At three o'clock in the afternoon, the livestream entered its first official interaction segment. The programme team called it Afternoon Tea Truth Time, which sounded gentle enough — but every experienced variety-show viewer knew that whenever a production team used words like tea, truth, heart-to-heart, or relaxed conversation, they were usually preparing to dig up something bloody while smiling.

The camera angle changed. In the Lu family's living room the coffee table had been cleared, and Shen Qingyu sat on the sofa with a cup of warm milk in front of him, Lu Jingheng beside him with his posture straight and one arm resting casually along the back of the sofa behind Shen Qingyu's shoulders. The twins were on the carpet nearby, each with a puzzle board. Xiao Nian was carefully sorting animal-shaped pieces. Xiao Heng had already sorted his by colour, size, corner probability, and what he called structural importance. Shen Qingyu had stopped asking questions about that.

【Afternoon Tea Truth Time? Hahahaha, Director Zhou, just say you want drama.】

【Programme team: We are very gentle. Also programme team: Please expose your emotional wounds on camera.】

【Why does Lu Jingheng look like he's attending a board meeting?】

【No, look at his arm. His arm is behind Shen Qingyu. That is not board-meeting posture. That is husband posture.】

【He looks calm, but if the programme team asks one bad question, I feel like he'll buy the show.】

The staff member responsible for reading the questions stood outside the camera frame, his voice noticeably more cautious than it had been with the other guests. "Teacher Shen, President Lu, the programme team has collected some questions from netizens for this segment. You may choose whether to answer. If a question involves private matters, you may refuse."

Shen Qingyu leaned back lazily. "Then why ask?"

The staff member choked. The bullet comments laughed immediately.

【HAHAHAHAHAHA】

【Shen Qingyu: You know I can refuse, but you still want to be beaten.】

【Because he is right.】

Lu Jingheng glanced at the staff member, whose back stiffened at once. Shen Qingyu noticed and lightly tapped Lu Jingheng's knee with the back of his fingers. "Don't scare people."

Lu Jingheng withdrew his gaze. The staff member nearly wept with gratitude.

【Staff: Thank you, Teacher Shen, for saving my life.】

【President Lu didn't even speak.】

【That's the scary part.】

【Shen Qingyu controls him so naturally.】

The first few questions were harmless. "What is the biggest difference between married life and dating?" the staff member read.

Shen Qingyu looked at Lu Jingheng. Lu Jingheng said seriously, "We did not date."

The staff member stared. Shen Qingyu took a sip of milk. "Next."

【They skipped dating and went straight to marriage?】

【Hidden marriage, twins, and no dating? This is too much information and not enough information.】

The second question was directed at the children. "What do Xiao Nian and Xiao Heng think marriage means?"

Xiao Nian answered first. "Marriage means Dad and Father live together, eat together, sleep together, and cannot randomly leave."

Lu Jingheng looked at his son and nodded. "Correct."

Xiao Heng added, "Legally, marriage is a contractual and social relationship. Emotionally, it means Father cannot be sent to the study successfully."

Shen Qingyu closed his eyes. The livestream room dissolved into laughter.

【Marriage definition: cannot successfully sleep in the study.】

【This child is terrifying. I love him.】

The atmosphere was too warm, too different from what the malicious trending topics had wanted — and so the invisible force moved again. Shen Qingyu felt it before the staff member opened his mouth: a faint pressure crawling over his skin, thinner and colder than pheromones, like a page turning in a locked room. His fingers stilled around the milk cup. Beside him, Lu Jingheng noticed immediately but did not move, holding to what Shen Qingyu had asked of him earlier. His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

In the monitor room, Director Zhou frowned. The question the staff member had just reached for was not supposed to appear yet — someone had changed the order. "Keep watching," he said quietly to his assistant.

In the living room, the staff member swallowed and read from the card in his hand. "This is a question with very high engagement from netizens. Teacher Shen — many viewers want to know, regarding the past rumours between you, Xie Linchuan, and Shen Jianing, do you have anything to say? There have always been claims that you repeatedly targeted Shen Jianing out of jealousy after your engagement with Xie Linchuan was cancelled."

The living room went very quiet. Xiao Nian's puzzle piece stopped halfway through the air. Xiao Heng raised his head. The pressure from Lu Jingheng's direction did not leak outward — it never reached the children or the staff — but the air around him cooled perceptibly, and Shen Qingyu felt it against his skin like the first drop before a storm.

He did not look at Lu Jingheng. He only lowered his eyes and smiled faintly.

There it was. The first blade. After four years, the story still knew exactly where to cut.

【Finally asked.】

【If he is innocent, why did he never explain before?】

【Maybe because no one listened?】

【Don't start pitying him so quickly. Shen Jianing was the victim back then.】

【Was he? I genuinely don't remember what Shen Qingyu actually did.】

【He bullied Shen Jianing. Everyone knows that.】

【But how?】

That single word spread through the comments and kept spreading — how — and the protagonist halo trembled faintly in response. Shen Qingyu felt it, and his smile became a little more real. He set the milk cup down, the soft sound of it somehow quieting the entire room.

"I have something to say."

The staff member blinked. "Teacher Shen, please."

Shen Qingyu leaned back, his posture easy, almost careless, the afternoon light falling across the cold line of his brow and the faint red of his lips. He looked beautiful enough to seem unreachable — and then he said, in a voice that did not waver at all, "When people say I targeted Shen Jianing, what exactly are they referring to?"

The staff member froze. The bullet comments froze with him.

"Was it when I caught him in bed with my fiancé?"

For three full seconds the livestream room went completely blank. Then the comments exploded so violently the platform itself lagged.

【What did he say????】

【Caught him in bed with his fiancé????】

【Wait — wasn't Shen Jianing and Xie Linchuan true love after the engagement was cancelled?】

【After? He said caught.】

【He said fiancé. At that time, Xie Linchuan was still Shen Qingyu's fiancé?】

【No way. No way. No way.】

【Why has no one said this before?】

The staff member's face had gone pale. This was not in the script — no one had expected Shen Qingyu to cut open the most rotten part of the old story in front of millions of viewers with such absolute calm. Lu Jingheng sat completely still beside him, and his gaze had changed: it was no longer the cold indifference he gave to outsiders. It was murderous restraint. Shen Qingyu felt it, and under the camera's blind spot he pressed the back of Lu Jingheng's hand once, lightly.

I'll do it myself.

Lu Jingheng closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, he did not move.

Shen Qingyu looked toward the camera. "At that time, I was sixteen." His voice was not loud and did not tremble, and that steadiness made the words sharper than shouting would have. "Xie Linchuan was twenty. Shen Jianing was nineteen."

【Shen Qingyu was only sixteen then?】

【Xie Linchuan was twenty? Shen Jianing was nineteen?】

【If Shen Qingyu was sixteen, he was still a minor.】

【And they were both adults.】

【Wasn't the official story that Shen Qingyu interfered with them? How does a sixteen-year-old interfere with his own fiancé and adult brother?】

The halo pushed back immediately. A new flood of comments appeared.

【Don't twist the timeline!】

【The engagement was arranged. Shen Qingyu never loved Xie Linchuan.】

【Exactly — he didn't even like him. Why act betrayed?】

【He only got angry because his pride was hurt.】

【Jianing and Linchuan were true love.】

The words were so familiar that Shen Qingyu almost laughed. He had heard them at sixteen. He had heard them at eighteen. He had heard them from his parents, his brothers, the internet, strangers, marketing accounts, people who claimed to be neutral. You never loved him — as though betrayal only counted when love was involved. As though dignity had no right to bleed. As though an engagement could be dirtied in his name, his brother could climb into his fiancé's bed, and he was supposed to step aside gracefully because he had not loved deeply enough.

His fingertips turned slightly cold. Then warmth covered them — Lu Jingheng's hand, still hidden, still silent, but there.

Shen Qingyu did not look at him. He only continued, "Yes. I did not love Xie Linchuan."

The malicious comments surged instantly.

【See! He admitted it!】

【Then why pretend to be hurt?】

Shen Qingyu looked directly at the camera, his gaze cold enough to cut through the screen. "So?" The comments stopped. "Because I did not love him, my fiancé and my brother could sleep together before the engagement was cancelled?" No one answered. "Because I did not love him, the Shen family could tell me to endure it?" No one answered. "Because I did not love him, my anger became jealousy, my humiliation became viciousness, and their betrayal became true love?"

The room was dead silent. Xiao Nian's eyes had gone red without him fully understanding why. Xiao Heng stared at Shen Qingyu with a seriousness that looked too old for his face. Lu Jingheng's thumb pressed lightly against Shen Qingyu's wrist.

The bullet comments began to change — slowly, not completely, but visibly.

【I never thought about it that way.】

【Even if he didn't love Xie Linchuan, that was still betrayal.】

【And Shen Jianing was his brother.】

【Why did everyone ignore that?】

【Because Shen Jianing looked pitiful, I guess.】

【If my sibling slept with my fiancé, I would go insane.】

【And he was sixteen.】

The halo shook. For the first time, the soft glow protecting the old story flickered in Shen Qingyu's perception — not broken, but genuinely disturbed. He smiled faintly.

The staff member's mouth was dry. "Teacher Shen, then — regarding the rumours that you bullied Shen Jianing…"

"Which incident?" Shen Qingyu asked.

"What?"

"Which incident of bullying." He tilted his head slightly. "Did I hit him?"

"No…"

"Did I steal his resources?"

"I…"

"Did I force him to leave the Shen family?"

"No, but—"

"Did I publish his private information?"

The staff member's face was ashen. Shen Qingyu's tone remained perfectly light. "Then what did I do?"

The question landed in the livestream room. What did he do? What exactly had Shen Qingyu done? For years the internet had repeated the phrase bullied Shen Jianing with complete confidence, but the moment Shen Qingyu asked them to name one specific act, the entire accusation became smoke.

【Wait, what DID he do?】

【I remember people said he had a bad temper.】

【Bad temper isn't bullying.】

【There was a clip where he ignored Shen Jianing on a show.】

【If my brother slept with my fiancé, I'd ignore him too.】

【Didn't he push Shen Jianing once?】

【I searched it. That clip was slowed down by marketing accounts. The original video shows Shen Jianing tripped on the carpet.】

【What????】

【I found the old interview. Shen Qingyu never said anything about Shen Jianing. It was reporters asking him provocative questions.】

【Then where did the bullying rumour come from?】

The halo stirred more violently, and the programme monitor flashed with another wave of hostile comments.

【He's manipulating the audience.】

【Shen Qingyu is best at twisting words.】

【Poor Jianing had to suffer silently for years.】

【If Jianing hadn't been kind, he would have exposed him long ago.】

Shen Qingyu glanced at the screen and repeated the word softly, almost to himself. "Kind."

The room somehow became colder. Then he smiled. "When I was sixteen, after I saw them together, Shen Jianing cried and said he did not mean it. Xie Linchuan stood in front of him and told me not to scare him." His voice was quiet and entirely even. "My parents came. My brothers came. Everyone saw it. Shen Jianing cried until he nearly fainted, Xie Linchuan held him, and my mother asked me why I had to make things so ugly."

A faint, hollow laugh escaped him.

"I was the one who opened the door. I was the one who saw them." His gaze remained steady. "But somehow, in the end, I became the person who made things ugly."

The comment section slowed to almost nothing.

【I feel sick.】

【His mother said that?】

【If this is true, the Shen family is disgusting.】

【No wonder he left home.】

【Why was everything phrased against him back then?】

In the monitor room, Director Zhou stood with his arms folded and his expression grave. His assistant whispered that the viewer count was still climbing. Zhou Wensheng did not answer. He looked at Shen Qingyu on the screen — beautiful, cold, almost detached — and thought of what he had learned long ago about the difference between someone who felt nothing and someone who had simply learned how to bleed without making a sound. Shen Qingyu had always been the latter.

In another villa across the city, Shen Jianing had stood up so abruptly that the tablet slid off the sofa. His face had gone white. Xie Linchuan, reading documents nearby, looked up. "What's wrong?"

Shen Jianing forced a smile, but his eyes were already wet. "Qingyu mentioned the past on the livestream."

Xie Linchuan's expression changed. He walked over and picked up the tablet, and on the screen Shen Qingyu was still speaking in that quiet, unhurried voice. Xie Linchuan's fingers tightened around the device as memory moved behind his eyes — a door pushed open, a sixteen-year-old omega standing outside with a face so pale it looked transparent, eyes filled not with jealousy but with disbelief, and then anger: sharp, bright, uncontrollable. He had hated that anger at the time. It had made him look dirty, made Shen Jianing cry harder, made the whole room impossible to smooth over. So he had said don't scare him without thinking, the words out of his mouth before he had considered what they meant.

Hearing Shen Qingyu repeat them now, four years later, Xie Linchuan felt his throat close.

Shen Jianing watched his expression carefully. "Linchuan," he said softly, "Qingyu still hates me, doesn't he?"

Xie Linchuan came back to himself. He looked at Shen Jianing's pale face and softened his voice instinctively. "Don't think too much. You're pregnant. Your emotions can't fluctuate too much."

Shen Jianing lowered his eyes. The faint light around him brightened again — fragile, pitiful, protected — but this time it did not feel as steady as before.

Back in the Lu family living room, Xiao Nian suddenly stood up, his puzzle piece falling forgotten onto the carpet.

"Dad."