Chapter 276 - 1111: The 60s Cultural Troupe’s Top Sister (50)
Chapter 276: Chapter 1111: The 60s Cultural Troupe’s Top Sister (50)
Mrs. Song was seething, but she had to force herself to remain composed for the sake of appearances. The suffocating frustration was enough to make a person snap at any second.
She enunciated each word, "This is Zhenbao and Yuanbin’s engagement party, not your wedding!"
"And to think I felt bad, thinking I had been selfish for preventing you from meeting your birth parents. I went out of my way to invite them here, and this is how you repay us?"
Xia Zhaoyun looked as startled as a frightened rabbit, immediately darting behind Huo Tianhao and timidly tugging on the hem of his jacket.
The guests quickly gathered around Mrs. Song, trying to placate her. "Old Yan, today is a happy occasion for the young couple, Song Zhenbao and Tong Yuanbin. What’s there to be angry about? You should be celebrating..."
"It’s true that Yun is a newlywed, and we haven’t even had her wedding candy yet. Her wedding is a once-in-a-lifetime event, too. You should be more understanding."
"We’ve all been that age. Weren’t we all eager to tell the whole world back then?"
After placating her, the guests’ curiosity was piqued again. "But Old Yan, what’s this about Yun’s birth parents?"
Mrs. Song’s anger gradually faded, replaced by a look of smug satisfaction as she glanced at Xia Zhaoyun.
’Age and experience always triumph. The more triumphant Xia Zhaoyun acts now, the more pathetic she’ll look when she meets her real family!’
She cleared her throat. "Old Zhang, your daughter and son-in-law are here. Aren’t you going to come out and greet them?"
"You raised Zhenbao for eighteen years, and in turn, we raised Yun for you. She’s a grown woman now. She found a man and got married all on her own, without a single word to her family."
"You’re her blood relatives. That’s a bond that can never be broken. As they say, blood is thicker than water."
A middle-aged couple stepped forward, looking completely out of place among the other guests. They were dressed in coarse, dark blue and black clothes, their faces were etched with wrinkles, and their hair was graying at the temples. With dull, unsettling eyes, they stared at the woman in red, then glanced at the tall, imposing man beside her, their hearts burning with a fervent heat.
The woman ran forward, wiping away tears. "Oh, my poor, suffering daughter! Your mother has been worried sick about you..."
Xia Zhaoyun’s eyes darkened as she watched them. She gently tugged Huo Tianhao out of the way and, just before the woman could lunge at her again, she chuckled softly. "Ma’am, are you certain?"
"Leaving everything else aside... you and your husband both have monolids. Is it possible for you to have a daughter with double eyelids like me?"
"This isn’t the dark ages. Most people have a decent education these days. Anyone who’s studied basic genetics knows that for a child to have double eyelids, at least one of the parents must have them too."
"Or are you trying to say that while you might be my mother, this man here isn’t my father?"
With the rise of Xiahua, scientific knowledge had begun to spread throughout the cities.
Even if the guests hadn’t formally studied the subject, they were all experts in gossip. And to be an expert in hearing and spreading rumors, one needed sharp judgment and keen insight. Over time, they had developed their own theories about how the world worked.
If nothing else, they had lived for half a century; they had seen enough with their own eyes to know that two parents with monolids could never have a child with double eyelids!
The Zhang couple was stunned. The woman quickly stammered, "That’s not true! We are your mother and father! You child... when your mother, Mrs. Song, said you were heartless and ungrateful, I didn’t believe her."
"How could a child of the Zhang family turn out like this?"
"You’re not... ashamed of us, are you? Is it because we’re from the countryside that you don’t want to acknowledge us?"
"Child, there’s a saying: a dog never minds a poor home, and a son never minds his mother’s looks. You can’t be worse than a beast..."
Huo Tianhao’s expression turned icy, but Xia Zhaoyun held him back, stopping him from intervening. She herself continued, her voice calm and a faint smile on her lips. "Are you sure you want to stick to that story?"
"No one has looked into whether you and the Song Family swapped babies by accident or on purpose. But if you insist on this, then I think I’ll have to ask the authorities to launch an investigation."
"If I were more average-looking, or even just conventionally pretty, I might believe I could be your child. But my height, my eyes, my nose, my mouth—is there a single feature I share with either of you?"
"And don’t give me some line about skipping a generation. I look more like your parents than your child."
"If I’m not mistaken, you were poor. The only way you could have afforded to give birth in a hospital is if it were a life-threatening emergency. The mother was saved, but the baby was a stillborn."
"You were bitter about having spent all that money only to lose the baby. So, as you were leaving the hospital, you grabbed a random infant and claimed your own child had miraculously come back to life. And that pitiful baby girl... was meant to be a child bride for your son!"
Every one of Xia Zhaoyun’s words struck the Zhang couple like a dagger to the heart.
They waved their hands in a panic. "You... child, if you don’t want to acknowledge us, then just don’t! We’re your parents; of course we want what’s best for you. But you can’t just sling mud at us like this!"