt with by him.
Yu Yin’s cold disdain and barely concealed malice hung over Shi Bai like an icy blade, constantly poised at his throat.
As a result, whenever Shi Bai was in Yu Yin’s presence, the usually mischievous boy would quiet down, like a frog frozen under the gaze of a snake.
