Fu’an Nursing Home was located on the western outskirts of Lincheng.
It was remote, the roads were in terrible condition, and the drive took a full hour and a half.
When Shen Nian left the house, no one tried to stop her.
Or rather, the Shen family was still reeling from the shock of the old madam’s poisoning and the discovery of the adoption certificate.
The moment she got into the car, Shen Yanzhou called.
“Where are you going?”
“To investigate someone.”
“Send me the address. I’ll come with you.”
Holding the steering wheel, Shen Nian kept her eyes on the pale gray highway ahead. After a brief pause, she asked,
“You trust me?”
There was a moment of silence on the other end.
“I trust the evidence.”
At least he was honest.
Shen Nian gave a quiet hum of acknowledgment and sent him her location.
Half an hour later, a black Maybach caught up with her and drove alongside her for a stretch. Shen Yanzhou was driving himself without a chauffeur, clearly having made the decision on impulse.
The nursing home was even more run-down than Shen Nian had expected.
Its iron gate was covered in rust. A few osmanthus trees in the courtyard were nearly dead. The exterior walls of the building were badly peeled and cracked. An elderly receptionist sat at the front desk wearing reading glasses, yawning while watching television. Only after noticing how well-dressed the visitors were did he become marginally more attentive.
“Who are you looking for?”
“Zhou Guifen.”
The old man froze for a second. Even his hand slowed as he flipped through the registry.
“What are you to her?”
“Family.”
Shen Nian answered without the slightest change in expression.
The old man eyed her suspiciously.
“Zhou Guifen checked out a couple of days ago. She’s no longer here.”
Shen Nian’s eyes instantly turned cold.
“Who took her away?”
“A man and a woman. Looked pretty respectable. Said they were her niece and nephew-in-law. They even paid off the medical bills she still owed.” He glanced through the ledger before muttering, “They left yesterday afternoon.”
Too late.
Shen Yanzhou’s expression darkened as well.
“Do you have surveillance footage?”
“We do, but the equipment’s pretty old…”
“Pull it up.”
His single command left no room for argument. The old man hurriedly led them into the security room.
The footage wasn’t very clear, but it was good enough.
At 3:47 yesterday afternoon, a black business van stopped outside the entrance.
The first person to get out was a woman wearing a face mask. She had a slender figure, yet her movements carried an air of refined elegance.
Then a man helped Zhou Guifen out of the building, moving with obvious haste.
Zhou Guifen’s hair was gray, her back bent with age. Halfway to the vehicle, she seemed to struggle slightly, only for the man to clamp down hard on her wrist.
As the woman turned around, the camera briefly caught a pearl earring by her ear.
Shen Nian’s eyes narrowed.
It was identical to the earrings Lin Man had worn at last night’s family recognition banquet.
Shen Yanzhou noticed it too, and his face immediately turned grim.
“That’s a brand of earrings my mother wears,” he said heavily. “Aunt Shuya has a pair too.”
“So you’re still going to call it a coincidence?”
He said nothing.
His lips were pressed into a rigid line.
The surveillance continued.
Just before the black van drove away, the front passenger window rolled down. A man’s hand reached out to light a cigarette.
On the edge of his cuff was an exquisitely embroidered eagle emblem.
It matched the cufflink Shen Nian had obtained.
“They belong together.”
She spoke quietly.
“Gu Chengshan.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
Shen Nian switched off the monitor.
“But I’m getting close.”
As they walked out of the surveillance room, a commotion suddenly erupted outside the nursing home’s entrance.
An elderly caregiver was chasing a middle-aged woman while shouting,
“Why are you rummaging through Zhou Guifen’s bedside cabinet again?”
Realizing she’d been caught, the woman turned and ran.
Shen Nian reacted instantly.
Within a few strides she caught up and seized the woman’s wrist outside the gate.
“Let me go! Who are you?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing.”
Shen Nian tightened her grip until the woman cried out in pain.
“Why were you searching through Zhou Guifen’s belongings?”
The woman’s eyes darted around nervously.
“I… I’m the family member of the patient in the next bed. I just went into the wrong room…”
“You accidentally flipped over her mattress too?”
By then, Shen Yanzhou had walked over.
A glance revealed an envelope that had fallen from the woman’s arms.
He bent down and picked it up.
Inside were two old photographs and a worn bank remittance slip folded many times over.
Sender: Qin Shuya.
Recipient: Zhou Guifen.
The date…
Twenty-three years ago.
The amount had been written with heavy strokes.
500,000 yuan.
Today, it might not have been extraordinary.
But twenty-three years ago, it was more than enough to buy an ordinary person’s conscience.
The woman’s face instantly turned ashen.
She was obviously just someone hired to clean up loose ends. Her nerves were terrible.
Under the pressure from the two of them, she broke almost immediately.
“I don’t know anything! Someone paid me thirty thousand yuan to take all of Zhou Guifen’s old belongings from her bedside…”
“Who paid you?” Shen Nian asked.
“A woman… She wore sunglasses and looked very wealthy…”
The woman looked ready to cry.
“She said all I had to do was bring the things to her. She told me not to ask anything else…”
Shen Nian pulled out the photographs.
The first showed a much younger Zhou Guifen holding two tightly swaddled babies.
The photo was so old that the babies’ faces were impossible to make out.
The second photograph was even more important.
Zhou Guifen stood outside a hospital room.
Beside her, wearing a light-colored overcoat, was none other than a young Lin Man.
Behind Lin Man, one could vaguely make out Su Lan reclining on a hospital bed.
Shen Yanzhou stared at the photograph.
His face changed completely.
“How… how is this possible?”
“You’re wondering why your mother was there?”
Shen Nian put the photo away, her voice icy.
These items proved one thing.
Back then, Lin Man definitely knew something.
Even if she hadn’t been the mastermind, she had certainly not been ignorant of the truth.
The drive back was almost silent.
Rain began to fall.
It wasn’t heavy, but it was relentless.
Raindrops pelted the windows, smearing the streetlights outside into long streaks of blurred light.
The heater filled the car with warmth, yet the atmosphere was so oppressive it was hard to breathe.
Several times, Shen Yanzhou looked as though he wanted to speak.
Each time, he swallowed the words.
Only when they were nearly at the hospital did he finally ask in a low voice,
“What are you planning to do?”
“I’m going back to ask her.”
Shen Nian looked out the window.
“If she won’t tell the truth, then I’ll make her tell it in front of everyone.”
“That’ll completely tear this family apart.”
“It already fell apart last night.”
She turned to look at him.
“Shen Yanzhou… what exactly are you still trying to protect?”
His grip tightened around the steering wheel.
He didn’t answer.
Because he didn’t know.
Was he trying to protect his mother’s reputation…
Or the last shred of dignity the Shen family had left?
When they returned to the hospital, Lin Man was standing in the corridor making a phone call.
“Shuya, don’t panic yet… No, things haven’t reached that point…”
Hearing footsteps, she spun around.
Her face changed instantly, and she hurriedly ended the call.
Shen Nian slapped the old photograph directly in front of her.
“Explain.”
The moment Lin Man saw the photograph, even her breathing became erratic.
“This… this is just an ordinary picture taken at the hospital back then…”
“Ordinary?”
Shen Nian laughed coldly.
“So ordinary that you sent someone to the nursing home today to erase all the evidence?”
Lin Man’s face turned pale.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then let me make it clearer.”
Shen Nian advanced on her step by step.
“Your sister bribed Zhou Guifen. You were there. Twenty-three years later, you’re still cleaning up her mess.”
“You dare say you know nothing?”
“I really didn’t know about the baby swap!”
Lin Man finally broke.
Her voice rose sharply.
“I only went to the hospital to visit Su Lan after she gave birth! Whatever happened afterward—I truly had no idea!”
The corridor instantly fell silent.
Just then, Shen Chongshan stepped out of the elevator.
Hearing those words, he stopped dead in his tracks.
“What did you say?”
Lin Man turned to look at him.
Her face grew even paler.
Her lips trembled.
She clearly realized she had let something slip in her panic.
Shen Nian gave her no chance to recover.
“She just admitted it.”
Her calm voice struck the floor like nails.
“She was there the day your ex-wife, Su Lan, gave birth.”
Shen Chongshan’s expression darkened to its lowest point.
“Lin Man.”
He spoke each word separately.
“How many things have you been hiding from me?”
Backed against the wall, Lin Man’s fingers trembled uncontrollably.
“Chongshan, please listen to me… I really didn’t mean it. Shuya told me the hospital was short-handed and asked me to help… Later, when the babies were switched, I only found out afterward…”
“Found out what?”
Shen Nian fixed her with a piercing stare.
Lin Man’s eyes reddened.
It was as though she had finally reached her breaking point.
“I only found out later…”
Her voice shook.
“…that Shuya had planned it all along.”
“She said Su Lan’s baby had an exceptionally fortunate destiny. From the moment she was born, she was destined to inherit the Shen family.”
“But her own child…”
“She couldn’t accept it.”
“And you?”
Shen Nian stared straight at her.
“What was it that you couldn’t accept?”
Tears streamed endlessly down Lin Man’s face.
Her shoulders shook violently.
“I couldn’t accept it…”
Her voice was hoarse.
“I couldn’t accept always living in Su Lan’s shadow.”
“I had already married into this family, but no one ever truly treated me as the mistress of the house.”
“When Wan’er had a fever as a child, Mother’s first reaction was always, ‘If Su Lan were here, this wouldn’t have happened.'”
“I’d had enough.”
The moment those words left her mouth, the entire corridor fell silent.
Even Shen Yanzhou stood frozen, as though struck by a heavy blow.
In this world, the ugliest thing wasn’t favoritism.
It was people who had manipulated bloodlines and destiny…
…and kept the deception alive for twenty-three years.
Shen Nian slowly clenched her fists.
She had thought she was prepared.
Yet hearing it with her own ears still felt like a crushing blow to the chest.
She hadn’t been lost.
She had been deliberately switched.
“So you’ve known all these years that Shen Wan’er isn’t the Shen family’s biological daughter.”
“I…”
Lin Man sobbed helplessly.
“I didn’t know everything. I only knew she wasn’t Su Lan’s child…”
“I thought that if I kept it hidden, this family wouldn’t fall apart…”
“You’re wrong.”
Shen Nian looked at her with eyes so cold they were frightening.
“You weren’t trying to keep this family together.”
“You simply couldn’t bear to lose your place as Mrs. Shen.”
“And you couldn’t bear to lose a daughter who obeyed your every word.”
The last trace of color drained from Lin Man’s face.
Standing nearby, the veins on the back of Shen Chongshan’s hand bulged.
“Lin Man…”
“You’re insane.”
“Insane?”
The accusation seemed to snap something inside her.
Her own eyes reddened.
“You think I was the only one who went insane?”
“Your ex-wife haunted every corner of my life.”
“Her room, her photographs—even in the old madam’s eyes, there was only Su Lan.”
“I’ve been married into the Shen family for so many years.”
“Everyone called me the outsider.”
“Everyone said Su Lan was the woman you could never forget.”
“Why?”
At that moment, the gentleness and dignity she had maintained for years shattered completely.
It wasn’t that she had never suffered.
But her suffering should never have been paid for by an innocent newborn child.
Shen Nian couldn’t be bothered watching her lose control any longer.
She turned to leave.
Just then, her phone rang.
Caller ID: Qin Shuya.
Every face in the corridor changed.
Shen Nian answered and switched on the speakerphone.
A graceful, gentle woman’s voice drifted from the other end.
“Niannian, I heard the old madam is ill. I’m very worried.”
Shen Nian curled her lips into a cold smile.
“Worried? Then perhaps you should worry about yourself first.”
Qin Shuya chuckled softly.
“Young lady, don’t be so stubborn.”
“You’ve only just returned.”
“There are some old secrets that you simply can’t uncover just because you want to.”
“I’ll try.”
“Your mother liked trying too much.”
“That’s exactly why she ended up dead.”
The instant those words fell, every trace of warmth disappeared from Shen Nian’s eyes.
“What did you say?”
Qin Shuya ignored the question and continued leisurely,
“Tomorrow at noon, I’ll be waiting for you at Yunjin Club.”
“If you dare come…”
“I’ll tell you why Su Lan sent you away all those years ago.”
The call ended.
Listening to that familiar voice, Lin Man turned as white as paper.
After a long moment, she muttered,
“She’s gone mad…”
“She really has.”
The corridor was so quiet that a pin drop could have been heard.
Shen Nian put away her phone.
Without looking at anyone, she said calmly,
“This time…”
“I won’t hold back.”
She walked away.
As she passed Shen Chongshan, the man who had always stood high above everyone else instinctively raised a hand to stop her.
Halfway through the motion, he froze.
Because deep down, he knew…
No one had less right to stop her than he did.
Outside the window at the end of the corridor, the sky was dark with gathering storm clouds.
Shen Nian never slowed her pace.
She knew that from this day forward, every hidden debt the Shen family had buried for more than twenty years would finally be uncovered, one by one.
No one would be allowed to bury them again.
And the first person she intended to expose…
…was the woman named Qin Shuya.
The second…
…would be everyone who had known something was wrong, yet deliberately chose to look the other way.