Chapter 682

Extra: Mu Nian 2

The next day at school, Mu Nian returned the book to Yan Yuejiu, who exclaimed in surprise, "You finished it?"

Yes.

"What time did you finish reading yesterday?"

"Around two o'clock."

"That late?" Yan Yuejiu exclaimed in surprise; Mu Nian's schedule was always regular, he rarely stayed up late, at most going to sleep at ten-thirty.

"Hmm." Mu Nian started catching up on homework.

"I told you it was good!" Yan Yuejiu began to feel proud again.

"Generally, the people inside aren't exactly normal."

Yan Yuejiu asked: "Then what kind of person do you think is the most normal?"

Mu Nian answered without hesitation: "Like my sister."

Yan Yuejiu hesitated: "Your sister is only one year old."

"That's why she's the most normal."

Yan Yuejiu was left speechless by his remark and decided to drop the conversation.

"My sister is the standard answer—how could we even compare?"

After turning one, Mu Xin grew a bit faster than his sister, while Mu Youyu was slender and small, with a delicate stomach that often acted up every few days.

Whenever Song Ningsheng saw her daughter suffer, her chest clenched with pain.

Mu Yunshuo also always scrambled to contact the family doctor, while comforting his wife and coaxing his daughter,

Seeing this, Mu Nian also felt distressed, wishing he could take his sister's suffering upon himself.

At the same time, Mu Nian noticed that Jiang Liangjin, who was two months older than his sister, had recently been frequently following elders on visits.

The elders, intentionally or not, always placed him together with Mu Xin and Mu Youyu.

Busy with his studies, Mu Nian merely regarded Jiang Liangjin as a little brat, not wanting to say anything to his face, so he didn't disturb their time together.

Little Mu Xi began to be perpetually unhappy, giving no one a pleasant expression.

Later, after the elders presumably gave her some guidance, little Mu Xi stopped opposing Jiang Liangjin's visits and would occasionally share her snacks with him.

Even though the child couldn't eat them yet.

At eleven, Mu Nian entered junior high, but he and Yan Yuejiu weren't placed in the same class, with a floor's distance between them.

At first, they would still visit each other during breaks, and occasionally walk together to the school gate after school.

But as each of them grew busier, such frequency gradually dwindled.

Mu Nian had to accompany Grandfather Mu to attend some necessary social occasions; occasionally he also had to sit in on company meetings, and in his free time he thought about keeping his sister company, so the vacation was almost fully booked.

As for Yan Yuejiu, needless to say, the Yan family is a century-old embroidery lineage; her mother intended for her to take over the family craft as soon as possible, so half of her after-school time was spent in the embroidery workshop.

One was busy with family affairs, the other with embroidery inheritance, and their floors were separated by a level, so the little time between classes was nowhere near enough.

Gradually, visiting each other went from daily to weekly, and then from weekly to every half month.

Later, even when they occasionally bumped into each other in the hallway, they would merely nod from a distance and then go their separate ways.

Eventually, they couldn't even be bothered to nod.

By the age of two, Mu Youyu had already developed her own little temper, and most of the time it was Mu Xin who patiently coaxed her.

At that age, Mu Youyu also especially liked to play with Jiang Liangjin.

Thus, whenever Jiang Liangjin came over as a guest, several of the brothers would unconsciously tense up and enter a state of alert.

That morning, Shen Ningmu brought Jiang Liangjin to the door.

The little Jiang Liangjin, seeing Mu Youyu in someone else's arms, anxiously reached out and kept calling, "Youbao! Give her to me!"

Shen Ningmu set him down, then went to find Song Ningsheng.

"..." Mu Nian had observed this boy, who was only two months older than his sister, and found that he was not quite like other kids his age.

Most of the time he simply followed Mu Youyu quietly—wherever she crawled, he followed; when she sat down, he sat down; when she grew sleepy, he stayed by her side waiting for her to fall asleep.

Mu Nian differed from the other brothers; he had always regarded Jiang Liangjin as his sister's little follower and hadn't given it much thought.

So, whenever Jiang Liangjin reached out to him asking for the girl, he pretended not to see.

At noon, Mu Youyu woke from her nap crying fiercely; Mu Xin and Mu Xi were not at home, and each brother took turns trying to soothe her, but none could calm her.

In the end, it was actually Jiang Liangjin who managed to soothe her.

Song Huaixian, watching from the side, laughed outright: "Look, your sister already has a little knight."

Mu Nian: "......"

The other brothers couldn't bring themselves to laugh.

When high school started, Mu Nian saw Yan Yuejiu's name on the new class roster.

He stood there, his expression unchanged, then turned and walked toward the teaching building.

They were assigned to the same class, but on the first day they actually sat in the same classroom, they acted like strangers toward each other, walking past each other's seats.

One took a seat in the middle of the front row, the other sat by the window in the back row, putting a fair distance between them.

Throughout the lesson they never exchanged glances; during breaks they didn't speak to each other; after school they each went their separate ways.

Around that time Mu Nian was busy with an internal family matter; what exactly he was doing, Yan Yuejiu didn't know.

She herself was also busy with the prototyping of a new batch of the Yan family's embroidery, and during breaks she mostly replied to messages.

Since the start of school, many classmates have noticed an amusing fact: Mu Nian and Yan Yuejiu, when their names are put together, form "Nian Shen Yue Jiu" (meaning "long-lasting years and months").

Yet from the start of school until now, the two have never spoken to each other.

Many people have privately discussed this several times.

That day in PE class, the two classes were combined.

Mu Nian walked over from one end of the sports field, and a few girls from other classes beside him whispered something to Yan Yuejiu.

One of them couldn't help laughing out loud, "Yuejiu, look, Fengdu Ge is coming."

Yan Yuejiu felt like laughing a little upon hearing that title.

The nickname "Fengdu Ge" started being used in the grade chat around that time.

It started when Mu Nian once took part in an internal mock Business Competition; throughout he spoke properly and acted composed, earning a comment from the judges: "This student has great poise," and it spread from there.

Plus, he wore a pair of silver-frame glasses then, adding a touch of scholarly air to his already striking features; as he walked, his clothes swayed slightly, and his demeanor was indeed eye-catching.

"Fengdu Ge is still wearing formal attire to class today."

"I heard he has a meeting after class."

"How does someone like that even get by? Isn't it exhausting?"

"What do they have to be tired about? They're the heir of the Mu Clan Conglomerate; we're just beasts of burden."

The person who had been laughing at first stopped laughing.

The smile shifted to the faces of Mu Nian and Yan Yuejiu.

In the first semester of his senior year, Mu Nian's grandmother passed away; he remembers that period as always being overcast.

One month after the grandmother's passing, the household atmosphere still hadn't recovered, yet everyone would tacitly keep things from Mu Youyu.

Mu Nian returned to school; even though he had missed a month of classes, his grades remained firmly among the top of his grade.