Nancy was genuinely angry and hurt, but seeing Henry like this, she couldn't stay mad at him.

After all, as a boy, he cared about face. She had hit him in front of his friends, which was somewhat humiliating for him.

Softening her expression, Nancy raised her hand, and this time Henry didn’t dodge. Half in anger and half in fondness, she ruffled his hair.

“It’s good you understand! Don’t say such things again and make me angry, okay?”

“Mhm.”

Henry nodded and then looked up at Nancy. His eyes flickered with a different kind of emotion, something Nancy had grown accustomed to.

Henry had looked at her like that since a long time ago.

"Alright, bring your friends to my house then..."

Seeing Henry frown, she immediately sterned up, “What, do you really not want to acknowledge me as your sister?”

Henry was reluctant from the bottom of his heart, but he knew he had upset Nancy just now, so he could only nod begrudgingly, “Okay.”

His two friends, seeing Henry agree, were immediately overjoyed.

“Hahaha, sister, please open the trunk.”

“Awesome! I get to ride in a Maserati! Just this is enough for me to brag about for a year!”

“Hehe, exactly, not everyone gets to ride in such a luxury car.”

Nancy opened the trunk, and the three boys put their luggage in, then got into the car.

Henry's two friends, knowing their place, sat in the back seats, leaving the front passenger seat for Henry.

Being university students from not-so-wealthy families, once inside the car, the two boys looked around in wonder, utterly fascinated.

Henry rolled his eyes in disbelief and turned to them, “The way you guys are acting, you’re really losing face for me! I shouldn’t have brought you along.”

“Hey, don’t say that, Han Bro! We’re all following your lead; you can’t abandon us.”

“Right, right, right, Han Bro, if we had known your sister was this wealthy, we wouldn’t have worked so hard on our project! We could have taken it easy and delayed it till next year.”

“What do you know!?”

Henry’s face darkened, and he was about to say something more, but stopped himself when he caught Nancy glancing over.

Seeing his hesitation, Nancy curiously asked, “What’s this hard work you’re talking about?”

“Oh, sister, you have no idea!”

One of the boys, almost in tears, lamented, “I don’t know what got into Henry, but he dragged us to write programs without eating or sleeping. Sister, look at these dark circles under my eyes. I can responsibly tell you, I’ve only been sleeping four hours a day for the past six months. The rest of the time, I’m either in class or coding!”

The other boy nodded in agreement, “Yeah, sister, you don’t know. I used to weigh 160 pounds. In these six months, with insufficient food, clothing, and sleep, I've lost so much weight, now I'm only 110 pounds. I look like a monkey now. Last time I video-called my mom, she couldn’t even recognize me. She thought I was a kidnapper demanding a ransom for her son!”

The two boys were sobbing as they spoke, but their words were somewhat humorous.

Nancy didn’t laugh, though. She knew they were joking, but the hardships and bitterness behind their words were real.