Lin Xiaoguai’s heart tightened, and she subconsciously perked up.
"I’ve mentioned before that from my birth, I stayed in the countryside with my mother and siblings. The general public knew very little about me, except for a select few who were very close to the Han Family. Others knew of my existence, but not my age or name—not even my mother because of her job had any close friends, and so very little was known about her."
Shen Chi raised an eyebrow, a crafty glimmer reflected in his eyes as he said softly, "Mom’s already gone. If I were to disappear too, Liu Yuzhi could easily blur the time of Mom’s death and her marriage to my father, do a bit of manipulation, and thus make Han Shouyi a legitimate child of marriage, the only cost being that she didn’t have a wedding ceremony."
Upon hearing this, Lin Xiaoguai frowned, "Would General Han Kuang agree to such a thing?"
"Of course not." Shen Chi’s expression was indifferent. "But she could plot secretly. At that time, Han Shouxin was only thirteen, and Han Shouzhen was just eleven. The siblings didn’t understand what Liu Yuzhi’s presence meant, and Han Kuang wasn’t wary of Liu Yuzhi either. It wasn’t too hard for her to plot against a three-year-old child."
"At that time, General Han Kuang was stationed with the troops in Province Z. Liu Yuzhi found a way to follow him there, even convincing my father to take me along. Although Han Shouxin and Han Shouzhen also went because of their mother’s last words, how could two children outwit Liu Yuzhi? She still found an opportunity to abandon me in a creek in the countryside."
At this point, the coldness on Shen Chi’s face couldn’t be concealed, "According to Liu Yuzhi’s plan, in the harsh winter, I, a three-year-old child abandoned in a creek, naturally wouldn’t have survived, had it not been for the appearance of Dad and Mom. She almost got her wish."
"Didn’t General Han Kuang stop her from causing such chaos?" Lin Xiaoguai wasn’t surprised that a child could go missing unnoticed in that era, even if he was a national leader’s child. However, she didn’t believe that General Han Kuang could be so easily fooled.
"How clever do you think Han Kuang is?" Initially, Shen Chi would respectfully call him ’father,’ but now he barely concealed his contempt. "Even now, he probably still sees Liu Yuzhi as a slightly selfish but innocent and kind woman. Any conclusions drawn are based on suspicions, and he took my disappearance as an accident. How could he arrive at a different conclusion?"
"As for Liu Yuzhi deliberately blurring the public perception by moving up my mother’s death by several years making people believe General Han Kuang and she had married quietly years before, and making me several years older... Han Shouyi is also General Han Kuang’s son, and naturally, he wouldn’t want his son to bear the stigma of illegitimacy, especially since I was already missing, presumed dead. If not for Han Shouxin and Han Shouzhen’s persistence, Han Shoulv would have been declared dead, and the family register might have even added the words ’died young.’"
"Why did you later think you were illegitimate?" Lin Xiaoguai felt the situation might be more complicated.
"Later?" Shen Chi’s face stiffened, and he sighed, "I joined the military, and somehow Liu Yuzhi discovered my existence and appeared before me."
"Do you know what she told me?" Shen Chi’s expression was strange—both laugh and anger mingled, "She said I was General Han Kuang’s illegitimate child, that my birth mother died in childbirth, and that my maternal grandparents died when I was three, and that I had been abandoned by my aunt and uncle."
He laughed sarcastically, "Quite a perfect story, isn’t it?"
Lin Xiaoguai frowned, "And you believed that?" The Shen Chi she knew wasn’t someone who easily believed others.
"Of course not," Shen Chi said with a self-deprecating expression. "So, I looked into it. But the Capital was so far away, and my resources were limited. What I could find were just some superficial information. Rumors indicated that Han Shoulv was the second son of the Han Family, but I was five years younger than Han Shouyi and naturally didn’t think I could be Han Shoulv. But to say I wasn’t General Han Kuang’s son... I’ve seen his pictures when he was young; even if someone told me that General Han Kuang and I were not related, I wouldn’t believe it. I even fantasized that perhaps General Han Kuang and I were not direct blood relatives, but the investigation showed that General Han Kuang was an only child with no sisters having lost sons."
"At this point, whether I believe it or not, I had to believe it."
"Now that I think about it, Liu Yuzhi’s purpose then was probably just to bank on my personality, using this method to deter me from seeking the truth in the Capital. Only by making me believe that I was an illegitimate child would I be unwilling to step foot in that city." Shen Chi’s expression had calmed, "And I fell for it, even though she repeatedly sent people to harm me, I still chose not to go to the Capital."