Zi Zhen grinned sheepishly. "I know."
Still holding his mother's hand, he leaned against her arm and whispered, "I will be better, Momma. I promise you. You will be super proud of me."
"All right." She smiled at him while patting his hands intimately. She wouldn't be angry at him for long. She knew how worked up he would get.
"But momma, you haven't scolded Lu Ting Cheng the same way you have scolded me." He whined while glaring at his brother.
Lu Wan Ruyi glanced at Lu Ting Cheng, who was also sitting just next to Lu Zi Zhen.
Lu Ting Cheng lifted his head, and their eyes briefly met Lu Wan Ruyi's. There was a flicker of something unspoken there, mutual understanding, mutual respect, but also the distance that always lingered quietly between them.
As much as he was her son, she didn't dare cross the boundaries, his father always did the scolding and punishment, and for her, she preferred teaching him about everything else apart from scolding and punishing him.
It wasn't that they weren't close, but that they respected each other.
" I just need to say it once, and Ting Cheng listens. You are the stubborn and nagging one, and then, he rarely gets in trouble, and if he does, you are the cause of it." She said softly, gazing into the streets while Lu Ting Cheng inwardly felt proud of himself.
"He doesn't try to sneak the keys behind my back or conduct experiments while I don't know..." Lu Zi Zhen was the naughty one, getting involved with anything and everything, and Lu Ting Cheng was the perfect one, so she didn't have any problems with him and was open like a book you could read.
"Hahaha...." Lu Zi Zhen laughed it off because he knew what was behind that good son mask, it was because he handled most of the things and what Lu Ting Cheng did was clean up the mess and air back to enjoy the fruits, "I did that one time Momma," Zi Zhen mumbled sneakily glaring at Lu Ting Cheng who was seated beside him feeling full of himself.
Lu Ting Cheng noticed the glare from his brother, and he shrugged lazily. "Also, I wasn't the one who knocked off the car engines trying to modify the cars, three times within a week. You did!" But at the back of everything, he owned one of the best sports cars Lu Zi Zhen has ever modified.
"That was an accident!" Zi Zhen yelped in defense, sitting up straighter. "I was just testing the capabilities and what can be improvised!"
Lu Zhi Hao chuckled, hearing the two of them banter like the kids they had always been, clearly entertained by their little antics. "You were also testing my blood pressure."
"Unbelievable Father," Zi Zhen muttered, sinking into his seat with a dramatic sigh. "Everyone's ganging up on me. I ain't as bad as you think."
*Ting Cheng isn't momma's biological son," he added in a smaller voice, hoping to win sympathy. "That's why she's harder on me alone when vividly it's the two of us who committed the wrong…"
The silence that followed was thick for a bit too long.
Lu Wan Ruyi loudly sighed as she glanced at Zi Zhen, her voice calm but firm.
"Being a mother has nothing to do with biology, Zi Zhen. Both of you aren't my biological sons, but you are my true sons. Remember, you chose me, and I chose to be your mother every single day. And I would do it again with a heartbeat. You two are my world." Yes, they were her son, and no one was going to tell her otherwise.