Chapter 32

Song Yanyan's POV

Days blurred together in a whirlwind as another week flew by. In that span, I'd managed to cross paths with Grandpa Huang more times than I could count on one hand. There was just...something inexplicably easy about shooting the shit with the cantankerous old coot. Like we operated on the same irreverent wavelength ninety percent of polite society seemed unable to tune into.

So when my phone pinged with a text from him earlier, inviting himself over for dinner, I couldn't help the lopsided grin tugging at my lips. The man clearly wasn't accustomed to having his solitude interrupted much these days. 

By the time I was putting the finishing touches on some semi-edible dishes, a familiar pair of knocks echoed from the front door. I opened it to find not just Gramps standing there, but Wu Haoyu and Wu Ling too - both regarding me with looks ranging from polite confusion to outright bewilderment.

"Well, well..." I tsked lightly, mock frown in place as I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. "You do know this isn't a soup kitchen for bored trust funders, right?"

Huang Jiang issued a rusty chuckle as I ushered them inside with a wink, never one to pass up our customary back-and-forth needling. "Now, now - is that any way to greet your guests, girl? Such lack of decorum hardly reflects well upon the hostess."

"Yeah? Well luckily I've never put much stock in that 'polite proprieties' bullshit," I shot back with a lazy smirk. "Thought you would've picked up on that by now, Gramps." 

Wu Haoyu looked seconds from choking on his own affronted indignation at my disrespect. But Huang Jiang simply settled on the loveseat, leveling that piercing stare my way.

"Be that as it may, the matter prompting my intrusion is of a more substantive nature than our usual frivolities," he stated, suddenly sobering in a way that raised the hairs on my neck.

I sat up straighter, feeling like some heavy other-shoe was about to drop hard.

"Uh oh, no fun and games tonight? Did your royal prissiness finally get a case of the vapors from too much commoner riffraff's salty language?" 

Huang Jiang leveled me with a look conveying fondness and chiding all at once. "As entertaining as your wit is, this requires your utmost attention." Without preamble, he slid a manila file across the table. "This should clarify the issue."

Gooseflesh rippled along my arms as I reached for it - some sixth sense warning me that whatever was inside would shatter my world. But I deflected with a mocking wink as I cracked it open.

"Bestowing me your inheritance on your deathbed, Gramps? Should I look out for an arranged blueblood marriage too?"

The words died on my lips as I stared at the unmistakable DNA test report inside. My throat constricted as the world tilted.

"I...the fuck is this?" 

Rather than a retort, Huang Jiang remained silent - regarding me with an inscrutable look as Wu Haoyu spoke up.

"For seventeen years, Grandpa Huang has tirelessly pursued a personal matter," he rumbled, sharing a meaningful look with Grandfather. "To make a long history concise - he believes you are the heir of his lineage, born from his daughter Huang Yue, who had ran away from home while pregnant for a scumbag who left her."

"The very same scumbag I had warned her not to date" Grandpa Huang said with sigh. "Maybe if I had not been so strict with her, she would not have ran away, giving birth you then leaving you at the hospital to be eventually sold off like some piece if object."

Silence enveloped the room like thick fog as I fought to process his staggering words. 

I...was Huang Jiang's biological granddaughter? How was that possible?

Wu Haoyu slid forward, resolute. "The woman you knew as your mother, Chen Xinyi...is not. When her pregnancy failed to progress, she procured an abandoned infant from the hospital and passed it off as their child through deceit."

The world lurched sickeningly as those callous words penetrated my armor of cynicism. 

"You're...saying Mommy Dearest faked being knocked up?" I choked out, throat raw as if I'd downed cheap whiskey. "And then...she..."

"Purchased you, because your biological mother, Huang Yue, had abandoned you," Wu Haoyu confirmed, something like pity flickering in his eyes.

A strangled noise tore from my constricting chest - half-pained whimper, half-mocking snort.

"Well, I'll be damned," I rasped as betrayal, shock and anger coalesced into grim amusement. "Who would've thought the miserable bitch had that big a set of balls under all that Botox?"

Wu Ling gaped in revulsion while her brother studied me inscrutably. But my eyes were locked on the wizened elder wearing regret like a shroud on his shoulders.

A part of me registered Wu Haoyu explaining how they'd identified my genetic background through an unauthorized sample some days ago. How it had revealed the full, sickening scope of Chen Xinyi's deceit. 

But it all washed over me like white noise as I stared at this man - my true maternal grandfather, his own flesh and blood.

"You..." My voice rasped with barely restrained emotion I didn't fully comprehend. "You're telling me you're actually my...my real grandfather? That I'm not just some unwanted Song daughter, but the missing link to your dynasty you've been searching for all this time?"

Huang Jiang met my gaze unflinchingly, ancient eyes brimming with a stormy maelstrom of conflicted longing and weariness. When he spoke, it was with a tremulous timbre that belied the fragile hope battling against decades of dashed expectations.

"If the evidence before us can be believed..." He rasped, suddenly looking every year of his considerable age and more. "Then yes, Yanyan - you are the rightful heir I've devoted the better half of my life to locating against all odds. My sole remaining blood kin."

Wu Ling started violently at my nonchalant response, mouth falling open in apparent revulsion while her brother merely studied me with that same incalculable stare of his. But my eyes were locked on the single figure who actually mattered in this nightmare scenario - the wizened elder who wore regret and weary resignation like a mourning shroud on his bowed shoulders.

A hairline fracture splintered through the numb, dissociative fog cloaking my mind at his words. Of course there was an entire untapped well of anguish and suffering underlying this revelation, one transcending my own circumstances potentially built on decades of lies and deception.