"How long are you going stay here? Come back home since your grandmother wants to see you," Li Qinfeng finally said his piece.
This was the reason he came to Li Shaoze's hotel room in an untimely manner. He wanted to get it over with because he couldn't contact Li Shaoze. He didn't have his son's number and wouldn't bother to ask.
Standing beside Li Shaoze was Li Junfeng, who looked about to be angry. He didn't like the tone their father had used when talking to his brother. Although he knew it had always been like this since they were children, he still couldn't get used to it. His brother was treated very differently from him.
Li Junfeng was always the apple in their parents' eyes. He never suffered losses and was loved dearly. But that wasn't the case with Li Shaoze.
He once tried to confront his parents and grandmother about it but the one who was accused of brainwashing him was Li Shaoze. Li Shaoze received the short end of stick every time he wanted to get justice for him. It was so unfair. Since then, he would never do anything for Li Shaoze in fear of implicating him.
There were no ripples in Li Shaoze's eyes when he looked at his father. Although he did long for familial affections, his feelings were now more clear than ever. He realized that nothing could change the Li's opinion on him so he let it be.
Li Shaoze learned from the past that only one person was his real family and that was Li Junfeng. He suddenly thought of 'that' person and his eyes dimmed slightly.
Li Qinfeng didn't care about Li Shaoze's opinion so he got up and went home immediately. He also reminded Li Shaoze again to come back to Li manor.
Li Junfeng was unhappy, "Will you go back home? I think they're up to something,"
"I'll have to see," Li Shaoze said simply. He did not plan to follow along what his father had just told him but he was curious as to why his grandmother would want to see him so all of a sudden.
Li Shaoze ordered for room service to bring his meals up and he was sitting leisurely in the sofa with a bottle of coke in his hand. He looked as if he never sat there with Li Qinfeng earlier.
He poured the coke into two glasses where another one was meant for the ghost Li Junfeng.
"Why did you suddenly want to drink coke?" Li Junfeng was puzzled. He was afraid that his brother actually minded their father's indifference.
"Because today is a good day," Li Shaoze lied as he sipped on the black drink.
Li Junfeng gathered his eyebrows and said, "Today is my funeral but it's a good day?"
"I misspoke. It's a bad day,"
"I'd rather you say it's a national day,"
One man and one soul sat together in silence. Li Junfeng was a soul so he couldn't actually drink. He stared at the glass with resentment in his eyes but he didn't go anywhere. He sat to accompany Li Shaoze. He also decided not to ask why Li Shaoze didn't just try to get drunk by drinking wine instead.
Contrary to Li Junfeng's earlier thoughts, Li Shaoze was actually in a bad mood because of a certain person he suddenly remembered. Their father had nothing to do with his change of mood because he was irrelevant.
This person whom Li Shaoze remembered was the one who helped him build Quze A. Investment from scratch. She was a person responsible for grooming him to be a great CEO that he was today. The one who made sure he had a goal in life, and also the one who helped him settle down in Country E when he had nothing in his hands 12 years ago.
This person called herself his aunt, Qin Meili. She was supposedly his mother's older sister who succeeded the Qin's giant conglomerate, Quze Industries. The Qin's was known to be declining in descendants. Their relatives were not many and the main family only had Qin Meili until two years ago.
Li Shaoze's mother who died when he was a child was the only younger sister of Qin Meili. Qin Meili was the current matriarch of the Qin family and she died due to brain cancer two years ago. As a liberal and tough businesswoman, she never married in her life and had no children to succeed her.
Following procedures, her only close kin was Li Shaoze, her nephew. Li Shaoze would have to assume responsibility for Quze Industries and become its new chairman. But he had been stalling for time for two years already.
Li Shaoze's feelings towards his aunt were rather complicated. Qin Meili was never a warm-hearted woman in his memory. All she knew was profit and losses. She told him as early as 12 years ago that he should never think of her as a replacement for his mother. She did all she could to support him because she knew he would be useful.
He remembered her telling him that she would make him her successor because she didn't intend to marry.
They never chatted about their lives, only occasionally ate together, and she never asked him about his bad childhood experience with the Li family. She simply trained him for business and made him a perfect copy of a workaholic she was. She was never an emotional woman.
Nevertheless, Li Shaoze wasn't an ungrateful man. He would take over Quze Industries in the future if that was what she wanted. But not now.