Volume One, Chapter 13: I Want to Share My Brother’s Surname
Turning back.
Li Qiuning obediently walked over. “Ninth Master, are you leaving now?”
“Yes. You don’t need to be so formal. You can address me the same way your brother does—just call me Ninth Brother.” Qin Zhan fixed his gaze on her bloodless face; her delicate features made her seem all the more fragile.
Li Qiuning hesitated, watching him try his best to appear approachable. “Isn’t that inappropriate?”
Strictly speaking, they weren’t of the same generation. Her brother could call him that because of their close friendship, but in truth, both age and seniority separated them.
“Do you think I’m old?” Qin Zhan looked at her intently. He was only thirty.
Li Qiuning shook her head at once. “Of course not, Ninth Brother.”
She had never thought of Qin Zhan as some old man; it was just that calling him that felt overly intimate.
Qin Zhan had her follow him outside. The servants they passed stood respectfully aside and bowed their heads.
“Manspring Court is my estate. You may go into whichever room you like. If you get bored staying in one room, feel free to wander.”
He personally introduced her to everyone in the courtyard, especially the steward.
Old Wang greeted her with deference. “Miss Li.”
Li Qiuning wanted to change her name. “Ninth Brother, where’s my brother?”
Qin Zhan replied, “He has business to attend to. He’ll be back in a few days.”
Li Qiuning sighed. “Alright. I’d like to take my brother’s surname.”
“Miss Yan is already a member of the Yan family. There’s no need to change your name,” said Old Wang, who was well aware of his master’s special regard for this young lady and thus treated her with utmost respect.
Yan Qiuning smiled. “From this moment on, there is no more Qiuning of the Li family—only Yan Qiuning.”
A faint, unintentional smile touched Qin Zhan’s eyes. “And the eldest young lady of the Qin family.”
Yan Qiuning’s heart skipped several beats. She looked at him, her cheeks tinged pink. “But my surname isn’t Qin.”
“I know,” Qin Zhan reassured her. “You can rest easy. I’ll take care of everything.”
With that, he departed.
Yan Qiuning added Ninth Brother on WeChat, hesitated, and saved his contact as Ninth Master after all—she still respected him greatly.
Then she added her real brother’s WeChat, having just gotten it from Ninth Master.
She decided to wait until her brother returned before saying anything more.
“Miss Li, someone’s here to see you at the door,” a servant approached.
Yan Qiuning corrected her. “My name is Yan Qiuning. I am not a Li.”
The servant was momentarily startled but quickly recovered. “Of course, Miss Yan.”
“Who’s looking for me?” Yan Qiuning doubted that anyone she still knew would come looking for her now. Most likely, it would be some unsavory character. She had already blocked all those people.
The servant lowered her head. “The Li family.”
Yan Qiuning frowned. The Li family was here for her?
“I won’t see them.”
She had no idea why the Li family wanted to see her, but it certainly couldn’t be for anything good.
The servant was about to leave when Yan Qiuning called her back. After all, this was the Qin residence; she couldn’t let anyone create trouble that would be hard to resolve.
She might as well see what the Li family was up to.
She went out.
Except for those at Manspring Court, who treated her with real respect, the rest of the Qin family only maintained a façade. She didn’t care.
At the entrance.
The visitor turned out to be Li Xinwen.
When he saw Yan Qiuning come out, his tone was harsh and accusatory: “Li Qiuning, Dad is seriously ill in the hospital. Instead of visiting him, you run off to the Qin family! What are you doing here?”
Yan Qiuning let out a laugh of disbelief. When words failed her, she truly was speechless. “My name is Yan Qiuning. You’ve got the wrong person.”
How starved for affection she must have been back then, desperately trying to please this rabble of the Li family.
Even though every one of them was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, she had foolishly given her all, trying to maintain that twisted, perverse sense of kinship.
“Li Qiuning, are you out of your mind? I’m warning you—my mother finally relented and agreed to have you home for dinner today, and you’re changing your surname? You want to crawl back to the Yan family? Don’t even dream of setting foot in the Li family ever again! My mother will hate you for life!”
Li Xinwen saw her actions as nothing but a tantrum—pretending to rejoin the Yan family to provoke them, as if they would actually care.
It was nothing more than losing a dog.
He was sure Li Qiuning could never give up everything the Li family provided.
Yan Qiuning glanced at him with indifference. “You call it ‘coming home for dinner,’ but in truth, you only want me to cook. Zhou Mei will invite all her dear friends to watch me serve the Li family like a dog.”
“Li Qiuning, how dare you! You were born guilty, and after my mother has cared for you all these years, what’s wrong with you atoning for your birth mother’s sins? If it weren’t for that whore, my mother wouldn’t be like this!”
Li Xinwen was livid. He lunged forward, trying to grab her and drag her away.
The bodyguards at the door blocked him. If they let him lay a hand on her now, Ninth Master wouldn’t wait until tomorrow to deal with the Li family.
Yan Qiuning stared coldly at him. “I used to be ignorant, deceived by all of you. Was Zhou Mei truly so innocent?”
“Was it not because she envied my mother, couldn’t marry my father, and brought retribution upon herself through her own malice and scheming? She married into the Li family and meddled in everything, crossed my mother at every turn, and now all her misfortune is my mother’s fault?”
“Get lost. Just looking at you makes me sick.”
Having lived through a previous life, she would never again let them manipulate her, never again commit those self-destructive, disastrous acts.
She owed the Li family nothing.
Disgusted, she couldn’t help but retch several times.
Li Xinwen’s temples throbbed in fury. He pointed at her, enraged: “You and your mother are both whores. I’ll beat you to death!”
He was fully capable of violence—he had done it before.
If the bodyguards hadn’t seized him and thrown him out, her frail self would have suffered.
Yan Qiuning found it truly laughable. Before her true parentage was revealed, he’d been the most doting brother; but once Li Qingran reclaimed everything, even love became a weapon.
The brother who once adored her turned into a monster. It began with endless curses, then escalated to violence, humiliating her in public and making her the family’s laughingstock.
Li Xinwen sneered. How dare she speak to him like that, as if she’d forgotten how she used to beg him, beg the entire Li family for forgiveness.
He shoved past the bodyguards, glaring at her insolence. “So now that you’ve found yourself a powerful backer, you think you don’t need the Li family’s doghouse anymore?”
“Heh, you think Qin Zhan is some saint? A slut with a bastard in her belly dreaming of marrying up—don’t think the Qin family won’t strip you to the bone!”
With that, he could not be bothered with her any longer and left in his car.
Yan Qiuning’s face grew even paler. It seemed everyone claimed Qin Zhan was not a good man.
But didn’t she know better than anyone what kind of man he was?
It was all just rumors—stories that Qin Zhan had been involved in the Yan family’s affairs, that he’d schemed against many for the sake of power, that all those people had died, paving the way for him to become the Ninth Master.
They said he had risen atop a mountain of corpses, that he was ruthless and dangerous, and that he would be her downfall.
No, choosing Qin Zhan was the only way to survive.
The Li family would certainly come again.
They couldn’t stand to see her doing well.
Turning around, she saw a woman standing by the door.
“Miss Li, how cold-hearted you are, throwing away more than twenty years of the Li family’s care without a second thought. I’m afraid your reputation will only get worse from here.”
Cheng Xinsu smiled politely and reached out to steady her as she wavered.
Yan Qiuning replied, “My surname is Yan. A ruined reputation is better than being dead. Miss Cheng, who lives off her father’s past favors and relies on the Qin household’s charity, should know better than I how it feels to be unwelcome under someone else’s roof.”