Chapter 235: Origins Relived: Brotherhood [2]
Outside, the remaining orphans and nuns had gathered in a loose, uncertain crowd. Beyond the orphanage gates, an elegant carriage waited—four white horses, lacquered wood, the unmistakable language of money. Standing before it was the woman from yesterday, flanked by her guards, wearing a smile that made the air feel wrong.
Su Tianhao recognized her the instant he cleared the doorway.
He threw himself against the house master's grip with everything he had—twisting, kicking, raising dust from the ground. The house master's hold didn't break. His eyes flashed a silent warning: be still, or face consequences.
The gathered orphans watched quietly. None of them moved to help.
Just then, Chuan stepped through the doorway.
Su Tianhao's voice broke open. "Chuan — it's her! Those people—they're trying to take me!"
Chuan looked through the gates. He saw the woman. He saw her expression—that barely contained eagerness, that proprietary certainty that bordered on lust.
His face twisted. Then it went hard.
He crossed the distance in three strides and drove a precise punch into the house master's shoulder—enough force to break the grip.
Su Tianhao pulled free.
The house master turned, and before Chuan could move again, he erupted. A heavy blow landed in Chuan's stomach, doubling him over—and before he could straighten, a brutal kick connected to the same spot, launching him several metres through the air.
Wham!
He hit the ground hard with a sickening thud.
"CHUAN!"
He vomited blood. Clutched his stomach. His face had gone the color of ash.
But he gritted his teeth and stood back up.
"Don't worry, lil bro," he said, blood at the corner of his lips. "I'm fine."
He turned to face the house master and settled into a fighting stance.
"If you want to take my brother," he said quietly, "you go through me first."
The woman stepped through the gates with an impatient click of her tongue, her guards trailing behind. "House master, I'm a busy person. Finish this!"
The house master's expression smoothed into flattery. "Of course, Madam. That boy is nothing—"
Whoosh!
Chuan moved.
He came from the side—fast, low—and before the house master could turn, opened his palm and threw a fistful of sand directly into his eyes. In the same motion he threw a punch with his free hand, landing squarely into the house master's jaw.
The man reeled backward, pressing a hand to his jaw, vision gone.
Taking advantage of the chaos he'd created, Chuan grabbed Su Tianhao's wrist and ran.
They were through the gates before anyone moved. The street swallowed them immediately—two figures vanishing into the crowd with ghost speed.
Behind them, the woman's eyes widened in anger as she turned to her guards, her voice cutting through the chaos.
"You fools—after them!"
And from inside the orphanage gates, the house master's roar followed—raw with fury, directed at the assembled orphans.
"GET THEM! BRING THEM BACK OR I MAKE EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU PAY!"
The orphans—hardened by a year of survival, conditioned to respond to threat with action—moved. Every one of them, pouring through the gates and into the streets, adding their voices and their feet to the chase.
The hunt had begun.
---
Su Tianhao and Chuan ran like their lives depended on it—because they did.
Through the market's familiar chaos, through the narrow streets they had memorized over months of careful study, Chuan throwing carts and overturning stall counters behind them to buy seconds, Su Tianhao taking turns without being told because he already knew which ones bought the most distance.
The guards pursued without mercy. The orphans filled the streets behind them with the sound of running feet and shouted warnings that shifted to threats and back to warnings when neither worked. The two didn't slow for any of it.
After a brutal chase that burned through what little energy remained in their bodies, they collapsed into the familiar shadowy alley—the same one from yesterday—and pressed themselves against the wall.
Chuan's breathing came in jagged, labored pulls. His face was still pale, still marked with dried blood at the corner of his mouth.
"This can't go on much longer," he managed between breaths.
Su Tianhao's voice came out unsteady. "What do you mean?"
"We can't make it to the warehouse." Chuan's eyes were clear despite his condition—reading the situation with the same calm intelligence that had kept them both alive for a year. "They're closing in. If we keep running together, we both get caught."
Su Tianhao already felt where it was going. His chest tightened.
"We split up," Chuan said.
"No."
"It's the only—"
"No!"
"Tianhao." Chuan's voice dropped, carrying a weight that left no room for argument. "Listen to me. I create a diversion. You use that opening to leave Jiaohe Town." His obsidian eyes held steady. "Don't come back."
"What about you?" Su Tianhao asked painfully, his fists clenched until his knuckles turned bone-white.
Something passed across Chuan's face—brief, honest, quickly covered. "I'll run. I'll keep moving. And if I get caught—" he shrugged, with a casualness that didn't quite reach his eyes— "that's my problem, not yours. Don't come back for me. Just keep going."
"NO!!!"
The word tore out of Su Tianhao before he could stop it—raw, fractured, nothing like the composure he had built over a year of hard living. His eyes grew moist without permission, and the sky answered—thunder rolling overhead, rain beginning to fall in sudden, heavy sheets as though the heavens had been holding it and decided now was the time.
Chuan placed a hand on his shoulder. "Don't be sad," he said—measured, deliberate, each word chosen carefully. "I'm okay with this. You don't have to feel guilty. From the day I brought you inside, you were my brother. My responsibility." His grip steadied. "I won't let anything happen to you."
"But—" Su Tianhao's voice broke on the word.
"Don't waste this chance," Chuan cut in. "You might not get another one. If something happens to you while I'm here, I won't be able to forgive myself."
"..."
Su Tianhao fell silent. His head lowered as if accepting the bitter fate.
Chuan closed his eyes. His expression settled into something completely at peace—a serenity that had no business existing on the face of a fourteen year old boy standing in a rain-soaked alley with blood on his lip and a bruised stomach, the sound of people hunting them growing louder by the second. He looked, in that moment, like someone who had already made his decision and found it completely acceptable.
The rain fell harder. Lightning split the sky, illuminating both of them in a single white flash—standing eight feet apart, drenched, looking at each other.
Su Tianhao raised his head. His golden eyes met Chuan's obsidian ones and held.
"I hear you, brother," he said quietly. "I won't waste it." He dipped his head in a short, deep bow. "If fate brings us together again—I will repay this debt. I swear it."
Voices arrived from the alley entrance—closing fast, spreading out.
Chuan moved quickly, stepping into the light.
Su Tianhao followed instinctively, but paused mid-step—his hands reached out, grasping nothing but the emptiness.
His last image of Chuan: a defiant grin—wide, easy, completely undefeated—and words that reached him like an echo carried on the rain, fading even as they landed.
"Let the past be in the past..."
Su Tianhao's fingers bit into his palm until they drew blood, the grinding sound of gritting teeth audible in the alley as he turned and ran.
Drenched and exhausted, he didn't stop. Not at the end of the alley. Not at the edge of the main streets. Not when the sounds of the chase faded entirely behind him. He kept moving—through the outskirts of Jiaohe Town and beyond its boundary entirely—until his legs gave out on the open trade roads.
He didn't remember losing consciousness.
When he woke, the rain had stopped. The road was quiet. His mind had done something profound and merciful while he slept—locking the sharpest, traumatic edges of his memories while he slept, leaving only fragments like the last pieces of a dream that dissolve before you can hold them.
He barely remembered Chuan's face. He barely remembered the orphanage. He barely remembered Jiaohe Town at all.
He stood there in silence and confusion, until a caravan arrived—merchants heading west, toward a town called Willow Creek. They offered him a place among their number, asking no difficult questions. Su Tianhao simply told them he had family waiting there.
By this point his mastery of deception was near flawless. They believed him without hesitation.
The journey was smooth and uneventful.
That was how he arrived in Willow Creek Town.
What followed was a bitter past.
The little Rogue of Willow Creek Town
A past he remembered clearly.