“Mom?”
Startled by Su Luo’s sudden movement, Song Qiuyu tilted her head.
She looked at her mother in confusion before following her gaze.
Under the bright lights, a tall young man wearing gold-rimmed glasses approached them alongside an elderly couple.
Judging by their appearance, they seemed to be a family of three.
Song Qiuyu looked back at her mother, completely bewildered.
Su Luo didn’t seem to hear her daughter’s voice. She simply stared at the three people as if her mind had wandered far away.
Then, to Song Qiuyu’s growing headache, the same strange symptoms manifested in her father. Song Zhao Ye also stared at the trio, dazed.
Song Qiuyu looked back at the newcomers again, her eyes filled with confusion. ‘Who are these three people?’
She wasn’t the only one surprised by the couple’s strange behavior.
“Aunt Su, Uncle Song, what’s wrong?” Jiang Yingxue looked at Su Luo and Song Zhao Ye with a face full of doubt.
After speaking, she stood up and walked toward the three newcomers, intending to introduce them formally.
Suddenly, the elderly couple froze as well, their eyes fixed unblinkingly on Su Luo!
‘Wait, what on earth is going on?’
Everyone felt the strangeness of the situation. It lasted until Su Luo finally spoke.
“Dad… Mom?”
“?”
“Heh…”
Song Qiuyu froze for a moment. After a brief pause, her eyes lit up.
‘Great, I understand everything now!’
The man in the gold-rimmed glasses was likely her uncle, Su Ning!
This was a mix of good and bad news.
The good news was that Jiang Yingxue likely felt close to her and her mother because of these three people, not because she was actually related to the Jiang family.
The bad news was that this made their already complicated relationships even more tangled.
Song Qiuyu recalled her mother’s previous descriptions of this elderly couple and identified the key point. Her mother had gotten into a massive fight with them before being kicked out of the house.
Thinking of this, she tightened her grip and prepared to stand up.
However, Jiang Xiao grabbed her hand from the left, while her father, having regained his senses, pressed a hand onto her shoulder from the right.
Song Qiuyu was pinned down.
“This is an adult matter. Let me handle it,” Song Zhao Ye said.
He released his daughter’s shoulder and stood up beside his wife, bowing respectfully to the elderly couple who had come to a halt.
Then, in a booming voice, he said, “Dad, Mom, it’s been a long time!”
“…”
The elderly couple finally reacted.
They glared at Song Zhao Ye, their expressions instantly darkening.
Taking in their reaction, Song Qiuyu looked at Jiang Xiao.
Seeing him nod as a sign to leave everything to her father, she squeezed her hands and sat back down obediently.
She felt she could understand her father’s current feelings. Simply put, as a man and a husband, he wanted to protect his wife.
‘This is my dad’s chance to look cool. But if he fails, it doesn’t matter because I’m here!’
‘I’ll protect Mom, and I’ll protect Dad too!’
Su Luo let out a faint, dazed sound. “Uh, Dad… Mom… I’m…”
The elderly Su Father and Su Mother remained silent for a while before letting out a cold snort.
“You’ve got the wrong people. Who is your dad? Who is your mom!” Su Father turned his face away, refusing to give Su Luo even a glance.
“That’s right. We only have one son, Su Ning. As for the previous one, they died outside long ago!” Su Mother gritted her teeth, emphasizing every word.
As she spoke, she forced a smile that crinkled her face and wrapped her arm around the young man’s arm. She tilted her chin up slightly, her face beaming with pride.
Su Ning opened his mouth as if to speak but stopped.
He looked at Su Luo on the nearby sofa and narrowed his eyes. He had thoughts, but not many.
“Do you…” Jiang Xiao’s mother, Hua Shuying, hesitated. “Know each other?”
This was the question on everyone’s mind. However, no matter how one looked at it, this went beyond just “knowing” each other.
Su Ning and Su Luo… It turned out they didn’t just share a surname or a distant common ancestor. They were actually from the same family?
No one had expected such a coincidence to happen when both families met during the New Year.
It was truly a small world; one lived long enough to see everything.
However, the atmosphere seemed quite bad. Should someone stop this?
Jiang Yingxue looked at the situation and pondered the same question.
But the problem was — who should she help? Without knowing the full story, she couldn’t just intervene. What if she helped the wrong side?
“Wife, look, since they won’t acknowledge us, let’s just treat them as strangers!” Song Zhao Ye caught the Jiang family’s attitude toward the matter, and a smile played on his lips.
As he spoke, he grabbed his wife’s cold hand, squeezing it tightly in his palm. He turned to her with a roguish grin.
“Hubby…” Caught in her husband’s smile, Su Luo dazed for a moment before smiling sweetly.
She remembered things from the past. It was Song Zhao Ye who told her not to dwell on the past and to look forward bravely.
It was Song Zhao Ye who always took her out to eat, saying he would be her permanent meal ticket.
And it was Song Zhao Ye who always stood in front of her to be her support whenever she needed him.
Because of this, she had let her heart flutter and taken the initiative to seduce Song Zhao Ye.
But she truly hadn’t expected that the somewhat frivolous poor boy from back then would grow into a hero who dared to risk his life as an Undercover Agent in such dangerous places.
He was a hero destined to remain nameless; one mistake, and he would have truly vanished from the world.
The dozen or so years Song Zhao Ye had been gone were bitter, but she always believed the words he said before leaving — “Wife, I’ll be back. Like the brightest falling star, I’ll land right beside you and the kid with a whoosh!”
“You really are shameless!” Su Mother could no longer contain herself.
A poor boy had taken the liberty of getting their precious son pregnant, turning their son into a daughter and a pregnant woman at that.
He had even cozened their child into stealing the family registration booklet from home just to marry him. Then, this bad boy had taken their child away to who-knows-where, making them impossible to find!
Now, he acted all protective again, tricking their child until her eyes were practically turning into hearts. How could a person be so shameless!!
“Hmph!” Su Father’s expression grew even gloomier. “What a bunch of bad luck!”
“In-law, why are they here?” Su Mother suppressed her rage and strode over with Su Ning.
Su Father followed. He still wouldn’t look Su Luo in the eye, but he was already glaring fiercely at Song Zhao Ye, looking as if he wanted to bite him to death.
‘Jinx.’
After more than ten years, he had managed to look somewhat respectable. But even so, the Su family would never recognize him as their son-in-law!
Just as he was about to look away, he accidentally caught sight of the child sitting obediently beside them and froze.
‘What’s with this child?’
Then, the Jiang family members present explained what had happened before they arrived, one sentence at a time.
“That’s how things are. Now, shouldn’t you all explain the history between you?” Hua Shuying wasn’t a gossip, but this matter involved far too much; it had to be cleared up.
No matter what, Song Qiuyu was a benefactor to the Jiang family. They couldn’t mistreat the parents of this child if they wanted to repay the favor.
“Hmph.” Jiang Father, Jiang Rongxuan, felt the furrows in his brow deepen. “If you really don’t want to talk, we won’t force you. But we are all gathered here today to have a good New Year. There’s no need to make everyone unhappy.”
At this point, he turned to Su Luo and Song Zhao Ye, who had sat back down on the sofa, a polite smile appearing on his face.
“If they won’t say it, could I trouble you two to explain?”
“Wife, what do you think?” Song Zhao Ye looked at Su Luo.
“Hubby, I’ll listen to you!” Su Luo replied.
Seeing this scene, the faces of Su Father and Su Mother turned visibly darker. ‘Truly shameless! What a jinx!’
Su Ning stayed silent on the side, playing dead.
There were two others playing dead. One was Xie Zhuran; he felt that as someone with the surname Xie, it was better to keep his mouth shut the entire time. The situation was just too complicated!
The other was Jiang Li.
Even though she was the Student Council President and was actually very good at handling disputes, she wouldn’t interfere since Song Qiuyu’s father said he would handle it himself.
If he really couldn’t handle it, she would consider giving her brother a tip so he could look cool.
It was never wrong to earn some favor in front of future in-laws; one definitely shouldn’t follow the example of Song Qiuyu’s father.
Yes, Jiang Li felt she had already understood the key point — the marriage between Song Qiuyu’s parents was not blessed by their elders.
Not only that, but this uncle was disliked, even hated, by the aunt’s parents.
Song Zhao Ye sighed, seemingly prepared to speak.
“Since you aren’t afraid of being embarrassed yourself, what do we have to fear?” Su Mother said through gritted teeth, her eyes shimmering with tears.
“…”
This aggressive posture even startled Song Qiuyu for a moment.
Having always been good at reading people, she sensed a very strong emotion from Su Mother’s indignant expression.
Perhaps, after kicking her mother out, had this couple thought about finding her? After all, were there really parents in the world so heartless that they would kick their child out and never check on them again? If they existed, they probably just didn’t like that child.
Thinking of this, she couldn’t help but touch her flat belly.
Now, she was also a girl who could have children. If she were in this situation, she would probably never be able to kick her child out of the house no matter what.
She would only kick her dad out. No, she should have a good talk with her dad…
Realizing that for a split second, her concern for the child had outweighed her sympathy for her father, she gasped.
“Fine, I’ll say it!” At that moment, Su Mother pointed at Song Zhao Ye.
“This kid, don’t be fooled by his decent look now. Back then, he took advantage of Su Luo’s ignorance and tricked her. He got her pregnant and then kidnapped her!”
Hua Shuying frowned and looked at Song Zhao Ye with a scrutinizing gaze.
“Yes, I did that!” Song Zhao Ye actually admitted it very frankly.
“You really are shameless!” Su Mother was so angry she almost fainted.
“That’s not right!” Su Luo shook her head in protest. “Song Zhao Ye didn’t trick me. I tricked him. I took the initiative to get pregnant with his child and insisted on giving birth to this little darling!”
Hua Shuying frowned again, her head already spinning.
Where had this conversation gone? Why was she here listening to this bizarre family drama? Was someone playing a short drama? And a tacky, melodramatic one at that?
“You… you really were brainwashed by this poor boy!” Su Mother gritted her teeth.
She glanced at the “little darling” they mentioned and spoke harshly. Even if the child was well-behaved, it didn’t change the fact that she had a scoundrel for a father!
“Cough! Ahem!” Su Father seemed to realize something.
He tried his best to stop Su Mother from speaking further, as if he had suddenly come down with a severe illness.
However, the latter was clearly blinded by rage and didn’t catch his drift.
“Could you have really turned into a girl on your own and carried a man’s child?!” Su Mother shouted.
As soon as these words were out, everyone present fell silent. After a long silence, more and more people felt question marks popping up in their heads.
‘Wait?’
‘What did she mean by turning into a girl and carrying a man’s child?’
The amount of information flooding their brains was too much. More and more people’s minds were stalling, and their worldviews began to reshape themselves.
“Alright, stop talking!!” Su Father pressed down on Su Mother’s shoulder and said sternly.
“What exactly did you do to our child?” Su Mother’s anger hadn’t faded. She completely failed to realize what she had just said. She simply glared at Song Zhao Ye with the most vicious eyes and spoke again.
Su Ning sighed and glanced at Jiang Yingxue, who was looking at him with a strange gaze. He felt as if she suspected his family had superpowers. By “superpowers,” he meant he could also turn into a girl — a girl who could get pregnant.
Seeing this, Su Ning slowly shook his head, indicating he didn’t have superpowers.
Jiang Yingxue felt relieved.
Xie Zhuran, however, was no longer calm.
He kept looking at the woman in front of him. In that weathered face, there was light in his eyes.
His brain, which had stored a vast amount of anime plots, quickly translated this situation into a conclusion.
‘Holy crap, why didn’t Lao Song tell me his mom was a Magical Girl?’
The “Magical Girl” stood up again and spoke directly. “He didn’t do anything; he just made me realize that being a woman feels great!”
Her words succeeded in making the already confused minds even more chaotic. Then, Song Zhao Ye pulled her back down to sit.
“If you have any angry words, just aim them all at me. Don’t blame Su Luo. The only thing she did wrong…” Song Zhao Ye paused.
“Was waiting for me for the entire dozen or so years I was gone.”
Su Luo suddenly threw her arms around Song Zhao Ye.
This scene naturally made Su Father and Su Mother’s rage soar even higher. So this kid even dared to disappear for more than ten years?
Before they could explode…
Right then, a series of beep-beep-beep-beep sounds rang out from everyone’s phones.
Every single person had received a text message — the exact same message sent by the same person!
Only Song Qiuyu’s phone remained silent.
Tomorrow is the last day for the mass release. Thank you for your support.