Peninsula: The young master is poor and doesn't want to date.

Chapter 53 Bae Joo-hyun in my bed

Li Zhengyi went inside.

The door closed behind him.

The room was pitch black.

The curtains were drawn tightly shut, preventing any outside light from getting in.

There was a smell of smoke in the air.

It was faint, but very certain.

It has a woody, incense-like scent that's cold and smells like something out of a funeral.

Li Zhengyi did not move.

He knew someone was in the room.

Right there in that deepest, darkest shadow.

He could feel that gaze, making every pore on his body contract.

Then he saw it.

A tiny spark.

It flickered briefly in the darkness.

Someone sat in the same chair he used to wear as a teenager, a cigarette between his fingers.

With that faint light, Li Zheng could see a corner of the room.

The bed is still in the same place.

The desk is still in the same place.

The NBA poster he put up when he was fifteen is still on the wall, though the edges are yellowed and curled.

Then he saw the bed.

Someone is lying down.

The silhouette of a woman.

Her long hair was spread out on the pillow, her body was curled up, and her breathing was steady but too uneven, unlike normal sleep.

It's Bae Joo-hyun.

Why is she here?

Was she asleep or was she drugged?

Li Zheng narrowed his eyes.

But it only shrank slightly.

In an instant, he understood that this was his father's way of putting him in a difficult position.

We must not give ourselves away.

No, he never liked this woman in the first place, so there was no way he would give himself away.

He looked away.

"Father."

He bowed slightly, his voice calm.

The cigarette butt flickered again.

Good grief, you're a guy with late-stage lung cancer and you still smoke? Don't you want to die?

Then, a voice came from the darkness.

"Don't you even look at your woman? She's lying here because of you."

His voice was low, hoarse, and unhurried, revealing no emotion whatsoever.

Li Zhengyi stood up straight.

He glanced at the person on the bed one last time.

It is indeed Bae Joo-hyun.

This face is still unique on the entire peninsula.

Eyes closed, breathing steady, clothes intact.

He was just asleep. Or rather, he was put to sleep.

"My woman?"

Li Zhengyi repeated the word, as if he had heard a not-so-funny joke.

Then he walked to the wall furthest from the bed, leaned against it, and put his hands in his pockets.

"Father, I can't even support myself, where would I get a woman?"

The embers in the cigarette paused for a moment.

"Then who is she?"

"Bae Joo-hyun. An artist under SM Entertainment, she's become quite popular recently, and people online call her a goddess."

"My second brother is pursuing her recently. If he can't win her over, he'll resort to force."

"I just happened to be passing by and ruined my second brother's good deed."

Li Zhengyi's tone was very calm.

There was silence for a few seconds in the darkness.

Only the faint sound of burning tobacco could be heard.

"So...you'd fight your own brother to the death for this woman who has nothing to do with you?"

"You even killed your own brother for this woman?"

This hat is a bit too big.

It seems that the version of the story the father heard was that the two brothers fought over a woman and then jumped off the plane together.

Or perhaps, this was a deliberate test of the narrative he was using.

Narrated by a woman who killed her brother.

This is a much bigger accusation than the one against him two years ago, where he was falsely accused of having an affair with his stepmother.

A stepmother is, after all, an outsider, with no blood relation; she only brings shame to the family.

But he killed his brother.

You can't wear that hat.

Li Zhengyi remained leaning against the wall, his hands in his pockets.

"Father, you don't actually believe what the bodyguard said, do you?"

Mars flickered on and off again.

"Two brothers fighting over a woman on a plane, then the younger brother jumping off with his older brother to their deaths—this is just like a melodramatic morning drama script."

Li Zheng smiled.

The laughter was short and brief, as if the image he described amused him.

"For a woman he's never even held hands with, my second brother is going to die together with her? I'm not stupid."

"What is the truth?" Lee Jae-hyun wrote.

Li Zhengyi stared at the tiny spark in the darkness and remained silent for a moment.

Then he began to recount part of the truth of the matter.

"My second brother tied me to the plane."

"His bodyguards dragged me from the convenience store entrance into a car, took me to the airport, and pushed me onto the plane. They said my second brother wanted to 'talk' with me."

"After takeoff, he made it very clear. He told me to leave Seoul and never come back. If I didn't agree, he would throw me overboard into the East China Sea."

I asked why.

"He said... he had his eye on Bae Joo-hyun, but she chose me. This made him lose face."

Li Zheng paused.

"He said that as long as I disappear, Bae Joo-hyun will be his."

"Of course I won't agree."

"Then his bodyguard lifted me up and gave me an umbrella."

"The plane door opened, the wind rushed in, and I looked down at the dark sea..."

He paused there for a moment.

It wasn't a deliberate pause; it was more like the memory naturally stopped for a moment when it reached this point.

"Then my second brother threatened me to admit defeat."

Lee Jae-hyun stopped smoking.

"He pushed you down?"

"He wasn't prepared to jump down on his own; I had to pull him up with me."

"And you still say you didn't kill your second brother."

Li Zhengyi chuckled softly.

In the above story, he had no room to lie.

If anything he says is inconsistent with the information reported by Lee Woo-bin's bodyguard, we should be on alert.

"I didn't let go; one parachute can carry two people."

"Then why did he disappear?"

"Because we fell into the sea and only had one life jacket."

Lee Jae-hyun remained silent for a while.

"So, you stole the only life jacket."

"No, it was my second brother who gave up. He said something."

"What did you say?"

He said, "Third brother, I owe you."

Li Zhengyi lowered his head in the darkness.

His voice became somewhat hoarse.

It wasn't something he deliberately acted out; it was the kind of silliness that comes from suppressing something for a long time and finally being able to say it.

"Then he gave me a life jacket. It was still a few kilometers from the shore, and it would take one or two hours to swim by myself, and the seawater was very cold in winter."

A long silence fell over the room.

The only sound was the burning of tobacco.

"We shared the life jacket in the water. I said that two people could hold on for a while, but he said no."

He said, "Third brother, if the two of you try to hold on together, the life jackets won't hold up, and you'll both die. If only one of you wears it and swims towards the sea, there's still a chance to survive."

Before he pushed me away, he shouted two more times.

He said that the incident two years ago was done by his older brother.

He said, "I'm sorry, I knew the truth back then, but I didn't stand up for him."

He closed his eyes briefly.

"Then he... let go."

Li Zhengyi took a deep breath, reached into his pocket, and pulled out the necklace.

A silver chain with a small nameplate hanging at the end.

There is a single character engraved on it.

彬。

In the dim light of the cigarette butt, the nameplate reflected a faint luster.

"I searched for two days in villages along the East China Sea. I asked in several fishing villages, but no one saw anyone washed ashore."

"This is the only thing we found in the end."

He placed the necklace on the table and pushed it forward.

The cigarette butt glowed briefly.

He took a deep breath.

"Why are you only coming back now?"