26.
A few months after that day, I noticed something was wrong with my brother's health.
He began vomiting frequently, feeling dizzy, and couldn't eat. I took him to the hospital. The doctor pulled me into the hallway, his tone complicated:
"Your wife… no, your brother, is already more than two months pregnant."
My mind went completely blank.
That was a child that should never have existed between us.
Before I even had time to feel happy, a phone call came—
Father had launched yet another counterattack.
Using the last of his loyalists in the financial world, he orchestrated a surprise regulatory raid through a shell operation. Three of my trust companies were uprooted, accounts frozen, offices sealed. Publicly, he accused me of manipulating group fund flows, money laundering, and misappropriating trust assets.
The news spread like wildfire. Financial media began to question whether the internal strife within the Pei family had reached the point of no return.
Worse, an anonymous post surfaced online, accusing me of incest with my own brother. It claimed my brother had been raised in captivity by the family and was now just an abandoned pawn in Father's hand—a worthless piece.
Father had never cared about public opinion, but this time he was meticulous—because he knew, once this scandal broke, no matter which side lost, the Pei family's reputation would collapse in the eyes of the shareholders.
Our true weakness was never meant to be seen.
But he miscalculated.
He forgot that Mother was no longer the woman once suffocating under his marriage.
She and I went to the financial magazine ourselves, leaving behind her handwritten letter, a few discs, and several copies of original account ledgers.
"Anonymous posts can destroy a family's reputation," she said calmly, "but not us."
The most direct approach would have been for Mother to expose what Father once forced my brother to do—
It would have crushed all the rumors.
But I refused to make my brother's wounds public.
So, we took another route.
The financial inspection team we had placed in advance—composed of Mother's long-time allies—quietly obtained the internal books of another of Father's proxy companies.
In it was an entry from ten years ago—he had falsified audit documents to secretly embezzle profits from an overseas mining project. He hadn't even disguised the signature—too convinced that no one would dare investigate.
Then, at a high-level Pei family meeting, someone presented a copy of that ledger.
It wasn't me.
It wasn't Mother.
It was his once-prized secretary, who had served him for fifteen years, changed her surname, and now stood on my side.
Father sat in his chair, lashes lowered, as if in deep thought.
But I knew—he was waiting.
Waiting to see if anyone would still speak for him.
No one did.
Even Pei Kezhou lowered his head.
Mother stood, speaking slowly before the executives.
She wore a simple gray suit, no jewelry. In her hands was only a draft of the group's equity resolution.
"The Pei family's shares will enter a custodial mode," she announced, her voice cool. "The chairman will temporarily step down from frontline management. Operations will be overseen by the Executive Council."
Father said nothing.
I saw his hand resting on his knee, fingers trembling ever so slightly.
For the first time in over a decade, he didn't try to stop it.
Not because he admitted defeat,
But because he finally realized—
The control he had once been so proud of
Was utterly gone.
27.
By the time I finished handling everything and rushed to the hospital overnight, the room was empty.
The bodyguards I had arranged were drugged. On the surveillance footage, my brother was helped out of the elevator—then disappeared.
I knew who did it.
I stormed back to the Pei estate and burst into the study.
He was sitting there, tea freshly steeped, as if waiting for me.
"Where is my brother?"
I forced myself to stay calm, though my eyes were bloodshot.
He chuckled slowly.
"Who would've thought—a Beta, actually got pregnant by you. Why didn't he get pregnant when I did it?"
"…What did you say?"
He smiled like a hunter toying with his prey, wrinkles crinkling around his eyes and mouth like dried orange peel.
"I said, when he was eighteen, why didn't he get pregnant with my child?"
"He was even more obedient back then."
He said it as if recalling a sweet memory, his smile sickeningly tender, like silk soaked in rot.
A nerve under my shoulder blade snapped taut.
He continued:
"That year he begged me to bring him back. When I arrived, he was kneeling on the floor, so thin I could lift him with one arm.
"Such a pretty face—just one look and you knew he'd have to pay a price to come home. He crawled over and started unbuckling my belt."
"A Beta, crying even better than an Omega. He kept calling me 'Daddy' while sobbing, thinking I'd go easy on him."
Boom—
Blood pounded in my ears. Bones snapped in my mind.
"And then your mother—heh." He laughed, as if telling someone else's scandal.
"She had no right to divorce me. Couldn't take it, so she moved out. That's all—just moved out. Took a few of the Lin family's dogs and threw tantrums in front of me every day.
"Later I thought—he's too pretty to keep locked up. Might as well let him out to play. Who knew he'd go bad so fast?"
I heard the sound of bones breaking—not his.
Mine.
What… was this?
What was he saying?
How could he say such revolting things so calmly?
How could he describe raping his own son as "just playing around"?
Every word was a chisel, carving madness into my skull—
Absurd. Evil. Unforgivable.
Yet he said it all with such serenity, as if describing an old flame's wedding.
I don't remember when I lunged at him.
When I came to,
My hands were already gripping his throat.
He struggled, face turning mottled purple, mouth open—unable to form a sound.
Kill him.
Kill him.
Kill him.
For my brother.
For Mother.
For everything that had been buried, trampled, and torn.
But just before he stopped moving,
My phone rang.
They'd found my brother, in an abandoned warehouse by the docks.
"Master Cheran's condition isn't good. There are signs of miscarriage… we're taking him to the hospital."
I loosened my hand.
He collapsed, coughing violently like a drowning dog gasping for air.
I looked down at my own hands—
Fury still scorched my fingertips.
But I turned and walked away.
I had to go to my brother.
Behind me, my father panted and writhed like a beaten dog.
I didn't look at him again.
He would pay.
But not now.
I walked out of that study with steady steps.
This game
Was not to end in haste.