Isabel, who was pressed up against him, looked at him like this and found it stranger the more she looked. She said, "I thought you were different from your little brother, but now it seems you’re actually the same, Xiaobai."

Heh. Deep down, Zicong gave a bitter laugh. At this point, was he really going to keep pretending to be his brother?

"Who is he?" Isabel leaned over to his little ear and asked.

This afternoon the two little friends ran and ran, and halfway through their escape they ran into this man. In the end they got taken into his car, and then began this endless car journey that still didn’t seem anywhere near the end. Zicong’s stomach, which always got hungry easily, had long since started growling. Isabel was the same; her tummy was rumbling a hungry tune, which made her blush in front of the "Xiaobai" she admired.

Zicong licked his little lips, very clear on why she was asking, and said, "You’re asking if he’s going to starve us to death, right? If he wanted to starve us to death, he wouldn’t have taken us with him."

That did sound about right. But the man driving in front, after hearing the two little kiddos complaining that they were hungry, remained completely unmoved. No, it wasn’t that he had a heart of iron; it was more like he couldn’t hear a word they were saying.

After a few turns in Zicong’s clever little brain, he realized this man had run into them purely by accident. Because it was an accident, after he’d taken the two of them into the car, the man had been wearing this utterly confused expression, like he didn’t know what he was supposed to do or what he should do with them.

"Who is he?" Isabel asked for the Nth time, frustrated that Zicong kept being so secretive.

Zicong really didn’t want to answer that question, because it involved his dad’s male pride. Sure, Dad Dabai always set him up, but as a son, at a time like this he had to stand by the old man.

Watching the man up front drive on in a daze as if he really was going to starve them to death, Zicong sniffled and said, "You mean him? He’s my dad’s old love rival, the man my mom didn’t want. Of course my mom made the right choice—if it weren’t for her brilliant decision, the birth of this super superstar, super male god—me—would never have happened."

Those words, which so ruthlessly jabbed at someone’s nerves, finally made the man in front snap his eyes to them in the rearview mirror, giving them both a fierce glare.

Isabel shrank against Zicong and said timidly, "He just glared at us, Xiaobai. Do you think he wants to eat us?"

"He’s not a monster, why would he eat us? Your little head is overthinking." Zicong patted the girl’s head with his small hand to comfort her, then asked, "By the way, how old are you this year? Are you older than me or younger than me?"

Isabel froze for a moment, then her little face turned red. "I don’t know if what they said about your age on the radio is right. I think I’m a bit older than you."

"So should I call you big sis?" When Zicong said the words "big sis," his voice was all syrupy sweet, sweet to the point of being cloying. In an adult’s ears it would sound like he was flirting.

The man driving let out a cold snort and stepped on the gas.

As the car sped forward, the two little friends almost slipped right off their seats. The man who had kidnapped them obviously wasn’t kind enough to bother with child safety seats.

Isabel rubbed her eyes with her little hands. "I miss my dad, I miss my mom, and I’m hungry."

Staring at the car roof, Zicong thought: I really wish I were with my brother right now. That way, the one crying about being hungry could be him.

After the car had finally turned left and right so many times that the two little ones were dizzy, it stopped at the mouth of a dark alley. The man got out, opened the car door, and herded the two little ones out of the car.