"If you touch the piano again, I will break your hands." With that sentence, Xue Zi Xuan walked away.
"Why?" Zhou Yun Sheng gritted his teeth and asked. His ten fingers were uncontrollably trembling because of the pain.
"The sound of your piano is like the walking dead with no soul." When he said this sentence, the loathing was clear in his tone of voice.
The door of the room slammed with a bang, and silence rang loud in the piano room. Zhou Yun Sheng stood up and furrowed his eyebrows at his red and swollen fingers. His face was pale and white.
Xue Jing Yi, who was crackling with anger before, let out a silver bell-like laugh. Her slightly curved eyes were full of joy. She said slowly, "I remember warning you before, don't enter the piano room, otherwise I'll have Mom and Dad send you away. But forget it. Seeing that my brother has taught you a lesion, I'll forgive you this time. There is no soul? Like the walking dead? How do you do it? That is the worst evaluation I have ever heard."
She was very happy. All of her restless fears were relieved when she saw her brother almost crushing the youth's phalanges. It was as if she had been waiting for this scene for a long time. Genius? Humph.
Zhou Yun Sheng did not respond to her satire and left in a hurry. Going back to his room, he heard the system announcing the completion of his task, but this did not extinguish the anger in his heart. Instead, he let out a fierce laugh.
"You predicted this situation long ago, isn't that right? I am the villain. My role is to be repeatedly stuck down by the protagonist? F*ck. In what way was my piano playing bad?" He turned on the computer and used the software to play Early Morning. Resisting the pain of his fingers he said, "Look at this fingering technique, look at the pitch, look at the rhythm. This is perfection. This is the height of technical skills. It is superb! Where is it not good? What are you talking about? There is no soul? Walking dead? Tch. You don't even understand perfection when you hear it!"
It was impossible for the system to give any response. Zhou Yun Sheng cursed for a while and then calmed down. He was preparing to sleep when Fu Bo pushed open his door with a taut face.
"I heard that you broke into the piano room today and angered the young master?" He was full of disdain and disgust, and warned coldly, "You can go anywhere in this house, but you can't enter the piano room. If you commit another blunder, I will tell the mister and missus, and have you sent back to the countryside."
This one and that one, they're all using that sentence to threaten me. If you can then send me back now. That is exactly what this lao zi* wants! But do you dare? If you don't dare then stop grumbling like a motherf*cker! Zhou Yun Sheng sneered in his heart. But he assumed a timid expression on his face, shrinking in the corner of the bed and did not dare to move, as if he was really scared.
[*Muse: 老子 lao zi: An exalted way of referring to oneself. "I, your father" (said in anger or out of contempt)]
Comparing the conditions of the Xue family and Xiao Liu Village, one was like the sky and the other was like the earth. Even living as a dog in the Xue family was better than living in Xiao Liu Village. Fu Bo used his own prejudices to measure the other, and thought that the youth must be reluctant to leave. Seeing that he knew his place and was afraid, he threw a medicine box over. "Tend to yourself, I don't have time."
Zhou Yun Sheng nodded. He took out the ointment and applied it on his red and swollen fingers. The knuckles could still move. It seemed to not be broken, but he didn't know if the bones were cracked. Unless the Xue family was willing to take him to the hospital to have an X-ray done. But he already knew that it was impossible. Never mind breaking ten fingers, even if his limbs were wasted, as long as the heart was whole and hale, they would not care.
Abnormal! Bastards! He silently cursed Xue Zi Xuan in his heart hundreds of times, and then he cursed the Xue family and their ancestors.
From that day on, Fu Bo dispatched the assistant to follow Zhou Yun Sheng and then reported his every move to Xue Rui. Unauthorized touch of the piano made the Xue family resentful of him. Xue Li Dan Ni strictly forbade her daughter from contacting the teenager, saying that he was undisciplined, and that his hands and feet were dirty*.
[*Muse: 手脚不干净: light-fingered / prone to stealing]
Of course, those were just excuses. What she was worried about was that her daughter would cultivate positive feelings with her twin brother after spending days and nights together. In the future, his inexplicable disappearance would provoke her daughter to be sad. If her daughter had not eavesdropped on her husband's conversation and demanded that her brother be brought back to the manor to be cared for, then they were originally planning to put him under house arrest some place else, and then bring him back only when it was time for the operation.
Xue Jing Yi was resistant on the surface, pretending to be protecting her brother, but she was secretly happy on the inside. She felt that she had found a way to drive the boy out of the family. She could make her parents and brother hate him more and more, until they couldn't bear him anymore. As for how to go about doing that, she didn't yet have a clue.
Zhou Yun Sheng clearly felt the Xue family's attitude towards him change. They regarded him as a vessel, as a moving heart, as a white lab rat, just not as human. Xue Zi Xuan didn't even want to eat at the same table with him, so they had Fu Bo send his meals to his room.
His hair was growing longer and longer. His clothes were getting more and more feminine. And his long-term house arrest had caused his skin to become morbidly pale. He was practically like a second Xue Jing Yi. The family doctor began to visit the Xue manor frequently, and used a combination of Chinese and Western medicine to regulate Xue Jing Yi's body.
The brother and sister pair was of the Mumbai blood type. In the whole of China, only forty people have the same blood type. As one could well imagine, it was very hard to find a suitable heart donor. Because of the difficulty of the task, Xue Li Dan Ni agreed with her husband to look in the northwest for their daughter's relatives. As expected, all of her immediate family members were already dead. There was only one twin brother remaining in the world.
A twin brother, orphan, same blood type, a healthy heart, humble origins… Every label indicated a possibility of their daughter's full recovery. The dawn of hope suddenly appeared, so how could the couple be willing to miss this chance. Naturally they had him brought back and actively nursed their daughter's body. To prevent having more nightmares in a long night*, it was better to take this heart out as soon as possible.
[*Muse: 夜长梦多 "long night, more dreams" means the longer they drag things out, the more problems are likely to crop up in the interval]
Likewise, Zhou Yun Sheng also received a daily checkup, to ensure that his body was in good health. Seeing the crude way he wrapped his fingers, the family doctor patiently helped him unravel the bandages and re-bandage his fingers, but he did not mention performing an x-ray. As long as there was no problem with the heart then it didn't matter what happened to his hands and feet. Anyways, he was going to die soon.
Xue Zi Xuan was very busy recently, often not returning home. In addition, the influx of strangers coming and going from his house made him extremely uncomfortable, thus another reason for his absence from the house. Half a month later there was a very important musical performance, so he was rehearsing with the orchestra's colleagues.
"OK, there is no problem this time. Try not to use the metronome next time." The conductor waved his hand and disbanded the orchestra members.
Xue Zi Xuan stood up from the piano, took two steps, and suddenly fainted onto the floor.
"Ah, this is not good, Mr. Xue fainted. Quickly, quickly, dial 120." The people rushed to crowd around him, but no one dared to touch him. Then they all frantically dialed the emergency number one after the other.
The Xue family received the news that Xue Zi Xuan had fallen into a coma for two hours and had yet to show any signs of waking. The doctor did a thorough examination on him and found no abnormalities. He had to stay in the hospital for observation.
Xue Li Dan Ni was out of the country. Xue Rui hastily rushed home to pack some clothes and daily necessities. When he talked to Fu Bo, he forgot to suppress his voice, so his daughter overheard. Xue Jing Yi almost fainted, crying and shouting to go to the hospital together.
Zhou Yun Sheng's fingers were still swollen. He couldn't play games and he couldn't program. So he pulled up a movie to watch. Just as he was getting engrossed in the plot, he heard the ruckus from downstairs. He didn't want to bother with it at first, but then he heard Xue Jing Yi's miserable cries and opened the door to take a look with a heart full of schadenfreude.
"Uncle Xue, what happened?" He stood at the mouth of the stairs and wore a troubled look.
"Nothing much. Return to your room, ba." Xue Rui forced a smile. Xue Jing Yi also stopped crying noisily and silently wiped her tears.
Zhou Yun Sheng tactfully returned to the room. He stood by the door and eavesdropped for a while, upon which he learned that Xue Zu Xuan was in a coma and lying in the hospital.
"F*cking bastard. Serves you right." He narrowed his eyes and smiled darkly.
[End of Chapter 2]