After her mother remarried, Zeng Yu joined the Han family and suddenly found herself with a new older brother, Han Mengyu. At twelve, she deliberately poured ink into Han Mengyu’s shoes to get back at him. At fourteen, she took a bite out of the tip of every slice of watermelon just so Han Mengyu couldn’t eat any. At sixteen, when someone teased them about being a couple, Zeng Yu burst into tears and kicked and hit Han Mengyu, refusing to have anything to do with him. They lived under the same roof, and Han Mengyu was the “other people’s kid” her mother was always talking about. He was always top of the school, raked in scholarships year after year, and had already become an outstanding judge at a high court while still young. By comparison, Zeng Yu was a petty, willful, inconsiderate bad kid, standing in the shadow of Han Mengyu’s brilliance. It took her a full ten years to go from rejecting her stepbrother Han Mengyu, to questioning her feelings, and finally accepting him. Then one day, Han Mengyu knocked on the “bad kid’s” door and said, “If you want me to say it plainly, then I want to say that I like you.”
