The Coveted God and His Mad Dog

Chen Yan was told by his family that he used to have an older brother named Chen Shi, an adopted child who drowned while saving him when he was five.

After that, everyone accepted that Chen Shi was gone. Only Chen Yan could see someone intimately draping an arm over his shoulder from behind.

Someone once joked, “Why are you still keeping your brother’s things? The dead don’t come back. Are you keeping all this stuff so you can live with your brother?”

Chen Yan smiled. “Of course not.”

He glanced at the empty space beside him, his smile growing gentler.

Because we have long been one in flesh and blood.

I am his everything, and I have absolute control over him. We are inseparable, made for each other.

Chen Yan’s parents often fought. At first they hurled insults at each other, then they started insulting him too. It happened all the time.

They said he wasn’t as smart as his brother, that his grades weren’t as good, that they wished he had been the one to die...

Chen Yan stared at his reflection in the mirror.

People often said he looked like his brother. He thought he could see his brother looking back at him.

Chen Yan hated him. He hated that his brother still stole their parents’ affection even after he was dead. He hated how perfect his brother seemed in their eyes. And he hated himself for being inferior to a dead man.

All that hatred came down to wishing his brother would come take him away already.

He knelt before the mirror, disheveled yet reverent, and touched the eyes in his reflection. They were the part of him that looked most like his brother.

“Brother, I hate you so much.”

And I hate that there’s no one in the world who loves you more than I do.

When Chen Yan was at his most miserable and consumed by his own thoughts, his brother covered his ears, crouched down, and said gently, “Quiet your mind and listen to the sound of Heaven loving you.”

Chen Yan looked up and heard the voice of the person he loved.

*Not narcissistic romance. The bottom is a secondary personality split off from the top. (?)

Theme: .