Chapter 85
Chapter 85
Chapter 85
Walls have ears.
Soon, rumors began to spread wildly that Su Shengli’s patron was the very uncle who had once advocated for the young Yu Family Patriarch during his childhood, maneuvering through family and corporate politics for years.
In Mingcheng, aside from the few who had personally visited the Yu family in Iceland, no one else had the faintest idea that Su Shengli had become Yu’s second uncle’s toyboy.
Even fewer knew that the Yu family’s Mingcheng branch director was none other than the Yu Family Patriarch himself, or that Gu Yubai—an ordinary male chemistry student at Mingcheng University—was the future matriarch.
The Su family certainly wouldn’t volunteer this information.
Because, not long after his return, Su Shengli—who had seemed to harbor deep resentment toward the Su family for their past actions—melted under the doting care and attention of his former relatives. Soon enough, he forgave them.
He even went so far as to play matchmaker, securing several lucrative collaborations for the Su family himself.
Because of this, rumors circulated that the Su family intended to re-adopt Su Shengli as their foster son, relist him in the family registry, and ensure he received every perk due to a Su family heir.
At night, a group of young men—who had once been Su Shengli’s followers before falling out with him—gathered for drinks and gossiped about him behind his back.
“The False Young Master has really made something of himself! This is far more stable than when he was quaking as the Su family’s impostor heir and foster child. If he weren’t still clinging to the Su family, even my mother would’ve been willing to adopt him. Look how quickly things changed—the Su family’s bottom line ballooned this month alone. Even my family is seething with envy.”
“No kidding. Two years ago, everyone thought he was a disgraced mongrel slinking away. If he hadn’t left so quickly, I would’ve sent someone to put him in his place. Hmph, who told him to act so arrogant and domineering back then, treating us like errand boys?”
“But who would’ve thought! He actually had the gall to return! And with such luck—the Yu Family Patriarch’s own uncle is willing to back him!”
One of them suddenly raised his head, frowning hard as if struck by a thought. He slammed the table.
“But what I heard was that the Yu Family Patriarch’s second uncle isn’t his backer at all—Su Shengli is his lover!”
“As for those resources he’s giving the Su family, who knows where he really got them?”
“The Su family isn’t what it used to be either. If there’s profit to be had, of course they’d rush to reclaim their golden goose. Who cares how the gold got there?”
His face was full of mockery, but his tone was firm. When he looked up, he saw the stunned expressions around him.
“You’re serious? Su Shengli is being kept? How does someone who was once a bona fide young master stoop so low as to become the very kind of person he used to despise?”
His companions wore disbelief.
Their dislike for Su Shengli stemmed from the fact that they had once been friends and companions.
But Su Shengli had treated them like human doormats, acting arrogantly and disrespectfully just because the Su family favored him.
When the Su family chose him over the True Young Master, he outright dismissed their years of friendship and openly treated them as disposable lackeys.
Back then, they had endured countless humiliations at his hands, forced to kowtow because of their families’ positions.
That was when they realized their true worth in Su Shengli’s eyes—and their hearts turned cold.
Eventually, nearly all of Su Shengli’s former friends quietly distanced themselves. When he faced cyberbullying later, none of them lifted a finger to help.
Dislike aside, they had once been friends. Even without contact now, they still tracked his movements.
Hearing that Su Shengli had abandoned his dignity to become some sugar daddy’s toyboy—the very thing he used to loathe—was something they simply couldn’t believe.
Su Shengli had always been so proud.
Seeing their skepticism, the man flushed red and hastily pulled up a short video on his phone.
“Don’t believe me? Fine, but I’m not lying. My family didn’t get an invite to the Yu family’s overseas betrothal gala, but my friend in Haicheng did.”
“He thought Su Shengli looked familiar, so he secretly recorded a clip and sent it to me, asking who this guy was—how someone so young and refined could stoop to being a fifty-something’s arm candy.”
“Even if the old man is the Yu Family Patriarch’s uncle, it’s still a disgraceful compromise.”
After watching the video, the group fell into silence.
Having frequented countless banquets and parties, they had their own ways of discerning people’s roles.
Su Shengli’s attire in the video clearly wasn’t that of a legitimate guest.
The young man who had been so adamant about Su Shengli’s innocence now wore a sheepish grin.
“Haha, your friend’s focus is off. If I had the chance to attend the Yu Family Patriarch’s engagement banquet, I’d sneak a photo of the patriarch himself—maybe even see who he’s engaged to.”
He muttered, “Why film Su Shengli? This footage should’ve stayed buried. If it leaks, Su Shengli will be completely humiliated in Mingcheng.”
Someone else sneered.
“You think others don’t know? Everyone’s whispering about it. If the Su family weren’t backing Su Shengli now, someone would’ve already come gunning for him.”
“Besides, the Su family has long stopped caring about face. Didn’t you just say it yourself? As long as the cash flow stays strong, who cares how they’re obtained?”
“The Su family isn’t what it used to be. Sure, they’re putting on airs, but everyone knows the patriarch’s mistress is about to give birth to his illegitimate child. And Mrs. Su? Pfft, she’s probably still at the club, clinging to her third himbo…”
The moment the words left his mouth, mocking smiles spread across the room.
Everyone knew the biggest joke in Mingcheng right now was betting on when this once-loving couple would finally divorce.
But it wouldn’t be long now.
“Just one more quiet push, and the matrimonial alliance between the Su and Song families will dissolve completely. After that, the Song family will have no seat at the table in Su family affairs.”
Standing by the floor-to-ceiling window, Su Shengli spoke coolly as he watched surveillance footage of Song Manman surrounded by himbos at a VIP lounge. His eyes glinted with cold calculus.
The boy in the pink suit, treated like a caged canary at the engagement banquet, was nowhere to be seen. Instead, his face was twisted with venom and hatred so thick it seemed to blacken the air.
In the darkness, another person sat on the sofa.
Unsurprised by Su Shengli’s resentment toward the Su family, he taunted, “She was the foster mother who once coddled you like porcelain. Do you really have the heart to leave her with nothing?”
Su Shengli scoffed. “Nothing? How could she have nothing? Aside from being Mrs. Su, she’s still the second daughter of the Song family’s old guard. With her penthouses, sports cars, and diamonds, how could she ever be called destitute?”
Besides, if she could so easily abandon him just because he wasn’t her biological son, why should he hold back?
He was only twenty, but hatred had long since taken root in his heart.
He hated how the Su family had pampered him like a treasure, only to reveal they had never truly cared.
He hated how blind he had been, mistaking their strategic affections for genuine love.
Song Manman, Su Wanlin, and the two-faced Su Linyuan—he wouldn’t let a single one of them off the hook!
Once, he had been lifted to the pinnacle. Once, he had been ground into the dirt.
Fortunately, he wasn't hopelessly foolish. After experiencing the darkness of human nature, he came to his senses in time and turned away from the falsehoods encountered in his youth, only realizing too late that he had almost completely fallen into the mud, unable to climb out from that abyss.
Now that he has painstakingly gathered a shred of strength, how could he possibly be deceived by the Su family's honeyed words?
The Su family values profit, doesn't it? What a coincidence, now he too believes that genuine feelings are no match for profit.
In the darkness, Su Shengli gritted his teeth, every word he spat out seemed to carry a chill, ice-cold.
"I hate them for abandoning me piece by piece. I hate them all for being shallow, caring more about money than people. I hate them for treating me like a beggar, thinking that by throwing me crumbs, they could cut me off completely!"
"This whole time, I've been living in a lie."
The Su family should pay dearly for this!
His status and position were never something a True Young Master who had been cast out for nearly a decade could shake.
He and Gu Yubai had never been enemies; truth be told, they were actually fighting the same enemies.
Su Shengli gave a bitter laugh.
He suddenly turned his head and asked the young man on the sofa.
"Have you found the person I asked you to look for?"
The young man nodded: "Ever since she was released from prison, she's been where we can watch her."
Only then did Su Shengli nod in satisfaction: "There's no reason why the Su family could use Zhou Jiarou to control my every move back then, while I can't use her to get my revenge."
"It's good that she's out of prison. Her hatred for the Su family is no less than mine."
It was during those two years of desperate wandering abroad that Su Shengli finally understood everything had been under the Su family's control all along.
The fact that he wasn't the Su family's biological child was known to Su Wanlin, known to Song Manman, yet none of them spoke up.
Su Wanlin saw him as a pet raised by the Su family, petted when convenient, and used to make money for the Su family when needed.
Song Manman thought he was a test-tube baby created with another woman; though his blood differed from hers, their genes were similar, so she doted on him as her own son.
But later, when his origins were exposed, the outside world looked at him with strange eyes, and Gu Yihong even had the audacity to make trouble at the Su family.
Even so, they still didn't abandon him, and he thought this was love.
When Zhou Jiarou, this false mother, appeared at the Recognition Banquet, Su Shengli didn't understand why Su Wanlin so decisively acknowledged her as his mother. Only later did he realize Su Wanlin wanted to give him a 'plausible backstory' to end the controversy of the true and false young masters, lest it affect Song Manman.
Moreover, it served to boost Su Group's stock prices.
Later, Zhou Jiarou inexplicably started hounding him, and not long after, his true origins were exposed. Then, the supposedly loving Su Wanlin and Song Manman truly abandoned him.
Yet, even then, they didn't kick him out of the Su family.
He thought this was the adults compromising yet still loving him despite the trouble he brought. Back then, he didn't ask for much—just that the Su family would still love him, still let him be the young master of the Su family, even if only as an adopted son, he would have been content.
But later, when his name was truly erased from the Su family registry, and all of Mingcheng knew that Su Shengli was disowned because his maternal uncle had inadvertently caused his grandmother's death, leading the Su family to sever ties with him as one of their enemies—Su Shengli felt as if hit over the head, suddenly realizing he had never been valued by the Su family.
Their love had always been a sham.
His uncle's arrest and sentencing were accidents. His willingness to take sole blame for hiring assassins to kill Gu Yubai was even more of an accident.
Though he had always looked down on his uncle, he had to admit that perhaps the only person in this world who had ever truly loved him was his uncle.
Though that love was also flawed, it was still genuine.
During his wanderings, he went over and over in his mind how he had step by step become a discarded pawn.
He thought about how Gu Yubai had never intended to return to the Su family, about how Yu Li had it in for him and thus wouldn't bolster his standing in the Su family.
He thought about how the Su patriarch, due to his wife's early death, had held a grudge and biases against him for over a decade, and finally, he thought of Zhou Jiarou, who had inexplicably appeared to harass him back then.
At that time, was Zhou Jiarou's harassment merely for extorting money?
No, she was clearly a tool, planted to harass him and lure out his uncle!
His complete expulsion from the Su family was solely because his uncle's identity was exposed!
Yet Su Shengli refused to believe that Su Wanlin and Su Linyuan hadn't noticed anything amiss.
He had complained several times to Su Linyuan about Zhou Jiarou's harassment, yet the latter did nothing.
Belatedly, he realized it was simply because he wasn't important.
Thus, he hated.
His gradual transformation into a throwaway piece for the Su family was undoubtedly aided by their indifference and, whether intentional or not, their subtle encouragement.
So he made a deal with the devil, using someone else to do his dirty work!
Soon, news that the Su family had taken Su Shengli back in spread throughout Mingcheng.
Su Shengli and the Su family had truly reconciled, shocking everyone who knew the backstory.
For a time, people couldn't decide whether to call Su Shengli a fool and too forgiving, or the Su family too cunning, able to coax back a child who clearly resented them yet lacked love.
Indeed, after all, Su Shengli grew up in the Su family. Despite his bitter hatred, he still cared for them.
Soon, invitations to the banquet specially held by the Su family to celebrate Su Shengli's return were distributed to most of Mingcheng's high society.
Gu Yubai got his invitation too.