The first time I realized Zhang Jiao was acting strangely was on my birthday.

Our birthdays—mine, Zhang Jiao's, and Zhou Jin's—are consecutive: January 2nd, January 3rd, and January 4th, which are also the dates we arrived at the Nan Street Orphanage.

Our personalities were similar, and we quickly became the closest "Golden Triangle" there.

Later, we were also very much in sync, none of us got successfully adopted.

We matured early and were more hardworking than the average person, always dreaming of making something of ourselves. The one with the most potential to succeed seemed to be Zhou Jin.

At the beginning of the year, Zhou Jin got into a company called "Bioworks," mainly dealing with the development of biological experiment culture media. According to him—it was a big company. Although the starting salary was average, the humanistic care was top-notch. Just the tea in the break room was worth over 5000 yuan per pound in the market.

When Zhang Jiao and I drank with him, we would always tease him.

"Brother Zhou, don't forget us when you're rich!"

He gave a hearty laugh, raised his glass, and drank it all in one go.

"What are you talking about? No matter what, we'll always be brothers, right?"

Indeed, the three of us were ironclad brothers.

Not long after Zhou Jin established himself at the new company, he got Zhang Jiao, who was in between jobs, in as well.

On Zhang Jiao's first day of work, he was so excited that he treated us to a barbecue.

But that seemed to be the last time I saw him to date.

After that, Zhang Jiao started acting increasingly strange.

Normally, on our birthdays, even if we were too busy to meet up, we would at least have a video call and take a screenshot to remember the occasion.

But this year, Zhang Jiao directly hung up on both my and Zhou Jin's voice calls, saying, "I'm busy."

Perhaps he sensed his reply was a bit cold, so he sent another voice message.

When I opened it, it was the sound of a woman assigning tasks in an empty room.

This 3-second voice clip felt strangely familiar.

But for the life of me, I couldn't recall who the woman was.

"I'm in a meeting."

Zhang Jiao then sent this message.

It sounded plausible and reasonable.

But why was he explaining to me...

Aren't we brothers?