A Broken Heart Still Beats.

Prologue Part I

Instead, she found a sickly, scrawny, and pale six-year-old who shivered and cried harder when she came inside. She had told him to stop his crying, that he clearly wasn't that badly hurt, and he should know better than to make such a fuss. He obeyed her quickly, terrified that the young master he had seen before would come back and yell at him as he had when he first took him and his Er-ge.

She had then taken him to get cleaned up, redressed in the nicest robes he had ever owned, and even started calling him Shidi. He never got to see his Er-ge in those walls, no matter how he begged Qiu Haitang, she always told him that his brother was busy and that he was her servant to play with, so he shouldn't be concerned about anyone else but her.

He learned early on to never question her.

While the young mistress was quite nice to him, even though she only saw him as a mere plaything rather than a person, that brother of hers...was by no means as kind or understanding.

The few times Qiu Jinaluo had heard him crying or walked in on him begging Qiu Haitang to let him see his brother, he had earned himself a good few slaps to the face maybe even a few good kicks to the rips if Qiu Haitang wasn't there.

He learned that to keep himself alive and safe, he had to be silent. It was better to just never speak unless spoken to, only stealing glances to the courtyard that Qiu Jinluo possessed and praying that he might just catch a glimpse of his brother, which he rarely ever did, and when they saw each other, Shen Jiu always looked on the verge of committing terrible acts of rage.

Shen Yuan learned that it was best not to look.

Three years went by in that house where he rarely ever saw his brother. If they were allowed to see each other, it was only briefly, just long enough that Shen Jiu could hug him and pat him down for injuries. In which he would bite his tongue and keep himself from crying every time his brother touched a fresh bruise.

In the end, however, they weren't allowed to spend all that much time alone together. Qiu Jinluo once heard Shen Jiu bad-mouthing him and planned on escaping with his brother in tow; he had thoroughly beaten both Shen brothers until a few older servants had to come to take away a bloody Shen Jiu and the near unconscious little brother.

All the while he spatted and hissed. "Jiu and Shi, huh? No wonder you're named so ridiculously! We can't trust you two alone together!"

Despite being near unconscious, he loathed that he couldn't speak up to say that his brothers had named him better, that 'Shi' was not his name, and it never would be.

One day, Qiu Haitang demanded that they leave the estate to spend a few nights in a few towns over where a large shopping district was.

He had been less than enthused to leave, but they had only been gone for a few days when they returned only to see the remains of the Qiu manor. Everyone aside from a few women was dead, the manor burned down, and the entire Qiu family aside from Qiu Haitang was dead.

Qiu Haitang cried over and over that it wasn't fair that her fiancé was dead and gone just like her brother, that fate was truly so unfair and cruel. He wholeheartedly agreed with her as he did his best to comfort her, the petty and bitter part of his heart flaring to life at the idea of his brother ever having to marry into that family.

For some time, they lived in a smaller estate associated with the family. The servants that were left were undyingly loyal, raising Qiu Haitang and himself until the day he turned eleven.

He had come down with a terrible fever, so sick that even Qiu Haitang's shouting couldn't get him to stir. She ended up crying at his bedside, worried sick that her precious Shidi was dying, and she would be left all alone with not even the last shard of her fiancé to remember the good old days.