Chapter 17
The training room fell completely silent.
Cheng Li could not hear Lin Zhiqiao’s inner thoughts at all, so he had no idea what had happened. He only vaguely sensed that the atmosphere in the room seemed a little strange.
He swept his gaze around the room, then finally fixed it on Cheng Xia and asked softly, his voice carrying a pleading weakness, “Brother Cheng Xia, do you have time right now? Could you maybe—”
But before he could finish speaking, Ji Ran, who was standing not far from the door, stepped forward two paces and spoke at lightning speed, “No time, no time, we’re busy right now. If you have something to say, do it later!”
Bang—the classroom door was shut right in his face.
Cheng Li: “…”
He quickly took a step back, only just avoiding getting his nose smacked crooked by the door.
What kind of attitude was that?!
A trace of gloomy displeasure flashed through Cheng Li’s eyes, but because there was a livestream camera in the room, he could only suppress it for the time being and did not continue knocking.
Meanwhile, inside the room, Cheng Xia—who had heard Lin Zhiqiao’s inner thoughts—had gone completely blank. His fists were clenched tight, and he had lost all ability to think.
Lin Zhiqiao, however, was not disturbed at all by Cheng Li’s sudden visit.
[That’s not right. Didn’t Cheng Xia say he was type AB? Then how could he…]
Cheng Xia’s body swayed slightly. He could not even tell what he was feeling or thinking at this moment.
Ji Ran held his breath, and the others quietly pricked up their ears as well.
‘I checked the trainee database at Mingguang Base, and Cheng Xia’s blood type is listed as AB. They should have tested it back then, right? That can’t be wrong, can it?’
‘Routine physicals usually don’t include that item, do they? Maybe he didn’t remember and just filled it in casually [deep in thought.jpg]’
[Oh, actually the person with AB blood is Cheng Li. Cheng Qiang and his wife never took Cheng Xia to get tested. Whenever they needed to fill in a blood type, they just casually wrote Cheng Li’s blood type down.]
[No wonder Cheng Xia always thought he was type AB. Tsk… this is a problem. Everyone thinks Cheng Xia isn’t type O, so how are Mom and Dad Ji supposed to find Cheng Xia at all?!]
Lin Zhiqiao looked full of sorrow.
He could hardly go tell them that he could tell at a glance Cheng Xia’s listed blood type was wrong. Who would believe that??
At the side, Ji Ran suddenly coughed lightly and grabbed Cheng Xia’s hand. “You just don’t remember clearly, right? Perfect timing—go get tested. What if it comes in handy someday!”
Cheng Xia’s lips trembled, but no sound came out.
Ji Ran carefully studied his features and muttered, “He looks like them. The more I look, the more alike he looks… how did I never notice before!”
Lin Zhiqiao snapped back to attention.
Looks like what? Alike in what way?
“His eyes look like Mom’s, his nose looks like Dad’s, his mouth looks like Grandpa’s, his ears look like Grandma’s, his eyebrows look like maternal Grandma’s, his hair looks like maternal Grandpa’s…”
Ji Ran mumbled through the whole family tree, tears welling up in his eyes. “I don’t even need a test to tell—you’re my long-lost brother from another father and another mother!”
Lin Zhiqiao was shocked: [Y-you can do that too?!]
Cheng Xia opened his mouth as if to say something, but Ji Ran gave him no chance.
“You don’t need to say anything!” Ji Ran dragged Cheng Xia toward the door. “I’m taking you to Mom and Dad right now. Everything that belongs to you—you are getting all of it back today!”
Cheng Xia stumbled a step. “I—”
“What do you mean, ‘I’?! Today, whatever I say goes!” Ji Ran glared at him, his eyes already slightly red at some unknown point. “No matter what, come with me first!”
Cheng Xia stopped talking.
The classroom door opened. Cheng Li had just lifted a smile onto his face when Ji Ran and Cheng Xia swept right past him like a gust of wind and left without giving him a single glance.
Cheng Li, who had been ignored with complete thoroughness: “…”
Inside the classroom, Tang Zhou instinctively glanced at the time. “Ah, training time isn’t over yet…”
Pei Ning said gently, “It’s fine. Ours is a documentary-style reality show. The whole point is authenticity.”
Wen Li nodded. “Exactly. Whatever happens, we just record it. Director Fang won’t deduct our pay.”
Jiang Qianqian coughed lightly. “So can we maybe—”
She motioned toward the door, only to see that the cameraman had already charged out carrying the camera on his shoulder.
As for Lin Zhiqiao…
Oh, he had followed right behind Ji Ran and Cheng Xia the moment they left. By now he had already run so far he was almost out of sight.
Everyone: “…”
Wait for us!!!
*
In the end, everyone did manage to catch up to the luxury melon bus at the rich-family reunion scene.
Father Ji and Mother Ji personally drove to the training base to pick people up. When they saw one, two, three, four… a full eight people waiting at the entrance, they did not say a word and simply loaded everyone into the car.
After leaving the base, the cameraman turned off the livestream and stopped filming.
Lin Zhiqiao sighed inwardly: [Thank goodness the Ji family’s car is big enough, otherwise there really wouldn’t be room for this many people.]
Everyone silently nodded in agreement.
The extended luxury car carried the group toward the private hospital Father Ji had arranged in advance.
Cheng Xia sat beside Ji Ran. In front were Father Ji at the wheel and Mother Ji in the passenger seat.
Father Ji focused on driving and could only spare glances at Cheng Xia through the rearview mirror when stopping at red lights.
Mother Ji, however, had already twisted around in her seat and was carefully inspecting Cheng Xia from head to toe.
“He looks alike. He really looks too alike.” Mother Ji counted in detail. “His eyes look like Dad’s, his nose looks like Grandpa’s, his mouth looks like mine, his ears look like maternal Grandpa’s, his eyebrows look like Grandma’s, his hair looks like maternal Grandma’s…”
Lin Zhiqiao could not help muttering inwardly: [Ran baby and Mother Ji… are they really not biologically related? They’re basically exactly the same, okay!]
[Wait!] he suddenly realized something was off. [Why are they saying different things? Just now didn’t he say the eyes looked like Mom’s and the nose looked like Dad’s? Why does everything suddenly look like someone different now?]
Ji Ran: “…”
Everyone else: “…………”
[Ahhh, I’m so anxious. Why aren’t we at the hospital yet?!] Lin Zhiqiao chanted to himself inside. [This is a rich-family reunion scene! You can’t run into something like this even once in a lifetime!!!]
888 quietly reminded him, [Host, didn’t you go through one two years ago…]
[That wasn’t the same. Mine wasn’t a family reunion. It was a disaster scene.] Lin Zhiqiao clicked his tongue in disgust. [Such a wonderful day—don’t bring them up. Bad luck.]
888 felt that he had a point, so it said nothing more.
Very soon, the car reached its destination.
The doctor quickly took samples from Father Ji, Mother Ji, and Cheng Xia. Father Ji had obviously made arrangements in advance, but even so, the paternity test results would still take at least several hours at the fastest.
The waiting time was the most unbearable part.
Father Ji and Mother Ji kept looking at Cheng Xia, several times seeming to want to say something to him, yet somehow feeling timid in the face of family closeness.
What happened to Cheng Xia two days ago had caused quite a stir. It had hung on the hot search for several days, and even now related tags could still be seen lingering at the tail end of the ranking.
Father Ji and Mother Ji clearly knew that Cheng Xia had not lived well all these years.
Guilt, self-reproach, regret… simple words like those were not enough to properly describe what the two of them were feeling now.
After the initial excitement and happiness wore off, even Ji Ran had gone quiet and was sitting to one side, his fingers unconsciously twisting the string of his hoodie.
Cheng Xia was also sitting with his head lowered, no one knew what he was thinking, but the fingers he was clenching so tightly that the knuckles had gone white gave away how nervous he was.
Time ticked past, and several hours later, the doctor finally brought over the results.
Without the slightest doubt, Cheng Xia was the biological child of Father Ji and Mother Ji.
Lin Zhiqiao tugged lightly on the sleeve of the person beside him and whispered, “Let’s go, let’s go. Let’s sit over there.”
Pei Ning was slightly stunned, then immediately understood what Lin Zhiqiao meant.
The group quietly left and sat in the corridor behind the corner, leaving the time and space to the family that had finally been reunited.
Ji Ran noticed what Lin Zhiqiao and the others were doing. After hesitating for a moment, he turned his feet as if preparing to follow them, but Mother Ji swiftly caught him by the back of his collar.
With one hand on each of them, Mother Ji pulled both boys into her arms and cried loudly enough to shake the heavens. “Mommy’s precious babies ahhh!!!”
Ji Ran’s nose turned sour. Rubbing his ear, he muttered in a small voice, “Mom, we’re not dead yet…”
Then Father Ji flicked him hard on the forehead.
For a moment the scene was so chaotic it was almost beyond words, yet it was also enough to make all who heard it want to cry.
[So touching, wuwuwu!] Lin Zhiqiao wiped the corner of his eye.
Jiang Qianqian and Tang Zhou sniffled, their eyes red from crying, while Wen Li and Pei Ning thoughtfully passed them tissues.
[Ran baby and Xia goose-son get along so well. According to the normal development route in novels, this is where the true and fake young masters should start living their sweet, loving daily life together—wait.]
Everyone’s movements unconsciously paused.
Wait what now?
[Ji Ran and Cheng Xia both don’t seem that… ] Lin Zhiqiao fell into deep thought. [Could it be that one of them, in the future, will… switch sides for love?]
