Weakness

"What took you so long?" Hu Lei sat up straight from his chair and asked the boy who just came through the door.

Looking at the boy with complicated eyes, he sighed with helplessness. Although they are the same age, the boy was significantly shorter than him. The mole beside his right eye and his long lashes seem to tickle his heart every time he looks at him.

"Young Master." Xiao Li greeted him.

"Did you collect our clothes?"

"Mmhm, If there's nothing else, I will go prepare them so they can be worn tomorrow."

Hu Lei frowned.

All he wanted was to talk more to this boy, but every time Xiao Li would cut the conversation short.

"Did you go look for the ghost boy again?"

Xiao Li nodded.

Hu Lei can feel his anger rushing up through to his head but he started doing mental calculations in his head to suppress his anger.

"I don't know what kind of spell he put on you for you to care for him so much." He grumbled.

"You know the reason."

"Yes... I know he reminds you of your younger brother, that is why you treat him so well."

Hu Lei's voice became softer towards the end of his sentence. Xiao Li has once told him before that he used to have a younger brother the same age as the ghost boy. But since he was kidnapped and sold as a servant, he never saw his younger brother again.

Xiao Li's brother was just a baby then, 4 years younger than him when the human traffickers separated them. Which is why whenever he sees Qin Ji, he can't seem to leave him alone.

But which man would feel good when the person he likes gives so much attention to someone else ah?

"Since the young master knows that I treat Ah-Qin as my younger brother. Why do you keep bullying him? And the incident today...were you going to really kill him?" the boy's lashes trembled with anger as he looked at the floor.

"Th...tha..thats because no matter how much he reminds you of your brother, he is still just a stranger and not your blood brother ah! What if he has nasty intentions towards you? And I was just scaring him since he was so rude to me... You know I wouldn't do something like that."

"There you go again with your strange accusations. Xiao Li will go prepare the clothing now and will not bother the young master's rest." Xiao Li gripped tightly onto the bag of clothes on his right hand and hastily walked out of the room towards the courtyard.

"This… This...is getting more and more ridiculous!" Hu Lei slammed his fist onto the table when the boy was nowhere to be seen.

He sat down grumpily, no matter how rude or indifferent Xiao Li was to him, he could never stay angry at the boy for long. Every time he got angry at him, he would recall the first time he met Xiao Li.

--

Hu Lei's father, Old Master Hu, is a successful merchant and was often not at home due to his businesses. Without a father figure around, Hu Lei grew up always yearning attention from his father, which resulted in him becoming bad-tempered and spoiled.

His mother was also often busy playing mahjong with her friends and rarely took the time off to spend time with her son, resulting in Hu Lei's attention-seeking tendencies becoming from bad to worst.

When Hu Lei was still young, he was not allowed to play with children outside and spent most of his time at home in private classes or playing by himself. This resulted in him being lonely and would often throw a tantrum when he didn't get what he wanted.

Originally Old Master Hu wanted to have more children but his body was not strong and could no longer have more children no matter how much he tried, so Hu Lei was the only child in the Hu Family.

Hu Lei was 5 when Old Master Hu told him that he bought a servant of the same age to accompany him to the Sect enrollment in the future. Upon hearing that, he was unhappy and felt that his father only did that to appease his loneliness.

"You're a stupid father! Mom is stupid too! Both of you are stupid. You shouldn't have kids! I wish both of you were dead!"

He threw a huge tantrum and smashed all the cups on the table, shouted at Old Master Hu and ran out of his room. He screamed at every servant that was in the way and eventually made his way to the Hu Mansion's main hall.

Standing still at the Hu Mansion courtyard was a boy much shorter than Hu Lei.

"You're that stupid servant my father bought, isn't it? As a welcome gift, let me beat you up!" He still had a belly full of unvented anger so he walked angrily towards the boy, planning to take out on the boy.

The young boy's soulless eyes looked up calmly. He weakly smiled at Hu Lei and readily kneeled down, raising both hands towards the sky.

Hu Lei was confused. "What are you doing?"

"Xiao Li was told this position is easier to hit more surface area."

"..."

Although the frail but fair boy's face looks fearless and his body seems to be used to this, Hu Lei can see his fingers shivering in fear. His lashes, dyed golden by the evening light was trembling as he stared aimlessly at the ground.

Hu Lei's heart had a complicated feeling and the anger that was in his heart disappeared mysteriously.

--

In the next 5 years, although Xiao Li is considered a servant, Hu Lei had never seen him as one. So Xiao Li didn't really have much to do except for accompanying Hu Lei to shop, play, study and eat.

Ever since Xiao Li appeared, the Hu Mansion noticed that Hu Lei's temper had significantly improved. Even when Hu Lei began throwing a tantrum, Xiao Li was always able to make him stop. This has made the Hu Family very pleased with Xiao Li and hence gave him more freedom to move around outside of the Hu Mansion.

With the Sect enrollment in mind, The Hu Family arranged for Xiao Li to attend reading and writing classes together with Hu Lei.

Occasionally Hu Lei would ask Xiao Li to run some simple errands in front of his parents so that they would think that Xiao Li is doing his job.

Honestly to those who know, the only thing that screams "servant" in Xiao Li, would be his dressing and his way of addressing Hu Lei.