Chapter 4

Chapter 4: The world where only I get hurt has appeared!

Compared to caring about herself, Du Yu Xi cared more about the contempt and disdain in Ye Meng Zhen’s tone when she mentioned Du An Rao. Because the other girl kept stressing it again and again, Du Yu Xi felt more and more like she was one of the culprits who had brought suffering to Du An Rao, and her heart was full of guilt.

Du An Rao also noticed this and could not help feeling touched.

[She is being bullied like this and still speaks up for me. My Fourth Sister is actually really nice. But Ye Meng Zhen… why does that name sound so familiar?]

Xi Jing Yue had just stepped through the restaurant door when a voice suddenly appeared in his mind, and his steps paused.

The middle-aged man who had been leading Xi Jing Yue inside walked a few steps ahead before noticing he was not following, and asked nervously: “President Xi, is something wrong?”

“It is nothing, let’s go in.”

The middle-aged man let out a breath of relief and said: “Alright, alright, President Xi, this way. The private room we booked is in the very back.”

On the other side, Du Yu Xi’s whole body went stiff as she suddenly realized something. She instinctively wanted to turn her head to look around, but forced herself to hold back.

Compared to her, Mother Du’s feelings were much more complicated. She ached for the daughter she had raised from childhood, was angry that Ye Meng Zhen had bullied her and even tried to sow discord between her two daughters, yet she was also relieved by how Du Yu Xi stood up for Du An Rao and how Du An Rao, in turn, acknowledged Du Yu Xi.

Of course, when she heard Du An Rao’s last sentence, Mother Du immediately thought of what had happened yesterday, and her ears practically stood straight up.

Luckily, Du An Rao did not let her down.

[Found it!]

Mother Du’s spirit jolted, but she did not expect Du An Rao’s next sentence to make her heart sink to the bottom in an instant.

[Ahhh, my Fourth Sister is way too pitiful!]

Mother Du: “!!!”

Du Yu Xi: “???”

After hearing several inner voices in a row, Xi Jing Yue finally confirmed that the sentence he heard before entering was not his imagination. Just as he was about to step into the private room, his steps stopped again. He narrowed his eyes slightly and swept his gaze across the entire restaurant, wanting to find out where those voices were coming from.

Seeing this, the middle-aged man’s heart skipped a beat again, and he called out uncertainly: “President Xi?”

“The private room feels a bit stuffy. Let’s eat out here instead.”

“This…” The man was a little confused. Wasn’t this boss the one who hated noise the most? Why did he suddenly change his mind?

Xi Jing Yue could not be bothered to explain and simply asked in a low voice: “Is that not allowed?”

“…Of course! Sir, you have the final say!”

While the two of them were talking, Du An Rao had already skimmed through the whole book at lightning speed.

The plot related to Ye Meng Zhen came from a popular “fake vs real rich daughter, everyone’s darling” story. The female lead was the fake young lady who had been swapped into a rich family to live in comfort, and Ye Meng Zhen was one of the female lead’s close best friends in the early chapters.

But that was not the main point. The main point was that her Fourth Sister, Du Yu Xi, was actually the infamously vicious supporting girl in this book, the real young lady who was swapped out of the rich family.

Seeing this, Du An Rao was stunned too. That was not right. Wasn’t she the one who had been swapped with Du Yu Xi? Why was there suddenly another Miss Li?

Mother Du and Du Yu Xi were also dumbfounded. They no longer paid attention to Ye Meng Zhen’s increasingly angry curses and mockery, and only focused on listening to Du An Rao’s inner voice.

At this point, Du Yu Xi was even starting to doubt whether the words that suddenly appeared in her head were illusions created by her own wild thoughts and self-comfort over the past few days.

[Ohhh, so that is how it was. Back then, it was not two children born in that hospital, but three.]

These words hit Mother Du and Du Yu Xi like a bolt from the blue. Three. There had actually been three.

According to the book’s setting, Miss Li’s birth mother, Wang Xue He, and her biological father were both human traffickers. During one deal, their whereabouts were exposed. The father was caught, while Wang Xue He, pregnant with a child, escaped that tribulation.

By coincidence, that same year a huge rainstorm in Y Province caused a mudslide. Wang Xue He, along with Mother Du and Mother Li, who were in Y Province on business and traveling, were all caught up in it.

Wang Xue He gave birth first, only to find that her daughter had a congenital heart disease.

The treatment for this illness would cost a lot in the future, something she could not afford at all, not to mention that she still had to keep running and hiding.

In her despair, she ran into two other pregnant women who had also been sent to this hospital to give birth because of the sudden mudslide.

Mother Du was luckier and had only been frightened into going into early labor. Mother Li’s situation, however, was much more serious.

When the heavy rain met the mudslide, many travelers tried to drive away, and the slippery roads caused a chain of car accidents. Father Li died on the spot while protecting his wife and child. Mother Li held on long enough to be sent to the hospital and give birth, but could not be saved afterward.

[You really have to say this fake young lady’s birth mother was quite something. After secretly watching and seeing that both our families had good conditions, she got the idea to switch the children. She chose the Li family not only because the Li couple had already died, so the child would have an inheritance waiting and the Li family valued the orphan they left behind so the child would be well taken care of. More importantly, her daughter had the same blood type as Fourth Sister, both type B.]

Mother Du’s expression changed slightly. Wasn’t that true? Everyone in their family had type A blood. Only Yu Xi was type B.

If they had not discovered this by accident, they would never have known that their child had been switched with someone else’s.

Du Yu Xi was completely stunned. She really did have type B blood, and when the Du family had investigated the people who raised Du An Rao before, they had also mentioned that the two of them were very likely human traffickers with a record.

That was exactly why she had felt extra guilty toward Du An Rao. She had thought that this switch had been done on purpose by her parents, and even though she had known nothing, she was still the one who benefitted from this farce, so of course she should bear part of the guilt.

But now she was being told that she might also be one of the victims, that those two were not her biological parents, and that her real parents had already passed away, one after another, when she was born.

Du Yu Xi’s heart was a mess. For a moment she did not know whether she should feel relieved or sad.

By now, the truth was already very clear.

Afraid that her daughter’s blood type would not match the family she was sending her to and that people would notice during treatment, Wang Xue He chose Du Yu Xi, who had the same blood type.

She was also worried she would slip up in some other way, so she simply pulled off a complete switch.

She switched her own daughter to the Li family, then switched the Li family’s biological daughter, Du Yu Xi, to the Du family, while she herself took the Du family’s real daughter, Du An Rao, and left the hospital early.

Back then, there were natural disasters and car accidents happening at the same time, the hospital was packed, and there were far too few medical staff. Only because of that did she get the chance to pull off the switch without anyone noticing.

Later, things developed just as she had expected. Miss Li, who was regarded as the orphan left behind by their brother and who had congenital heart disease, was taken back to the Li family and carefully looked after. Du Yu Xi also grew up safely in the Du family.

Only Du An Rao was taken back to Wang Xue He’s hometown and thrown to her parents. In daily life, the two old veterans not only beat and scolded her, but because of her fake parents, she also suffered from the neighbors’ pointing fingers. In just a few years, she died of illness.

Near the end of the story she was only mentioned in passing in a single line, not even given a name.

Seeing this, Du An Rao: “…”

[What a vicious book! The world where only I get hurt has appeared!]