Father and Son

Seeing the poem, Wu Wei quietly clenched his fist, then quickly relaxed it.

He admitted that he was beginning to appreciate Lan Meng. She was handling herself much better than before.

At least she had let go of her emotional baggage and was finally showing the poise of the Lan Family's eldest daughter and the student council vice president.

She was no longer acting timid and submissive around him like she had before.

It was perfectly normal for people to think nothing of their simps, whether they were men or women admired by others.

Still, Wu Wei wouldn't get angry over her.

He rarely let her stir any emotion in him at all.

Because when you felt nothing, you felt nothing.

"Lan Meng, you're adorable. Keep it up, and don't suppress your nature."

After sending her the message, Wu Wei tossed his phone aside.

Lan Meng was great.

Unfortunately, his heart wasn't in it.

He had stopped wasting time on trivial matters like this long ago.

Wu Wei lay on the bed, his mother's image surfacing in his mind.

If she were still here, what would she do about Wu Tian's situation?

"Mom, I miss you so much."

As Wu Wei thought of Lin Shen, Wu Tian was remembering her too.

He took a photograph from his bedside table.

It was a picture of him and Lin Shen.

The couple in the photo looked like a pair of immortals, and had once been the envy of many.

But the photograph had been glued back together.

It was easy to see that someone had once torn it in half down the middle, then pasted it back together.

He gazed at it for a very long time.

The next morning.

The Wu Tian Wu Wei saw was a weary middle-aged man with bloodshot eyes.

"Dad, you didn't sleep all night?"

"Mm. I couldn't."

Wu Wei felt no sympathy. Instead, he bluntly said, "Serves you right. You should've kept it in your pants. Look at me—I'm the picture of chastity."

Wu Tian: "..."

You've wasted my genes like this, and you still have the nerve to brag?

Lin Shen had really turned him into a handful.

"Have you decided what to do?" Wu Wei continued.

"I'll get a paternity test with Zhao Xin first."

Though even a tiger wouldn't eat its cubs, Wu Tian didn't know everything about Wu Wei. But he did know Lin Shen, at least in part.

Wu Wei had been raised by Lin Shen herself. There was no way he was some gentle, courteous, modest, and yielding young man.

Wu Tian was afraid Wu Wei might kill Zhao Xin.

Lin Shen had displayed that kind of decisiveness and ruthlessness to the fullest. It had been the greatest source of disagreement between them after they married.

Unfortunately, he had also lost when it came to raising their son.

Wu Wei frowned, displeased. "Are you sure you want to do that?"

Wu Tian knew his decision might hurt Wu Wei, so he explained earnestly, "No matter what the result is, you'll always be my son—the one I love most."

Wu Wei scoffed. "Dad, don't say I'm disrespecting you, but I've seen this plot before."

"Hm?"

"You write novels and work as a screenwriter. Don't you think this feels awfully familiar? An illegitimate son suddenly appears and starts challenging the rightful heir's position as a rich, handsome young master. The father feels he owes the illegitimate son, so he makes up for it with all kinds of guilt-driven gestures. The original heir becomes unbalanced and does everything he can to deal with the illegitimate son.

"In the end, the illegitimate son takes over the family and successfully rises to the top, becoming the new protagonist. No—more accurately, he might have been the protagonist all along, and I'm just a villainous boss on his path through life."

Wu Wei wore a mocking smile.

He was a top student, of course—and not just in one field.

Lin Shen had been the vice dean of Night Emperor Academy back then. She spent her time talking with scholars and associating with refined people. Naturally, she wouldn't have raised her son to be a bookworm.

Even though he was being openly disrespectful to Wu Tian, Wu Wei didn't want to bottle up his sense of grievance over something like this.

By blood, he did have to obey Wu Tian.

But that didn't mean he had to be a puppet.

Especially when he sensed that things might be heading in a different direction.

Wu Tian thought for a moment, then said hesitantly, "We don't even know for sure that Zhao Xin is my son. Maybe you're overthinking it."

"The moment you get the test, he'll be your son, whether he is or not. What era are we living in? Is faking a test really that hard? Even without faking it, is it that hard to switch the blood sample?" Wu Wei stated his view forcefully. "It's obvious what's going on. Zhao Xin really is your son, or someone wants him to be your son. Don't play dumb, Dad. You're no fool, and I don't like the way you're acting."

Wu Tian fell silent.

He knew Wu Wei was right.

If Zhao Xin wasn't his son, then someone wanted Zhao Xin to be his son.

In all these years, hadn't Zhao Liang ever looked into whether he was Zhao Xin's father?

In the end, Wu Tian was just clinging to wishful thinking.

"What Mom hated most about you was this indecisiveness of yours, always trying to please everyone," Wu Wei said coldly.

Wu Tian finally spoke. "So you think it'd be better to be heartless and cold, with no regard for anyone, like your mother?"

"Mom wasn't heartless and cold. She was just good to her own people," Wu Wei retorted at once. "Some people don't deserve her kindness. Why should she care what they think?"

"Then what about me? Don't I deserve it either?"

"You brought it on yourself, Dad. At its core, a man who tries to please everyone is a scumbag. I agree with Mom. I know you never cheated after you got married, but you still deserved what you got. A married man should know where to draw the line."

"But after she got married, she spent all her time with other men, working on some God-Conferring Project! How was that any different from me?"

"The difference is that my mother was building her career, while you were deliberately getting back at her," Wu Wei said calmly.

Maybe Lin Shen had brainwashed him.

But Wu Wei truly believed that Wu Tian's lack of confidence had destroyed the love between him and Lin Shen.

"Dad, if Mom had really liked someone else, you never would've stood a chance from the start. You know that. You were always the one with the least going for him."

"I'm your father. Is that any way to talk to me?"

"I love you, Dad, and I love the truth. And the truth is, you lack confidence and have nothing to back yourself up. That's why I won't become another you. You want me to grow up unfettered. You want me to have more happiness. You think Mom was suppressing my nature. But a man can never truly be happy without the accomplishments and status to match.

"Life as an adult is never easy. Freedom without restraint is just a utopian fantasy. I understood that when I was ten. You're forty this year, and you still don't get it."

Wu Tian pointed toward the door and shouted at Wu Wei, "Get out! I don't have a son like you!"

Wu Wei felt a pang in his heart, but he didn't regret it.

"I'll handle the Zhao Xin situation. Dad, trust me. With your temperament, you can't resolve a problem like this."

With that, Wu Wei turned and headed for the door.

Wu Tian parted his lips, wanting to call Wu Wei back, but in the end, he said nothing.

He was in agony.

As he watched Wu Wei's retreating figure, Wu Tian's tears flowed uncontrollably.

He remembered a passage he had once loved:

"Slowly, very slowly, I came to understand that being a father, daughter, mother, or son only meant that, in this lifetime, your fate was to keep watching their figure grow smaller as they walked away.

"You stand on one side of the path, watching them disappear around the bend. And with their back turned, they silently tell you: Don't follow."

Don't follow!