Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Almost simultaneously, all eyes in the room turned towards Su Wanlin and the young man behind him.

Su Wanlin’s smile gradually faltered, though he managed to maintain a semblance of composure. The ‘Gu Yihong’ behind him, however, trembled uncontrollably the moment he was exposed, his eyes instantly welling up.

As people stared, the young man’s forehead beaded with fine sweat, his hands fidgeting helplessly, his panicked expression speaking volumes.

The true young master in the surveillance footage was nothing like this timid, reserved figure!

These were clearly two different individuals.

Timid and obedient—that was the demeanor of the young man before them. Wild and defiant, prone to turning a banquet into chaos at the slightest provocation, giving the Su family headaches yet leaving them helpless—that was the true nature of Gu Yihong.

This wasn’t meant to belittle anyone, but among a crowd of shrewd individuals accustomed to vying for advantage, Gu Yihong’s strong-willed and decisive personality was far more to their liking.

A timid, soft-spoken lamb would only become prey for them to tear apart, unworthy of even a second glance.

The Su family’s Recognition Banquet was effectively ruined.

Exchanging glances, the guests silently reassessed the value of the Su family’s True Young Master.

Both Su Wanlin and Su Linyuan, seasoned veterans of the business world, had been outmaneuvered by Gu Yihong, proving that he held no regard for the Su family whatsoever.

With a rebellious spirit and considerable cunning, even though he had just come of age, Gu Yihong hadn’t been swayed by the sudden display of wealth, power, or familial affection from the Su family. He refused to meekly sacrifice his rightful status and benefits to elevate the standing of the False Young Master at home.

Such clear-headed thinking—had they been in Su Wanlin and Su Linyuan’s shoes, the conflict between the True and False Young Masters would never have escalated in the first place.

There were countless ways to keep their preferred False Young Master at home, yet the Su family had chosen the most foolish and costly approach. Had they cut their losses and canceled the banquet before the Recognition Ceremony, the True Young Master, who had long made his true feelings towards the Su family clear, wouldn’t have repeatedly dragged their name through the mud.

Su Wanlin’s greatest folly was conflating business with family matters. The more the Su family had benefited from leveraging the True Young Master to announce they would raise both children, the more severe the backlash now.

The Su family had truly suffered a spectacular fall from grace this time.

Immediately, some pulled out their phones to contact assistants, instructing them to dump Su family stocks before the market reacted. Others even ordered their companies to work overtime, strategizing how much profit they could extract from the Su Group’s misfortune.

One person looked at Su Wanlin with a mix of exasperation and barely concealed schadenfreude, his tone heavy.

“Old Su, look at the mess you’ve made. This is entirely your fault. Even if the child truly had issues with you, you can’t just replace him with a fake!”

“A counterfeit is a counterfeit. No matter how much a diamond and glass may resemble each other, their values are worlds apart. How can they even be compared?”

“Out of respect for the old master, I’ll give you a piece of advice. No matter how much you and your wife dote on Shengli, the child you raised yourselves, you shouldn’t treat Yihong with such cold neglect. He’s your own flesh and blood. If you don’t care for him, plenty of others will. Tsk, tsk.”

Su Wanlin had truly lost his mind—discarding such an outstanding and decisive son, valuing a counterfeit more than his own flesh and blood.

Tonight’s banquet had doubled the Su family’s fake count. This joke would keep their social circle laughing at the Su family for years.

A flicker of venom crossed Su Wanlin’s eyes, though he forced a bitter smile.

“You don’t understand. Gu Yihong was willing to return to the Su family, but we said a few wrong things, and the child got angry and went traveling. But the invitations had already been sent out, so we had no choice but to find someone to fill in last-minute. The family will have Gu Yihong apologize to everyone properly later.”

“We just didn’t expect things to escalate like this. People online love to believe everything they hear. Shengli actually gets along quite well with Yihong. All our children are gems—there’s no such thing as cheap, inexplicable glass.”

Su Wanlin smiled amiably at the crowd.

“Excuse me,” he said, then quickened his pace towards the commotion around Song Manman. The moment he turned away, his smile vanished completely, the icy hostility in his eyes barely concealed. He had indeed underestimated Gu Yihong.

With a wave of his hand, attendants immediately stepped forward to escort away the shell-shocked ‘Gu Yihong’ standing at the center, along with the social media influencer Kind Bro nearby, who was live-streaming.

-----

Online, the scandal of the Su family hiring an actor to impersonate the True Young Master Gu Yihong at the Recognition Banquet was trending.

Leaked chat logs and bank transfer records provided smoking gun evidence that the Su family had orchestrated the impersonation. Combined with Gu Yihong’s earlier revelation that the surveillance footage had been leaked by Su Shengli, netizens were quick to roast the Su family.

Though Kind Bro’s livestream had been shut down, it didn’t matter—Gu Yihong was currently shopping at a mall in Japan, using his friend’s account to broadcast his outing while answering questions and ridiculing the Su family’s failed scheme.

Gu Yihong wore a wide, mocking grin.

“Originally, the Su family had three days to respond to me, but wouldn’t you know it—yesterday, the final day, I had no internet! It wasn’t until this afternoon, when I arrived at the Japanese immigration checkpoint, that I barely got a connection. And what do I see the moment I go online? My account—gone! The Su family had it banned! Turns out, I was the last person on the entire internet to know I was supposed to attend their Recognition Banquet!”

“What could I do? Luckily, my good friend here was kind enough to lend me his account for this livestream to set the record straight. Otherwise, I’d have been framed as some obedient prodigal son ready to reconcile. Oh, and since the Su family tried to muddy the waters while I’m stuck overseas, I might as well use my friend’s account to give everyone the final word.”

Gu Yihong’s expression turned serious.

The smile faded, replaced by a stern, solemn demeanor.

“Let me make this clear: I, Gu Yihong, have no real connection to the Su family. My surname is Gu. I was raised by my Gu family, and I am now a legal adult. From this moment on, I hope everyone will separate me from the Su family entirely. I am not some ‘True Young Master’—I am simply myself. I will not return to the Su family now, nor will I ever in the future.”

Having said that, his smile returned, his handsome face alight with mischief.

“I assume that without my consent, a dubious DNA test from the Su family can’t force me to become one of them, right? In that case, I shouldn’t need to bother with any formal legal disclaimers.”

“The truth is, I was never part of the Su family to begin with. My name is Gu, and I’m registered under my own family’s household registration. I hope the Su family will stop using this matter to harass me. Let this whole ‘True and False Young Master’ drama end here.”

“Oh, and one more thing—those so-called hacked chat logs circulating online have nothing to do with me. I didn’t orchestrate this. Call it karma at work. Please don’t drag me into it. I’m just an ordinary, innocent high school student. What do I know? Absolutely nothing!”

His stance couldn’t have been clearer—the Su family meant nothing to him.

He wasn’t someone who could be claimed by the Su family with a flimsy DNA test. He was his own person, wholly unconnected to them from start to finish.

And the hacker who’d exposed everything? Definitely not his doing!

After this statement, Gu Yihong cheerfully resumed shopping with his friend, enthusiastically showing off potential purchases for the livestream audience to judge. He chatted casually, never once bringing up the Su family again.

His decisive severance from the drama left netizens exhilarated.

“Now this is the Gu Yihong we know—untamed and unyielding! Not just anyone who looks like him can impersonate him!”

“Hahaha, you can tell he genuinely wants nothing to do with the Su family. No act, no ulterior motives—just pure disdain. I respect that. I wouldn’t have the guts to walk away from that kind of wealth.”

“If the Su family would fake their own son, who’s to say they won’t fake their products? I’m emptying my cart of their stuff right now! Thank goodness Gu Yihong saw through them. A kid like him would’ve been bullied into silence if he’d gone back.”

“Damn, channel this Gu Yihong energy—stay away from toxic people!”

Gu Yihong’s unilateral severance from the Su family would normally have drawn immediate PR spin from them.

But right now, Su Wanlin had bigger problems than the internet firestorm.

----------

No one knew how the middle-aged woman clutching Su Shengli’s leg had gotten in.

She appeared to be in her fifties, her face lined with wrinkles, streaks of gray threading through her disheveled hair.

This was an ordinary woman of humble means, life’s hardships etched into every inch of her rough hands, weathered cheeks, and weather-beaten neck.

A woman like her couldn’t possibly compare to the pampered, well-maintained Song Manman, who looked no older than her thirties.

Anyone’s first instinct would be to favor the elegant and refined Song Manman. Yet at this moment, Song Manman’s refined composure crumbled under the raw, gut-wrenching sobs of the middle-aged woman.

The woman was crying, her face streaked with tears as she knelt on the ground, clinging desperately to the young man's leg. Her choked words overflowed with maternal love for Su Shengli.

"Child, you're my birth son. I've been searching for you for nearly twenty years, and now I’ve finally found you. Come home with me, my boy. For you, your father and I almost divorced—he’s always longed for a son!"

The middle-aged woman's weeping was highly affecting, drawing more and more onlookers. Su Shengli seemed stunned, looking down dumbly at the woman before helplessly glancing at Song Manman, who stood nearby, her face twisted in fury.

He stammered, "Mom... Mom, come quick! Who is this woman?"

His gaze returned to the kneeling woman, taking in her disheveled, rough appearance. He couldn't help but reveal a trace of disdain and malice in his lowered eyes.

Who had instructed this woman to falsely claim him?

Gu Yihong... or Gu Yubai?

Su Shengli knew better than anyone that this woman couldn’t possibly be his birth mother.

But at this moment he was merely a naive eighteen-year-old. Even if he knew he wasn’t the Su family’s biological child, he shouldn’t act too certain. Snapping back to his confused expression, he turned pleading eyes toward Song Manman.

"Mom, who is she? Why is she calling herself my mother? Mom, come here—I don’t know how to handle this!"

A flash of panic appeared in Su Shengli’s eyes, perfectly portraying the flustered demeanor of a sheltered teenager.

Someone pushed Song Manman forward, saying pityingly, "Manman, your son’s real mother is here. Go see her—it’s heartbreaking. Look how she’s crying! This is a true mother and son reunion."

"Yeah, Mrs. Su, your family is known for charity. Even if you adore this boy, you can’t stand in the way of a mother and son reuniting, can you?"

Whether spoken with genuine feeling or sarcasm, their faces were all masks of sympathy.

Finally realizing what was happening at the banquet, Song Manman’s expression twisted violently. The sight of the middle-aged woman clutching Su Shengli’s leg made her head feel ready to burst.

How could this woman possibly be Su Shengli’s mother?

She wasn't fit! Not fit at all to be his mother!

Noticing Su Shengli’s fearful expression, Song Manman’s heart ached. She rushed forward, yanking the sobbing woman away. Hearing the crowd's seemingly gleeful urgings for a reunion, she let out a shrill scream.

"You’re lying! You’re not Shengli’s mother!"

"What low-class woman dares to impersonate my son’s mother? Tell me—who sent you to ruin this party? Was it Gu Yihong? I knew that illegitimate brat had no decency! He resents how we cherish Shengli—he’s jealous!"

"Go back and tell him: even if he drives Shengli away, we’ll never care for him! His father, his brother, and I—we’ll only ever love Su Shengli!"

Song Manman's customary gentility had disappeared, her face contorted with rage as she glared at the woman, as if she wanted to tear her apart on the spot.

This woman had lost her mind.

To treat her true son as disposable garbage while elevating an impostor to the heavens—how could she?

It wasn’t that such blatant favoritism was unheard of in their circles, but to so openly neglect and disdain one's own child was a disgrace.

While Su Wanlin had at least used conflicts as pretext with Gu Yihong, Song Manman had outright spoken her cruel truth.

And to think they’d once believed the Su family was above such pettiness. It turned out they were equally foul—only in a different way.

The Su family’s generations of goodwill crumbled in an instant.

The surrounding crowd's derisive looks now showed openly. Song Manman still didn't grasp what this meant for the Su family, but Su Wanlin did.

His face turned completely dark with fury as he clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Shut up! Do you want to make this banquet even more chaotic?"