Chapter 134: Obedient son

Bunny’s expression soured instantly. "Who’s spying on you?"

Why did this man’s mouth always spew such insufferable words?

"I came looking for you to ask what you encountered in City A."

Cyrus turned around, half his face submerged in shadow, answering with a completely unrelated query. "Do you know how to play?"

Bunny shook her head. Since childhood, her musical aptitude had been absolute zero—tone-deaf when singing, wildly uncoordinated like a clumsy mess when dancing, completely out of her depth.

Her talent points were simply never invested in this domain.

"I don’t."

In the very next second, the center of gravity beneath Bunny vanished as Cyrus pulled her up into his arms, settling her directly onto his lap before the piano keys.

"If you don’t know, I’ll teach you."

He cupped both her hands within his own. The man possessed remarkably sculpted hands—pale, lean, and long-fingered, with faint bluish veins ridging subtly against the surface of his skin.

Though thick calluses from handling firearms hardened his palms and thumb webs, it did nothing to detract from their striking aesthetic.

He pressed the keys down one by one, attempting to imprint the intricate sequence and sheet music into Bunny’s memory.

"Hand posture and fingering technique are critical—engage both your ring finger and little finger."

His scalding breath brushed against the nape of her neck; the man’s overly intense body heat left Bunny squirming in discomfort.

She attempted to trace the memory and replicate the sequence, yet the resulting noise was undeniably grating.

Staring down at the woman’s clumsy, slightly flustered movements, a subtle smirk quietly touched the corner of Cyrus’s lips.

Bunny turned her head unexpectedly, offering a wistful sigh. "I can’t believe you actually know how to play the piano, Cyrus."

In her impression, these Sentinels were all rugged combatants; a skill that offered zero survival value was something no one here—not even low-tier Terrians—would bother acquiring. Let alone on an ancient antique instrument like this; she didn’t know the first thing about it, yet Cyrus played fluidly.

"My mother forced me to learn."

Propping his head on one hand, he cradled her on his thigh with the other, stray strands of hair and dim lighting obscuring the dark depths of his eyes.

In truth, "forced" was an understatement.

Cyrus’s mother had possessed a controlling nature that verged on pathological. She held a single demand for Cyrus: he was required to achieve absolute perfection in every single endeavor.

Whether it concerned academic marks, physical conditioning, artistic talents... in her eyes, being the absolute best was the bare minimum standard.

When Cyrus refused to practice the piano, she would lock him inside the music room, refusing to release him until the piece was mastered.

And whenever he struck a single wrong note, she would strike his hands mercilessly with a rod until they bled profusely.

Over time, a ferocious rebellious streak took root deep within him.

Especially on the occasion when his mother demanded he master a complex sheet score within three days—solely to deliver a flawless performance before his father on his birthday to earn his favor.

That very day was his birthday as well.

In that single instant, everything became crystal clear to him: to his mother, he was nothing more than a pawn to secure affection.

His father was a high-ranking Guide who hardly lacked a single Sentinel like his mother. Even though he had promised to only sire offspring with her, his mother was forever consumed by insecurity.

His place in his mother’s heart could never compare to his father’s presence.

If that was the case, why should he bother playing the obedient, flawless child they demanded?

Consequent to his defiance, he grew increasingly rebellious—skipping classes to drag-race, bleaching his hair, piercing his ears, and turning in blank exam papers. After dragging him back from the lower city’s cyber-sci-fi zone when he failed to return for nights on end, his mother beat him within an inch of his life before packing him off to military academy.

For all three years of his academy tenure, she never once came to visit him.

Everyone within the academy knew he was a scion of the Si family. Combined with his exceptionally high genetic aptitude, no one dared provoke him. Cyrus lingered in that "gilded cage" until he verged on clinical depression, spending his nights attempting to scale the electrified perimeter walls.

With his father’s explicit authorization, the chief instructor had him tossed into solitary confinement for sixty full days. Upon emerging from that lightless dungeon, Cyrus finally quieted down.

Yet it wasn’t because he had grown docile; he had simply completed his descent into darkness.

Graduating ahead of schedule from the academy, his very first act was to personally beat his own father straight into a medical pod.

His mother shrieked and wept, but by then, she no longer possessed the leverage to control an adult Cyrus.

They finally confronted an undeniable truth: Cyrus might prove to be a competent corporate heir, but he would never, under any circumstances, play the role of an obedient son.

That was the toxic environment that birthed Amos Reid.

"I’m so envious of people with natural musical talent like yours. When I was a kid enrolled in interest classes, the instructor practically despised me, claiming my bone structure was a freak mutation..."

"My parents actually wanted me to learn ballet, but while everyone else turned out as graceful little cygnets, my performance ended up resembling the Ugly Duckling..."

The woman’s lips kept running in a non-stop stream of chatter. Cyrus’s gaze remained locked exclusively on her cherry-red, moist lips, completely deaf to a single word of what Bunny was rambling about.

Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved the doll Chi had dragged back and handed it over to Bunny.

Bunny’s eyes lit up as she eagerly accepted it—a remarkably well-preserved doll with pink hair and green eyes, an artifact belonging entirely to her lost era.

"Where on earth did you dig this up?"

Cyrus had keenly observed that Bunny harbored a distinct soft spot for relics of the ancient human era, which was precisely why he pocketed the toy and brought it back.

"Found it along the way."

Inside the spiritual landscape, Chi howled in furious protest: I @#, I picked that up! I found it!

Cradling the doll against her chest, Bunny looked utterly enchanted; she had always possessed a weakness for collecting dolls in her previous life.

"Thank you, Cyrus."

Bunny flashed him a completely sincere, beaming smile, her bright eyes sparkling brightly. Cyrus froze for a fraction of a second before he instinctively grabbed the back of her head and crushed his lips onto hers in a brutal, forceful kiss.

—Slap!

Give him an inch and he’d take a mile; this man was simply incorrigible.