Chapter Text
Jiang Cheng’s youth is defined by expectations.
Even as an adult, Jiang Cheng vividly remembers a photograph in his parents’ room of an infant Jiang Cheng with his grandparents. His grandmother sits in a chair with him in her arms, and his grandfather stands behind them. His grandparents look proud and dignified, and the photo's composition is such that attention is drawn to the baby. Every time a young Jiang Cheng looks at that picture, he feels like a little prince.
He is treated like one, too. His grandmother spoils him every chance she gets, and she pinches his cheeks until they hurt. His grandfather pulls Jiang Cheng onto his knee and ruffles his hair. It’s a stiffer kind of affection, but that’s quite alright; his grandfather smiles at Jiang Cheng more often than he smiles at anyone else.
Jiang Cheng learns to write his name before he starts kindergarten, and every time his grandparents visit after that, they ask him how many new characters he’s learned. Jiang Cheng notices that they don’t always seem pleased with his answer; the number isn’t high enough, they explain. Jiang Cheng should play less and study more.
Jiang Cheng has to meet their expectations.
It’s around that time that Jiang Cheng discovers that many people expect things from him, and their expectations are high. He learns that he has to be perfect, that his father is counting on him, and that he is the Jiang family’s successor. He has to be the best – or nearly so – at everything he does. There are some children he’s not allowed to play with and some that he has to play with. He has to do sports, but here’s a list of sports he’s not allowed to do. Jiang Cheng has to score ninety points on every test, but a ninety on a geography test is more acceptable than a ninety for maths.
The trouble is that Jiang Cheng struggles with academics from an early age. He finds multiplication difficult and division even more so; he often forgets the correct stroke order of the characters he learns; when he learns the Latin alphabet, he keeps mixing up the ‘b’, ‘d’, and ‘p’. Jiang Cheng struggles so much that his parents get him a private tutor, though he’s not allowed to tell anyone about that. Jiang Cheng's mother explains that most of the other children don’t have private tutors. At first, Jiang Cheng takes that to mean that it’s a good thing– it’s good to be given something others don’t get to have, such as an award for perfect attendance. He quickly learns better, though – it’s nothing to be proud of to require a tutor to understand what your school teacher teaches you.
Jiang Cheng has to meet expectations, and he doesn’t.
Jiang Cheng wants to make his parents proud of him, but it’s much harder than any division or multiplication problem he’s ever had to solve. He’ll get the occasional pat on the head from his father – whenever he’s home, which isn’t often – and maybe a distracted smile or two, but hardly ever a show of pride or love. His mother is home most of the time, but she often wears a look of disapproval and constantly pushes Jiang Cheng to study more and do better. He gets one scolding after another – why does he need books that are easier to read? Why does he still not understand that one difficult word? – and even on those occasions that Jiang Cheng gets a perfect score on a test, the best he gets is a nod that he hopes means approval.
It takes Jiang Cheng years to understand that it’s all done out of love.
}:{
The only person whose love Jiang Cheng never questions is his older sister’s. Yanli praises him for the handicrafts projects he brings home and keeps them on her windowsill. She tells him she’s proud of him when he scores eighty-six points on a multiplications test because she knows how long and hard he studied for it. When he falls and scrapes his knee, his sister is there to hug him.
Jiang Cheng loves his sister more than anything else in the world.
Yanli has expectations of Jiang Cheng, but they are easier to meet and understand. She expects Jiang Cheng to be kind to others; it’s okay that Jiang Cheng isn’t good at some things, but his sister expects him to make an effort and do his best anyway, regardless of the outcome.
Be kind, and do your best. Simple.
A-Li is the only person who never scolds Jiang Cheng for not knowing something they think he should already know. She’s the only one who tells him that it’s okay that he wants to be an astronaut when he grows up instead of taking over their father’s business. And then she’s the one who comforts him, because it turns out that astronauts have to be good at maths, and that’s not fair.
}:{
Jiang Cheng’s father is rarely home at a time outside of Jiang Cheng’s bedtime, but on one of the rare occasions he is, he gets a strange phone call. Jiang Cheng doesn’t know what it’s about, but it’s cause enough for his father to leave the house in a hurry with barely a word. When he returns, days later, he has a boy with him of Jiang Cheng’s age. Jiang Cheng will never forget, even as an adult, the way his father let this boy – Wei Ying – cling to his hand in a way he hadn’t permitted Jiang Cheng to do for a very long time.
The children are sent straight to bed.
Jiang Cheng has trouble falling asleep – he keeps thinking about how this strange boy clung to the hand of Jiang Cheng’s father. There’s something unfair about it that Jiang Cheng is too young and inexperienced to put into words.
It’s because he can’t sleep that Jiang Cheng hears it when his sister’s bedroom door opens, and then another door a little further down the hallway. A few minutes later, there are quiet footsteps sneaking past his own door. Curious, Jiang Cheng gets out of bed to investigate and finds his sister leading the Wei boy downstairs and into the kitchen. He follows them and finds his sister serving his soup – that his sister made for him – to the stranger.
A-Li spots Jiang Cheng lingering by the door and invites him to join them. A good thing, probably, because Jiang Cheng is close to getting mad; how dare this boy steal his sister?
“Wei Ying didn’t have dinner,” A-Li tells him, and Jiang Cheng has to admit that feeding someone who’s hungry is a good and nice thing to do – and his sister is the best and nicest person there is, so of course she wants to feed Wei Ying.
Wei Ying, who looks small and a bit scared and like he has been crying.
“Did you cry?” Jiang Cheng asks him, because he’s curious and is still learning when it is and isn’t appropriate to ask certain questions.
“Wei Ying doesn’t have parents anymore,” A-Li explains as Wei Ying curls in on himself a little more. “He’s sad because he misses them very much.”
That is something Jiang Cheng can understand – and it explains why Wei Ying was holding the hand of Jiang Cheng’s father earlier. He must feel so alone now.
And so, Jiang Cheng stops being angry with him.
They have soup together – A-Li’s soup, which is the most delicious food in the world and always makes Jiang Cheng feel better – and then they all go back to bed. Jiang Cheng still can’t sleep much because he keeps thinking of Wei Ying, but he no longer thinks of him with jealousy.
Be kind, his sister has taught him, and he wants to.
Jiang Cheng wants to make his sister proud.
In the morning, Jiang Cheng asks his father if Wei Ying can please share his room. After all, Wei Ying has just lost his parents and must feel very sad and alone. If he sleeps in Jiang Cheng’s room, he might still be sad but won’t be alone anymore. Jiang Fengmian agrees immediately.
It’s one of a bare handful of times Jiang Cheng can tell that his father is proud of him.
(His mother is not, but Jiang Cheng finds he doesn’t mind that, this time.)
}:{
As soon as it’s decided – by Jiang Cheng’s father, with the reluctant agreement of his mother – that A-Ying will stay, life becomes both harder and easier for Jiang Cheng. On the one hand, he now has a playmate who is not related to a politician, businessman, or family friend, and he loves that. When A-Ying gets put in Jiang Cheng’s class, both boys are delighted. And sure, A-Ying doesn’t need extra tutoring, but Jiang Cheng already knows this is the rule and not the exception. As such, he doesn’t hold it against his new friend.
What’s hard is that, although A-Ying now lives with the Jiang family, it’s as though Jiang Cheng’s mother doesn’t want them to be friends. Suddenly, she becomes even more focused on Jiang Cheng’s studies and progress. Everything that can be made into a competition of any kind, is: who gets the best grades, who’s better at sports, who gets the most awards at school, who is liked the most by their teachers; the list is endless.
Two things make this harder still: A-Ying’s inherent genius at just about everything, and Jiang Fengmian.
A-Ying very rarely scores lower than ninety-five points on tests, so of course it’s no longer acceptable for Jiang Cheng to score lower than that either. Even with a private tutor, that proves to be very difficult. A-Ying tries to help by explaining things to Jiang Cheng, but he gets distracted easily, and his mind works much too fast for Jiang Cheng to keep up with.
Jiang Cheng appreciates his kindness, though.
What stings far more than A-Ying’s natural aptitude for whatever he decides to put his mind to is the fact that Jiang Fengmian favours A-Ying over his own son. Jiang Cheng is young, but even he notices that. He trusts that his father loves him; he does not trust that his father loves him more than A-Ying, or even equally as much. There are even rumours – whispered by the adults and clearly not for Jiang Cheng’s ears, but he is a curious child and hears the whispers anyway – that A-Ying might be Jiang Fengmian’s illegitimate child. Jiang Cheng doesn’t know what that word means when he first hears it, and he doesn’t dare ask, so he looks it up.
It breaks his young heart when he figures it out.
It breaks his heart, but Jiang Cheng does not immediately think that it can’t be true. It isn’t until Jiang Cheng sees a picture of A-Ying’s parents that he starts to doubt the rumours; A-Ying looks too much like his own father to be Jiang Cheng’s half-brother. And he has to admit that for all of Jiang Fengmian’s faults, Jiang Cheng wouldn’t bet his life on him being unfaithful to his wife.
That doesn’t make his father’s preference for A-Ying any less painful.
The only person Jiang Cheng dares to talk to about this is his sister. It’s not fair, he tells her. It’s not fair that A-Ying is so good at everything and Jiang Cheng is not; it’s not fair that their father likes A-Ying so much, but not Jiang Cheng; it’s not fair that their mother scolds him all the time when he’s trying so hard to make her proud. Why is it not enough?
Why is it so hard to meet their parents’ expectations?
And A-Li explains to Jiang Cheng that it’s okay to be upset because it isn’t fair. Everyone is good at some things and not so good at others, but that’s okay. No one can be good at everything; that would be too much for anyone to handle. It just so happens that A-Ying is good at maths, and Jiang Cheng isn’t. It’s not fair, but it’s no one’s fault, either. And Jiang Cheng is good at other things, such as swimming and other sports. He’s also organised in ways that A-Ying will probably never be, and that’s a very useful skill to have.
It’s in no small part because of A-Li that Jiang Cheng and A-Ying get along as well as they do – even though Jiang Cheng doesn’t realise that until years later. She helps them to be friends rather than rivals – or worse, enemies. They have adventures together, as children do, and they get into lots of trouble together.
They bond.
Despite the unfairness, the difficulties, the constant fight for his parents’ affection, approval, and pride, Jiang Cheng finds that he never wants A-Ying to leave again.
He calls A-Ying his brother, and he means it.
It makes A-Ying cry, but they are tears of happiness.
}:{
When A-Li finishes high school and announces she’s going to Paris for a year, Jiang Cheng’s first reaction is to be upset. Not in front of his sister, of course – because she is thrilled at the prospect of going abroad and Jiang Cheng wants her to be happy – but in private, with A-Ying, he isn’t happy at all.
The problem is not that they will miss A-Li; they will, but never enough to want to keep her from pursuing her dreams. No, the problem is rather that they have grown so used to A-Li acting as a buffer, both between them and between them and their parents, that they don’t know what they’ll do without her. Even as a teenager, Jiang Cheng is aware that such deep dependency on his sister might not be healthy, but there it is: he is afraid of what will happen without his sister’s gentleness to dull any sharp edges.
There are so many sharp edges in their family.
His father is too soft at the wrong time, towards the wrong person, which causes tension. When conflict threatens his peace of mind, he turns away and leaves the conflict for someone else to deal with.
His mother struggles to communicate beyond scolding and correcting and challenging the rest of them; it’s her love language – her way of helping them to become more and better – but it’s difficult to remember that most of the time.
A-Ying isn’t good at adhering to rules and following orders, and he has a strong sense of justice that causes him to challenge those things and those people he considers unjust. He has a mind, will, and energy that he uses for those purposes he considers important, regardless of what others may think. It causes a lot of tension between him and Jiang Cheng’s mother.
Jiang Cheng is hardly any better than his mother when it comes to the use of sharp words and looks of disapproval. He gets annoyed too easily, lashes out too harshly and too quickly, and is too eager to stand by A-Ying’s side – which gets him into trouble more often than not. His mother does not approve.
There are so many sharp edges, and A-Li won’t be there to soften the blows, stitch up the cuts they inflict on each other, or interpret the meaning behind their stinging words. Jiang Cheng fears what she might come home to.
As it turns out, he might have worried too much.
In the past, A-Li would take her brothers out of the room at the first sign of a fight between their parents; signs that Jiang Cheng and A-Ying are far less adept at recognising, so they have rarely seen their parents fight.
They get to see it now.
Not even a week after A-Li’s departure, Jiang Cheng witnesses his parents getting into an argument. As expected, after a few sharp words from his mother, his father turns away and secludes himself in his study. Jiang Cheng watches as his mother huffs angrily and strides out of the room.
What Jiang Cheng also gets to witness – and hasn’t before – is what happens afterwards.
He hears his father coming out of his study a few hours later. Next, he hears his parents talking, and while his mother is still clearly annoyed about whatever caused their argument, she is much calmer. Jiang Cheng’s father, too, is more composed now, and as Jiang Cheng listens to the two of them resolving the argument, he comes to two startling realisations.
The first is that his parents’ method of conflict resolution is not to walk away and pretend it never happened. Instead, it is to walk away, cool off, and then discuss the matter again.
The second realisation is that he wishes he had seen them do that before. He would have been far less worried about what his home life would be like without his sister. He understands that A-Li got him and A-Ying away from their parents’ fights so they wouldn’t get upset or feel guilty – in case their parents would fight about them – but Jiang Cheng starts to believe now that this may have been the wrong decision.
He does feel bad for A-Li, though. What did she see or hear that made her think getting her brothers out of hearing range was necessary? Was she simply afraid of their feelings being hurt, or might she also have wanted to prevent them from being scared by their parents fighting? What must it have been like for her to constantly be on her guard, looking for signs of conflict?
It is perhaps because of that first argument that things don’t escalate between Jiang Cheng and A-Ying. While bickering is business as usual for them, it takes only one harsh word from Jiang Cheng or bad joke from his brother for the bickering to turn into a fight. However, instead of punching A-Ying or yelling something he might regret later, Jiang Cheng takes a page from his parents’ book: he turns around and stomps out of the room to cool off. It feels like running away, and Jiang Cheng doesn’t like it, but any hurtful words he might have thrown into his brother’s face remain behind his teeth.
Funnily enough, leaving the room makes A-Ying think that he took his jokes too far, and he immediately follows Jiang Cheng to apologise. Jiang Cheng’s anger instantly evaporates to leave mere annoyance – he didn’t mean to make A-Ying feel bad. Eventually, they get everything cleared up between them, and the matter ends with Jiang Cheng putting his laughing brother in a headlock. All in all, not a bad outcome.
Seeing that fight between his parents is the first tense situation that Jiang Cheng knows his sister would work to resolve, even if it wouldn’t have been necessary; it’s not the last. Jiang Cheng thinks it may be doing their family good.
Jiang Cheng is convinced that he is right in his conviction that his sister is a balm that soothes the hurts in their family; he may have overestimated each individual’s flaws, though. Most importantly, perhaps, is the realisation that his sister is flawed.
(Even though she’s still the closest thing to perfect, and he knows he’ll never change his mind on that.)
Jiang Cheng misses his sister terribly and is happier than he’s been in months when she comes home for the Lunar New Year.
}:{
Jiang Cheng had no idea that his mother planned an engagement party for his sister. He does know that his mother believes the match to be in his sister’s best interest, so he forgives her.
Jiang Cheng is aware that Jin Zixuan was tricked into the engagement party as much as his sister, and he does understand not wanting to marry against one’s will. However, Zixuan humiliated A-Li by running away, and Jiang Cheng will never forgive him for that.
}:{
Only their final exams stand between Jiang Cheng and A-Ying and their high school graduation. Jiang Cheng has never studied so hard in his life – nor has he ever been so nervous.
And his parents’ expectations have never been so high.
On the day of the exams, Jiang Cheng throws up twice before they even get to the exam location; he throws up once more as soon as he walks out again. A-Ying doesn’t seem nearly as nervous, and that does not make Jiang Cheng feel any better.
The weeks until they get their results are both endless and nerve-wracking. Jiang Cheng, his parents, and his siblings are all in the room together when the results come in.
A-Ying gets a perfect score for maths, because of course he does.
But so does Jiang Cheng.
“A-Cheng,” his mother says, sounding deeply emotional as she looks at his scorecard. “A-Cheng!”
She looks at him with tears in her eyes and more love and pride than Jiang Cheng has ever seen on her face. When he looks at his father, those same emotions are reflected on his face as well.
Their scores are high enough to get them both into top-tier universities, and Jiang Cheng has never wanted to cry so much in his life.
He’s lived up to his parents’ expectations.
}:{
After the disaster that was A-Li’s engagement party, Jiang Cheng expected that his sister would never want to have anything to do with the Jin family ever again – Jin Zixuan, in particular. So, when his sister announces at a family dinner one evening that she and Jin Zixuan are dating – and have been for two months, no less! – at first Jiang Cheng thinks it’s a joke. One in poor taste, to be sure, but a joke.
It’s not a joke.
Jiang Cheng wants to break Zixuan’s legs – that bastard will not run away from A-Li a second time; Jiang Cheng will see to that – and A-Ying mentions several times that he wants to break Zixuan’s nose – as a start – but then A-Li looks at them both with a look of faint disappointment.
They deflate immediately and promise to leave her boyfriend alone.
Be kind, A-Li has taught them.
They will be, but only because they want their sister to be happy.
}:{
A-Li and Zixuan get married, eventually, and it’s almost as extravagant an affair as Jiang Cheng expects from a Jin wedding. Almost, because he knows his sister had a hand in organising it. It’s appropriately chic, the food is delicious, the band is fantastic, and Zixuan is so deeply and obviously in love with his bride that it would be sickening if that bride wasn’t A-Li.
Jiang Cheng just might forgive his new brother-in-law a little bit for his past transgressions.
}:{
A-Li and Zixuan move to a different city to save a branch of Jin Guangshan’s business. Some time later, after getting into a fight with the Wen family one too many times, A-Ying joins them there.
Jiang Cheng misses them terribly.
They call often and send each other emails at least weekly, but it’s a struggle; just because Jiang Cheng did well on his high school exams doesn’t mean that his parents’ expectations have changed.
They still expect the best.
The pressure was never easy to bear, but it was significantly easier with A-Ying beside him, studying together and complaining together and getting into trouble for it together. But with A-Ying in a different city, all the pressure lands squarely on Jiang Cheng’s shoulders, with no one to share his frustrations and uncertainties with. Sharing them with his parents is useless; his father will tell Jiang Cheng that the hard work will get easier with time and experience, whereas his mother will scold him and even accuse him of laziness.
Jiang Cheng works harder than ever.
He has to make his parents proud.
}:{
Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan decide to go on a cruise. It’s been a while since they last went on vacation together, and it will be good for Jiang Fengmian’s health to get out of his office for a while.
Jiang Cheng is put in charge of Jiang Logistics until they get back.
Some people – the board, Jiang Cheng himself – think this is too much responsibility for one so young and inexperienced. Jiang Cheng’s parents believe this is an excellent learning opportunity for their son. Besides, he’ll only supervise and not be in charge of any big decision-making.
And they’ll only be gone for a month.
Jiang Cheng goes to see his parents off on the day of departure. It’s a sunny day, the waters are calm, and his parents look subtly excited.
Jiang Fengmian cups his son’s cheek with a look of encouragement and pride.
“Everything will be alright,” he promises. “You’ve worked very hard; you’ll do well.”
Yu Ziyuan pulls her son into a hug, something she hasn’t done in years.
“You’re young, not stupid,” she tells him. “After this month, the board will want your father to go on vacation more often.” With a criticising look at her husband, she adds: “It would be better for his health if he did.”
As the ship lifts its anchor and slowly leaves the harbour, Jiang Cheng feels like he’s two meters tall and light enough to float away.
He’s living up to expectations.
}:{
The ship sinks.
More than forty people lose their lives.
Jiang Cheng’s parents are dead.
}:{
Jiang Cheng inherits fifty-one per cent of the company and with it, total control. Despite working towards this moment his entire life, he feels utterly unprepared; lost. He’d expected to get a management position and a seat on the board sometime within the next year or two. Then he would have climbed the corporate ladder for several years until his father’s retirement. And then he would have been able to count on his father’s advice for another decade or two before running the company entirely by himself.
And yet here he is, not even out of university yet, and running the company.
Alone.
A-Li reminds him – in that soft and gentle way of hers – that this isn’t necessarily true: he has the board and several senior employees who were all close to their father. Every one of them has an interest in seeing Jiang Cheng succeed and should be happy to advise him.
(Opportunists and bootlickers don’t tend to last long at Jiang Logistics.)
Jiang Cheng knows that his sister is right, but with his siblings so far away from him, he feels alone. He and A-Ying used to talk about working at the company – and leading it – together, but A-Ying is on Wen Chao’s shit list and has every reason to fear for his life if he returns.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t want his brother’s death on his conscience.
He still feels lonely.
}:{
The first ray of sunshine in Jiang Cheng’s life after the death of his parents is the birth of his nephew six months later. A-Ling is chubby, bears a faint resemblance to a cranky potato, and Jiang Cheng adores him from the moment he lays eyes on him. When he gets to hold the baby, A-Ling doesn’t even cry; on the contrary, he seems very content to be held in his uncle’s arms.
A-Ling’s birth is also the cause for the fiercest rivalry to have ever existed between Jiang Cheng and A-Ying; along with Zixuan’s half-brother Meng Yao, they spoil their nephew every chance they get. Jiang Cheng has decided that he will be A-Ling’s favourite uncle, and in this he will not back down.
Their family hasn’t been this happy in six months.
}:{
It’s the day of A-Ling’s one-month celebration, and A-Ying is late. It’s never been his nature to be punctual, but he’s known about this party for weeks.
“You’d better have a good explanation for this, because if you make A-Li sad, I’ll break your legs,” Jiang Cheng threatens his brother. “If you make A-Ling sad, I’ll break them again.”
“A-Ling is a baby,” A-Ying reminds him with a laugh. “He won’t notice whether I’m there or not.”
“But A-Li will,” Jiang Cheng insists. “What’s so important that you’re late today of all days?”
“I’ll tell you when I get there,” A-Ying promises him. Jiang Cheng hears the rattling of keys. “I just got home; I’ll quickly take a shower, and then I’ll be on my way. I’m hurrying, A-Cheng!”
Jiang Cheng bristles.
“How old am I? Ten? Just get your ass over here already!”
A-Ying laughs.
“I love you too!”
“Idiot!” Jiang Cheng snaps.
He hangs up without another word.
He’ll never have a bigger regret in his life.