After He Mistook Me for My Twin Brother - Chapter 3

Eight years ago—before I led the traffickers out to catch Pei Yi on the road to freedom—he had loved clinging to me.

He came from a wealthy family, had been pampered since birth, and was still very young. When he was first abducted, he cried all day long.

Our beds stood head-to-head. He would sob through the night until his tears ran down the sheet to my end, cold and irritating.

He made it impossible to sleep. Whenever he started crying, I had no choice but to climb into his bed and soothe him the way my mother had once soothed my brother and me: holding him against my chest and patting his bottom over and over.

It worked. Pei Yi hiccupped a few times and soon fell asleep.

After that, though, he seemed to latch on to me for good. He stuck to me all day and could not sleep at night unless he was pressed against me.

At my wits’ end, I had Xie Er pretend to be me and take him away.

Unfortunately, the impersonation trick my brother and I had perfected since childhood seemed useless on him. Pei Yi would fix those great black grape eyes on us, and somehow his gaze was sharp enough to tell at once whether he was looking at me or my brother.

He never got it wrong.

I began to wonder whether he was like a puppy, recognizing his master by scent.

Back then, I spent every day wound tight and frantic, searching for a way out. Whenever I turned around, I would find Pei Yi trailing eagerly behind me, craning his head to see whatever I was looking at—as if determined to make sure someone caught him.

After more than half a month, I finally worked out the ring’s guard rotations and the pattern by which they delivered children to buyers.

I wanted to slip out late at night, when our guards were shirking their duties, and scout a route. But Pei Yi clung to me so desperately that I feared he would notice my empty bed and follow.

The next time he climbed into my bed, I hardened my heart and shoved him away.

“Pei Yi! Why do you keep clinging to me?”

Frightened by my anger, he blinked, hugging his pillow. “Gege…”

“Shut up! You’re not allowed to call me that. My real little brother is right here.” I pointed at Xie Er and demanded viciously, “What kind of brother are you to me?”

No one had ever treated Pei Yi so harshly. His eyes reddened at once. He stared at me in disbelief, looked at Xie Er, then burst into tears and flung himself onto his own bed.

Watching his bottom stick up as his back shook, I wanted to laugh and ache at the same time.

I did not even dare lie in the neighboring bed, afraid that in the middle of the night I might give in and pull him into my arms to pat him to sleep. I simply traded beds with Xie Er.

Pei Yi cried for days. When I never came to comfort him, anger finally sparked in him. He stopped peeking at me with red, yearning eyes.

He grew much quieter. Friendless, refusing even to speak to Xie Er, he spent his days crouched alone in a corner, doing who knew what.

I had no time to worry about him, because I had found a path down the mountain.

I tried following it at night, but each time I reached the hollow halfway down, a strange panic came over me.

Eventually, a tall boy in the bed beside Xie Er noticed how often I got up at night. The next evening, when I rose to try the path again, he followed without a sound.

“Where are you going?”

His voice behind me made me jump. I turned to find him glaring darkly, undisguised malice in his eyes. I had no choice but to tell him, “There’s a path. We might be able to escape that way.”

“Have you tried it?”

“I never made it to the end.”

The boy shoved me. “Take me.”

As we neared the hollow, that inexplicable feeling returned. I looked up at the sky.

“We can’t go any farther. Dawn is coming. If we keep going, we won’t make it back in time.”

But the boy stared at the whitening light beyond the hollow, his face slowly filling with wild joy.

I tried to stop him. “Hey, calm down. Something ahead feels wrong. We should go back first…”

He knocked me to the ground, every muscle in his face trembling. “Go back? Go back by yourself! I’m going home!”

Then he broke into a run.

The traffickers feared escape above all else, because anyone who got away might lead the police back to them. Whenever someone fled along a trail, that trail would be watched closely for a very long time.

Whether he made it or not, his attempt had already ruined the escape route I had worked so hard to find.

I bit my lip and watched his retreating back. Helpless, I turned and ran toward the compound.

I had gone less than a hundred meters when a deafening boom erupted behind me. The ground bucked. I heard a wet smack and, once I found my balance and looked back, saw half of the boy’s shattered face land where I had been standing moments earlier.

An eyeball still clung to it. Burned nerves twitched, making the eye roll from side to side.

It seemed to be watching me.

I understood at once: the path was a trap laid in advance, never a road to freedom at all.

I shook from head to toe, my scalp crawling. Voices from the ring drifted toward me. Fighting down my terror, I bent low and raced back.

I fell ill after that day.

While I drifted deliriously in a fever, I suddenly heard Pei Yi whisper into my ear that he had found a way out.

By the time I woke with a start, night had fallen, and Pei Yi’s bed lay empty in the moonlight.

Cold sweat drenched me in an instant. I dragged myself outside and shouted, “Someone escaped! Someone escaped…”