Kiana stood in the corner of the room, watching the scene unfold.
She knew what was supposed to happen next.
In the last dream, it was right after this sentence that the dreamscape began to warp, and those monsters swarmed Shu.
But this time, it didn't.
Nothing happened.
The room was still the same room, the lighting was still the same lighting, Shu was still sitting there, and Xu Xi was still right beside him.
Everything was perfectly normal.
Except for... Shu's eyes.
A very faint sense of bewilderment floated within his gaze.
Kiana pressed her lips together. She understood Shu, and she understood what that look in his eyes meant.
He was simply bewildered.
It was as if he was asking himself—
"Am I really just not working hard enough?"
His everyday "little lazy moments" were being infinitely magnified in his mind. Even if they were completely inconsequential, Shu would still categorize them as the ultimate reason for his shortcomings.
Right... he just wasn't working hard enough.
Even if his only fault was zoning out for a brief moment while studying.
The dream's scenery began to flow.
Time seemed to be put on fast-forward. Day and night alternated; light and shadows blurred together.
Kiana watched as the young Shu began to change.
He no longer sat around zoning out like he used to, lost in his own little world.
He started working hard.
Truly.
Incredibly hard.
In the mornings, he was up before the sun.
He would sit at his desk, open his textbooks, and read them page by page.
He read through the densely packed text very slowly. He would reread every single line several times, occasionally pausing to sketch or scribble notes on a piece of scratch paper.
During the day at school, he sat up perfectly straight, his eyes glued to the blackboard without blinking.
He wrote down every single word the teacher said. His notes were neat, tidy, and absolutely flawless.
He started lingering at the youth center and the library.
Piano, violin, guzheng, guitar...
Go, Chinese chess, Western chess, military chess...
Pen calligraphy, brush calligraphy, typography...
Sketching, figure drawing, oil painting, watercolors...
Music, chess, calligraphy, painting—he was frantically absorbing an even wider array of skills. It was hard to believe that a ten-year-old child could actually undertake learning over a dozen extracurricular skills over the course of the next year.
It bordered on torture.
And what was even more unbelievable—Xu Xi accompanied him through the entire grueling process.
She never interrupted him. She simply sat quietly, keeping him company as he learned all those things, sometimes even helping him study.
She clearly saw the exhaustion weighing down on Shu from this torturous regimen. And having followed him every step of the way, Xu Xi could also feel a hint of suffocation from this airtight schedule.
But it was only a hint of suffocation.
This must be what "working hard" looks like, right? This was Xu Xi's way of lying to herself.
How could she possibly fail to see the gap between herself and her brother? How could she not feel the sheer, desperate desperation in his efforts?
She knew everything, and she understood it more clearly than almost anyone else.
But she never once tried to dissuade Shu, nor did she ever ask him if he was tired.
She merely admired her brother as he worked himself to the bone. The light shining in those beautiful eyes of hers—eyes that typically held no interest in anything—grew brighter and brighter.
It was a light that shone exclusively for Shu.
It was...
Satisfaction, gratification, and sheer admiration. There was not a single trace of falsity in it.
She never put up any facade around Shu.
The scenes continued to flow.
Exam results were released.
Shu looked at the test paper in his hands, the exhausted furrow of his brows smoothing out slightly.
Although his class ranking hadn't improved, his actual score had objectively gone up by a significant margin.
The scene shifted again.
A piano competition.
Shu sat backstage, his hands clasped tightly together, his palms slick with sweat.
Then, he walked out onto the stage amidst polite applause. Utilizing the perfect score he'd earned in etiquette class, he bowed courteously, sat down naturally and crisply, and placed his fingers on the keys.
His posture was entirely flawless.
One note, two notes, three—
He played very fluently. He had practically done the absolute best he could. Gasps of surprise echoed from the audience, seemingly shocked by Shu's level of skill.
As the final note landed, thunderous applause erupted from the crowd once more—this time, genuine applause sending off the young contestant who had been welcomed with merely perfunctory clapping.
Shu stood up, bowed, and walked off the stage. Still utterly flawless.
It was just a pity—
When Shu returned backstage, he saw Xu Xi standing by the door, awkwardly clutching a gold trophy in her hands.
If...
If she hadn't listened to her brother and brought her "etiquette" onto the stage with her, perhaps she wouldn't have had to accept this trophy.
Xu Xi looked at Shu as he accepted his silver medal, her heart filled with gloom.
The scenes continued to flow.
A semester passed.
The end of the term brought various competitions and evaluations.
Xu Xi was as radiant as ever.
Math Olympiad: Gold Medal.
Essay Competition: First Prize.
Piano Competition: Grand Prize.
Painting Competition: Gold Medal.
English Speech Contest: First Place.
...
Her trophies and certificates filled half a bookshelf.
But Shu knew that wasn't all of them.
He had seen Xu Xi casually toss away the certificates and trophies she'd won, eager to be rid of them as if they were cursed garbage.
Shu had silently gathered all the "garbage" she threw away and placed it in a box.
Now, after one semester, the box was overflowing with certificates.
Gold medals, grand prizes, first places.
So, so many.
Some she hadn't even bothered showing their parents; they didn't even know she had participated in those specific competitions or evaluations.
Shu didn't know why Xu Xi wanted to throw them all away.
He only knew that even after throwing so many out, the ones she brought home were still more than she had won the previous year.
She was like a sun, radiating blinding light.
Even when she tried to suppress her brilliance, the mere slivers of light that escaped were enough to eclipse all the surrounding stars.
And what about him?
Shu looked down at the certificates in his own hands.
A few silver medals, along with various bronze medals and participation awards...
He had worked hard for an entire year. For a ten-year-old boy, that was a tenth of his entire life.
During that year, his efforts bordered on self-flagellation.
Waking up before dawn, staying up past midnight. Working day in and day out.
So... what had this self-torture earned him?
He suddenly remembered his mother's words.
"Why can't you just learn from your sister?"
He did learn from her.
He really did.
He worked hard.
He worked harder than anyone else.
But he just couldn't do it... He really couldn't do it.
Sometimes, people really are born unequal, and this inequality has nothing to do with family background or social status.
Just as the saying goes—
"No matter how stupid someone is, how could they possibly fail to learn calculus before age fourteen?"
And reality proves it.
Everyone thinks they can learn it.
But in truth?
Even if you eliminated all external factors—"I'm just lazy," "I didn't try hard enough," "I didn't want to put in the effort," "I missed a good opportunity"...
The vast majority of people still wouldn't be able to learn it.