Compared to her own situation, Du Yuxi was more troubled by the disdain and contempt in Ye Mengzhen’s tone when mentioning Du Anrao. The repeated emphasis made her feel increasingly like one of the primary culprits behind Du Anrao’s suffering, filling her with intense guilt.
Du Anrao noticed this reaction and couldn't help but feel moved.
*Being bullied to this extent and still speaking up for me—my Fourth Sister is actually a pretty good person. But Ye Mengzhen, why does that name sound so familiar?*
President Xi had just stepped into the restaurant entrance when a voice suddenly appeared in his mind, causing him to pause mid-step.
The middle-aged man leading the way forward, realizing Xi had stopped, turned around with an anxious expression. "President Xi, is something wrong?"
"It’s nothing. Let’s go in."
The middle-aged man breathed a sigh of relief. "Right, right, this way, President Xi. We’ve reserved the innermost private room."
On the other side, Du Yuxi stiffened. She realized something suddenly and instinctively wanted to turn her head, but she held herself back.
Compared to her, Mother Du’s state of mind was far more complex. She felt heartache for the daughter she had raised since childhood and was incensed by Ye Mengzhen’s bullying and attempts to incite conflict between the two sisters. At the same time, she felt a sense of relief at Du Yuxi’s defense of Du Anrao and Du Anrao’s acceptance of Du Yuxi.
Of course, upon hearing Du Anrao’s final sentence, Mother Du immediately thought of yesterday’s events, and her ears perked up instantly.
Fortunately, Du Anrao did not disappoint her expectations.
*Found it!*
Mother Du’s spirit soared, but Du Anrao’s next thought sent her heart plummeting to the bottom of a ravine.
*Oh my goodness, my Fourth Sister is just too pitiful!*
Mother Du: "!!!"
Du Yuxi: "???"
Having heard several consecutive internal monologues, Xi Jingyue finally confirmed that the one he heard before entering wasn't a hallucination. He stopped again just before entering the private room, narrowed his eyes, and scanned the restaurant to identify where those voices were coming from.
Seeing this, the middle-aged man’s heart skipped a beat. He called out uncertainly, "President Xi?"
"The room is a bit stuffy. Let’s eat out here."
"This..." The man was confused. Isn't this gentleman someone who hates noise the most? Why the sudden change in temperament?
Xi Jingyue couldn't be bothered to explain. He just said in a deep voice, "Is there a problem?"
"...Of course not!" You are the boss; whatever you say goes!
During the gap in their conversation, Du Anrao had already scanned through the entire book at a glance.
The book involving Ye Mengzhen was a "popular heroine" trope story about a swapped wealthy heiress being pampered. The protagonist was a fake heiress who had been switched into a wealthy family to live a life of luxury, and Ye Mengzhen was one of her best friends in the early chapters.
But that wasn't the point. The point was that her Fourth Sister, Du Yuxi, was actually the notorious, vicious female supporting character in this book—the true heiress who had been swapped out of the wealthy family!
Seeing this, Du Anrao froze. That's not right. Wasn't it she who was swapped with Du Yuxi? Where did this Miss Li come from?
Mother Du and Du Yuxi were also stunned. They didn't even care about Ye Mengzhen’s increasingly desperate cursing and sarcasm; they focused entirely on listening to Du Anrao’s internal voice.
Du Yuxi even began to wonder if these thoughts suddenly appearing in her head were just hallucinations born of her own anxious, self-comforting daydreams over the past few days.
*Oh... so that’s how it was. There weren't two children born in that hospital; there were three.*
These words hit Mother Du and Du Yuxi like a thunderbolt. Three—there were actually three of them!
According to the book’s setting, Miss Li’s biological mother, Wang Xuehe, and her biological father were both human traffickers. During one of their transactions, their tracks were exposed. The father was caught, but Wang Xuehe escaped while pregnant.
Coincidentally, that year, a massive storm in Y Province triggered a mudslide. Wang Xuehe, Mother Du—who was in Y Province for business and travel—and Mother Li were all caught in the catastrophe.
Wang Xuehe gave birth to her daughter first, only to discover that the infant suffered from a congenital heart defect.
The medical expenses required for such a condition were exorbitant—far beyond what she could afford, especially while she was on the run.
In her desperation, she encountered two other women who had been brought to the same hospital to give birth due to the mudslide.
Mother Du was luckier; she had only been startled and went into premature labor. The situation with the late Mother Li was much more serious.
Between the rainstorm and the mudslide, a pileup occurred as travelers tried to drive away. Father Li died on the spot protecting his wife and child, and Mother Li, clinging to a final thread of life, was rushed to the hospital, where she died after giving birth.
*I have to say, this fake heiress’s biological mother was quite talented. After secretly observing and realizing that both of our families were well-off, she started plotting the swap. She chose the Li family not only because the couple was dead—meaning there was an inheritance to take and the Li family would treat the orphan of their relatives well—but more importantly, her daughter shared the same blood type as Fourth Sister: Type B.*
Mother Du’s expression shifted slightly. Isn't that right? Their family members were all Type A; only Yuxi was Type B.
If they hadn't accidentally discovered that, they would never have known their child had been swapped.
Du Yuxi was completely bewildered. She was indeed Type B, and when the Du family had investigated Du Anrao’s parents earlier, it was mentioned that those two were highly likely to be human traffickers with criminal records.
Because of this, she had felt especially guilty toward Du Anrao, believing the swap had been her parents' doing, and that even though she knew nothing, she was the beneficiary of this farce and should naturally bear the weight of that sin.
But now, she was being told she might be a victim herself—that those people weren't her biological parents, and that her real parents had passed away as soon as she was born.
Du Yuxi’s heart was in turmoil; she didn't know whether to feel fortunate or heartbroken.
By now, the truth was clear.
Wang Xuehe, fearing that her daughter’s blood type would mismatch the target family and be discovered during medical treatment, had chosen Du Yuxi, who shared her daughter's blood type.
Worried about leaving other clues, she simply performed a complete shuffle.
She swapped her daughter into the Li family, swapped the Li family’s real daughter, Du Yuxi, into the Du family, and then left the hospital early with her own biological daughter, Du Anrao.
It was a time of natural disasters and car accidents; the hospital was overcrowded and severely understaffed, which gave her the perfect opportunity to successfully pull off the switch.
As the book predicted, Miss Li, treated as the orphaned child of relatives and suffering from a congenital heart defect, was brought back to the Li family and well cared for. Du Yuxi grew up safely in the Du family.
Only Du Anrao was taken back to the countryside by Wang Xuehe and dumped with her parents. Not only was she beaten and scolded daily, but she also had to endure the pointing and whispering of neighbors because of her "fake parents," and she died of illness after only a few years.
She wasn't even mentioned until near the end of the book, where she was dismissed in a single sentence without even being granted a name.
Seeing this, Du Anrao thought: *...*
*What a vicious book! It’s a world where only I suffer!*