Chapter 352: Chapter 140: Parentage, Part 2
"How did we get back on this topic? What in the world are you all talking about? Can someone please clear this up for me?"
In the end, it was Zhao Jing who kindly cleared things up for De’an.
"Zhang Lanshan once traveled to the Prefecture in a wealthy family’s carriage. The steward of that family was on a mission to find someone. And then there’s the fact that Dad rescued Mom from a river twenty years ago..."
De’an burst out laughing. "You guys... you have some imagination. Just because someone is looking for a person doesn’t mean they’re looking for my mom. What if they’re looking for a child, a man, or an old person..."
His voice trailed off as he saw how serious his father’s expression was.
"Um... Dad, don’t tell me they’re looking for a woman whose age and appearance match Mom’s?"
Chen Song glared at his son. "Why else would I be reacting like this?"
The matter was too troubling, leaving Chen Song with no time to whack his son.
So he simply recounted his conversation with Zhang Lanshan in detail.
He and Zhang Lanshan had just been making small talk at first, but somehow, they ended up talking about the past.
When Zhang Lanshan mentioned that a steward from a wealthy family had been searching for a lost young lady for twenty years without fail, his heart had inexplicably skipped a beat. He’d had a strange premonition right then.
This strange intuition prompted him to ask for more details about the missing young lady. He used the excuse that he met a lot of people and could earn a reward if he found a clue.
Zhang Lanshan didn’t think anything of it and actually gave him all the details about the young lady.
As it turned out, it wasn’t just the young lady’s age and appearance that matched his wife’s—even the Jade Pendant she had carried since childhood was a perfect match.
Hearing the words "Jade Pendant," Chen Wanqing quickly pulled a red cord out from under her clothes.
A piece of mutton-fat jade, carved into a pattern of auspicious clouds, hung from the end of the red cord.
The white jade was warm and translucent. The auspicious clouds were layered and unfurling, with lines as graceful as flowing clouds. The entire Jade Pendant exuded a sense of delicate elegance.
Chen Wanqing took the pendant from her neck and showed it to her father. "Are you sure this is the one?"
Chen Song pulled a piece of paper from his sleeve. "Compare them. See if they look alike."
They didn’t just look alike; they were absolutely identical!
"Zhang Lanshan came to the Prefecture to file a complaint. He was afraid of implicating the steward, so he acted ungrateful. But he’s actually a grateful person, and he brought this paper with him when he left. He was thinking that if he ever got the chance, he would take it to pawnshops everywhere to see if he could find any clues."
He’d used the excuse of wanting to earn the reward to make a rubbing of the Jade Pendant’s design.
Now, comparing it to the Jade Pendant his daughter had just produced, Chen Song was stunned.
It was truly identical, without the slightest difference.
So, his wife really was...
Information about that wealthy family flooded his mind. Chen Song felt his head grow heavy and his feet go light, and he started to fall straight to the ground.
De’an and Zhao Jing caught him together.
De’an shouted, "Dad, don’t pass out yet! Explain things to us first. You mean to tell me you’ve been married to Mom for all these years and you never knew about her background?"
De’an looked at him in astonishment, as if he were seeing the world’s biggest fool.
’My dad has to be a complete idiot!’
’How could he!’
And here he’d always thought that his mother’s identity was only a secret from them, the children, and from outsiders. He’d assumed his father must have known. But after all this, it turned out his father was an outsider too.
De’an grinned so wide his gums showed and let out a couple of hearty laughs out of sheer absurdity.
"You’ve really got some nerve! Weren’t you worried? What if Mom’s family had committed a crime and she was an escaped convict? Wouldn’t you have been implicated..."
Chen Song kicked his son.
He couldn’t very well tell his son that he’d been completely captivated by her beauty, falling in love at first sight.
Back then, he’d fallen for her, hard and fast, and all he could think about was making her his wife.
But he wasn’t a fool. No matter how he looked at it, his wife was clearly a noble lady who had fallen on hard times. Yet when he observed her expression, he saw no trace of panic or fear.
Besides, he had made careful inquiries afterward, and no one had come looking for anyone in their area. Only then did he feel at ease enough to pull some strings, get his wife a household registration, and marry her.
There was no need to tell the children all of this. The important thing now was, how should they handle this situation?
"Forget about handling it for a second. First, tell me, which family is it that’s looking for her? What was Mom’s status in that family? And are they doing well now? Let me make it clear: if they’re not doing well, we’ll just pretend today never happened and that we don’t have those relatives. But if they’re doing great, then what’s there to even think about? The proper thing to do is pack up the whole family and go join them!"
Chen Song was genuinely angry now. He aimed a kick at his son’s ankle.
"It doesn’t matter if they’re doing well now; things were definitely not well in the past. When I pulled your mother from the water, she had a huge lump on her head and had been soaking in the river for two days. If I hadn’t been lucky enough to save her, your mother would be long dead. She was a young lady from a great house, the kind who has countless servants attending to her every move. To end up in such a state, someone must have tried to murder her. If we don’t find the person who harmed her, do you think things will go well for your mother if she goes back? And another thing, a real man should be focused on making his own way, not just looking for shortcuts. Aren’t you just asking for people to look down on you?"
