Insane.

A lunatic.

Not allowed to leave?

Clara ran away that very night.

Sitting on the flight back to Hong Kong overnight, she frantically sent messages to Chloe.

[Tell me, if a person suppresses themselves for too long, do they become abnormal?]

Fortunately, Chloe wasn't asleep yet and replied, [Suppressing what?]

[Sexual suppression?]

Clara: "..."

As Chloe replied, she realized something was off. [Who did you find acting abnormal?]

Clara had only been surrounded by her older brothers these past couple of days, hadn't she?

Clara replied, pretending to be calm, [Just from watching a drama.]

[Chloe: Oh.]

[Chloe: What drama?]

[Clara: Don't worry about that for now.]

Clara racked her brain to describe it: [It's about a person who has been incredibly proper since childhood. In everyone's eyes, he was a good child, a good student, and later became a good teacher.]

[He has almost never made a single mistake, never done a single thing wrong.]

[But one day, behind closed doors, he suddenly stops acting like a human being.]

Chloe grew interested. [Tell me details, what did he do?]

Clara paused for a very long time. If it came down to what he actually did, nothing really.

He just made her sit on him for a little while.

But that kind of feeling was probably something only Clara understood. Only by knowing how good and how perfectly well-mannered an older brother Quentin had always been in front of her could she truly appreciate how much he had just...

Seeing that Clara had gone quiet, Chloe replied leisurely, [Then he probably didn't

suddenly

stop acting like a human being.]

[It's that he was always like that to begin with.]

Clara understood only half of it. [What do you mean?]

Chloe explained, [Behind closed doors, that is his true self.]

Clara bit her finger, and at that instant, she recalled the words Sylvia had spoken to her.

But these matters brought a massive shock to Clara. No one easily abandons the worldview they've built over the first half of their life. The deeply rooted image of Quentin that had grown in her heart for over twenty years suddenly changing because of a few incidents and a few words was equally difficult for Clara to accept.

It felt as though the things happening during this period were the actual anomalies. Once they passed, everything would return to exactly how it was before.

It was too complicated.

Clara's straightforward mind didn't want to think about such complex matters. She decided to sleep and put Quentin into her digital blacklist to let him cool down.

Clara curled into the double bed blankets prepared by the flight attendant, tightly hugging the little teddy bear given to her on the flight.

Late night in Paris, the sky was completely blanketed by a scattering of ink-like stars.

Quentin hadn't slept for a long time, continuously recalling how Clara hadn't even been able to speak properly just now. She had told him that she knew, and that she needed to go to another room to cool down before coming back to sleep in a little while.

She sounded like she had almost been bullied to tears.

Quentin didn't push too hard. He knew that this level of intensity couldn't be sustained continuously for the time being.

It was enough.

Clara's belongings were all left in the master bedroom, so she would definitely return.

However, it was already two o'clock. Quentin still got up to see if she had fallen asleep in another room and whether her blankets were properly covered.

But ten minutes later.

When Quentin had checked every single room and stood at the entrance of the master bedroom sending Clara a message, only to receive a red exclamation mark, he changed his mind.

Quentin let out a laugh from sheer anger. It was rare for a subtle sense of fracturing emotion to appear on his face.

Good bb.

She ran away again.

This time, she hadn't even taken her luggage.

Clara truly was far more disobedient as a wife than she had ever been as a sister.

She was begging for punishment.

It seemed that tonight, that level of intensity could actually have continued.

It was nowhere near enough.

"Nee, come down. The sofa is so big, why do you insist on sitting on your brother?"

The little four-year-old snow-white ball hugged her breakfast milk and leaned against Quentin. "Brother is comfortable, I like sitting here."

The young man merely supported her, keeping her from teetering over and falling down. Along the way, he took a bib and tied it around the little girl's neck, lest she spill her breakfast milk all over the place.

When the father saw this, he would also say, "It's a good thing that the two siblings have such a close relationship." He additionally instructed Quentin, "Take good care of your sister."

This was something Quentin would achieve even if the father didn't explicitly say it.

When the family went out, Clara, being the youngest, found it difficult to adapt to the tall figures surrounding her. When she felt scared and couldn't locate her socializing father, she could only reach her hands out toward Quentin. "Brother, hold me."

Quentin would invariably, without a shred of impatience, pick her up, lifting her out of the typical plights of a small child.

Clara was also a very polite baby. Receiving her brother's help, she would generously plant a kiss on him, then tell him, "Thank you, Brother."

"Brother is the best."

When Clara was most attached to Quentin, she was six years old. After moving into a separate room from her parents, she would sneak behind the family's back to lounge in her brother's room. Quentin would tuck her into bed, tell her bedtime stories, and coax her to sleep.

At that time, Clara hadn't started school yet. So for a brief passage of time in her world, he was all there was.

On her birthday that year, she made a wish.

When it was time to sleep that night, Quentin asked her what wish she had made, saying it might come true tomorrow. Clara knew that it wouldn't just magically come true tomorrow, but that he would help her achieve it.

So she asked Quentin earnestly, "Brother, can you be my birthday present?"

Quentin teased her, saying she certainly knew how to demand a gift.

The chime signaling the flight's landing rang out.

Clara's chest vibrated, and she woke up from her dream. That single sentence, "Brother, can you be my birthday present," still lingered in her ears.

Clara sat on the bed in a daze. Children truly spoke without any filter. How could she say just anything when she was little? Thinking back on it now, it felt entirely like criminal evidence.

While Clara was still dazed, the flight attendant came over to wake her up, saying they were about to arrive at their destination.

Clara sluggishly climbed out of bed to wash her face and change her clothes. When she came out, Cherry had already packed up their things, preparing to disembark.

Cherry mentioned to Clara, "Once we disembark, there are a few more collaborations that need your screening."

"More collaborations?" Clara vaguely recalled that over these past few days, she seemed to have done a lot of similar work. "Haven't they been screened completely yet?"

"They are all different companies reaching out. This time it's for the

Bronze Yuan

foundation project."

Clara leaned quietly against her seat, sensing that something was amiss. There had been a bit too many investment offers coming her way recently. It was just that she had been busy these past few days and hadn't noticed that the number had increased by this much.

Not long after the plane came to a secure halt and the signal connected, Clara received a phone call from the museum. Looking at the caller ID on her phone screen, her heart skipped a beat.

As expected, what was meant to come would still come. After all, she was still within her observation period.

Clara picked up, and surely enough, it was human resources asking her to come collect the materials from her onboarding process. She told the driver to change course and head directly to the museum.

She had thought the handling of the results would be fast, but she hadn't expected it to be this fast. Clara figured that after the museum formally dismissed her, she would take her materials back and give herself a holiday to rest. Other matters could wait until after her birthday.

Today was the museum's closure day. There weren't many people around, and Clara encountered no obstacles along the way as she walked into the HR department.

The HR director was unexpectedly delighted to see her. "So fast."

Clara walked over. "I happened to be passing by, so I thought I'd collect it first."

The HR director pulled one out from a stack of kraft paper bags nearby and walked over to Clara. "This one is yours."

"Thank you." Clara pursed her lips, speaking polite pleasantries, "Although we didn't get the opportunity to work together, still..."

The HR director didn't quite catch her meaning. "What?"

Clara's words stopped mid-sentence.

The two of them exchanged a silent look, and the HR director let out a couple of dry laughs. "I meant to ask, when do you have time to enter the museum and begin working?"

The surroundings fell completely still for a moment.

Clara realized what she was saying and looked down at her onboarding materials once more.

The HR director explained, "The material verification passed, so our procedures are considered complete. It also just so happens that your one-month observation period has concluded. Your performance was outstanding, and everyone unanimously passed your observation period during yesterday's meeting."

Clara didn't fully register it. "My performance was outstanding?"

"Yes," the director smiled. "You don't know yet? You assisted in intercepting a national first-class cultural relic. Everyone very much recognizes your professional capability and vocational sensitivity. You've been commended."

I've been commended?

Clara rarely heard such words. She walked out of the museum and re-downloaded the social media software she had previously uninstalled.

The heat of the incident had passed for a long time. Amidst countless notifications, she saw the highest-trending post from an official commendation account. It came from the Imperial City Cultural Heritage Institute—her former teachers.

After the official stance was declared, there were no negative trending topics. Nor would the matter be permitted to ferment in an overly exaggerated manner. Everything was trending in a just-right direction.

Clara felt it was a bit surreal.

She sat by the flowerbed and greenery in front of the gate. She discovered that behind every topic related to her, the two cultural preservation foundations under her name were tagged.

Clara finally understood why investment collaborations kept reaching out over these past two days. So that was why.

A soft, cool breeze traveled through the treetops, blowing aside Clara's stray hairs. She let out a light laugh, looking up at the ceaseless flow of traffic and the fragmented sunlight shaking down from the branches.

So that was why.

Inside a skyscraper in Central, Hong Kong, the elevator moved rapidly upward, cutting through the densely stacked, precisely ordered corporate building. On every floor, hurried professionals holding all sorts of documents walked to and fro. The air was filled with the interwoven sounds of keyboard typing and business conversations.

The elevator came to a halt.

Quentin stepped out. The staff members at the entrance immediately bowed their heads and greeted him upon seeing him. Behind him followed several executives dressed in formal suits.

Quentin walked through the layers of crowds, carrying a crisp, cold current of air with him. He was the most noble, unapproachable existence.

As Quentin walked past the office area and neared the meeting room, he looked through the glass doors and windows to see that inside the meeting room, the uncle had once again gathered the PR department for a meeting. Quentin merely cast a distant glance, his eyes brushing past Elliot inside the room, before withdrawing his gaze as if nothing had happened.

Inside the meeting room, the uncle looked at the large screen where his assistant was introducing the impact of the recent public opinion on the group and Clara individually. The group remained perfectly calm, with none of the branch companies experiencing the slightest impact, while the two funds under Clara's name had been rising continuously for multiple days.

The page filled with red figures made one feel thoroughly irritated.

And the rising funds were merely a result. This proved that during this period, a significant amount of investment had flowed under Clara's name.

A rare silence fell inside the meeting room.

The uncle couldn't help but speak up, "Did you do your public relations defense work a bit

too

well? Clara's connection to our group was severed so cleanly? Not a single bit of capital managed to seep in? What use do those two funds of hers have? Even if capital is poured in, she won't know how to operate them."

A voice from the technical department softly countered, "It was you who said you feared the negative impact would bring losses. But the positive impact could have completely drained traffic over to us. She is, after all, someone raised by our group."

The uncle had always been a beneficiary of reaping Clara's dividends. It was his first time seeing such massive dividends flow out without touching a single drop himself. "No, can't you people distinguish between positive and negative impact?"

"That's quite difficult, President." Another person spoke up. "When we spoke of cutting ties, we cast the person off perfectly cleanly, letting her bear the positive and negative impacts herself. There's no logic in us shoving ourselves back in now. Furthermore, you see this was posted by official accounts; the one they are commending is her, it has nothing to do with us."

"Yes. The statement the group issued half a month ago to draw a clear line with Miss Jiang was also proposed by you. We have no way to divert the capital over now."

The uncle was left speechless. His entire being felt incredibly stifled. Indeed, that statement of total separation had been proposed by him. He had thought that Clara leaving the family meant she was just an ordinary child; what further use could she possibly have?

The atmosphere in the meeting room was very heavy.

The uncle's face looked considerably ugly as he threw down a sentence, "Anyway, this little bit of petty playing around isn't worth much." After saying that, he dismissed the meeting and left.

Seeing him go, a few employees muttered softly, "Saying it's not worth much, he's probably driven mad with envy."

"I've never seen someone act like an uncle the way he does. Putting the cart before the horse. The group isn't an entertainment marketing agency; it has proper industrial operations, yet he thinks of crooked paths every day."

"The proper industries under his hand have been losing money year after year, so this is the lowest-cost way to profit. Isn't this what he's used to?"

Elliot followed and listened to the entire process from a distance, walking away leisurely.

Half an hour later, the assistant went to Quentin's office to report the situation.

Quentin seemed to know what had happened. "Elliot didn't add fuel to the fire any less in the PR department during this period, did he?"

The assistant paused for a moment. "Young Master Elliot still knows his boundaries."

Quentin nodded. If he hadn't known that Elliot was skilled at adding fuel to the fire, he wouldn't have sent him over there. At instigating relationships between superiors and subordinates, Elliot was a natural talent, and he could still make himself look like a perfect good guy while doing it.

Quentin tossed aside the document he was reviewing, only stating one sentence, "The uncle is about to become useless in the PR department. Add a bit more trouble for him."

"Understood."

After the assistant went down, Quentin glanced at his phone.

Clara hadn't returned to the residence for two days; she was staying at the parents' villa. She was calculating that with her parents around, he wouldn't dare do anything to her.

At midnight, right before Clara went to sleep, a strong sense of crisis sprouted within her. From time to time, she paid close attention to that passage connecting her room to Quentin's. Clara had never felt it to be this dangerous.

Now she was a bit afraid that if Quentin returned in the middle of the night, he would come over from that side and catch her.

Clara tossed and turned, unable to sleep. Racking her brain for a solution, she simply climbed out of bed.

Ten minutes later, Sylvia, who had just finished bathing and was preparing to sleep, heard a knock at her door. Drying her still-wet hair, she walked over and opened the door to see Clara holding her own pillow, standing at her doorway with sheer delight, asking her very politely, "Can I sleep with you over these next two days?"

Sylvia's eyelids twitched slightly. "Sleep with me?"

Clara pursed her lips. "Is it okay? I'm a bit scared by myself."

Sylvia let out a smile of deep meaning. "Come in."

Clara felt a leap of joy in her heart. Just as she stepped through the door, she heard Sylvia offer a sentence, "You won't be scared sleeping with me?"

Clara was very candid, "Why should I be scared sleeping with you?"

Sylvia drew Clara's pillow from her hands, placed it on her own bed, and didn't say another word.

During this bizarre exchange of looks, Clara began to state her requirements, "I'm not sharing a blanket with you."

"You certainly have many demands, Princess." Sylvia still went to fetch a new blanket. She wasn't accustomed to sharing a single blanket with someone either.

Only after bringing the blanket back did Sylvia ask her, "What's wrong? Who are you afraid of when sleeping by yourself?"

Clara obediently placed the new blanket on her side and pulled it open. "I'm just afraid of sleeping by myself, that's all."

Yet Sylvia asked directly, "Are you afraid of Quentin?"

Clara's movements in smoothing the blanket froze, and she looked at her with a face full of astonishment. She was struck utterly speechless, yet realized she absolutely had to counter it. "No, I'm not."

Clara pulled up the blanket and turned over, facing her with the back of her head.

Sylvia nodded. "Fine, you're not." As she spoke, she turned off the bedside lamp and went to blow-dry her hair first, dropping a line, "But I saw that your rooms are connected."

This single sentence successfully caused Clara to sit up again in alarm. She wasn't sleeping anymore either, chasing Sylvia into the bathroom. "You saw it?!"

Sylvia cast her a leisurely glance and turned on the hair dryer. The loud noise instantly made their conversation impossible to advance.

Clara asked her, "How did you..."

"When did you..."

All of it was completely masked by the sound of the dryer.

Sylvia just watched that delicate and anxious figure revolve around her in the mirror. By the time Clara quieted down, Sylvia's hair was dry too. Nearby, Clara appeared somewhat vexed and discouraged.

Bypassing all those messy questions, Sylvia asked directly, "So what did he do?"

Clara didn't have the energy to answer anything else either. She had kept it bottled up for several days and needed to find someone to confide in. She grabbed Sylvia's hand. "Like this, he kept me captive like this."

Sylvia looked at her own hand being pressed against her waist by Clara, not quite understanding. "What's wrong with this?"

Clara simply pulled her to the sofa outside the bathroom, pushed her down in one go, and then sat upon her herself. "Like this."

She reconstructed what Quentin had done to her, putting one of Sylvia's hands at her waist and grabbing her wrist with the other. "He did this."

Sylvia's bone structure was like the rest of this family's, belonging to a mixed heritage. But Clara wasn't; Clara's stature was smaller than hers. So when Sylvia sat on the sofa, keeping the person captive in her embrace in the exact same manner, she roughly understood the scene at that time.

Strangely enough. The person she understood wasn't actually the Clara of that moment, but Quentin.

...She really was a bit easy to bully.

"Ah, then he really was quite excessive." Sylvia thought of herself in that manner too. Especially looking at Clara frowning and muttering her accusations, it made her appear even easier to bully.

Sylvia gave her a well-meaning reminder, "Since you know now, you'd better be careful from now on, lest you be chewed up until not even your bones are left."

Clara didn't utter a single sound, but it seemed she could no longer escape. They were married, after all.

"In any case, over these past two days, save me."

Sylvia looked at her pitiful appearance, like a lamb entering a tiger's mouth. She couldn't even bear to say another word. She shouldn't just be careful of Quentin alone. In reality, it was three of them.

Sylvia felt that the third brother, who had been idle at home recently, was also relatively dangerous. During the period when both Elliot and Quentin had gone to Paris, the father had kept the third brother confined at home, telling him to take her along to the company whenever he had nothing to do.

Sylvia felt that the third brother was so annoyed every day he wanted to kill someone. Especially targeting his two older brothers who were in Paris. She naturally didn't care, occasionally mocking him a bit.

What was rare was that the third brother had behaved very well over these past two days. During the day today, he had even accompanied Clara to the supermarket, ordering some items to decorate her workplace upon onboarding. The third brother had also promised to go help Clara tidy up her workspace tomorrow, taking advantage of the weekend when everyone was off work. This left Sylvia with no opportunity to speak ill of him. After all, Clara had a use for him; her speaking up at this time would easily make things difficult for Clara.

Sylvia merely looked at Clara with sympathy for a little while. Clara remained entirely oblivious.

The next day, when the third brother was helping her assemble the storage cabinets and shelving units, she was still racking her brain to think of how to repay her brother.

Clara sat on the sofa, the sound of an electric drill boring holes ringing in her ears. From a short distance away, she saw the third brother wearing his usual black car-repair vest, helping her assemble the cabinets.

The man, brimming with youthfulness, bit onto a flashlight to cast light, a pair of protective goggles hanging on his sharply contoured cheeks. The vest was stretched tight by his physique, clinging close to his body, his arm muscles bulging with every application of force. Dust flew all around, noisy and chaotic.

The third brother didn't allow Clara to approach, but his movements were crisp and neat. This work was nothing to the third brother, who frequently crawled under car bellies and repaired off-road sports cars.

Clara told Cherry to go fetch the gift they had brought back from Paris. What she had brought for the third brother was a sports car model. The third brother assembled his own off-road racing cars, requiring many models for practice beforehand.

After Clara finished sending the message, she heard the drilling sound over there come to a stop. The third brother smoothly removed his goggles and flashlight.

Clara stood up to hand the third brother some water.

The third brother smiled, taking the water from her hand. "Told you not to come over, it's dirty."

"It's fine, I came to take a look." Clara saw that her little cabinet had already been assembled, except a shallow layer of sawdust had settled on top.

"It'll still take a little while." The third brother put down the mineral water he had finished drinking, took a rag to wipe away the sawdust on top, and sanded down the splinters on it. Sweat droplets fell along the stray hairs on his forehead. His nose bridge and neck were also covered in a fine layer of light sweat.

Clara stood nearby, unable to resist looking at the third brother a couple more times. The third brother likely sensed something, raising his eyes during a pause in his movements, colliding right with her gaze.

Clara didn't dodge or avoid it, curling her eyes into a smile. The one to avert their gaze first was the third brother.

He finished with the cabinet, moved it into the car, simply changed his clothes, and sent her things to the museum. Once they finished tidying up her workspace, the third brother drove that Nordic ghost supercar back to the residence, just as Cherry also arrived at the residence.

Clara took the gift and entered the house with the third brother.

Sylvia sat on the sofa in front of the second-floor glass window scooping ice cream, watching them chat in the living room for a bit before heading to the third brother's room. Sylvia glanced at her watch; it was exactly nine o'clock, and she continued scooping her ice cream.

Clara had someone move the model into his room, clapping the dust off her hands. "Then I'll head back first."

Hearing her words, the third brother's eyelashes lowered slightly, and he suddenly let out a soft hiss. Hearing the noise, Clara turned her head to look at him. "What's wrong?"

The third brother replied simply, "It's nothing."

Clara stepped forward, sharply seeing a long blood mark on his forearm. She was startled. "How did this happen? Was it scratched while assembling the cabinets today?" Clara saw that the blood at the edges of this wound had already coagulated. "Why didn't you say so earlier?"

"Didn't notice, it's not a big problem."

Clara shook her head. "It needs to be treated, what if it gets infected?"

The third brother stopped her. "Wait a bit, I'll go take a shower first, I'm covered in dust."

"It can't touch water."

"I'll be careful." The third brother gestured to Clara. "Just help me get some rubbing alcohol."

Saying that, he entered the bathroom first. Clara still had someone bring over iodine and medication to prevent infection, waiting in the room for him to finish bathing and come out.

The third brother's shower time was somewhat long. Clara grew sleepy waiting. She let out a yawn and leaned nearby. Who knew how much time passed, but just when she was about to fall asleep, she heard the sound of the bathroom door opening.

Following that was a wave of water vapor blowing into her face.

Clara opened her eyes to see the third brother coming out wearing a simple black T-shirt and shorts. The black T-shirt fit him just right; having touched water, it clung a bit to his form, allowing his silhouette to be faintly seen. It was a very youthful casual attire, yet it exuded a mature male physique that didn't belong to a youth.

Drowsy, Clara was dazed for a second before recalling the proper business. "Finished bathing?"

Her slightly raspy and lazy voice caused the third brother's movement in wiping his hair to pause. Clara managed to climb up to fetch the medicine. "I had them bring iodine, alcohol hurts too much. Come here."

The third brother obediently walked to her side, extending his arm. "Caring about me this much?"

The part of his forearm that had been scratched was mostly scraped skin, without large-scale bleeding. Clara took out the iodine and cotton ball, gripping his wrist to wipe across the wound. "If I don't care about you, who am I supposed to care about?"

The third brother was highly pleased by her coaxing, his entire attention focused on the wrist being held by Clara. The touch was warm and cool, smooth as jade. If his fingers merely closed tightly, he could hold onto all of this.

He thought so, and he did so.

Except he applied no force, the light calluses of his fingertips scraping across her delicate wrist. "Then you went to Paris without calling me?"

Clara felt very ticklish from his scraping. "I went in a hurry, I didn't call anyone." Clara could faintly hear that he knew Big Brother and Second Brother had gone, and was throwing a small tantrum here. "The two of them had their own business, which is why they went over."

The third brother gave an "mm," but he didn't sound entirely convinced. "Is Paris fun?"

"It's fun."

The third brother suddenly drew a bit closer, asking her, "Then is Big Brother more fun, or is Second Brother more fun?"