"What are you talking about!"
A young man who looked to be in his early twenties finally lost his patience. He sprang to his feet and strode toward Xia Zhiyi, looking as though he meant to hit him.
Xia Zhiyi did not dodge. He simply smiled as he watched the others hold the young man back, his smile looking utterly mocking at that moment. "I'm only stating the facts."
"Mr. Song, I believe I've made myself very clear. Neither my sister nor I have any interest in your family, or in the assets you insist on leaving us out of some unknown sense of guilt."
"And as for you, young Mr. Song, instead of baring your teeth at me right now, why don't you think about who's actually to blame for things coming to this?"
"Before all this happened, I had no idea my mother was the daughter who ran away from Mr. Song's home all those years ago. Nor did I know Mr. Song had suddenly decided to leave shares to my sister and me. None of those were decisions I forced Mr. Song to make."
"If anything..."
Xia Zhiyi met Song Guosheng's darkening eyes and gave a laugh before saying, "My sister and I are merely victims of Mr. Song growing senile and making reckless decisions."
Song Guosheng said, "...Is that what you think?"
Xia Zhiyi said, "What else would I think?"
Song Guosheng said, "I only wanted you and your sister to have a better life. Your parents..."
Xia Zhiyi had no interest in listening to him play on their family ties and cut him off. When he spoke again, little remained of the smile he had maintained, and his tone was calm. "You'd better not mention my parents, Mr. Song. After all, once I realized this whole series of decisions stemmed from guilt, combined with this car accident, it's hard not to question how my parents died."
"That's nonsense! You..."
Song Guosheng's expression was ugly as he snapped, "Song Fei! Shut up!"
Watching this, Xia Zhiyi tugged at the corners of his mouth and smiled. "I hope it is nonsense."
"There's no point talking when we have nothing in common. I only came today to make things clear to Mr. Song. I don't want anything your family has, and I hope you won't drag my sister and me into pointless disputes just to satisfy your own selfish desires again."
"I don't understand the unwritten rules of wealthy families like yours. All I know is that if someone tries to hurt me, all I can do is call the police."
As he spoke, Xia Zhiyi tilted his head and deliberately added a touch of innocence to his voice. "Or has the Song family become so powerful that you can control the judicial authorities?"
Song Guosheng said, "..."
The young man named Song Fei had his mouth covered and was restrained by another member of the Song family beside him. This time, he finally could not shout at Xia Zhiyi again.
Xia Zhiyi finally stopped lingering as well. He turned and left.
Only after he left was Song Fei released. He cast a cold glance at Song Tian, who had been restraining him, sneered, and tugged at the hem of his shirt. "You got to play the good guy. Of course, no one from your branch is getting locked up this time, and Grandpa even gave you some shares. You ought to thank that little bastard for helping you get rid of a rival."
Song Tian's expression soured at his words, and he glanced at Song Guosheng.
But Song Guosheng had slumped back against his chair, clutching his chest and gasping. Beside him, Song Tian's mother, Ji Wei of the second branch, hurriedly took out his medicine and gave it to him.
Once Song Guosheng recovered, the first thing he did was push Ji Wei's hand away. He swept a cold gaze over everyone in the room before finally resting his eyes on the members of the Song family's second branch beside him.
He said, "Are you satisfied now?"
Ji Wei looked aggrieved at his words. "What do you mean by that, sir? My Tianfeng has been named as one of the suspects too. He's under travel restrictions and couldn't even come to see his young nephew. I never imagined anyone in our family would be so brazen as to actually hire a killer."
Song Guosheng sneered. He staggered as he stood up, and the Song family's eldest daughter-in-law beside him caught him.
Feeling the weakness in his body, Song Guosheng felt nothing but cold inside.
He had never imagined that, after he divided most of the family assets between his eldest and second sons' households and left only a few shares to his youngest daughter's children, his eldest and second sons would express understanding to his face, only to go after those two children behind his back.
Nor had he imagined that the accident his eldest grandson had confidently claimed would go undetected would be exposed by this maternal grandson he had never had contact with before, who had gone straight to the police and brought it all out into the open!
And what angered Song Guosheng most today was Xia Zhiyi's revelation that he had noticed something was wrong because of a text message he received on his phone.
Someone had tipped him off, leading to the current outcome.
The people who had acted belonged to the eldest branch, so who could have tipped him off?
It could only have been the second branch.
Song Tian spoke up then. "Grandpa, that text message Xia Zhiyi mentioned might not be real. Even if it is, it wasn't necessarily someone from our branch who sent it. After all, before it happened, we didn't know our cousins would actually dare do something like that."
Ji Wei added, "Exactly, sir. We really didn't do this. Everyone knows how close the two Song brothers are. Both your eldest son and Tianfeng are very filial toward you. If Song Teng hadn't made a momentary mistake..."
Song Fei's mother, Chen Yi, said pointedly, "Who knows whether someone egged my son on, making him lose his head and do something wrong? Song Teng has always cared for his younger siblings. Besides, few of the younger generation knew about the will before this. I never told my sons, but the same might not be true of you, Sister-in-law."
Ji Wei immediately looked even more aggrieved. "Sister-in-law, what are you saying? I..."
Seeing that the two households were about to argue, Song Guosheng barked coldly, "Enough!"
Song Guosheng looked at them with icy eyes. "Haven't you embarrassed yourselves enough? We can't get through to Xia Zhiyi for now. Go home and think of another way."
The members of the Song family said, "...All right."
Xia Zhiyi did not know that the Song family had started arguing after he left.
He was standing at the hotel entrance, waiting for the car he had booked to pick him up. Through the curtain of rain, he watched the passing vehicles and considered how the Song family might react next.
However, once hiring a killer was established as fact, it became a criminal case. Even obtaining the victim's forgiveness did not mean the case would automatically be dropped.
Ordinary people might not understand these things, but the Song family retained a team of lawyers and should have understood them very well. That was why they had not pestered him over this matter.
Still, by reporting it to the police, Xia Zhiyi had certainly made enemies of the Song family.
But so what?
Just then, Xia Wanyi called.
Xia Zhiyi said, "Sis, I've already left. I'll be back in a bit."
Xia Wanyi said, "That's all right. It's raining today, so tell the driver to take it slowly."
"I just wanted to ask, Zhiyi, would you like to go on a variety show?"