Chapter 172 - Egg Retrieval Day (6)

Han Ye looked at her and smiled wryly. He glanced at his hands that were placed on the side of the bed, looking as if he was deep in thought. After he got his emotions back in order, he looked back at her with a confused gaze as he said with an unsure tone, "Guess what, I have an older biological brother..."

"What? You're lying!" Xiao Lei scoffed. She had known him since young. If he had an older brother, she would have known about it.

"I know right... I find it hard to believe as well." He laughed wryly and added, "Can you believe it? I'm 37 years old, and yet I didn't know I have an older brother until yesterday..." 

She looked at him and knew that he was not pulling pranks on her. 

"What's with this sudden development..." she thought as she looked away from him. She did not know how to face him at the moment. If she had known earlier, she would not have made fun of him. 

Feeling bad about how she dismissed him earlier, she quickly changed her attitude and said with a kinder voice, "How did you find out then?"

Han Ye told her about the paper in his blazer and his meeting with the old lady as well as Head Manager Han's implicit confirmation of it. Once he was done, he had a complicated expression on his face, as if he was unsure of what to do. 

Boom! 

He had an older half-brother. 

Boom! 

His older brother had been by his side for so long. More than 10 years actually, and yet he never realized. 

Boom!

His kind late mother who could have done nothing wrong might have actually done something unkind.

Han Ye sighed inwardly at the end of his story while Xiao Lei could only frown helplessly. What should she say in this kind of situation?

To suddenly find out that he had a sibling, Xiao Lei could tell that he was not happy with it. But she could see that he was not unhappy either... If anything, he seemed to be filled with uncertainty. If it were her, she would feel the same.

Like, as an a.d.u.l.t, what was Ha Ye supposed to do? Was he supposed to be happy that he had an older brother and go run to his new older brother? Or was he supposed to be upset that he never knew about it until now? Was it possible for one to just pretend that everything was alright?

If even she, an outsider, was surprised by this revelation, then only God knew how Han Ye was feeling at this moment. He had to be feeling a myriad of emotions and filled with a lot of questions.

Within a span of 24 hours, he found out more things about himself than the last three decades.

After a moment of silence, Xiao Lei asked, "What are you going to do? Have you thought about it?"

"I don't know what else to do... I've always been good at work. I always know what to do, where to go, and how to get things done. But this is not work-related matter. These aren't about difficult directors, wrong emails, bad contracts, or stupid SOPs. This is my real life, and this included something about my mum, the one person I thought to be the kindest and most loving person!"

Xiao Lei did not know what to say, so she kept quiet while he kept talking. 

His voice trembled slightly as he continued, "I don't know why Mum left him back then. I wish she's here so that I can talk to her. But she's not! And I don't know why he had never come to look for me even though he clearly knew who I was before I even knew it myself. I can tell when I talked to him yesterday! I wanted to ask him, but Head Manager Han clearly refused to talk to me about this."

"F*ck! This is not supposed to be my life!" he cursed.

"I was up the whole night, trying to look for information about him online, but everything about him was deleted. Knowing who he really is, I have no doubt that it was him that did it!" He groaned as he buried his face in his hands. "But why?!"

He could not remain calm at all. 

When he stopped talking, Xiao Lei thought for a moment before saying carefully, "Maybe it's hard for him to talk about it? I doubt it's easy to admit that one was abandoned... twice! It must have been a scary experience for him."

Han Ye sighed wryly before saying, "I thought so too... so I didn't push him, but... I still want to know. I've been thinking about it since last night, but I'm not too sure how I should feel about this. Was my mother cruel for choosing me over him? Knowing what kind of man my father was, can I say that his mother was cruel for abandoning him? Was Head Manager Han cruel for not wanting to help that poor little boy?"

Xiao Lei glanced at him. "Do you think they are cruel?" 

"I don't know!" he snapped, shocking both himself and Xiao Lei. Looking at Xiao Lei's shocked expression, he gulped and cleared his throat. "I'm sorry... I got too agitated. It's my first time talking to someone about this." 

He then got up and paced around the room as he tried to calm himself. 

Seeing him in such a state, Xiao Lei could not help but ask, "Han Ye, do you really think that what they did were cruel?"

He stared at her from opposite her bed. After a moment of hesitation, he shook his head slowly. "No. I think they all have good reasons." 

Xiao Lei nodded. She then sat up on the bed and said calmly, "Han Ye, you might think badly of me because of what I'm going to say, but I still want to say anyway. Even if it was selfish, it was probably a hard choice for his mother to make. Otherwise, she could have left earlier than that, but she stayed until he was about three. When she left, she was probably completely broken down by then and she probably couldn't think straight. And after that, she probably felt too ashamed to take him, especially since she said that your mother took better care of him than she ever did."

Han Ye shook his head. He would never think badly of her. He knew how much she sacrificed just to raise her son while waiting for her missing husband to return, and at the same time, she had to deal with a constant fear that a mob boss was coming after her. "But what about my mum? Why didn't she take him? It was obvious that she was thinking straight back then since she took me..."

"I understand what you're feeling now." Xiao Lei thought about it for a second before shrugging. "But, in that kind of situation, who are we to say who was right and who was wrong? Your mother was worried sick, and she was probably afraid that she could not even raise you, her biological son, what more another person who had no blood relation to her..."

She then smiled. "Han Ye, it's really, really hard to raise a kid by yourself when you can barely take care of yourself. Even if I've never thought of abandoning my son, I still can't say that it's easy to raise him."

"Xiao Lei..." he called out softly as he placed a hand on her knee to console her.