Reliable Gege

“Gege, HuaHua’s feet are tired,” Wu Yinghua pouted as she tugged on her elder brother’s sleeve. Wu Yingfei blinked down at his six years old sister and then smiled. 

“Too bad mother and father are not here to fetch us a carriage. I wonder whose fault that is?” 

Yinghua frowned. “Huahua already said she was sorry,” she said softly as tears began to well up in her eyes. “The butterfly was just really, really pretty….” She stared up at him with a pitiful expression.  When Yingfei’s expression did not budge, Yinghua reverted back to pouting and mumbled under her breath. “Even though Gege is very pretty, he is also very petty.” 

“You need to work on your whispering skills; customers won’t come to us if that is how you are going to talk behind their backs~”

Yinghua ‘hmphed’ and then walked back to her kinder older brother. “Xue-gege! Da-ge is so mean! We should just ditch him!” She wrapped her arm around his and stared into his face. 

Unlike the other two, the eight-year-old Wu Yingxue was a lot quieter. He didn’t boast about his good lucks or complain as much as his siblings, instead opting to listen and comfort. However, his face was currently twisted in pain and sweat drops were forming on his forehead.

“Xue-gege…? Da-ge, Xue-gege is as pale as his name!”  (Xue is snow ehe)

Wu Yingfei whipped around and crouched before his brother’s smaller form. He examined his brother’s face before lifting a sleeve to wipe his sweat. “Didi, does it hurt somewhere?” 

The guilt of playing a part in separating them from their parents, the pain in his ankle from when he fell earlier, and now the worried expressions on his siblings’ faces made Wu Yingxue unable to hold his tears back any longer. He wiped at his face and admitted with a small, ashamed voice “I think I sprained my ankle.” 

Yingfei guided his younger brother to hold onto his shoulder while he took off his shoe. He grimaced at the red swollen ankle and let out a frustrated sigh. 

He really couldn’t afford a carriage. Usually, Yingfei would carry some money on his person, but it was confiscated by his parents after he splurged on an expensive flute that he couldn’t even play. Luckily, he carried around some of Ying’s accessories that he could probably trade for a ride, but he couldn’t see any carriages in the vicinity. While scanning their surroundings, his eyes fell on a father carrying his son.

 “Oh, that was an option too,” he muttered as he turned around. 

Both of his siblings tilted their heads, confused about what he was doing. 

“Didi, get on. I don’t want to keep kneeling in the dirt.”

“Oh!” Yingxue and Yinghua both gasped before the latter helped the former on. They were both really surprised because Yingfei had never done anything like this before! Sure he gave them things and played with them (...kinda…), but he had never offered to carry them, despite Yinghua constantly asking him too. 

Soon they found out why.

After multiple stops and multiple cases in which he almost dropped Yingxue because of his poor stamina and lack of strength, they finally reached their home. 

Yingfei grimaced when the servants told him that his parents still weren’t home yet, knowing that they were still looking for them. He sighed and then called for Hei, his pet crow, and told him to find them and let them know that they were safe at home. 

He carried his brother to his bed while he himself sat down against the bed. Yinghua hovered over Yingxue, concern on her face. She talked to him in a quiet and hushed tone, telling him to fall asleep so that it would hurt less. After a few minutes, the only sounds that could be heard were quiet snores. 

Brushing his sleeping brother’s hair off his forehead, Yingfei sighed. 

‘I’m going to get in so much trouble when they come back…’