“You’d better tell me the truth,” Xie Yunmu warned. The car merged onto the highway. He glanced at the rearview mirror, stepped on the gas, and shot her a hard look for extra pressure.
After thinking it over, Ming Ming decided to throw out the excuse she’d relied on for years. He was used to her nonsense anyway—maybe he’d buy it.
“I—I, um… I was here to meet someone from online,” she whispered like a mosquito.
“What?” Xie Yunmu didn’t hear her. He raised his voice.
“Meeting… someone online.”
Xie Yunmu snapped his head toward her. His face turned storm-cloud dark.
“Meeting someone online?!”
If they weren’t on the highway, he’d probably pull over and twist her ear right there.
“Xiao Xinxin, are you out of your mind? I tell you not to date in school, so you go date online? You lied to the teachers, lied to me, and secretly ran to the next city to meet someone from the internet?!”
Okay. So that excuse did not work.
Ming Ming shrank back and endured his anger, finally realizing her excuse was unbelievably stupid. Crying internally.
“I didn’t meet them in the end…” she tried to salvage some intelligence points.
“Oh? And you sound disappointed?”
“Not disappointed! Not disappointed at all!”
Xie Yunmu gave her a long look. “We’ll talk when your exams are over.”
Which meant: “When exams are over, I’ll deal with you.”
She was doomed. Countdown to execution.
Ming Ming curled up in the passenger seat with her back to him, silently crying her tears of regret.
—
After the high school entrance exams, Ming Ming’s scores were good enough for the best school in the city. Whether she went the regular track or the international track was up to them.
But Xie Yunmu had no intention of letting her go abroad.
Ming Ming thought he had forgotten everything. Maybe the whole ordeal had blown over. She’d act cute for a bit, and they’d go back to their “model big brother/little sister” dynamic.
Unfortunately, Xie Yunmu’s memory was terrifyingly good.
The day before high school registration, while Ming Ming was busily preparing for military training, Xie Yunmu suddenly told her she didn’t need to go.
What? Was there a blessing like this in the world?
“Brother, brother! How did you know I’m fragile and scared of military training? Brother, I knew you loved me most!”
Ming Ming practically burst with joy.
Xie Yunmu, unmoved, delivered the second blow:
“Not only do you not need to go to military training—you don’t need to go to high school at all.”
“…Huh?”
“I’ll keep your student status on record. I’ve hired the best tutors to teach you at home. No need to attend school.”
Ming Ming was stunned. “Wait—why?!”
“Why?” Xie Yunmu repeated. “In my opinion, group school life is just a burden for you. It’s a waste of time you could spend resting.”
His voice was calm, but Ming Ming felt horrified.
What was happening?
Had her brother turned into a psychopath?
The system whispered, “From the human emotion standpoint… is this what you call possessiveness?”
“No way…” Ming Ming thought. “He just doesn’t want me to date early.”
But still—that was extreme!
The system continued, “Yes, but fundamentally, the reason he doesn’t want you to date early is still—”
Xie Yunmu cut in, “If you want to go out and have fun, tell me. I’ll adjust work and your lessons and take you. If you really want to experience school life, you can go one week each month.”
Ming Ming gritted her teeth at the system:
“From a human emotional standpoint, this isn’t possessiveness—this is CONTROL. He’s a total psychopath!”
“When he was younger, he looked like a normal human being. But the older he gets, the weirder he becomes. His age is catching up, and he still hasn’t brought home a sister-in-law. Either he’s a repressed weirdo because he’s still single, or he’s still single because he’s a repressed weirdo!”
The system: “……”
A student who only attends school five days a month? That’s not normal. No way she’d make any friends.
Ming Ming didn’t want to show up just to be stared at like some zoo exhibit. But Xie Yunmu was determined she needed “nutritional balance”—as if school were vitamins—and insisted she attend the last week of the first month of school.
Ming Ming was furious. You could’ve sent me THE FIRST WEEK, genius!
Showing up in the first week is mysterious.
Showing up after a month is obviously someone with connections.
They’d think she hadn’t passed the entrance exam and had gotten in through the back door.
What would people think?
She arrived at school fuming… only to see a familiar face in her class.
Wait—who was that?
Wasn’t that Lu Beichen, the male lead?
How did he get into this top high school?
Ming Ming felt a spark of excitement. Was this fate?
He still looked a bit skinny, but he’d grow into his looks, right? He’s the male lead after all.
“Hi, are you the new student?” Just as Ming Ming was about to approach him, a girl walked up enthusiastically. “I’m Yin Muya. What’s your name?”
“Uh… I’m…” Ming Ming paused. The name sounded familiar.
Wait—who was this again?
The system cackled: “His childhood sweetheart. They came here together. What does that have to do with you?”
Ming Ming: “…”
She refused to give up. “Doesn’t this world allow love interests falling from the sky?”
Hello? A ‘fall-from-the-sky romance’ needs a HOME to fall into, you know?
Yin Muya waved a hand in front of her face.
“Classmate?”
Ming Ming snapped back. “Ah—hi. I’m Xie Xinxin.”
“Oh,” Yin Muya said with a meaningful smile. “What a nice name.”
“Same name as the heiress of the Xie Group.”
Ming Ming stiffened. The Xie Group officially had no daughter. At most, people knew about her as the “illegitimate one.”
Crap. She almost forgot—this girl was the real heiress.
Did she know?
Sam Williams On TYMIMA Chapter 152