Chapter 2

My brother's name is Wen Qun.

Before I turned ten, I always called him by his given name.

Back when my mom had just married his dad, he didn't like suddenly having a younger brother, and I thought having an older brother was a nuisance.

We both didn't see eye to eye, and I never showed him a good face.

Until the year I turned fifteen, the girl I had a crush on rejected me and confessed to Wen Qun instead.

In a fit of rage, I stormed into his room and punched him hard.

Wen Qun, used to being arrogant, couldn't handle this unusual defiance and directly pinned me on the bed and beat me up.

He pressed down my legs, locked both my arms with one hand, flipped me over, and slapped my butt one slap after another.

I never expected him to bully me in such a humiliating way.

It made me cry in embarrassment.

When Wen Qun heard my suppressed sobs, he turned me over and looked at my face with an expression that I still vividly remember.

He pinched my face, and I felt the tears in my eyes trickle down onto the back of his hand.

He wiped my tears for me and asked from above, "Wen Jiang, are you going to behave yourself?"

Revenge is best served ten years later.

I sniffled and replied, "I'll behave, please stop spanking."

"Call me brother."

I croaked out, "Brother."

The sunlight was too glaring, and I seemed to catch a glimpse of him gently curling his lips. Look a bit closer, and that hint of a smile was gone.

Since then, whenever we met, he always made me call him brother.

Not only that, although my classroom was on the other side of the campus from his, he would still go out of his way to pick me up after school.

As time went by, everyone knew I had a brother.

However, Wen Qun is quite controlling and doesn't like me talking too much with girls, getting angry whenever he sees it.

"Haven't I told you, the prettier the girl, the more likely she'll deceive you. Do you want to lose both money and heart?"

I got frightened and kept saying, "I don't want that."

Wen Qun would gently pat my head and praise, "Wen Jiang is such a good kid. But since you've done something wrong, today's punishment is unavoidable."

At some point, my brother established rules for me, that I needed his approval to make friends and had to report to him before going out.

If I broke the rules, I'd be punished.

At first, it was just spanking, but later he made me practice lowering my back, and eventually, he even had me squatting in a horse stance, claiming it was to strengthen my leg muscles, saying it would come in handy later.

If I couldn't stick with it, I had to start over.

Every time after the punishment, I was exhausted, thinking it would have been better to just be spanked.

But it seemed that since Wen Qun turned eighteen, he had rarely spanked me anymore.

I thought perhaps my brother had grown tired of this method of punishment.

The inseparable bond between me and Wen Qun started to change only when he went to college.

Thinking about not having Wen Qun to pick me up from school or buy me gifts anymore, I felt a surge of sadness, and to my surprise, I cried while hugging him.

Who would have thought I'd be so reluctant to let him go?

Or perhaps I was merely reluctant to let go of him as my automated teller machine.

In any case, I was genuinely sad, with my heart aching painfully.

My mom and his dad both teased me, "Your brother is just going to college, not leaving home for good."

Wen Qun gently patted my back and said, "From now on, you have to call me every day, got it?"

I nodded with tears in my eyes.

He then pinched my rosy cheeks and sighed helplessly, "Wen Jiang, you need to grow up to eighteen quickly."