The screening room on the second floor was spacious, with a total of eight seats. Shi Jin and Rong Zhouzhong each chose a seat on the first row, with Shi Jin on the right and Rong Zhouzhong on the left. A small table could fit perfectly in the aisle between them. Shi Jin set up the table and placed the cake and drinks he had taken out of the fridge on top.

As Rong Zhouzhong watched him busy himself, his mind went blank, as if he was thinking about something, yet also thinking about nothing at all. With everything ready, Shi Jin's sharp eyes suddenly became decisive as he cut the cake cleanly. He took a piece and put it on a small plate for Rong Zhouzhong to hold, and then took a piece for himself. He turned off the lights in the screening room and turned on the equipment.

Rong Zhouzhong looked at the cake with a double-layered filling in his hand, his expression frozen in a comical way.

"Did you just cut it like that? Is it that simple? After all the effort put into making the cake, you just cut it like that? Is it so unappreciated?" Rong Zhouzhong whimpered.

Not only did Shi Jin cut it, but he also took a big bite.

Rong Zhouzhong saw this scene out of the corner of his eye and felt a sudden pain in his heart. He couldn't bear to look at the cake's corpse on the small table anymore and shifted his gaze to the screen.

The projector whirred to life, the screen flickering on and off before finally displaying the image. Through modern eyes, the film had a nostalgic feel, with a young Rong Zhouzhong dressed in peculiar ethnic clothing standing atop a hill, coldly observing a tribe celebrating below. Slowly, he closed his eyes and fell backwards onto the grass.

Bang.

The screen abruptly went dark, the title of the film appearing.

An unexplainable tension filled the air.

"In reality, this film did terribly at the box office," Rong Zhouzhong couldn't help but break the silence, picking up a piece of cake and examining it before slowly taking a bite. "This style of movie is like that, good reviews but poor box office performance, only suitable for winning awards."

Shi Jin also took a bite of cake, but didn't respond to his words.

Don't feel like talking? Rong Zhouzhong lowered his gaze and suddenly regretted coming to see this movie.

The screen lit up again, and his silly and sweet younger brother appeared.

"What happened to this actor now?" Shi Jin suddenly asked.

Rong Zhouzhong was taken aback, turned his head to look at him, and replied, "It seems like he got caught for drug use. I only worked with him once, so I don't know much about what happened to him later."

"So in the real world, it's also you, the 'older brother,' who won," Shi Jin commented, his gaze fixed on the movie screen, as if he had just casually said this sentence.

As he held his fork, Rong Zhouzhong's hand tightened as he watched his younger brother in the movie happily playing at his birthday celebration. He felt an inexplicable annoyance and mercilessly said, "Isn't it natural for me to win against him? I'm better looking than him, have a stronger background, better acting skills, higher intelligence, a longer-term vision, and even work harder than him. This waste who can only numb himself with drugs when he can't find a way out deserves to lose for a lifetime!"

Shi Jin was choked by his shameless self-praise and turned to look at him.

Rong Zhouzhong gave him a fierce look and said, "What are you looking at? Isn't what I said the truth?"

It was indeed the truth, but...

"You have a thick skin," Shi Jin commented.

When Rong Zhouzhong saw that he finally spoke, he felt relieved. He coldly snorted and stuffed another big piece of cake into his mouth. While chewing hard, he said, "I guess I understand why you wanted me to watch this movie. You called me stingy, but where's your generosity? Wasn't it just a scare when you were ten years old? Do you really need to remember it for so many years?"

Shi Jin couldn't believe it. He looked at Rong Zhou's self-righteous expression and retorted, "You, a bully who picks on little kids, have no right to call me stingy. That was just a scare? Do you even understand the concept of childhood trauma?"

"What, just because you're younger than me, I'm supposed to let you have your way? Give me a break!" Rong Zhouzhong sat up straight and spoke like a machine gun. "I worked hard to win an award, and even though the box office was a disaster, I still made time to celebrate your birthday! I only slept three hours a day and was busy all day, and yet I still had to celebrate your birthday. Is that fair?

"And you even made me sick by making me blow out candles with you in front of Shi Xingrui's fatherly face. I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep!"

Shi Jin couldn't believe how unreasonable he was being. A surge of nameless anger rose within him as he spoke, "Disgusting? I was trying to celebrate with you out of kindness, and you call it disgusting? If you're so tired, then go to sleep! Did I force you to come with a knife? You said you wanted to sleep, so why did you come to my room in the middle of the night? Just go to sleep and never wake up!"

"If it weren't for Shi Xingrui tying up my mom's company funds, do you think I would willingly come and celebrate your damn birthday? And don't even get me started on sleeping. That old bastard Shi Xingrui arranged for my room's heater to be broken! I was freezing and couldn't sleep at all. Do you know how irritated and tired I was? And those big brothers of yours are a bunch of assholes too. I knocked on their doors for ages and they didn't even answer, and they all locked their doors. In the end, I had no choice but to go to your room. After all your room was the most spacious, the bed was the most comfortable, and the heater was the warmest?"

As Rong Zhouzhong spoke, he remembered the scene vividly and was so angry that his hair was standing on end. Grinding his teeth, he continued, "So I went to your room, and you were sleeping like a pig on your back! Meanwhile, I was freezing to death, and you were sleeping like a pig!"

Shi Jin: "......"

"So, this was the reason why you woke me up in the middle of the night to watch a movie?" Shi Jin was almost choked by the lack of any good reason for this.

"And what if it was?" Rong Zhouzhong retorted, tightening his grip on the cake fork, looking like he was about to dismember someone. "You've been bothering me for so long, why should I suffer while you sleep like a pig?"

Shi Jin held his breath and looked at him. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, he stood up and slammed the cake in his hand onto Rong Zhouzhong's face.

Smack.

Cream and fruit smeared all over Rong Zhouzhong's face.

Rong Zhouzhong was stunned, his eyes widened in disbelief as he looked at Shi Jin, his expression twisted. Finally, he suddenly grabbed the cake he hadn't finished eating and rushed towards Shi Jin.

Shi Jin was shocked and quickly got up to dodge.

"Come over here," said Rong Zhouzhong in a threatening tone, facing off against Shi Jin across two rows of seats.

After his initial rush of blood to the head, Shi Jin calmed down slightly and took a glance at Rong Zhou's comical appearance with cream all over his face. He felt a little nervous but also wanted to laugh.

He hid behind his chair and said, "I'm not coming over. You want to beat me."

"Hah!" Rong Zhouzhong laughed with a hint of annoyance, "Yes, I want to beat you! I dream of tearing that stupid smile off your face, giving you a knife, fighting you, saying the most vicious words to you, telling you the cruelest truth, and making you stop looking at me with that silly expression! Who cares if you make a cake with your own hands, who cares about the gifts you give, and who cares if you're sad! You hate me, don't you? Then hate me!

"In our position, isn't it easier and more appropriate for us to hate each other? If you're so afraid of me harming you, then why did you come closer? What do you want to change? How could Shi Xingrui raise a son like you who is nothing like us? You're a spoiled little master, why...

"Why can't you be a little more stubborn? Why can't you be a little more unreasonable? Do you really have any of that dirty and heartless blood of Shi Xingrui flowing through your veins?"

Shi Jin was taken aback by the sudden outburst of words from him. He stared at him for a few seconds, unable to resist asking, "If you don't want it, why didn't you push me away or refuse?"

Rong Zhouzhong was stunned for a moment. His emotions, which had erupted suddenly, quickly subsided. He was silent for a few seconds before replying, "Of course, it's to keep Shi Xingrui stable. If I offended him, both my mother and I would be finished..."

"Why are you still yelling? The choice was made by yourselves, what does it have to do with me?" Shi Jin furrowed his brows and coldly retorted. "You used false concern to deceive me, lured me closer to you, and piled up more than ten years of goodwill in me. Now you blame me for not seeing through the truth earlier and for not hating you. What do you take me for? A robot that can easily empty its emotions? You have it easy.

"First, you hated me and used me for your own benefit, and now you try to compensate by pleasing me. Have you ever asked if I wanted it? You ask me why I wanted to get closer, what I wanted to change. In the first ten years, it was clearly you who approached me to use me. Later, I approached you, wasn't it to stay alive? I have to find out the truth, I have to find the mastermind behind the scenes, I have to..."

"To survive, I did the same thing as you did before. I only approached you to survive. What are you so resentful about? If life could be restarted, do you think I would want to be your little brother?"

Boom.

It felt like a giant hammer was smashing down on his head. Raising his head abruptly, Rong Zhouzhong saw Shi Jin standing on the other side, looking coldly at him as if he had no intention of getting any closer. His heart tightened. Before his rational mind could react, his body had already taken action. He grabbed Shi Jin's wrist tightly.

"You can't go," he said, with a hint of stubbornness in his eyes that he wasn't even aware of. "You're my little brother. You can't go anywhere."