Sitting at the dining table felt more stifling than ever. Zhi Han wanted nothing more than to eat happily in her room, but Ming Chen thought otherwise.
As expected, the incident had blown up on the internet and had become a trending topic, causing some of the stocks of the companies owned by the Ming family to drop. And Ming Chen, realising the cause was his own son, was not having it at all. He was enraged, in fact.
So unlike the days when he would come back in the midnight when everyone had gone to sleep, or sometimes sleep in the office, Ming Chen came back early today and called for a family dinner.
Well, Ming Ye wasn't at the dining table. And there was a deadly silence. On Ming Chen's face was a scowl.
Zi Han, unable to eat her food, took a good look at Ming Chen. He was handsome. He was basically an older version of Ming Ye, with grey streaks mixed with his brown hair.
"Where is he?"
The butler, who had been standing near the doorway, answered quietly. "Young Master Ming Ye has not yet returned, sir."
Ming Chen said nothing.
He picked up his chopsticks, set them back down, and looked at the door.
Zi Han stared at her soup.
Yi Ran awkwardly picked up her phone. Though Ming Chen was a man who always had an oppressive air around him, she had never seen him this angry before.
Just then, the sound of light footsteps could be heard.
Ming Ye walked into the dining room lazily with his hands in his pockets. His gaze scanned the dining table and landed on Zi Han, causing her to slightly shiver.
Then he walked past the table towards the stairs.
"Stop."
Ming Ye stopped.
He didn't turn around immediately.
"You're late," Ming Chen said.
"I'm aware," Ming Ye said.
"Sit down."
Ming Ye looked at the table. At the empty chair. At the soup that had been placed there at some point in the last hour.
He walked back to the table, pulled out his chair, and sat.
There was an awkward silence that lasted for approximately 30 seconds. Then Ming Chen spoke.
"Do you know what happened to the company stock today?"
"Mm," Ming Ye said.
"Three point two percent. The stocks fell by 3.2% because my son decided to hang a classmate off a rooftop."
Ming Ye said nothing.
"I had three calls from the board this afternoon," Ming Chen continued. "Three. And an email from the school's parent liaison, which I will need to respond to this week. All of this because—" he stopped. "Where were the security staff? Where was your driver? Why was there no one—"
"I went to the rooftop alone," Ming Ye said.
"That is not the point—"
"Then what is the point?" Ming Ye reached for his chopsticks. "Say it directly."
The temperature in the room dropped.
Ming Chen set his own chopsticks down. "You are irresponsible. You have always been irresponsible. You behave as though your actions have no consequences for anyone but yourself, and you have done this your entire—"
"Who made me this way?"
The words came out lightly. Almost pleasantly.
Ming Chen went very still.
"I'm sorry?" he said.
"I said," Ming Ye repeated without a stutter, "who made me this way."
A muscle moved in Ming Chen's jaw.
"After your mother left," he said, and his voice had changed, though still composed, but with something underneath it now, maybe pain, "I did everything. Everything that was required. I provided for you. I ensured your education. I gave you every—"
"Mm." Ming Ye served himself from the nearest dish. "And you want gratitude for that."
"I want basic—"
"Gratitude," Ming Ye said again, as though the word sounded interesting. "For the bare minimum. Noted."
"You ungrateful—" Ming Chen stopped himself. Then exhaled. "Your grades. Do you have any idea what your current standing looks like? Do you have any concept of what is expected of someone in your position—"
"Probably better than average," Ming Ye said. "I am an heir after all."
Ming Chen's gaze moved briefly to Zi Han.
Zi Han's spine straightened involuntarily. Why did she have a feeling he was about to involve her in this issue?
Don't, she thought. Please don't. I am a piece of furniture. I am a very unremarkable chair. I am not here—
"Zi Han's academic record," Ming Chen said, "is exemplary. Ranked second in her year. Scholarship student. She has managed to maintain that standing while adjusting to an entirely new environment." He looked back at Ming Ye. "And you, with every resource available to you, cannot manage to pass a mathematics exam."
Damn it, why could she just be left out of this conversation?
Zi Han looked very hard at her soup. Being compared in the middle of this argument felt like standing between two storms.
She could feel Ming Ye not looking at her, which was almost worse than if he had.
"You should learn from her instead of wasting time with those degenerates you call friends. Focus on your books for once."
Ming Ye leaned back slightly, his expression thoughtful.
"My lack of intelligence," he said lazily, "can only be blamed on the genes of my parents."
Ming Chen's patience finally snapped.
"You were a straight-A student when you were younger!" he barked. "Don't pretend you're incapable."
For a brief second, something flickered across Ming Ye's eyes.
Then it disappeared.
"Additionally," Ming Chen continued, "your behavior today has now become a public matter, and a board matter simultaneously, which is a remarkable achievement in incompetence even by your recent standards—"
"Father," Ming Ye said pleasantly, "you're repeating yourself."
"I am trying to make you understand—"
"I understand fine." Ming Ye set his chopsticks down. "You're embarrassed. The stock dropped. The board called. You want me to be different. You've wanted me to be different for a long time, when... I think it was when Mum abandoned us, and it hasn't worked yet, but this time you'd like to try again." He tilted his head. "Is that the summary?"
Zi Han's spoon made a small sound against the edge of her bowl.
She hadn't meant for it to.
Everyone looked at her.
She looked at the spoon. Then at the table. Then she looked up.
"He was provoked," she said.
The room went quiet in a different way than it had been quiet before.
Ming Chen looked at her. "I beg your pardon?"
Zi Han set her spoon down carefully.
"The student on the rooftop," she said. "He went there looking for Ming Ye. He initiated the confrontation." She paused. "I was there. I saw it."
She was aware of Yi Ran's teacup frozen halfway to the table. She was aware of the butler near the doorway, who had gone very still. She was aware, in the particular way she was always aware of Ming Ye without meaning to be, that he had stopped eating.
She did not look at him.
"That doesn't excuse—" Ming Chen began.
"I'm not excusing anything," Zi Han said as a matter of fact. "I'm saying the information you have is incomplete. The stock drop, the board calls, those are consequences of what happened on the rooftop. But what caused what happened on the rooftop is a separate question." She picked up her chopsticks again. "I thought it was relevant."
Then she looked back at her soup and took a sip, forcing herself to gulp it down.
She had done something she shouldn't have ordinarily done, but still...
The silence lasted approximately four seconds.
She could feel Ming Chen looking at her. She could feel Yi Ran looking at her. She could feel a huge weight resting on her.
She did not look at Ming Ye.
She didn't need to.
She could tell, from the silence coming from his direction, that he was looking at her. Not the assessing look from the hallway. Not the cold look from the rooftop. Something she didn't have a name for and wasn't going to look up to find.
She took another sip from the soup.
It had gone slightly cold.
Ming Chen was quiet for a moment. Something moved across his face before he turned back to Ming Ye.
"Provoked or not," he said, and his voice had changed slightly, lost some of its earlier momentum, "the result was the same."
"Mm," Ming Ye said.
He sounded, for the first time in the entire dinner, almost amused about something other than his father's anger.
Ming Chen looked at Ming Ye for a long moment, then rubbed his temple.
"You will stop associating with whoever it is you spend your time with," he said. "You will focus on your academics. You will bring your grades to a passing standard before the end of the term." Each sentence landed like something being placed on a table. "And you will do it with Zi Han's help."
Zi Han's chopsticks slipped, but she caught them before they fell on the floor.
Nobody looked at her.
Nobody except Ming Ye, who looked at her for exactly one second with an expression she couldn't read, and then looked back at his father.
"No," he said.
"This is not a negotiation—"
"I don't need a tutor."
"Your grades suggest otherwise."
"My grades," Ming Ye said, "are my business."
"Everything you do is my business," Ming Chen retorted sharply. "Everything you do reflects on this family, on this company, on me, and I am tired, Ming Ye. I am tired of managing the consequences of your—"
"Then stop," Ming Ye said simply.
"If you will not follow the basic requirements of living under this roof," Ming Chen answered coldly, "then you are under no obligation to remain under it. The allowance. The car. The account. All of it can stop. Today. If you would prefer to manage your own affairs, I am happy to facilitate that."
The dining room was silent.
"You can leave," Ming Chen finished. "Right now."
Yi Ran had found something very interesting to look at on the far wall.
Zi Han had located a specific pattern in the grain of the table that was apparently worthy of her complete and undivided attention.
Ming Ye looked at his father. Then smiled faintly.
"Sometimes," he said thoughtfully, "I really want to strangle you."
Complete silence.
Yi Ran's teacup stopped halfway to her mouth.
Ming Chen looked at his son for a long moment.
Then, to Zi Han's absolute astonishment, something shifted in his expression that was not quite a smile. It seemed tired instead.
"If you could manage to become competent first," Ming Chen said very dryly, "I would give you my neck willingly."
Zi Han stared.
She looked at Ming Chen. Then at Ming Ye.
Ming Ye laughed.
It was a short sound. It was amused laughter, but it was really brief.
Ming Ye stood up from the table without having eaten anything. Then he looked at Zi Han.
"I'm looking forward to our first lesson, sister," he said pleasantly.