Chapter 5

An hour after I hung up the phone, entertainment news notifications started flooding my phone with updates about Gu Group. I opened Weibo, which I had only downloaded for my brother’s sake. Trending at the top was the news that Gu Group had deleted the announcement of Xiao Xiao as the next season's brand ambassador. Known for its wealth and tendency to change ambassadors like outfits, Gu Group only offered endorsement deals to the most popular stars. For Xiao Xiao, who had been in the industry for years without a major breakthrough, this was a top-tier opportunity. Amid the chaos, curious onlookers and Xiao Xiao's fans alike flocked to the comment sections: [It’s just a bug with the official account! Why are you haters barking nonsense?] [Everyone knows Xiao Xiao’s close connection with Gu Group. She’s practically a rich heiress! It’s not a joke!] One fan even tagged Gu Jin: [How can you let this happen? She’s your own sister! What kind of brother are you?] I was baffled until a die-hard Xiao Xiao fan "helpfully" explained: It turned out that when Xiao Xiao won the Best Newcomer award, she trended at #1 on Weibo. At #2 was my brother, Gu Jin, who had used his official account to congratulate "my sister" on achieving her dreams. He even handed out hundreds of red envelopes on the platform, each worth over 200,000 yuan. Xiao Xiao happened to grab the biggest one, a whopping 10,000 yuan. She replied, "Thanks, big brother! Love you!" The post garnered tens of thousands of likes. Since Gu Jin hadn’t explicitly named which "sister" he was referring to, and Xiao Xiao’s comment was pinned at the top, many clueless onlookers assumed they were siblings. When people questioned why their last names were different, die-hard fans had a ready-made answer: "The sister takes the mother’s surname, and the brother takes the father’s. Isn’t this just proof of how loving and harmonious their family is?" I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. My parents were loving and harmonious. So much so that when my mom gave birth to us twins and nearly died from complications, my dad was so terrified he practically lost his mind. To honor their love, they decided both kids would take our mom’s surname. Sadly, my parents later died in a plane crash. My brother shielded me, who was grief-stricken, and managed to hold onto our parents' legacy amidst a pack of greedy relatives. He built the company into what it is today while fiercely protecting me, as if he wanted to tie me to his hip for safekeeping. Online, he had kept all traces of me completely hidden. No one knew I was Gu Jin’s twin sister. As an open "sister-obsessed" brother, Gu Jin was brimming with pride when I became the youngest professor at University A. He even wanted to commission an enormous red banner to hang across the bustling headquarters of the company to celebrate, an idea I firmly vetoed for the sake of preserving some dignity. I didn’t even need to think hard to know that my brother hadn’t seen the comments—or if he had, he didn’t care. In his world, only the people he loved—our parents and me—mattered. Everyone else was irrelevant. But Xiao Xiao’s fans kept up the noise for a while. Some of them couldn’t sit still and started leaving angry comments under Gu Group’s official account: [When will this bug be fixed? Whoever’s in charge of Gu Group’s social media better come out and apologize!] [Messing with the boss’s sister and thinking you’ll get away with it? Keep dreaming.] And then, the official account responded: [From now on, all subsidiaries under Gu Group will completely cease any and all collaborations with Xiao Xiao.] Well, they wanted proof, and they got it. I couldn’t help but burst into laughter. For the first time that day, I felt genuinely cheerful.