The piercing, slanderous comments floated over from nearby, and Yan Xinxin’s fingers, holding her son’s hand, tightened slightly.
These women had absolutely no idea what she had been through, yet they were spewing rumors they picked up from who-knows-where, deliberately speaking loudly enough for her to hear them.
But the most puzzling thing to her was their last sentence—Mo Chuxi was interested in Yan Zhirou?
Was such suffocating nonsense even possible?
"Xinxin, do you think it’s not that people nowadays have become worse, but rather that bad people have just grown older?"
Her son suddenly asked her this in a loud voice.
Yan Xinxin froze for a moment, then quickly understood.
She curved her soft lips into a smile and cast a sidelong, disdainful glance at the middle-aged women nearby.
"Xi, you’re absolutely on point. Xinxin thinks so too. Especially those people who speak without discernment, spreading vicious lies—they’re truly detestable..."
"Anyone Xinxin dislikes, I dislike too!"
Young Yan Chenxi was quick to stand by his precious mom and lend his support.
The nearby women darkened their faces at the exchange between mother and son.
"That fatherless brat is so big now and still doesn’t even call her ’Mom.’ What a disgrace!"
One old woman, visibly annoyed, glared at Xi’s back as she spat out her insult.
Upon hearing this, there was no way Yan Xinxin was going to let it go. Just as she stopped in her tracks, ready to hurl a sharp retort, the little one holding her hand turned his head faster.
"Granny, don’t you even know the most basic facts? Of course I have a dad! Without a dad, how would Mama make a baby? Or are you saying, Granny, that you popped out from a crack in a rock?"
Yan Xinxin couldn’t hold back her laughter, covering her mouth as she chuckled. At a glance, the old woman’s face alternated between green and red, visibly irate at Xi’s words.
"You brat! Calling me ’Granny’—you have no manners at all!"
The old woman couldn’t take it and fired back furiously once again.
Yan Xinxin frowned and turned her head, glaring back with severe anger.
"Madam, please refrain from dragging my polite and well-behaved son down with you."
She defended him fiercely.
"A truly well-mannered person wouldn’t spread malicious lies and slander others recklessly, so if we’re talking about who has no manners, it’s clearly you—and all of you here."
Yan Xinxin finished speaking fearlessly, then turned and took her son’s hand, leaving behind a group of women who glared at them with flushed faces and thick necks from suppressed rage.
Although those women were spouting nonsense, Yan Xinxin couldn’t deny they had nailed one painful truth.
Xi indeed didn’t have a father. She had failed to give him a complete family.
"Xinxin, why don’t you consider Chuxi as his dad? He’s handsome, rich, and he treats you so well."
Yan Xinxin was stunned, her mind reeling from the suggestion.
Mo Chuxi being handsome and rich was undeniable—but when had he ever treated her well?
"Yan Chenxi, what kind of spell did your Chuxi-dad cast on you, hmm?"
Yan Xinxin teased him lightheartedly.
The pair exchanged words as mother and son ascended the stairs. Before they even reached their doorstep, commotion from inside drifted out.
"Xinxin, you’re here!"
Yang Guoping, spotting Yan Xinxin, called out to her in delight.
Yan Xinxin stepped closer and lifted her gaze, noticing the room was filled with a crowd of relatives—uncles, aunts, and cousins.
What was going on here?
What day was it today?
The people in the room eyed her disdainfully when they noticed Yan Xinxin arriving with Yan Chenxi, their gazes heavy with contempt as they rolled their eyes.
"Aunt Sue, Aunt May, Uncle Joe, Uncle Tom."
Yan Xinxin greeted them politely.
"Xi, hurry up and greet everyone."
"Alright, alright, no need for that!"
The eldest aunt, her wrists and neck adorned with gold bracelets and necklaces, interrupted impatiently.
"We never acknowledged that child anyway."
"Aunt Sue, Xi is my biological son."
"So what if he’s your biological child? Pregnant at eighteen, unmarried—it’s disgraceful just to talk about it! You don’t even know who the kid’s dad is, and we certainly don’t recognize children without fathers!"