The phrase “from joy to sorrow” exists for a reason, and right now, Ji Chen felt a profound sense of powerlessness.
Why on earth was it so difficult to evolve the world and rack up some merit? First there was Li Wei, then Fu Xi, and now here came Yuezheng out of nowhere—was it ever going to end?
Inside the teahouse, Yuezheng and Ji Chen sat facing each other. There was no triumph on Yuezheng’s face, only the absolute certainty of someone who had his opponent cornered.
Because his very first sentence was: “The Ji family’s true son is still alive.”
Ji Chen’s eyes darkened as he carefully sized up Yuezheng. This man’s presence had never been weak; for decades, he had stood by Elder Lan’s side day in and day out. In both his clone’s memories and his current memories, the man had always been unlikable.
Today, he was profoundly grating.
In the clone’s memories, his identity had eventually blown up, and he had been kept directly under house arrest by Fu Chi, cut off completely from the outside world, leaving him entirely ignorant of subsequent events, which meant he had no idea what role this man played.
The person who tried to have him assassinated back then might also have been…
Seemingly aware of what Ji Chen was suspecting, Yuezheng shook his head: “I certainly wasn’t the one who wanted you dead. I know you aren’t the Eldest Miss’s biological child, so you pose no threat to me. My goal is very simple: power within the Lan family, just the same.”
“Even if the Elder has no direct blood descendants to take the succession, he still cultivated several individuals bearing the Lan surname from collateral branches. Without a doubt, if any of those people ascend to power, they won’t trust me anymore. The Elder has only a few years left to live, and I need to look out for myself.”
“I wasn’t involved in what happened back then, and I even rescued that child. I can continue to keep this secret hidden, but you need to use Qingsheng’s influence to help me rise to the top.”
Ji Chen looked at him with cold eyes: “You mean that if I don’t help you, you plan to expose that child and ruin my position as heir?”
Yuezheng gave a shallow smile: “There is no need to put it so bluntly, Young Master Ji understands well enough. I’ve been watching you all along; a playboy young master who was never in any rush to take charge of Qingsheng suddenly starts taking things seriously—there has to be a reason.”
“My guess is that you noticed something about your own background, which is why you felt the pressure and wanted to seize control of Qingsheng as fast as possible. Fortunately, Ji Heng genuinely treats you like a father, but both you and I know that’s only under the condition that his biological son didn’t exist.”
Ji Chen’s expression tightened into rigidity. After a brief silence, he said: “How do I know what you’re saying is true?”
Yuezheng produced a jade peace buckle of exceptional quality and pushed it across the table toward Ji Chen: “Look familiar? Ji Fei has an identical one, you should have seen it before. They were cut from the exact same piece of jade.”
“The Eldest Miss stated very early on that she wanted both a son and a daughter, and she prepared these gifts well in advance. Both siblings wore them from birth, one piece each. But that child was taken away at one month old, and this peace buckle vanished right along with him.”
“The fact that I can produce this proves at the very least that I actually made contact with that child. Young Master Ji, can you afford to gamble your future with me?”
After Yuezheng left, Ji Chen’s expression turned as gloomy as dripping water. This wasn’t something that could be resolved just by being threatened once.
If he gave in to Yuezheng this time, he would be blackmailed endlessly from here on out, and Qingsheng couldn’t just become a stepping stone for someone else while under his control.
Right now, Yuezheng didn’t know that he had already found the real child, and was trying to use that leverage to completely manipulate him.
At this rate, he was left with only two paths: either figure out a way to kill Yuezheng and silence him permanently, or make Fu Chi willingly submit and defer to him.
Yet Ji Chen had already abandoned any hope of silencing the man permanently; the old fox was too crafty not to anticipate an attempt on his life, and had likely long since left behind fail-safe measures. The moment anything happened to him, all those secrets would blow wide open.
The second path was the optimal choice. That way, even if his true identity were exposed, as long as Fu Chi didn’t snatch Qingsheng away, he would still remain the most prominent noble figure of all, and his parents could happily reunite with their biological son.
Yet the problem was that we were talking about the Qingsheng Group—who in their right mind would just walk away from that?
Ji Chen smacked the table in frustration: “Damn it, do I really have to reset and start a new run?” Having wasted so much time and energy, he was profoundly unwilling to accept that.
While Ji Chen was caught in this dilemma, Fu Chi had also managed to track down Luo Dan.
After shelling out a generous sum of money, he got to meet Luo Dan’s mother, a woman nearing fifty who still dressed in gaudy, flashy attire and reeked of cheap perfume.
The moment she laid eyes on Fu Chi, her eyes lit up. Smoking a cigarette, she cast an approving glance at Luo Dan: “New boyfriend? Not bad taste. Is his family wealthy?”
Luo Dan didn’t feel the slightest bit awkward: “Mom, this is Aunt Li Wei’s son, Fu Chi. I’ve already taken his money, so tell him what you know about Aunt Li Wei.”
The smoking woman paused for a second before bursting into hearty laughter: “I heard Li Wei fled to evade justice—don’t tell me she reached out trying to get you to bail her out? Forget it, that woman is no good, and she wasn’t even good to you to begin with. There’s really no need to waste your energy.”
Fu Chi narrowed his eyes: “It looks like you really know quite a bit. I’ll find someone to secure a promotion for your daughter’s position. I want to hear the entire truth.”
Luo Dan’s expression stirred with excitement: “Mom!”
The woman stubbed out her cigarette butt and laughed with an ill-intentioned glint: “Fine. Some secrets stay buried for so many years, it’s about time they saw the light of day.”
One hour ago, the afternoon sun had already begun its descent, casting a heavy, lingering sense of melancholy over anyone standing beneath its rays.
A tall, slender figure departed from the premises, treading across the blistering asphalt while continuously replaying those brief, fleeting interactions he had shared with the little young master from beginning to start.
Fu Chi had always assumed that this relationship—which seemed to materialize out of thin air—was backed by at least a tiny shred of genuine sincerity from the little young master. Heh, sincerity indeed.
The full truth of the matter had yet to come to light, but Fu Chi was already certain that his true background was tied directly to either the Lan family or the Ji family.
According to that woman’s account, she and Li Wei had never been entirely respectable women, frequently haunting major banquets purely for the chance to marry into high society. One night, after getting heavily drunk, she had a one-night stand with Fu Cheng.
She hadn’t taken it seriously at the time, since casual one-night stands were ordinary enough for Li Wei, but she hadn’t expected to actually end up pregnant.
However, because she hadn’t taken proper care of herself and kept drinking and smoking throughout, the pregnancy was extremely high-risk. Li Wei diligently worked to protect the fetus, only approaching the gates of the Fu family mansion once she was heavily pregnant, where she underwent an amniocentesis to verify that the child in her womb carried Fu Cheng’s bloodline.
The Fu family wanted the child, but they refused to acknowledge Li Wei’s status.
Yet what kind of person was Li Wei? She made a living entirely by seducing men, and she managed to make Fu Cheng willingly marry her nonetheless.
Left with no other choice, the Fu family stated they would only agree to the marriage if she successfully delivered a healthy baby boy, but as the months progressed, the pregnancy grew increasingly precarious.
Li Wei refused to give birth in a hospital, terrified that if it turned out to be a stillborn, she wouldn’t be able to manipulate the situation afterward. Thus, around the seventh month, she took Luo Dan’s mother onto a luxury cruise ship under the pretext of taking a vacation.
In reality, the two of them had already made preparations to induce labor early. Since that pregnancy was destined to never produce a healthy child anyway, they decided to pull the rug out from under everyone and swap the baby out with a substitute.
Yet things took an abrupt turn. Just as they had everything set up, the cruise ship somehow managed to provoke some major, formidable figure, leading to the vessel being surrounded and searched everywhere. The replacement baby they had prepared never even made it onto the ship, yet Li Wei had already ingested the labor-inducing drugs.
True to expectation, Li Wei delivered a stillborn. While the two of them were panicking and unsure of what to do, a masked individual suddenly appeared, handed them a living, breathing infant, and took the stillborn away.
That incident happened to get Li Wei out of her crisis. That child was him, and the powerful figures who had surrounded the cruise ship were none other than the Lan family and the Ji family. It was abundantly clear what they had been searching for all along.
Ji Chen’s unusual tolerance of him, his bizarre questions, and his inexplicable attitude now all condensed into a chilling, ironic answer.