Xie Jianzhi said that he was about to reach his twenty-fifth year of life. That being said, he was born many years after Xie Jianshen and several years before Xie Jianyu.
It did not take a genius to understand what happened in the past. The Heavenly Emperor cheated on his first Empress and had an affair with the Qing omega. No one knew how long the affair lasted, but it was enough for her to get pregnant and give birth to a son, whom they both raised together.
Until Xie Jianzhi was three years old.
And then something happened.
Maybe his mother died and the Heavenly Emperor decided to abandon his illegitimate son.
Maybe the Empress found out about her unfaithful husband's affair and forced the Heavenly Emperor to put Xie Jianzhi into an orphanage.
Either way, it remained an undisputed fact that Xie Jianzhi was the current Heavenly Emperor's direct descendant. He was, additionally, the only other male alpha in the family.