Chapter 62: The Truth part 1
Ning Yunyi stood across the door, locked in a gaze with the Big Cat. For a fleeting second, he felt as though he had accidentally pried open Pandora’s box.
Otherwise, how could he be seeing the Big Cat as a black cat with emerald-green eyes?
This form was far too familiar to him. He had seen it almost every day recently, though the one before him was significantly larger than the little kittenâit was the exact beast form of Ning Xiaomiao.
Zong Hao regained his senses the moment he saw Ning Yunyi. He felt an inexhaustible well of mental power surging through him; he was in a better state than he had ever been in his life.
But in the next instant, just as he was about to speak to Ning Yunyi, the door slammed shut right in his face with a resounding clatter.
While Zong Hao stood there in a daze, Ning Yunyi leaned against the door that now blocked everything from view. He took a deep breath, forcing down his turbulent emotions to ensure the little cub wouldn’t notice anything was wrong.
Ning Xiaomiao looked up and tugged on his fatherâs hand, asking in confusion, “Father, aren’t we going to see Mao-Mao? Doesn’t Mao-Mao want to talk to me? Why did Father close the door so suddenly? Are we not talking to Mao-Mao anymore?”
Ning Yunyi smoothed his expression back into its usual calm. Hearing the cubâs voice, he crouched down and swept the little guy into his arms. He let the cub cling to his neck and rest his small head against his shoulder so the child wouldn’t see the storm of fury currently raging in his eyes.
His voice remained calm and gentle. “We are, but Father just remembered I prepared a gift for you. Do you want to go get it with Father first?”
The little guy’s attention was instantly diverted. He was overjoyed, hugging Ning Yunyi’s neck and bouncing with excitement. “I want it, I want it! Xiaomiao wants the gift first!”
Mao-Mao could be seen anytime, but a gift from Father was naturally more important than seeing a cat.
Ning Yunyi carried the little guy downstairs, his eyes cast downward to shield his true feelings.
He hadn’t expected that the original form the Big Cat would revert to, after successfully suppressing his mental riot and healing his wounds, would look like that.
That coat of pure black fur and those eyes… even if the shade was deeper than the little guy’s current eyes, they were clearly green in the sunlight.
There weren’t many shifters on the Capital Star, but there weren’t few, either.
However, to be a black cat with green eyesâthere was no way it could be such a coincidence. Not to mention, Ning Yunyi had already suspected that Xiaomiaoâs biological father was a member of the Zong family.
The same species, the same coat color, and the same eye color, combined with being a Zong… the buffs were stacked. Anyone who saw them now would say the two were carved from the same mold. No matter how one looked at it, Zong Hao was likely Ning Xiaomiaoâs biological father.
Ning Yunyi was so angry he wanted to laugh. One moment, he was thinking of Zong Hao as an ally to cooperate with; the next, he turned out to be the scumbag who had caused the original owner so much suffering. How could he not be furious?
If not for what happened back then, the original owner would have had a bright academic future. He would have graduated smoothly, become the next Professor Ning, and made a name for himself in his field. But what was the result?
The original owner was forced to take a leave of absence. Later, because of Xiaomiaoâs shifter status, he had to move out on his own. The family did everything they could to hide his identity. Finally, to prevent Xiaomiao from being discovered, the original owner had no choice but to leave the Capital Star when the Ning family fell into trouble. He fell into the traps set by Mu Jiayi and Ji Hao, and in the end… he died on a trash planet.
Thinking of everything the original owner had endured, how could Ning Yunyi not be angry?
For a split second, he even wondered if Zong Hao had known all along that Xiaomiao was his child. Otherwise, why would he have gone to such lengths to hide his original form?
But as he walked, he gradually calmed down. He felt that if Zong Hao actually had that kind of foresight, he wouldn’t have been so miserably schemed against by the Crown Prince. The manâs initial unfamiliarity with him and Xiaomiao didn’t seem faked.
In fact, Zong Hao had seen Xiaomiaoâs beast form countless times and hadn’t shown any abnormality, as if he… had never once suspected Xiaomiaoâs existence.
Ning Yunyi was not one to vent his anger on the innocent. He quickly identified the core of the issue: if Zong Hao had been unaware of the incident from the start, then his current behavior was logical.
The truth was likely that three or four years ago, Mu Jiayi had his sights set on the position of the Zong Family Headâs wife. He wanted to use an opportunity to have something happen with Zong Hao and then use his “lost purity” to climb the social ladder.
Something must have gone wrong during the process. Mu Jiayi ended up with Zong Ling, while the original owner accidentally ended up with Zong Hao.
In the aftermath, the original owner was so traumatized that he chose to forget that period. As for Zong Hao, something must have happened to him as well; otherwise, he wouldn’t be so easily controlled. Or perhaps, because of whatever happened, he simply didn’t know what had transpired and didn’t remember having an intimate encounter with anyone.
Thus, when the matter was on the verge of being exposed, Mu Jiayi, in order to suppress it, could only bite the bullet and pretend that he and Zong Ling had simply “accidentally” slept together, ultimately resulting in their engagement.
Mu Jiayi did this for two reasons: first, to cover up the fact that he had targeted Zong Hao, and second, because he didn’t want the original owner to benefit. He couldn’t let the original owner use the child to successfully latch onto Zong Hao and become the family head’s wife.
Mu Jiayi was later proven to likely be the Crown Princeâs man. Otherwise, the Crown Prince wouldn’t have chosen to support him after the Mu familyâs downfall, even handing little Lyman over to him to raise.
Mu Jiayi couldn’t have gained the Crown Princeâs trust in a short time. Unless, from the very beginningâor even long beforeâMu Jiayi had been the Crown Princeâs subordinate. Perhaps the entire Mu family was.
In that case, the incident a year ago where Zong Hao was sabotaged as a Marshal might not have been the first time the Crown Prince made a move. It started nearly four years ago. Back then, Mu Jiayi acted against Zong Hao on the Crown Princeâs orders, and since Mu Jiayi was also greedy for the position of the Zong familyâs matriarch, he had been very cooperative.
Itâs just that an accident occurred, leading the original owner to that same place, where he inadvertently ruined Mu Jiayiâs plan and ended up with Zong Hao instead.
Mu Jiayi had a mission. He was unwilling to tell the Crown Prince that he had not only failed but that the original owner had taken the position that was meant to be his. He also feared the Crown Princeâs punishment. Thus, he simply concealed the truth of the successful encounter, pretending he hadn’t succeeded and had instead ended up with Zong Ling.
The Crown Prince didn’t suspect anything and was afraid that making a move so soon would make Zong Hao suspicious. So, he simply changed his approach, letting Mu Jiayi and Zong Ling be together. As long as something happened to Zong Hao and Zong Ling became the Family Head, the Mu and Zong families would eventually fall into his hands.
From start to finish, the original owner and Zong Hao were merely victims of the Crown Princeâs plot to seize the Zong family. The real culprits were the Crown Prince and Mu Jiayi.
Knowing was one thing, but Ning Yunyi was still angry. Even if they were both victims, the original owner was the truly innocent oneâa complete sacrifice in their power struggle.
Even if Zong Hao was a victim, it was his unguarded trust in his so-called “good friend,” the Crown Prince, that gave others the opportunity. Although this might be unfair to Zong Hao, thinking about how the original owner was dragged into this mess because of him, leading to everything that followed, Ning Yunyi still felt a surge of resentment.
Not only that, but he had actually been thinking of letting Xiaomiao and the Big Cat build a bond! He had literally invited a wolf into his home.
Recommended Reads
thank you for the chapter!