Tell Me The Truth

In the other room, Kang Jun and Elder Kang heard Grandma Lu's cries.

Hearing this, Elder Kang felt as if he wanted to cry himself.

He finally found his Li... but now what? She had no memory of her own sister, he would be arrogant to think that she would have any memory of him. And the old man was right. Rong Lihua remembered no one. After her accident she was reborn again, and that was probably for the best...

Looking in the direction of the door absentmindedly, Elder Kang thought many thoughts regarding Li Jing. Mostly about what to do now that he found her.

He had many ideas but none of them were satisfactory.

Looking at his expression, Kang Jun easily assumed what the elder was thinking and so he said, "Rong Lihua and Rong Xin are staying here. There will be no debate."

Hearing this, Elder Kang looked at his grandson with pain in his eyes and said, "I-I understand."

Kang Jun: "Now, Tell me the truth. What happened between you and Rong Lihua."

Elder Kang felt his whole body freeze. Remembering what had happened in the past, he felt the strong urge to repent.

The old man looked into Kang Jun's eyes and said, "When I knew her, she was called Lu Li Jing... the second daughter of the Lu Family. She was kind... so so kind..."

His words were full of blinding love. It almost made Kang Jun's demeanor soften but he had to stay impartial, for now.

Elder Kang: "I wasn't a good student, in fact, I was very lame... Li Jing was Chong Wei's friend, Lu Lili's sister and he recommended that Li Jing tutor me. The girl was very smart and one thing led to another and we ended up dating... but I was stupid... I was engaged to Zhenyi, your grandmother,"

After saying this, Elder Kang paused. It was as if he was about to choke up but after taking a deep breath, he said,

"Needless to say, your grandmother found out about this quickly... she did many horrible things to Li Jing. I didn't realize until Lu Lili came and chewed me out about it and then one day, I wanted to go apologize but I had heard that Li Jing had been sent abroad and got married... I was heartbroken... but I couldn't do anything about it. So, without a choice, I married your grandmother and then that was that... "

Kang Jun shook his head. "And Zhi?."

Hearing this, Elder Kang looked at Kang Jun with confusion.

Seeing that the man wasn't feigning innocence, Kang Jun touched the space between his eyebrows and said, "Tell me how Lu Li Jing is connected to Kang Zhi!"

Elder Kang brushed his thumb against the ball of his cane and looked at it deeply before he said, "Many many years after I had married Zhengyi, Li Jing had come back to the country, after getting a divorce. She had a young daughter then and despite Lili trying to help her, Li Jing was not the type to accept handouts and so, she wanted to work. I found her working at a restaurant one day and something inside me just lit up..."

Kang Jun: "So you began an affair."

The way Kang Jun said this made the elder laugh dryly. "In technical terms yes. But I've never loved anyone else in my whole life... I hired her as a housekeeper for the manor. She had aged quite a bit by then. I'm guessing her marriage must have been hard, so your grandmother didn't recognize her..."

Hearing this, Kang Jun frowned. "If you loved her, then why didn't you just divorce grandmother and marry Lu Li Jing?"

"I wanted to... but Li Jing said that this would hurt Kang Mu..." Reminiscing of the exact day he had proposed the idea, Elder Kang laughed. "She said that her husband had done the same to her and it had caused her child to recede into herself and this was something she didn't want Kang Mu to feel..."

Listening to the way Elder Kang And Lu Li Jing fell in love for the second time. Kang Jun began to feel a bit bad for the man and woman. Only imagining being separated from Lu AnLing like his grandfather had been separated from Lu Li Jing made a hole appear in Kang Jun's heart but he pushed this feeling out of his mind and said,

"What does this have to do with Kang Zhi?" Kang Jun said. He already had a hunch but now, he just needed Elder Kang to confirm it.

Without a second of delay, Elder Kang said, "Kang Zhi is not your brother. He is my son... with Li Jing."

Elder Kang expected an explosive reaction from Kang Jun, but instead, Kang Jun nodded.

Kang Jun had always found it strange that Kang Mu had had a son at the young age of 20 and that Elder Kang had accepted it. Usually, most family would bemoan a bastard child who could cause problems in the line of succession but Elder Kang always loved Kang Zhi the most.

Without caring the old man had put the succession wars in disarray after appointing Kang Zhi the President after Kang Mu had failed.

A silence fell between the two.

Kang Jun: "Why did AnLing's Grandmother say it was your fault that Li Jing died?"

Kang Jun had almost forgotten to ask this but in the silence, he was finally able to remember.

Looking at Kang Jun, Elder Kang's face turned dark. "Years ago, back then, Li Jing's daughter, Kang Mu and even Kang Zhi were all adults... so I decided to divorce Zhengyi. I arranged a private dinner with Li Jing were I proposed to her and she accepted but somehow Lili was there and she tried to tell Li Jing that it was a bad idea; that Zhengyi would find out and kill her. Hearing this from her sister, Li Jing was broken-hearted and she ran out of the restaurant. She took a cab and then she had her accident... hours later Lili and I both found out that she had died!"

Kang Jun: "Did grandmother know?"

Elder Kang shook his head. "Not to my knowledge. No. Why?"

Thinking about this, Kang Jun connected a few dots in his mind and said,

"Do you think it's possible that Grandmother found out and was behind Rong Lihua's accident... and maybe even, Kang Zhi's death?"

Elder Kang did not say a word. He wanted to say no because the woman didn't know anything about Lu Li Jing or Kang Zhi's birth but at the same time, he couldn't get passed the small chance that it was possible...

"Both Lu Li Jing And Kang Zhi experienced similar accidents. Both were supposedly dead..." Kang Jun said with his knuckles plastered on his lips. Suddenly Kang Jun paused and then he looked straight into his grandfather's eyes. "You had Zhi cremated so that no one would find out that he was your son?"

Saying this, Kang Jun felt slightly annoyed. Did the old man want to erase the existence of Lu Li Jing in his life and keep the 'perfect' life he had in the present all pure?

"I did. I didn't want Zhenyi to find out. Back then, the only living relative of Lu Li Jing's was her adopted daughter, Anna... I was afraid that Zhengyi would go after Anna. You know how your grandmother is..." Elder Kang's eyes were complicated.

He was telling the truth, but at the same time, Kang Jun could see something else in them but for now, he didn't ask any more about this. Instead, he changed the conversation.

Kang Jun: "Did you know that Mingyu is Zhi and Anna's son?"

Hearing this, Elder Kang's eyes widened. "Impossible... that would mean Anna died!"

Kang Jun nodded. "Anna is indeed dead but she died just recently. She committed suicide, not even half a year ago. She was staying at the recovery institution in France, the same one AnLing stayed at. It seems like my wife and Anna were friends."

Elder Kang held his head in his hands. "This can't be... I've been wiring money to the girl this whole time... she's been writing me letters every year... how come this happened? I said I would protect her..."

The guilt filled Elder Kang like water in the lungs of a drowning man. Anna had been the man's last connection to both Lu Li Jing's and Kang Zhi. She was like a daughter to him but after Kang Zhi had married and Alina's death, Anna became depressed and she could no longer live in T City. Elder Kang understood this... she had come to visit once, when Kang Zhi had died, but she looked sickly and there Elder Kang hand held her hands and he had promised to protect her...

He was worthless. He could not protect anything!

The realizations dawned on him hard. Causing his whole body to feel as if it was being torn apart.

Seeing his grandfather wither right before his eyes, Kang Jun felt a bit bad. He put his hand on his grandfathers back and said, "Nothing you could have done would have prevented this. If you want to make amends, do right by Rong Lihua and Rong Xin... and love and care for Mingyu."

As soon as Kang Jun said this, tears fell from Elder Kang's eyes. "Yes... I will."

The elder felt lighter but then Kang Jun spoke again in a tone which Elder Kang has never heard before.

"There's something else..." Kang Jun said as he looked to the door where, on the other side, Lu AnLing stood and sighed, "I've decided that Grandmother is a lost cause. I'm going to appeal to the court to get my daughter back."

Hearing Kang Jun so determined, Elder Kang nodded his head. "The chances of you getting her aren't low... but what if they question whether Lu AnLing will treat her better than Qiao Lan? Qiao Lan has been like a mother to Mei Xue since she was one year old."

"I'll take care of that." Kang Jun said confidently.

At this point, who had spent more time with the girl didn't matter.

Lu AnLing was Kang Mei Xue's biological mother. Kang Jun had all the tests to prove it. His only problem revolved around the paternity test the courts would force them to do. T City's most trusted hospital was the one Chong Feng worked at, and that place had already been compromised. If the courts sent a paternity test to be done there, the results might come back negative for both he and Lu AnLing and he would lose his case.

Kang Jun didn't know how deeply the hospital had been compromised but he had to tread carefully...