There was a moment of stillness at the dinner table. Lily Young glanced at Zoe in panic, then at Joel Young, thinking, Oh no, things are going south again, Joel Young哥哥 is starting trouble again—unexpectedly, Joel Young just smiled even more wickedly, feigning ignorance as he shrugged and looked around: “Am I wrong? Shouting while singing is exhausting.”

Before he finished speaking, Zoe Young saw her uncle deftly snatch away his chopsticks with a bare-handed move and smack him hard on the back of the head: “No manners!”

“How is that bad manners?” Joel Young was still stirring up trouble, grinning widely. “You’re allowed to praise the two of them, but I can’t praise Zoe? Zoe, listen to your brother Qiao, don’t learn from them, you’ll ruin your voice from all that shouting.” Her uncle was fuming, and the dinner table was instantly in chaos—some trying to mediate, some making peace, some adding fuel to the fire… Amid the confusion, Zoe Young smiled at Joel Young, and Joel Young winked at her affectionately.

With the adults’ forced efforts, the meal finally returned to a semblance of harmony, but it didn’t last long before everyone dispersed. Zoe Young noticed that her grandmother had been sitting to the side the whole time, smiling meaningfully, her gaze sweeping over everyone’s faces, as if observing or waiting for something. As everyone was leaving, Joel Young dodged his dad’s iron grip, nimbly darted to Zoe Young’s side, and beamed at Zoe’s mom: “Auntie, my dad’s on night shift at work tonight, let Zoe stay at my place. We’ll play video games together, okay?”

Zoe Young had no idea what he was up to—why was he suddenly being so close, acting like real siblings. It wasn’t until Zoe Young finished her bath, sat on Joel Young’s bed in her little white rabbit pajamas, and watched him spend a joyful evening with Super Mario, that she finally remembered to ask, “Brother Qiao, did you take the wrong medicine today?” Joel Young hit pause, grabbed a seat cushion, and whacked Zoe Young so she fell flat on her back. “Nonsense, what do you know?” “Then why are you being so nice to me? And inviting me over to play video games?” “I was afraid my dad would beat me up on the way home, so I dragged you along!” “Then… why did you say I sing well?” “It’s not that you sing well, it’s just that the other two sing terribly…” Zoe Young calmly jumped off the bed and unplugged the Famicom.

“You little brat, are you tired of living? I finally made it to level seven, and before going out to eat I didn’t even dare turn off the console, and you, you, you… I’m not done with you!” A wild chase ensued. Six-year-old Zoe Young was no match for fourteen-year-old Joel Young, and was soon dangling in midair by her collar, swinging back and forth. “I really want to throw you out the window right now!”

Zoe Young giggled foolishly, putting on a fawning face, and after begging for a while, Joel Young finally put her down. “What do you want to play?”

“Contra.” “Do you know how?”

“As long as you do.”

And that proved true. Joel Young shamelessly set the weapons to the highest level and gave each player thirty lives, but Zoe Young’s skills made Joel Young grit his teeth. By the fourth level, they needed to jump up in sync, but Zoe Young clumsily and stubbornly dragged Joel Young down—finally, Joel Young wailed in despair, “Zoe, I’m begging you, just use up all your thirty lives already, seriously.”

Zoe Young stopped messing around, didn’t say a word, and simply controlled her little blue soldier to jump off the cliff. As soon as a new life appeared on the screen, she jumped off again without hesitation.

Soon, all her lives were gone. Joel Young stopped playing, hit pause, and asked her a bit nervously, “Zoe, are you mad?”

“No.” Zoe Young lowered her head, but tears splattered deep blue marks onto the pale blue bedsheet. It was as if all the emotions lost at the cosmetics counter had come rushing back home at this moment. She clutched the sheet, saying nothing, just crying, like a faucet left running.

“Fine, I was wrong, okay? Just wait, I’ll go kill myself right now!” Joel Young hurriedly imitated Zoe Young, sending all his thirty lives off the cliff, and the screen flashed “GAME OVER.” He pointed at the screen like he was offering a treasure: “See, now we’re both out of lives.”

Zoe Young’s ability to express herself made a huge leap that day—she not only learned to sneer, but also to give a bitter smile. Because she was so powerless. All she knew was how to bare her teeth at imaginary monsters in the air, and play the hero in a make-believe world. When facing truly formidable opponents, she could only stay silent under their cruel attacks, and even if she did fight back, like tonight, it only made things worse—there was never any hope of turning the tide.

She couldn’t even play video games without dragging others down. Zoe Young wasn’t crying because of her own incompetence. She was embarrassed by her pretense of strength.

She didn’t dare face Duke Gregory and Viscount Clark anymore—would they still accept such a ridiculous little queen?

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So Joel Young spent the night hugging a faucet. He didn’t understand how Zoe Young could cry so much, and so silently, just shedding tears without a sound—it was even more nerve-wracking than a child wailing. “My little aunt, I swear I’ll never play Contra again in my life, can we stop crying now?” The electric fan hummed through the summer night, and Joel Young regretted it deeply—he actually liked this independent little girl, who was dazed but clever, and most importantly, just as unwelcome as he had been as a child. It was fate repeating itself—he’d found such a promising successor, and his training plan had barely begun before it was ruined by a girl’s tears.

Women—never underestimate a woman because of her age. When Joel Young was three, his parents divorced. He should have been cherished as the eldest grandson, but his mother took him to his grandmother’s house and forbade him from seeing his father’s family. Among all the children at his grandmother’s, he became a second-class citizen because of his divorced mother. By the time he was eleven and had finally built some affection with his grandparents, his mother wanted to remarry. The mother who had once fought tooth and nail for custody finally compromised with reality—so he was sent back to his father’s house. Only then did he learn that the grandfather who had loved him most had already been dead for three years.

He and his father, the always-busy, always-irritable, always-stern union chairman, were like two strangers who had just met.

Eleven and forty-one. The dawn of adolescence met the dusk of middle age.

Three years—if they were a quick couple, they could have had a child by now, but he and his dad were still “not close.”

The little one in his arms was breathing steadily. Joel Young wondered, what would she be like at fourteen? Surely she wouldn’t turn out worse than him.

If Joel Young had felt a trace of guilt and tenderness before falling asleep, by the next morning, his anger had made him forget all of last night’s feelings—women, such trouble.

Yes, he had to do Zoe Young’s hair. The simplest ponytail had taken him almost thirty minutes. Zoe Young’s look of disdain was reflected in the mirror, glaring and blatant. “If I ever have a daughter,” Joel Young said sarcastically, “I’ll strangle her the moment she grows hair!”

Zoe Young asked seriously, “Do you think anyone would want to have a child with you?”

…………When saying goodbye to Joel Young, Zoe Young suddenly felt a bit confused inside. The image of brother Qiao in her mind had always been blurry—he was so much older than her, a full eight years, even older than Alan Carter. But in his every move, he lacked the elegance and composure of Alan Carter. The Joel Young she knew was either making faces at her, speaking harshly, or being scolded by their uncle in front of everyone, then putting on a defiant look, slouching in the corner, watching everyone with a naturally mocking expression, as if being alive was something ridiculous.