Chapter 118
The moment Madam Song spoke, Father Lin’s expression changed at once. A trace of panic and guilt leaked through the forced composure on his face.
Mother Lin, who had just found what she thought was a “way out,” did not notice anything strange about him. She was still softly urging, “Since Madam Song has already spoken, then let Juezhou do one too. Let’s just treat it as putting our minds at ease.”
Father Lin’s lips moved for a moment. He still wanted to find an excuse to refuse, but under the gaze of Madam Song—and in fact the gaze of all three members of the Song family—he could not force out a single sound.
He even felt that their eyes seemed to contain a silent threat, as if… as if they already knew what he had done.
Father Lin’s face turned deathly pale. His lips trembled as he struggled out a single word: “No…”
But before he could finish, someone interrupted him. “Dad.”
Everyone turned toward the voice and discovered, in surprise, that the one who had spoken this time was actually Lin Juezhou.
Father Lin seemed to grab hold of a life-saving straw. He suddenly seized Lin Juezhou’s shoulder, his tone urgent, carrying a hopefulness he perhaps had not even realized himself: “Juezhou, Dad will listen to you. If you don’t want to do it, then we won’t.”
As if feeling that those words still were not enough, Father Lin added one more sentence: “Dad knows you’re a good child.”
At the side, Lin Zhiqiao was happily eating the gossip and cackling inwardly: [Tsk tsk tsk, even now he still thinks Lin Juezhou is his biological son. Doing the test would actually be for your own good. You got cheated on and still don’t even know it—pitiful, so pitiful!]
Naturally, Lin Juezhou heard Lin Zhiqiao’s inner voice.
He tugged at the corner of his mouth, as though he wanted to smile, but the smile looked far too stiff and ugly.
“Dad, I’m willing to do it,” Lin Juezhou said. “Big Brother and Mubai both did it. I can do it too. It’ll put your mind at ease, and Mom’s too.”
Those last few words were spoken almost one syllable at a time.
His thinking was simple. He only wanted to see the truth with his own eyes. He wanted to know what had really happened. He did not want to remain some foolish person kept in the dark.
On an emotional level, Lin Juezhou absolutely could not believe the things Lin Zhiqiao had revealed.
But things like this were not something he could choose to believe or disbelieve.
Lin Juezhou closed his eyes. Half his heart was occupied by panic, the other half by absurdity, and somehow the two reached a strange balance that left him in an abnormally calm state.
He wanted the truth.
Today—at this very moment—he had to know the truth.
Father Lin was rendered speechless. The strength in his arm loosened, and his hand dropped weakly back to his side.
He did not have the courage to resist the “pressure” coming from the head of the Song family, and so he could only watch helplessly as the doctor took Lin Juezhou’s DNA sample and then turned to walk into the testing room.
When the door closed, it made a faint click. At that moment, it was as though all the strength had been taken out of Father Lin’s body. His legs gave out, and he stumbled backward before dropping onto the bench in the waiting room.
For everyone present, the waiting time suddenly became unbearably long.
Of course, for the Lin family it was because they were suffering through it, while for everyone else it was because they could not wait.
Several hours later, the doctor pushed open the door, only to be met by the gaze of everyone in the waiting room turning toward him in perfect unison.
His steps suspiciously paused for one second before he finally walked over toward Father Lin and the others. “Mr. Lin, the results are out.”
Father Lin stood up instinctively and took the reports from the doctor’s hands.
He needed to hide the report comparing Lin Juezhou and Mother Lin before Mother Lin and the others had a chance to see it.
As long as no one else saw that report, as long as he stubbornly insisted on the blood relationship between Lin Juezhou and Mother Lin, then no one would know what he had done.
As for the doctor, who had obviously already seen the result…
Whether through coercion or temptation, Father Lin would find a way to bring him onto his side.
The six reports were stacked together. The top three were for Lin Chen, the others, and Mother Lin.
Father Lin glanced through them quickly. Lin Chen and Lin Mubai were confirmed to have a mother-son relationship with Mother Lin. Lin Juezhou was not. That much was exactly as he had expected.
Lin Juezhou’s report was swiftly folded and set aside by him.
Of the remaining three, Lin Chen’s and Lin Mubai’s were on top. Father Lin looked at the results, fury immediately rising across his face, and with a smack he flung all five reports into Mother Lin’s arms.
“Qin Yuxian!” Father Lin’s face flushed red with rage. “They have no blood relationship with me, yet they’re confirmed to be your sons. Do you have anything to explain to me?”
Mother Lin’s face went deathly pale. Her trembling hands failed to catch the reports properly, and she only barely managed to grab one of them.
Facts spoke louder than words. At this moment, she could not say a single thing.
—No, no, she still had one way out!
Mother Lin pulled out the report comparing Lin Juezhou and Father Lin, seized Father Lin’s sleeve tightly, and pleaded almost desperately, “Husband, Juezhou is your child! Juezhou is your—”
She lowered her head to look at the report in her hand, and her voice came to an abrupt stop.
Perhaps because of his guilt, Father Lin’s rage had a faint air of bluffing behind it. Hearing Mother Lin say that, he actually felt relieved.
But the very next second, he heard her murmur, “How could it be… how could Juezhou also—”
Something about the tone sounded strange. It was full of shock and terror, as though she had seen something unimaginably horrible.
Mother Lin stared at the report showing that Lin Juezhou and Lin Man had no blood relationship, and her whole person went blank.
“Impossible, impossible!” Her voice grew louder and louder, as if she were already right on the edge of collapse. “I counted the dates! Juezhou is your child! He is your biological son! How could he possibly—”
“How could he possibly have no blood relationship with you?! Is there something wrong with this report???”
Mother Lin’s questioning was almost hysterical.
And the moment Father Lin heard that question, he froze, and he too went blank.
He snatched the report from Mother Lin’s hand, his expression as if he had just seen a ghost. “How is that possible?! I personally carried Juezhou back myself, how could he possibly—”
Father Lin’s voice cut off abruptly.
Back then, when the newborn Lin Juezhou had been brought out of the delivery room, he had passed through no one else’s hands. Father Lin had received him personally, then switched him with the baby Mother Lin had just delivered.
A possibility suddenly hit Father Lin—and it was the only possible explanation—
The child he had believed was born to him by the lover he had once loved most was, from the very beginning, never his child at all.
Father Lin stood there in a daze on the spot. Enormous rage and absurdity crashed down on him like a blow to the head, leaving him unable to recover for a long time.
But Mother Lin, at the side, seemed to have realized something. “You personally… carried him back?”
She suddenly lifted her head and stared fixedly at her husband’s face. Taking advantage of his distraction, she snatched the report that had been ignored and left to one side—the one that belonged to her and Lin Juezhou.
The moment she saw the result, Mother Lin understood everything!
She had known from the beginning that Lin Man had someone on the outside, and she had also long known that Lin Man was aware of her own little side affairs.
But so what?
High-society marriages were like that. They hid things from each other while also knowing perfectly well what the other was doing, maintaining the outward peace with silent understanding.
Both of them knew where the other’s bottom line was. Play all you want, but do not produce a child—at least not openly.
But now—
Mother Lin suddenly yanked Father Lin by the collar. “You switched out my child? Didn’t you?” she demanded, her voice sharp and piercing. “You personally switched my child with that bitch’s child, didn’t you?!”
Father Lin said nothing. He was still drowning in the agony of realizing that Lin Juezhou was not his biological son.
Mother Lin, however, suddenly burst into loud laughter.
“Lin Man, oh Lin Man—even a tiger won’t eat its own cubs!” Mother Lin laughed until tears came out. “That was your child! Your one and only biological child! And you switched him out with your own hands!!”
And Mother Lin had once heard rumors that that “bastard child” had been born frail and had died not long after birth.
That was also the reason why, although she knew Father Lin had created a “life” outside, she had not made a huge scene about it.
But who would have thought it? The one who died was not the bastard child. The child she had personally raised, the one she had poured over twenty years of effort into—that was the real bastard.
—No, not even a bastard. Lin Juezhou was not even Lin Man’s child at all!
At that thought, Mother Lin laughed so hard she could barely straighten up. “Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous! Lin Man, so you’ve gotten this day too, hahaha!!!”
Father Lin was jolted awake by her shrill laughter and roared, “Shut the hell up!”
At this point, Mother Lin was obviously not going to listen to him. Instead, she laughed even louder.
Father Lin’s eyes turned bloodshot. He grabbed her by the collar, looking on the verge of losing control and hitting someone.
At the side, Lin Mubai cried out, his voice weak and miserable, “Dad, Mom, you—”
“Don’t call me Dad!” Father Lin suddenly turned on him, his expression terrifying. “I’m not your father!”
His gaze swept over the silent Lin Chen and Lin Juezhou, and endless grief surged up from his heart. The strength in his hand gave way, and he staggered backward a few steps.
Father Lin closed his eyes, his chest heaving violently.
He had never imagined that his children—his three children—the three children he had raised with all his heart and effort, not a single one of them was actually his biological flesh and blood!!
—No, no! In this world, there might still be one child who is his!
Father Lin’s eyes flew open. He turned suddenly, his gaze shooting straight to one side.
That was the direction where Lin Zhiqiao stood.
