An Adoptive Older Sister Cannot Become a Wife - Chapter 2

The evening self-study for the second years lasted only two periods. As soon as the bell rang, the day’s lessons were officially over.

Old Chen stood on the podium, briefly going over a few safety reminders, and then the students scattered. After a long day of classes, no one wanted to linger in the classroom a moment longer than necessary.

Lin Xiao nudged Qi Nianshu, who remained motionless in her seat. “Coming? Aren’t you going home?”

Nianshu shook her head, answering honestly, “Mum and Dad are working late tonight. I don’t want to be in the house alone, so I’m waiting for my sister.”

Lin Xiao understood perfectly.

As a top-tier municipal key school, Rongcheng No. 1 was a place students fought tooth and nail to get into, and the academic rigour reflected that. While the workload was manageable for the lower years, the third-years had their evening self-study extended to a third period. The pressure was immense.

Lin Xiao sighed, feeling a pang of sympathy. “Sister Qi Shu really has it rough.” She let out a yawn. “Well, keep waiting then. I’m heading off.”

Nianshu waved her away. “Bye. I’ve got a self-reflection to write anyway.”

“Poor kid,” Lin Xiao laughed, reaching out to ruffle Nianshu’s hair.

Nianshu frowned and dodged the hand. “Don’t touch my hair.”

“Alright, alright,” Lin Xiao said, shrugging. “I forgot. Only Sister Qi Shu is allowed to touch the head of the world’s biggest ‘sister-con’.” She grabbed her bag, dodged Nianshu’s playful punch, and waved from the doorway. “See you tomorrow!”

Once Lin Xiao left, the classroom fell into a heavy silence.

Nianshu took out a sheet of stationery and wrote the word “Self-Reflection” in large letters at the top. The pen nib hovered over the paper for ages, but she couldn’t squeeze out a single word.

Every time she tried to focus on the task, her mind drifted back to the events of the afternoon. The thoughts she had suppressed during the day came rushing back in the empty room.

What happened between Qi Shu and that boy in the end?

The boy wasn’t even handsome. There was no way Qi Shu would like someone like that. But then… what kind of person would Qi Shu like?

In high school, the age when teenagers’ hearts first begin to flutter, some of her classmates had started dating in secret. Nianshu had observed them out of curiosity, but it all seemed rather mundane: walking to school together, passing secret notes in class, bringing each other breakfast or hot water…

Nianshu found it baffling. People said falling in love was wonderful, but from where she sat, it looked underwhelming—certainly not as good as what she had with Qi Shu. She and her sister went to school together, went home together, and sometimes even squeezed into the same bed. It was far more intimate than any “romance.”

Consequently, Nianshu’s curiosity about dating had vanished entirely. It simply couldn’t compete.

But what about Qi Shu? Did she want to date?

Nianshu’s thoughts spiralled out of control: If Qi Shu fell in love, she’d walk to school with that person. She’d go home with them. Would she… squeeze into a bed and sleep with them, too?

What would happen to me then?

Nianshu looked out the window again. The third-year teaching block was still ablaze with lights. Qi Shu was likely still buried in practice problems.

Glancing at the time, Nianshu realised there were only about ten minutes left until the seniors were dismissed. Panic flared in her chest. She buried her face in her hands and took a deep breath, forcing herself to stop overthinking.

She picked up her pen. She had to finish this before Qi Shu finished class. If Qi Shu found out she hadn’t been paying attention in school, she’d get a telling-off.

Actually, Qi Shu never really shouted at her. But whenever Qi Shu’s expression darkened and she said Nianshu’s name in that cold, toneless voice, Nianshu was scared to death.

With that thought as motivation, she began to write frantically, her pen scratching across the paper in a messy scrawl.

“I shouldn’t have let my mind wander in class. I shouldn’t have let my teacher down, and I especially shouldn’t have…”

Especially shouldn’t have had a head full of nothing but my sister.

“Shouldn’t have what?”

The cool, crisp voice, tinged with the chill of the evening breeze, caught Nianshu completely off guard. Her hand jerked, sending the pen skidding across the page.

She froze, her body stiff. She didn’t dare turn around. I’m dead, she thought.

In her guilt-ridden state, she could feel the other person’s gaze resting lightly on the stationery, specifically on that unfinished sentence. It was a silent, heavy scrutiny.

A faint scent of gardenia enveloped her. She couldn’t blame herself for not noticing the approach; they both used the same products and smelled exactly alike.

Nianshu closed her eyes, took a breath, and squeezed her pen. She forced a bright, casual smile onto her face, trying to act as if nothing was wrong. As she turned, her shoulder instinctively blocked the desk, trying to hide the half-finished confession like a shameful secret.

“Sister! You didn’t even say anything when you walked in.”

Nianshu’s voice was a touch too high, a bit too soft, and her ending note trembled ever so slightly.

Qi Shu stood behind her, leaning casually against the edge of the desk. Her uniform sleeves were rolled up to her forearms, revealing pale, slender wrists. Her bone structure was delicate yet sharp. Her fingertips tapped rhythmically against the wood, the sound echoing clearly in the empty room.

Qi Shu didn’t answer. She simply took a small step forward and leaned in.

Nianshu went still. All she could see was the collar of Qi Shu’s uniform. The zip wasn’t pulled all the way up, revealing a small, elegant patch of collarbone. As the wind swept through the classroom, it caught the hem of Qi Shu’s jacket, bringing with it the scent of shower gel warmed by body heat.

A few stray hairs brushed against Nianshu’s ear. Her breath hitched. She sat there, paralyzed, forgetting even to blink. Her heart felt an inexplicable, restless itch.

Before she could react, Qi Shu’s long fingers reached over her shoulder and pinched the corner of the self-reflection.

“Sister, no!” Nianshu cried out, but she was a second too late.

Qi Shu had already snatched the paper. She stood up straight and cast her gaze downward, slowly scanning the messy handwriting.

Nianshu held her breath, not daring to look Qi Shu in the eye. Her mind raced, wondering if she had written anything truly embarrassing in those last few lines. Time seemed to stretch; every second felt like an eternity. Her cheeks grew hotter, and her thoughts became a jumbled mess. She started to regret writing that last half-sentence—wouldn’t it have been better to just leave it blank?

Just as she was about to pick her fingernails raw, Qi Shu finally spoke.

“Qi Nianshu.”

The voice, already naturally cold, sounded particularly ominous in the hollow classroom.

“Yes, Sister! I’m here!”

Nianshu’s back snapped straight. She stole a glance upward, her eyes catching Qi Shu’s jawline, just as her sister spoke again in an unreadable tone.

“Look at me.”

As if under a spell, Nianshu looked up and collided with Qi Shu’s bottomless eyes. Those eyes, usually so calm and indifferent, were now making her heart race with nerves.

Qi Shu gave the paper a little shake. Her voice was quiet, which only made Nianshu more anxious. “Your mind was wandering in class. What were you thinking about?”

Nianshu’s throat tightened. She looked away, her eyes darting around.

“Just… just random stuff.” Her voice grew smaller and smaller, like the hum of a mosquito, tinged with a sulkiness she didn’t even realize was there. “It was nothing.”

Qi Shu arched an eyebrow and took another step forward, bracing her hands on the desk on either side of Nianshu. The sudden proximity and the warmth of her sister’s presence were overwhelming. Nianshu felt like her heart was going to burst.

Qi Shu looked her dead in the eye and said softly, “Qi Nianshu, you’re lying.”

Those few, calm words struck Nianshu right in the heart. It was a simple truth, but it suddenly brought back the image of the boy on the playground, and the terrifying possibility of Qi Shu dating someone else.

She blinked, and all her unspoken anxieties transformed into pure grievance. A large teardrop suddenly rolled down her cheek.

“I just lost focus for a second, and Old Chen is making me write this reflection, and now even you are being mean to me.”

The hot tear splashed onto the back of Qi Shu’s hand, causing her to freeze instantly.

Everyone knew Qi Shu was Nianshu’s sister. But almost no one knew they weren’t related by blood.

When Qi Shu was six, she was kidnapped. It took three years for the police to find her. When she finally returned home at age nine, she found a little girl she had never met before living in her house.

In those three years, her parents had adopted a girl born on the exact same day and month as her, only a year younger. And they had named her Qi Nianshu.

Nianshu—meaning “Thinking of Shu.” To Qi Shu, it felt like a cruel joke.

They told her they never stopped looking for her. They said they found Nianshu while doing charity work at an orphanage. At the time, the girl didn’t have that name; she was just a frail child being bullied by the others. When they realized she shared the same birthday, they took it as a sign from fate and adopted her out of a moment’s weakness.

They said they named her that only because they missed their biological daughter so much. They even told Qi Shu that they hadn’t officially registered Nianshu’s residency yet—if Qi Shu couldn’t accept her, they could send the girl back.

They had said all this behind closed doors, away from Nianshu. But Qi Shu had clearly seen a shadow standing in the gap under the door.

She didn’t remember what she had said in response. She only remembered seeing a tiny suitcase tucked behind the door of the guest room. For three years, her own bedroom had remained empty, untouched. Her “new” sister had known about her existence all along and had never set foot in her room, staying only in the guest quarters.

On her first night back, there was a tiny knock on her bedroom door. Eight-year-old Nianshu, small and trembling, had handed her a rabbit plushie that had clearly been well-cared for.

“This is for Sis… for you,” Nianshu had said. “I’ll go away soon. Please don’t be sad anymore.”

In the dim light, Nianshu’s eyes were even redder than the rabbit’s. She had obviously been crying her heart out in secret.

From that day on, Qi Shu had a sister named Nianshu. She figured since she wasn’t the one who had to raise her, having a sister didn’t really matter.

Looking at the red-eyed Nianshu in front of her now, Qi Shu thought: She loved to cry when she was eight, and now that she’s nearly eighteen, she’s still just as sensitive.

Qi Shu’s voice softened, the coldness melting into a trace of resignation. “I wasn’t being mean.”

She reached out, intending to brush away the tear on Nianshu’s face. But Nianshu only cried harder. She turned her head away, sniffing loudly and wiping her face messily with her sleeve.

“You were being mean,” she accused, her voice thick and nasal. “You called me by my full name, and you asked me so harshly.”

The more she spoke, the more upset she became. Her tears fell like broken strings of pearls; no matter how much she wiped, they wouldn’t stop. Nianshu didn’t understand what was happening to her. It hadn’t been like this before. Qi Shu had called her by her full name plenty of times, and had always spoken in that level tone, but it had never hurt like this.

It was the boy from the afternoon. He was like a thorn in her heart, making her lose her composure for no reason.

Qi Shu’s hand hung in the air for a moment before she sighed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so stern.”

Nianshu knew her emotions were irrational and her accusations were unfair, but Qi Shu was rarely this gentle, and she found herself craving more. She sniffed and whispered, “I don’t want to write the reflection.”

“I’ll write it for you,” Qi Shu said.

“Mum and Dad aren’t home… and I’m hungry.”

“I’ll cook for you,” Qi Shu promised.

With that, Nianshu’s grievances were completely smoothed over.

“Then I forgive you.” She lowered her head and habitually reached into Qi Shu’s uniform pocket to find a tissue, still warm from her sister’s body. She wiped the last of her tears and then took Qi Shu’s hand. “Let’s go home.”

Qi Shu’s fingertips twitched slightly when they were enveloped by Nianshu’s cool palm. She hesitated for a fraction of a second before relaxing and squeezing her sister’s hand back.

“Alright. Let’s go home.”

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