Chapter 84 - The Perfect Heir

Not even five minutes later after stepping out of the house, they were already on their way back. The sun had long set and the moon was a crescent hanging up in the deep blue sky. Neither of them was talking. Had Wuming just came back this afternoon? It felt like forever ago. Wuming thought that his brother had already fallen asleep because of the quiet but when he took a peek, he saw his lips moving—like he was reciting something, or praying.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Yeah," Qing Chen answered, his voice about two tones deeper with exhaustion. "It had been a long day."

"Right," he said in return. Even Wuming's mind and body were also at their limit. There was nothing he would not give if he could just drop on a mattress and sleep for the next two days. "Hey, Chen."

"Yeah?"

"Whatever coffee or tea you're on, I want it too."

Qing Chen let out a tired laugh, perching his elbow on the window and cradling his head in his hand. "If I am high on anything, it would be on murderous intent. I think that's something you're high on for many years already."

"Bloodl.u.s.t. I'm not proud that I have it. I blame it on my sense of justice." He liked to boast about the way he got to kill some people. But talking about why he did it remained tough to discuss. Wuming cleared his throat, changing the topic. "You're on a roll today."

"Yeah," Qing Chen said like he just wanted to stop talking and yawned. "I can't wait for this day to be over already. Can you help Lok with the mafia and the hotel for a few days? Just until Feng Xuan is feeling better."

"No worries." Wuming drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. A lot of things already happened, but he still could not forget their conversation in the hospital about his brother's ten-year plan. "How does it feel to lead something you abhor?"

Qing Chen sighed. "Some people say that when you die, hell is a place you'd be stuck in where you'd be doing the thing you hate the most till God knows when. If your hell is the earth. Then for me it's the mafia."

"As if you haven't made that clear enough this afternoon," he joked.

"It was hard to pretend to be someone you're really not." Qing Chen's smile widened just a fraction. He remembered thinking about not handling the mafia after their mother died because Wuming was there to save him from it. The smile slipped off his face and his voice sounded tight. "You were the perfect heir to it. I should say I am most surprised when you left. I thought you liked it."

"Yeah," Wuming nodded begrudgingly. "I liked it, but not enough. Father and I disagreed on a lot of things. For example, I told him that violators in The Kingsman's Club should be punished or at least one man should serve an example for the rest. He said, 'You kill your enemies. Not your friends'." He took a deep breath, remembering that day he realized his father wanted to make him a puppet. Their father needed his face but not his opinion. "Father never really wanted me to lead it. He just wanted me to follow everything he did because 'that's what works'—not changing. Just constant."

Upon remembering the folder that contained Qing Chen's plans, Wuming could definitely say this had to be one of the weirdest days he had in his life. "You have some guts writing it all down on paper that you're going to tear down the mafia. When I wanted to make a change and found out I could not really do it, I left." He felt dejected that day and he went away to lick his wounds. He recovered in a different way—by never coming home. He had never admitted his reasons on why he left. This was the closest thing to his confession.

His heart was pounding. His fingers clutched the steering wheel tighter. It was painful to say those words aloud. He could feel his own regret like a dagger slowly slicing his skin.

Up in the mountains without a direct connection with his family, he missed them terribly. Sometimes, if a contract was near Chengshi, he would hide and visit all of them from afar, disguising himself as random people that they would not notice. Always, it was Qing Chen who he visited last—after office hours. He'd only get a glimpse of him from the exit of the hotel and into the backseat of the limousine, his back hunched and his face blank, the corners of his lips downturned, like he was always in grief.

Whenever Wuming saw him like that, he felt like he had swallowed blades. It pricked his heart and every time he witnesses his brother's sullen face they dug deeper. Their father constantly sent him a letter every week and he would receive it seven days later. The usual content includes what was happening in the house and what everyone had been currently up to. But after that, it was all about their father's concern about Qing Chen's detachment towards the mafia--how he was keeping it at arm's length rather than owning it.

Their father must have not known his son well, because just from seeing Qing Chen from time to time, Wuming knew his brother probably hated every second it came up.

"I thought you could be his 'The One'," he said with a sigh. "With proper training and all that, I thought you'd get fond of it. You were partial with it before mom died." But Wuming did not know anything AFTER their mom died because six months later, he packed his bags and left without looking back. "But I was wrong. You detested it more than I did." They never really talked about it and Wuming never really said it. Now it was there at the tip of his tongue. He sold his brother to the mafia for his own peace of mind. "And for that, I am sorry."

It was a moment before Qing Chen spoke, it was like waiting for the axe to fall and chop his head off. "You have nothing to apologize for."

Of course, Qing Chen would say that. "I have EVERYTHING to apologize for," he said quietly. He was the reason Qing Chen had been disappointed with himself.

"Our reality is what it is, Wuming. We can only change the future."

Wuming looked at the sky dotted with stars. They looked like frozen tears. If his tears would look like anything, it would be just like that. But he doubted he could ever shed one again. If there was something more painful than losing his mother, he might welcome it with open arms just to see if he could cry again. "Is there something you regret?"

"A lot," Qing Chen whispered.

Wuming saw an opening, although he was in an apologetic state, he couldn't not say it. "Top of that list is the secretary, isn't it? How on earth did that happen anyway?"

"It was about Da-xia," Qing Chen said that was barely audible, but even then still full of sadness.

"The ex-girlfriend," Wuming recalled. She was Qing Chen's girlfriend for a while. "What about her?"

"Well, you know, we broke up and a few weeks later some tabloid newspaper published a picture of her snogging with a model." Wuming whistled under his breath. He got news from his father but not in detail. "I got so wrapped up in my head and I was already drinking even before my secretary went in my office and poured herself a glass—" He broke off, raising his hands in the air and shaking his head as if to wipe out a memory. "Let's not even go back there."

"You were curing a heartbreak then?"

"We were together for four years." Qing Chen paused, then more quietly, "I thought I was going to marry her. But her passion had to come first and I have to let her go."

"Yeah, and if you had stayed with her and I haven't left Chengshi, Feng Xuan would've been my wife."

Qing Chen popped open the glove compartment and saw a pair of sunglasses in it. He immediately threw it at Wuming's laughing face. "I really hate you sometimes."

"Stop trying to kill me when we're already in front of the hospital." He stopped the car on the side with a wheeze. "Where's the thrill in that?"

Qing Chen unbuckled himself with a roll of his eyes. "Thank you so much for the ride. Drive safely."

Wuming nodded, he did not know if he should be thankful to be finally alone with his thoughts. Qing Chen had already shut the door but he knew he had to say something else so he called him back.

Qing Chen reappeared in the frame of the window. "Yeah?"

He ducked his head to see him better. "I bet if mom had been buried, she would be twisting in her grave with what I've become. But you? She would've been proud of you just by standing up to father like that."

Qing Chen straightened up and released a breath, a puff of white in the continuously decreasing temperature. He peered back down, remembering his mother. "I don't know if she would still be proud of me for what I'm going to do next in my life. But as a great man once said," Qing Chen appeared to be thinking before he slapped the windowsill. Wuming heard the thing he least expected—his own words. "'Our mother is not going to rise out of the dead and convince us that killing people will get us sent to eternal damnation'."

Wuming was lost for words. Here was his brother whom he had abandoned for his own peace, quoting his words back to him. He felt his lips stretched.

Qing Chen smiled back, the most genuine Wuming saw in a while. "I'll see you at home… Wei."

It sounded like forgiveness. And maybe it was. The knife in his heart twisted and finally dissolved into nothingness.

Wuming quickly blinked his tears away and nodded. "I'll see you at home, brother."