Chapter 236

Chapter 236: Real Father and Real Brother

The round-faced boy blushed hard: “I… I…”

He had strutted around so boldly when dealing with Yu Chun and his daughter earlier, but now he did not dare look Yu Zhi Yi in the eye and seemed completely at a loss.

Yu Zhi Yi sighed.

She had already guessed the truth when she first saw the unfamiliar middle-aged man’s face. [The moment I saw him, a guess settled in my heart.]

She asked calmly: “Where is your father? Tell him to come to Yiluan Charity.”

The boy shivered and looked at Yu Zhi Yi with doubt. Then some joy flashed through his eyes and he nodded: “Okay.”

He turned and ran out, and his steps even looked a little bouncy.

Yu Zhi Yi stared after him: “…”

Back at Yiluan Charity, Yu Zhi Yi gave Steward Wu a short instruction, then went upstairs.

Before long, the boy and the middle-aged man arrived, and Steward Wu led them to the second floor.

There was a sitting room on the second floor. It was a bit more hidden than the one downstairs, and ordinary guests were not brought up here.

Yu Zhi Yi sat in the main seat and, with a cool expression, looked over the father and son who entered one after the other: “Sit.”

Both of them seemed tense.

The middle-aged man handled it better than the round-faced boy. Though his eyes were full of restraint and heartache when he looked at Yu Zhi Yi, at least he kept his composure.

The round-faced boy, however, was so fidgety it was like ants were biting his thighs through the sofa.

They did not speak, so Yu Zhi Yi also did not speak.

An invisible awkwardness quickly filled the upstairs hall.

At last the middle-aged man broke the silence: “Yi’er, I know this may feel sudden, but things have come to this point, and I still want to tell you the truth.”

His voice was steady as he continued: “I am your father, and this is your brother.”

Yu Zhi Yi’s face hardly changed.

She had already guessed it.

If this had happened before her rebirth, when she still longed for family, finding out she had living blood relatives might have made her excited. But now she no longer longed for that. [I was born under an unlucky star, the kind that makes family ties thin.]

The Yu Clan had been like that before, and she believed the Martial Alliance Leader’s family would be the same. Rather than crawl out of one muddy pit only to fall into another, it was better to choose neither.

Seeing her cool expression, Jiang Yu Chuan looked bitter and said: “Yi’er, I know my failure led to your years of suffering. It is my fault. However you want to punish me, I will accept it.”

He added softly: “But your mother is innocent. She truly misses you.”

Yu Zhi Yi sat straight on the sofa. Her voice stayed level as she asked: “Back then she was pregnant. Why was she alone in the city with no one to protect her?”

She continued in the same calm tone: “As the daughter-in-law of the Martial Alliance Leader, and already near delivery, it makes no sense that no one was guarding her.”

She did not want to judge with the worst malice, but in such a situation, no one could think well of it. It was not that she refused to make a reading. It was that, from the start, she had found she could not read the faces of these two at all. [Their faces are a blur to me.] The first time she met the boy she had noticed it, but she assumed then he was some kind of prodigy and did not think more. Now the answer was obvious. Whether or not he was a prodigy, he was clearly related to her by blood.

Jiang Yu Chuan sighed and said: “I told you, this was all my fault. Years ago your mother misunderstood something, got angry, and left the Martial Alliance alone.”

He spoke with regret: “At first I didn’t know. When I found out, she had already run into danger. I arrived in time to save her life, but by then you were already missing.”

Yu Zhi Yi raised an eyebrow and asked, cool but direct: “For a woman to storm out while heavily pregnant, she either discovered you were her mortal enemy or that you were cheating outside. Which one were you?”

Jiang Yu Chuan fell silent: “…”

He had heard that his daughter was sharp and gifted, but hearing her lay out the core of it without any clues still made his scalp prickle.

Jiang Liu Yun, clearly hearing the full story for the first time too, rounded on his father with wide eyes: “Dad, what really happened? Are you actually my mother’s enemy?”

Jiang Yu Chuan could not bear to scold the daughter he had just found, so he glared at his troublesome son and said: “Your grandfather and grandmother are alive and well. How could I be your mother’s enemy?”

The round-faced boy looked even more alarmed and blurted out: “So that means you really did mess around back then?!”

He sprang to his feet and declared: “Wow, Dad, you look all honest and loyal, and you always act so devoted to my mother, but behind her back you were that kind of person! No, I’m going home to tell her!”

“Come back!” Jiang Yu Chuan snapped.

He pinched the bridge of his nose as a headache pounded. [This unlucky kid!] When he lifted his eyes he saw Yu Zhi Yi’s calm, waiting gaze and felt an even bigger throb in his temples.

After a long pause, he sighed and said: “I did not cheat, but I did have a bit of trouble in matters of the heart back then.”

He had never wanted his children to know about the emotional debts of his youth, but from the look on his daughter’s face, if he did not explain, she would not be at peace. And his foolish son looked ready to stab him in the back at any time.

Helpless, he began to explain.

He said carefully: “The previous Martial Alliance Leader, your grandfather Old Master Jiang, had a very close friend. That friend was a young master from a family that had been allied with the Jiang Clan for generations. He grew up with your grandfather, and once even saved his life in a way that was almost life for life.”

He went on: “That friend reached middle age with only one daughter. Before he died, his only wish was that Old Master Jiang would take care of his girl.”

“The rest is a very old story. The friend’s daughter was raised in the Martial Alliance. She grew up with Old Master Jiang’s two sons and fell deeply in love with the second young master, Jiang Yu Chuan.”

“Seeing this, Old Master Jiang wanted to set an engagement and make the two families even closer. He had good intentions and even asked the girl for her opinion first.”

Jiang Yu Chuan’s voice tightened as he admitted: “But he did not ask me. I already had someone in my heart, so when my father proposed the marriage, I absolutely refused.”

“Your grandfather had already promised to look after the girl and did not want to break his word or disappoint her, so he planned to sacrifice his son’s happiness.”

“I was stubborn when I was young. I said I would never betray the one I loved. I told them that if my father forced me to become a liar and a jerk, he might as well kill me.”

“After many twists, your grandfather finally gave in. I said it to the girl’s face: if she was my sister, then for the sake of growing up together, I would look after her. But if her father forced me to marry her, then after the wedding I would act like a jerk on purpose and make her a laughingstock with an empty title.”