Broken-Winged Angel [18+]

BROKEN-WINGED ANGEL: CHAPTER 3

Half a year passed, and I continued to be the twins’ private tutor. My university club senior who introduced me to this job felt this was very surprising. My senior and the twins’ families were long time family friends, and they had known each other since they were little. He said that the twins were very difficult to get along with and were very treacherous people; however, I simply never got that impression. Zhao Yi Bo’s attitude was always friendly, and even though Zhao Yi Xuan never took the initiative to talk, he never made things difficult for me or made a ruckus during class. As for the homework I assigned every session, the twins always completed it on time.

After knowing them for so long, I started to see them as my little brothers. Sometimes I would even sigh and wonder why my own little brother couldn’t even be half as well-behaved as they were, which was pretty bad of me to think of as his older sister.

From my senior’s words, I also came to understand some of the circumstances surrounding the Zhao family.

I listened to my senior explain that the heads of the Zhao family were married due to business interests, and they simply didn’t love each other. Each of them respectively had their own livelihoods and lovers, and they now lived outside of the country. For the twins, this was like saying that their parents had practically abandoned them in Taiwan. In the Zhao family mansion, the only residents were the two brothers and the icy butler that took care of them.

After I heard my senior say this, I felt really bad for the twins. Even though their parents were still alive and they had a ridiculous amount of money at home, they weren’t all that different from orphans.

My family didn’t have very much money, and before I came to Taipei, my entire family always lived in a rather small apartment. At night, everyone would crowd into the living room to watch television, and we’d frequently argue about watching the shows that we each liked. On days off work, my mom and dad liked to arrange some family activities that only old people would enjoy doing. I also frequently fought with my little brother over every little thing until one of us gave up.

However, the twins never experienced this kind of commonplace happiness.

The weekend before Christmas, I went to the Zhao residence for a tutoring lesson as scheduled. After pressing the doorbell and waiting for quite a long time, the old butler never came to open the gate. I felt this was strange, since normally the old butler would immediately open the door as soon as I placed my hand on the doorbell. After some more time passed, the elaborately carved steel gate finally swung open slowly. The person who answered the door was unexpectedly Zhao Yi Xuan.

“Where’s the butler? Did he go out?”

“Dead.” After Zhao Yi Xuan opened the gate, he turned around on his own to head back inside, not caring whether I followed or not.

“Huh?” I was frozen on the spot, but I quickly came back to my senses. I jogged to chase after Zhao Yi Xuan and grabbed his sleeves.

“How could you say such a thing about an elderly person? It’s just too rude.” I was slightly angry. Even though the old butler was always cold, never said a word to me, and was practically a stranger in a sense, my moral values to respect my elders made me feel upset about Zhao Yi Xuan’s language.

“On Monday. Got in a car accident. Died.” Zhao Yi Xuan looked back and emotionlessly explained with a very flat tone. It was then that I realized that his complexion was very poor. There were bags under his bloodshot eyes, his lips were cracked, his hair was a complete mess, and his clothes were disorderly. 

“Please don’t be so upset…” At a complete loss, I let go of his sleeves and followed him into the building.

I didn’t see Zhao Yi Bo inside the living room, so I continued to follow Zhao Yi Xuan upstairs. I thought he was going to go to the study, but he didn’t. Rather, he turned around and entered Zhao Yi Bo’s room.