Xia Yang booked a plane ticket to return to A City overnight. On the way to E City airport, he couldn’t help but check the comments online. The more he read, the more agitated and fearful he became.
[There’s no end to strange things in this world. A bastard child takes over someone else’s life for over ten years. Apologize!]
[If you don’t apologize, at least be smart enough to pack up and leave, right? Has the bastard child left?]
[People should have self-awareness. If you’re destined for a certain life, you can’t escape it. Sooner or later, you’ll have to return what you’ve stolen.]
[Is it really the illegitimate child’s fault? Birth isn’t something one can choose. Isn’t it the irresponsible parents who are at fault?]
“……”
The scandal about the switched children hadn’t died down yet, and now the discussion about the “illegitimate child” was intensifying.
Seeing the relentless term “illegitimate child” on his phone, Xia Yang could hardly imagine the situation he would face if people found out about him.
He couldn’t possibly be an illegitimate child!
He absolutely couldn’t be an illegitimate child!
He rushed back to the Xia family home at ten in the evening, only to find the front door wide open.
Xia Yang hurriedly entered the villa and hadn’t even started looking for anyone when he heard his father’s furious shouting.
“You’ve gone mad, woman, you’ve completely lost it! What exactly do you want? Are you trying to stand up for your son? In all these years since Xia Yang was born, did you ever do anything for him when you didn’t know he wasn’t your son? Did you ever care about him? You barely even looked at him a few times, and now you’re pretending to have a deep motherly bond with a stranger in front of me? What exactly do you want? Shares? Let me tell you, you’re dreaming. What do you think you are? You think a few words can bring me down?”
Xia Weiyi was raging in the living room.
Xiang Shuyi showed no reaction to his anger. She calmly looked up, smiled, and asked, “Xia Weiyi, do you really think what you did all those years ago was flawless?”
Xia Weiyi’s face darkened. “What do you mean?”
Xiang Shuyi continued to calmly polish her neatly trimmed nails, “You are greedy and arrogant, unwilling to let go of any tiny bit of benefit, but you don’t seem to be as heartless as I thought. You actually let that child survive.”
Xia Weiyi stared at her, “You know?”
Xiang Shuyi gave a slight smile without answering.
Maybe there is indeed some special connection between a mother and her child — the moment she saw the switched child, she knew it wasn’t her son.
Where did her son go? She never thought to look for him.
What good would it do to find him? To have him grow up in such a twisted family, perfectly becoming the kind of person she despises?
Or maybe he couldn’t be found at all, and the child had already died without ever knowing what death or fear was?
She didn’t dare to look for him. She knew her parents’ purpose in marrying her into the Xia family, and even if they knew what Xia Weiyi had done, they would choose to keep the peace.
She was even more afraid that Xia Weiyi, in his desperation, would snuff out the last bit of hope for the child’s survival.
She felt both heartache and numbness.
She had lived in a daze for over a decade, always going with the flow, until she received news from the Jiang family.
Seeing that face with some resemblance to her own, her heart, numbed for so many years, suddenly came alive again.
What could she do? What should she do?
“You’re right, I don’t have any deep motherly bond with him,” Xiang Shuyi said. “You want to use him, and I do too. You want to use him to grow your company, and I want to use him to bring you all down.”
Xia Weiyi repeated, “You’re crazy!”
Xiang Shuyi replied, “Maybe.”
She had gone mad long ago when she realized her own worth at birth.
She didn’t have Jiang Wan’s courage to fight back from desperation.
But she wasn’t entirely useless either. She could make the people she despised fall from grace, for the sake of the child she once abandoned and for herself.
Xiang Shuyi slowly stood up. “Xia Weiyi, I’ve never wronged you. I went to nightclubs and messed around with others, sure, but I never betrayed you. I’m not like you. You were too arrogant, convinced I had betrayed you, so you didn’t even bother to do a paternity test and sent the child away. You are greedy and insatiable, unwilling to let go of the value that child held, and tried to reclaim him by any means necessary. But you failed. You’re too selfish. If you had ever considered things from someone else’s perspective, things wouldn’t have ended up like this.”
As she spoke, she turned around and saw Xia Yang standing at the villa entrance, who had apparently been listening for a while.
Xia Yang’s eyes were filled with disbelief and unspeakable anger.
Xiang Shuyi paused for a moment, then walked past him without expression, leaving the villa.
Xia Yang felt as if he had fallen into an icy abyss, not knowing how to react.
So he really was an illegitimate child.
So his mother had ignored him all these years because he wasn’t her son.
What did it mean to “reclaim him by any means necessary”?
Was his father going to acknowledge that person?
Then what about him? What should he do?
Suddenly, there was a loud noise from the living room as Xia Weiyi angrily overturned everything on the coffee table.
Startled, Xia Yang quickly snapped back to reality.
He hurried over and called out, “Dad…”
Hearing his voice, Xia Weiyi turned around, his eyes filled with a coldness Xia Yang had never seen before.
Xia Yang immediately stopped in his tracks.
Xia Weiyi looked at him and said, “You heard everything?”
Xia Yang didn’t dare to speak.
Xia Weiyi said, “Don’t worry. No matter what, you will always be my son.”
The panic Xia Yang had felt on his way home seemed to be soothed instantly. He looked up at Xia Weiyi, his voice full of dependence, “Dad, what should we do now? Everyone online is saying I’m an illegitimate child. I’m scared…”
He was afraid he’d soon be exposed.
On the way back, he had already received numerous calls, asking if the rumors online were true.
He didn’t dare answer. He didn’t know how to respond.
Even people he had rejected before were calling, gloating, and saying that if he ended up homeless, he could come to them.
Disgusting, so disgusting!
He didn’t want to be a mere bastard child. Even if he could stay in the Xia family, he couldn’t be one.
Illegitimate children were destined to be looked down upon.
He couldn’t be looked down upon!
But he didn’t know what to do.
Xia Weiyi gave him a deep look and said, “You need to go to Gongshui County and find your biological mother. Make her come forward and admit to the child swap. I’ll compensate her – tell her she can have whatever she wants.”
Xia Yang is Shao Yujie’s biological son, so she couldn’t possibly not care.
If Xia Yang stepped forward and convinced Shao Yujie to admit to this, it shouldn’t be a problem.
As long as someone took the blame for this, Xia Weiyi could claim he was unaware, and there would still be room for maneuver.
Xia Weiyi’s eyes darkened as he calculated his plans.
Xia Yang, however, frowned. “What’s the point of making her admit it? Even if she does, in everyone’s eyes, I’m still an illegitimate child. And why do I have to go to Gongshui County to find her…”
He paused.
Why Gongshui County?
His heart raced, and he asked nervously, “Dad?”
There was no point in hiding the truth anymore. Xia Weiyi said, “Your biological mother is in Gongshui County right now. You know her. She’s Shao Ming’s mother. If you can get her to admit to the child swap, I can bring Shao Ming back. You’ve always liked Shao Ming, haven’t you? I know he doesn’t like you, but blood ties are unbreakable. You could live under the same roof in the future…”
Xia Yang couldn’t hear the rest.
His mind buzzed.
Shao Ming’s mother is his biological mother?
How could that be?
He and Shao Ming… are half-brothers?
Impossible!
Xia Yang’s face turned deathly pale.
“Did you hear me?” Xia Weiyi, impatient, shook his shoulders. “I’ll arrange for someone to take you to Gongshui County right now.”
Xia Yang instinctively resisted, “No, I’m not going!”
Xia Weiyi was stunned.
Xia Yang shook his head frantically.
Go find Shao Ming’s mother? Admit in front of Shao Ming that he’s a bastard?
Since he met Shao Ming, his status had been his only advantage. After being rejected, he often couldn’t understand why Shao Ming refused him.
He was good-looking, came from a good family, and could give Shao Ming anything he wanted!
During the time he pursued Shao Ming, people would often tell him that Shao Ming was arrogant and ungrateful.
Did Shao Ming know his true identity? If he did, had Xia Yang always been a joke in front of him?
Xia Yang felt humiliated and angry.
Was Shao Ming taking revenge? Was he toying with him?
Had Shao Ming been waiting all this time to see him make a fool of himself?
Xia Weiyi didn’t care whether Xia Yang agreed or not. He was already on the phone, instructing someone to book a flight.
“Book a ticket for Young Master Yang immediately…”
Before he could finish, Xia Yang, in a frenzy, lunged forward and snatched the phone from him.
He shouted, “I said I’m not going!”
“Slap!”
A crisp sound echoed in the living room. Xia Yang’s face was slapped sideways. He dropped the phone, stunned, covering his face, eyes wide with disbelief.
Xia Weiyi dropped his final pretense, glaring at Xia Yang with uncontrollable rage. “I already said I wouldn’t let you leave this family. What more do you want?”
“…”
In that moment, Xia Weiyi lost all the composure and grace of a corporate leader. He looked at Xia Yang furiously, “How could I have raised such a useless thing like you? Just like your biological mother — weak and incompetent. What’s the point of having a son like you? If I’d known you were this useless, I’d have preferred raising someone else’s child! I ask you to do this one small thing, and you can’t even manage it. If you’re unwilling, then leave the Xia family now. I’ll pretend I never had or raised you!”
The living room was in disarray after the outburst. Xia Yang stood in the middle, his gaze vacant, feeling that everything around him was unfamiliar.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to go.
Why had everything turned out this way?
Why had everything changed?
Ever since Zhu Tong survived, ever since he transferred schools, his once smooth life had completely derailed.
Xia Yang gritted his teeth in hatred, his eyes bloodshot, his expression distorted.
Online public opinion continued to ferment, and the discussion about illegitimate children was a perennial favorite topic among netizens.
After the drama of the wealthy families, the omnipotent netizens dug up almost all of Xia Weiyi’s businesses. All his consumer industries faced a collective boycott, resulting in heavy losses.
The Xiang family didn’t fare any better. They initially intended to exploit their “victim” status for publicity, but before they could even begin, they were labeled as accomplices to Xia Weiyi.
While the Xiang and Xia families were embroiled in a bitter feud, leading to their collective downfall, Zhu Tong and Shao Ming were busy choosing clothes.
“These three outfits all look pretty good to me.”
Three sets of clothes were laid out on the bed. Zhu Tong stood straight by the bed, while Shao Ming leaned bonelessly against him, looking somewhat distressed.
Zhu Tong didn’t quite understand his dilemma. Tilting his head, he said, “Grandpa won’t care about this.”
Shao Ming replied, “No, I’m nervous.”
“…”
When Shao Ming admitted to being nervous, it usually meant he wasn’t nervous at all. But Zhu Tong knew that this time, he genuinely was.
Zhu Tong said, “You don’t need to be nervous. My grandpa… is quite easygoing.”
Shao Ming: “…”
Shao Ming thought, ‘If you hadn’t paused there, I might have believed you.’
Leaning closer to Zhu Tong, he asked, “Which outfit looks more formal?”
Zhu Tong was puzzled, “Why does it need to be formal?”
Shao Ming gently nudged him, not answering.
Zhu Tong thought for a moment and said, “How about wearing a suit?”
The only time Zhu Tong had seen Shao Ming in a suit was at the estate banquet, and he quite missed that sight.
But Shao Ming said, “A suit is too ostentatious.”
Zhu Tong: “…”
He felt… a bit disappointed.
Shao Ming asked, “What kind does your grandpa like?”
Zhu Tong thought and said, “Grandpa likes simple things. How about you wear your school uniform?”
Shao Ming: “…”
The current school uniform wasn’t as outdated as those with straight, narrow trousers, but the sleeves were still too baggy. This narcissistic Study God refused to wear it outside school.
In the end, they settled on the simplest black wool coat paired with a white hoodie — stylish, warm, and classy.
The two took a car from Gongsui County to E City and then headed straight to the airport.
Shao Ming held Zhu Tong’s hand the entire time.
He was nervous, but still attentive to Zhu Tong’s needs. Once on the plane, he ordered a glass of warm milk for Zhu Tong and seated him by the window, taking the seat next to him.
Zhu Tong accepted the milk but didn’t drink it right away. Instead, he held Shao Ming’s hand and said, “I don’t think I’ve told you about my parents.”
Shao Ming raised an eyebrow slightly.
Zhu Tong continued, “But you probably already know, right?”
“…”
Just as Shao Ming was about to respond, Zhu Tong added, “But I want to tell you myself. Is that okay?”
Shao Ming: “…”
Was his nervousness that obvious? So obvious that the young master needed to tell him a story to calm him down?
Without pointing it out, Shao Ming tightened his grip on Zhu Tong’s hand and said, “Okay.”
Zhu Tong took a sip of milk and began, “My mom passed away when Xiaoxin and I were very young. As for my dad…”
His voice was soft, but the effect was significant.
The tension gradually eased, and Shao Ming smiled slightly as he listened to the calm narration from the person beside him.
Outside the window, the sky was a clear blue, the clouds brilliant white. Time flew by, and the plane landed on schedule in A City.
