28 Chapter 28 Empty Talk

𝘠𝘪𝘫𝘶𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦.

He knew it was a long shot but he wanted to try it nonetheless. Levi had yet to contact him so it felt good knowing he was one step closer before his childhood best friend.

At this rate however, he would have to be the one to contact Levi first in order to quickly update their information.

𝘛𝘤𝘩.

TUTTUTUTTUTUTTUTUTUTTUTTUT.

"Silas, who's calling?" he called out towards his home A.I. He was relaxing on the sofa, in the middle of snacking on a piece of bread, amongst the many he had bought from the supermarket before.

"It is your mother, Clan Head Yelan, Master Sky," the A.I. answered promptly. "Shall I connect you?"

By this point he had gotten used to being called Master Sky or Master Wolf by the A.I. and was already unbothered by it, just as he was when being called the same by Levi. With the constant grind, his tolerance finally peaked, making him utterly indifferent.

Li Tian narrowed his eyes slightly and put his food down onto the coffee table in front of him. Mother...

"Connect us."

Click.

"Xiao Tian," the mature woman's dauntless voice came through the speakers.

"Good evening, mother," he answered politely. He had a hunch on what the call was about but like their last conversation in the South, he wouldn't admit anything again.

"I take it you are doing well enough in the North you find it too busy to call me."

𝘚𝘩𝘪𝘵... 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘰 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘮𝘦𝘥 𝘺𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘐 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰.

"I was just about to call you a few moments later, mother," he crossed his fingers.

"Is that so... Then I hope you're focusing on work and have gotten your 𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘴 under wraps by now."

Li Tian bit his lip at the conjecture. She was speaking of his 'cat and mouse' game with Yijun. He had only arrived two days ago. How could he already have gotten everything done. He was confident but not 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 confident.

"You don't have to worry about it, Mother. I'm acing all of my jobs regardless."

"Yes, I've heard all about it from Meilin. You're doing quite well."

"Of course I am," he stated proudly.

"If you keep up your image, the sponsors and shareholders willing to support you will surely be pleased."

"Will I be getting the money?" the young star anticipated.

"Of course not."

𝘛𝘤𝘩. He immediately had the newly ignited flames doused from her candor. As usual, his mother was quite the brutal woman.

"If you continue to work properly with no problems or decide to take part in the family business, then I shall consider it."

"Is that why you called me? To persuade me into working at Li Corp?" he had gotten slightly annoyed by now and spouted in defiance. "I told you I'm not interested. Let big brother handle it."

"Don't misunderstand. I called to hear from my youngest son. If I really wanted you to do something, I'm not required to persuade you."

"..."

It was the hard truth. If she actually wanted him to do something, there was no way for him to refuse. Letting him disagree was her choice. This was her giving him some freedom.

"Your older siblings have begun to worry about you with your sudden move."

"You didn't explain it to them?"

"I have no reason to."

"... I understand. I'll contact them soon." It showed how far she was willing to meddle for him. When it came to his siblings, he needed to take the initiative, especially as the youngest.

"Good. Continue to improve your work steadily and maybe I will increase your allowance."

Li Tian's eyes brightened at the offer.

"Finish up your game without causing any problems or I will decrease it instead."

𝘉𝘢-𝘥𝘶𝘮𝘱.

His heart skipped a beat.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he answered with conviction, "There's nothing for you to worry about, mother."

.....

Li Tian tossed his controller into the air, caught it, and tossed it again; the repetitive movement barely helping with calming him down. With his recent conversation with his mother, it was clear he needed to speed things up.

He had no time to play games anymore as his livelihood was at stake. Not to mention his long-awaited revenge.

He stared at his bloodied character on screen, fresh off of a needed stress-relieving villain massacre. Levi always pointed out that his personality in-game, or out, seemed more like a bad guy than the bad guys themselves.

Arrogant, vengeful, prideful, egotistic, and spoilt. He'd been called these words so many times that he had become immune to them. So what if he was all of those. He was himself.

Only one woman acknowledged it and supported him.

Grandmama...

She said he could be whoever he pleased. She would support him.

Unfortunately, she was no longer here, and he had come to misinterpret the true meaning behind her final teachings.

"Li Xiao Tian... Xiaolang... You could be an angel or the devil... I will support you."

These were the words that stuck to him the most. Her final way of showing him her love and affection. And yet the words that came afterward were still full of meanings he couldn't fully understand.

"But you must never let anyone hurt you or anyone you care about. Find the people you love, and protect them. You mustn't let the words you sang to me become nothing but empty talk."

Thud. The controller he was flinging in the air finally dropped to the ground.

"Sigh..." Li Tian let out a big sigh and stared at the fallen object. "Empty talk, huh..."

He lifted his head up to see his game character being surrounded by NPC's thanking him for his help, a sight he had gotten used to after so long.

Saving people... he had never felt any kind of strong heroism or gratification from saving these useless plebs. Whether it be singing or gaming, he enjoyed the praise of being the best because it was about him, not about the people he was pleasing. Who cared about other people's problems anyway. They had nothing to do with him.

The young man clicked his tongue from thinking too much.

𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳. 𝘐 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘠𝘪𝘫𝘶𝘯 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘪𝘯 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘧𝘶𝘭.

"Silas, call Levi."

"Affirmative. Calling Master Levi."

Toooot toooot... Toooot toooot...

The ringback tone went on for a while before finally,

Click.

"Evening, Little Sky."

"Levi we need to speed things up."

"My greeting."

Li Tian rolled his eyes but gave in. "Evening, Levi. It's a nice night tonight but unfortunately, we don't have time to enjoy it."

"Oh? Run into trouble again?"

"It's my mother."

"Aunt Yelan..." there was a subtle shudder in his voice. "She catches on too quickly. I take it she wants us to stop getting in trouble eh?"

"Yeah. I need to get things over with Yijun."

"Understood. I have managed to pinpoint the area in which Yijun has taken up refuged and have accessed the many security cameras from the surrounding shops. According to the shops he has visited thus far, it is simple to say he is looking to change his overall outlook. Although I'm sure you would recognize him regardless. However, I have yet to determine the Clan he has his sights on as of yet."

A smirk rose onto Li Tian's lips. "Well, well, well, Levi. You've gotten a lot of info haven't you. Yet something is still missing."

"..." Levi on the other could feel a sense of satisfaction coming from the star's end, but not one from the amount of info he provided. "Are you acting smug, Little Sky?"

"Huh! Of course I am!" Li Tian snorted happily. "I got some info you don't! I already know which Clan he's clawing at."

"Oh?" Levi was amused by the other's enthusiasm as always. "Enlighten me."

"Yijun's target is the Zhou Clan."

"Unsurprising at all. They're the only Clan willing to clash heads with the Li Clan..."

"He's already made contact with their Zhou Clan head, Zhou Liuxian last night," the star added.

"Hmm? How do you know this?" Levi finally reacted the way Li Tian wanted.

"I saw him with my own eyes there."

"What? With your own eyes?" the hacker asked incredulously. "Correct my hopefully flawed understanding but am I right to conclude that you somehow barged your way into the Zhou Clan without the knowledge of either the Li Clan's 𝘰𝘳 the Zhou Clan and saw Yijun there with Zhou Liuxian?"

"Y-yes..." That's right... As a Li clan member, especially a Li Clan heir, making contact with another rival clan like that caused many interpretations to be made. If media got any word of it, it would cause big waves all over Huaxia, not something Li Tian could do without any consequences. "I went there as Xiaolang. It's fine. Neither of them saw me anyway."

"I see..." there was a moment's pause as the hacker took the time to process the outrageous input he had to intake. "Alright then... Before we go into detail on our next move, I believe you owe me an explanation on this."

Thinking a little on what to say, Li Tian suddenly broke into a small smile. "I have a little brother now. I think you will like him, Levi."

"I'm sorry, what?" The sudden bomb drop caught the unassuming hacker completely off guard. A little brother?? Besides, how did this have anything to do with anything they were talking about?

"I somehow accepted a ten-year-old boy as my little brother... and he unknowingly turned out to be the son of Zhou Liuxian himself."

"The son of Zhou Liuxian?" Levi sounded so confused, Li Tian could practically envision the ridiculous face to couple his reaction. "According to my knowledge he does not have a ten-year-old son. His oldest son is fourteen, the second son is eight and the last one is six," Levi recounted the information in his mind in a heartbeat. "Unless you mean the daughter, but she turned eleven not too long ago."

"That's probably because you've only tried scratching the surface. If you dig a little deeper you will find something, especially it being you, you'd get it in a flash."

As soon as he said this, he heard the sound of some tapping begin from the other end, with the hacker letting out a low gasp a few moments later.

"I see! A half Huaxian half Asahin offspring! Not to mention from a secret affair. According to the child's profile, you must have met him on the flight to the North."

"Great, saves lots of explaining on my end. So long story short, I took him as my little brother and ended up visiting a Zhou Clan manor in my area where the two I mentioned before happened to have a secret meeting," Li Tian stated as a matter of fact.

"Simple, but suites you perfectly. I am however curious on why you said I would like this unknown child."

"Oh that's because he's a genius," the Li heir declared proudly, momentarily forgetting their original topic of discussion due to being focused on bragging instead. "At first I thought he was an idiot but in fact, he just never had a proper teacher to guide him. So I decided to take him on as a little brother when I realized his worth."

"Really?" Levi raised a skeptical eyebrow at the slightly farfetched story. He wasn't doubting the boy being a genius, rather, he found it hard to believe the stuck up Li Clan heir decided to teach someone else for once, going as far as to tutor him at home. Among other things, what exactly was he teaching?

Suddenly, the giant screen tv mounted onto the wall displaying Li Tian's game menu turned black. Seconds later, it turned back on with Levi's face on it, staring straight at the relaxing young singer.

"W-what the-?" Li Tian sat up quickly in surprise. Realizing it was just Levi, he sighed in relief. "Don't just pop up like that."

"He does not have any inkling of your real identity, right?" the hacker was in his azure colored pajamas, with his usually tied up strawberry blonde hair let down onto his shoulders, still damp from a recent shower. The sight would have made any young woman's heart stop and the elderly to want to tuck him into bed.

"None whatsoever."

"And yet he agreed to be your little brother?"

"Precisely."

"Hmmmm..."

While Levi was thinking to himself, Li Tian smiled at him smugly. There weren't many chances to show his superior side against the Vestren halfling, thus he was feeling particularly complacent. Having an exceptional little brother felt good. As long as he taught him well, Rai was sure to be a noteworthy individual.

"You don't think..." Levi mumbled loud enough for the self-absorbed young man to hear.

"What is it?" Li Tian asked him speak up.

"With Yijun's history meddling with Clan heirs, you specifically... you don't think his goal is to glue himself to one of their heirs in hopes of penetrating through their ranks?"

"What?" the abrupt change in topic, along with the implications behind it made Li Tian's mood fall to the floor. He didn't like putting his hated enemy and cute little brother in the same sentence. "But my little brother isn't a legitimate heir. Alternately, isn't it fine letting a snake like that ruin a rival clan?"

"With how you have described this new little brother of yours, he seems more exceptional than legitimate heirs. Are you sure it is above someone as sneaky as Yijun to let such a gem out of his grasp?"

As expected of one of the quickest minds within the Ivon lineage. Levi made calculated deductions not only based on numbers, but also human emotion.

"W-we just have to get Yijun faster than he can do anything. We already know where he is. We'll catch him for being the bastard that he is."

"True, as long as he is caught, all of your worries shall be gone and you can take care of your precious little brother properly. Although it would make your option of 'ruining the Zhou Clan' out of the question."

"Who fucking cares about the Zhou Clan. They aren't worth mentioning anyway. That was just something I said on the fly," the young heir waved his hand to forget about it. "We just need to catch that scum Yijun."

Without realizing it, Li Tian suddenly felt a renewed sense of urgency to get his hands on his enemy. The thought of the man getting anywhere near his little brother rubbed him the wrong way, making him feel the need of getting rid of any chances for them to meet again.

"Then I will tap into the surveillance in the surrounding area."

"Hack into the Zhou Clan manor cameras," Li Tian cut him off.

"Excuse me? Have you any idea how audacious that would be? To tap into ANY prominent Clan is an act of animosity."

"But you hack into my room back in the Li Clan Estate."

"You know that is entirely different."

Li Tian rolled his eyes at the obvious provocation. "Tch. Just hack around my little brother's room, Zhou Leixue. That should be fine right? Feel about from there and expand."

"You are really serious about this aren't you. Are you sure this is only about catching Yijun?" the blonde hacker stared at him accusingly. "Am I supposed to be a criminal for you?"

"Being a hacker is already a criminal offense so make use of it."

A rare snort was released from the annoyed Levi but he still complied by grabbing his laptop and inputting the required codes. Soon, he brought up the layout of the manor onto Li Tian's tv screen and asked, "Which one is his room?"

"It should be this one," the young star replied after a while of searching.

"Hmmm... there seem to be quite a few cameras leading up to it, even one in the room itself," the hacker mentioned in surprise.

"What? Even one in the room?" that wasn't a good thing but he would have to deal with it later. "Is there anyone else looking through these cameras?"

"Not at the moment. Allow me to hack into his bedroom camera if you don't mind."

"Do it."

Suddenly, the familiar interior of the small room was magnified onto the screen, allowing the two outsiders to peek into the space of the ten-year-old. However, a ten-year-old boy wasn't the only one present in the room at that moment.

Standing right in the middle was a tall black-haired man, looming over the small boy in an authoritative way. His face was expressing raging anger, causing the child to quiver on the floor in fear.

"It's Zhou Liuxian," the scene had yet to fully process in his mind.

"Oh? What is he doing in your little brother's room at this time?"

"I don't know," Li Tian replied while feeling a growing sense of trepidation. "What are they saying? Increase the volume, stupid hacker."

"I'm afraid there aren't any microphones attached to the camera in the room. There is one on a camera a bit further down the hallway." Without waiting for a response, Levi immediately connected the sound through, but any voice that came through sounded muffled and unclear.

They stayed quiet, hoping to hear the conversation going on between the father and son a bit better. At this point, they had already disregarded the fact that their act of hacking and eavesdropping would be considered a criminal offense if found out.

The scene went on for a while, with Liuxian supposedly berating his child and the child responding with nothing but silence.

All of a sudden, a familiar movement by the father caught Li Tian's eye, followed by a distinct reaction by the son.

Li Tian's expression distorted in fury and anxiety as he saw the small figure of his little brother shake violently, as his hands moved in front of his face to protect himself. He was going to be hit.

"Levi! Do something, Levi!" the worried older brother yelled desperately.

It was too late. The raised hand lowered in a full swing, hitting the boy fiercely right across his feeble arm.

"AAAAHH!!!" a painful cry loud enough finally pierced through the speakers, revealing the intense emotion currently felt by the boy being abused by his father. The area he had been hit had yet to be healed from their previous session, making the pain a lot worse than it should have been.

"RAI!" Li Tian stood up in a jolt, the scream causing his blood to curdle and everything to drop onto the floor. Seeing such a thing live was already tormenting him emotionally, but realizing he couldn't do anything but watch through a screen was agonizing. He could feel his body tremble in cold sweat, as his nails dug deep into his skin. "STOP THAT BASTARD, LEVI!!!"

"I'm trying!" even the usually smiling hacker had a livid look plastered on his face as he continued to type code after code into his hacking device. "There isn't much available to help!"

SMACK!

"AAAAH!! FATHER I'M SORRY!"

SMACK!

"FATHER PLEASE!!"

"RAI!!!" Li Tian roared in anguish at his helplessness.

The boy was backed into the corner, huddled in a ball as he received blow after blow from his 'beloved' father.

Li Tian had just finished bragging about this genius little brother he had, thinking to himself how he could make the boy into a great individual from his teachings. Yet here he was, watching said little brother be brutally abused as he himself was powerless to do anything.

As he watched the tormenting scene, he relived the final moments with Grandmama on her deathbed. She laid dying right in front of him, yet there was nothing he could do to stop it. As powerful as people thought he was, he couldn't help her. No one could help her fight against an invincible enemy.

Seeing something bad happen to the person you cared about, and knowing there was nothing you could do against it, was the most painful feeling a person could go through.

Yet Li Tian was going through it once again, powerless to help him...

𝘞𝘢𝘪𝘵... 𝘡𝘩𝘰𝘶 𝘓𝘪𝘶𝘹𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦.

In his mind, he could hear Grandmama repeat those words he could never fully understand.

"Li Xiao Tian... Xiaolang... You could be an angel or the devil... I will support you. But you must never let anyone hurt you or anyone you care about. Find the people you love, and protect them. You mustn't let the words you sang to me become nothing but empty talk."

𝘌𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘬...

Li Tian glared at the man known as Zhou Liuxian with enough hatred to burn down the entire world.

At this moment he understood exactly what she meant.

"Levi! I'm leaving!"

.....