Chapter 178 - One-Hundred and Seventy-Eight: Unfaithful
Shi Ke ignored his sister’s gaze and said to his brother, “If anyone dares to cast their eyes on our sister, break one of their legs for me!” Shi Nian nodded. “One for you and one for me,” he replied.
“Ah!” Shi Xiu wailed.
Xiang Yang couldn’t stand it anymore and gently whacked Shi Ke. “Stop it,” she admonished. “How can you bully her like this?”
Yun Nan also spoke up. “That’s too much.”
Shi Xiu immediately sought help from her sisters-in-law. “Yun Nan! Xiang Yang! Save me! My brothers are bullying me; I don’t want them anymore. They don’t treat me half as well as you do! Hmph, who needs brothers! I’ll just follow you two in the future!”
Xu Yun chuckled and patted her daughter’s back. “That’s more like it. Silly girl, you’ve finally learned how the world works!”
The family all laughed and had fun together; it was a sharp contrast to the dark, cloudy mood in the Yun family residence.
Gu Wei wept softly and murmured, “I treated her like my own all these years. I painstakingly nurtured her and pandered to her every whim. I’ve never treated her as an adopted daughter. Is that still not good enough for her?”
“When did this happen?” Yun Xiang asked Yun Zhang darkly. “Did you not know about this beforehand?”
Yun Zhang gently shook his head. “I only knew about it when the Gu family came looking for her. Yun Liu and Shi Xiu had a big fight on a show a while back. Yun Liu lost a lot of fans, so the company had to spend a lot of time and manpower to solve these problems for her. Coincidentally, she fell ill and managed to avoid the limelight. I asked Tan Ning to keep her company, but I didn’t expect Tan Ning to get her involved with the Gu family.”
Yun Zhang sighed, “I can’t say she got herself involved with the Gu family. The
Gu family has always been looking for their child… I just—I didn’t expect Yun
Liu’s background…”
Yun Zhang rubbed his face and didn’t continue. Gu Wei cried, “I brought her back from the orphanage. I didn’t pick her up off the streets or buy her. How would I know how they lost her? What does that have to do with me?”
She suddenly recalled something and looked at Yun Xiang. “Darling! Do you remember, when we were at the orphanage, we originally wanted to adopt another girl younger than Yun Liu?”
She continued, “We went to chat with the orphanage director for a while. When we came out again, we met Yun Liu. She tripped and fell in front of us, and I helped her up. She then hugged me and cried pitifully. She said I smelled nice, and my arms were so warm; she said she’d never been so happy. My heart melted, and I decided to adopt her right then and there. Do you remember that?”
Yun Xiang frowned but slowly nodded. “What does the Gu family intend to do?” he asked Yun Zhang, dismissing what Gu Wei had mentioned. ‘What’s the use of Gu Wei’s memories? he thought.
Yun Zhang answered, “The Gu family was adamant. They said they’ve already called the police and they must find out how their child went missing back then. They’ll investigate whether there’s anything wrong with the orphanage and the people who adopted the child—whether they’re involved with their child’s disappearance. If they are involved, the Gu family will go after every single one of them.”
“Hah!” Yun Xiang gave a furious laugh.
“How could they do this?” Gu Wei angrily stated. “What? They come here without a single word of thanks to the orphanage and us for taking in their child and raising her with care. Instead, they actually suspect we had something to do with the child’s disappearance! What kind of person does that?! Don’t they have a conscience, or did they feed it to the dogs?”
Yun Xiang calmed down and said, “The Gu family is huge and has complicated interpersonal dynamics. How is the relationship of this branch of the Gu family with the main Gu family? The Gu family is influential, but that doesn’t mean all the branch families are. Don’t let their name-dropping scare you. We haven’t done anything wrong, so we have nothing to fear.”
He continued, ‘You can also ask Yun Liu to help explain our innocence to them. We’ve treated her extremely well all these years, and she knows it. Come to think of it, this might not be a bad thing. We’ve raised Yun Liu for so many years, so no matter how you look at it, she owes us. Even if the Gu family doesn’t want to return our favor, they can’t possibly hold us accountable, right?”
Yun Zhang didn’t say anything. The Gu family’s arrogance when they came to talk to him came to mind. They had scoffed at his explanations and sneered, “We’ll definitely make an investigation into how our young miss ended up in an orphanage! How could she have been so coincidentally adopted by your Yun family?! We will certainly look into it and find out if any shady dealings are involved! ”
“Don’t go thinking you can build a relationship with our Gu family so easily. Although our Gu family has some wealth, we don’t go around giving charity to just any Tom, Dick or Harry. Who knows what kinds of people they are? We wouldn’t want to give aid to ingrates, would we?”
Yun Zhang was so angry at the time he couldn’t say a word.. They were on a whole new level of shamelessness!