When Sheng Yuxiao brought Li Xiaoya to the police station, they arrived just as the local authorities were transferring suspects.
Li Jiang was also restrained in a wheelchair, being pushed forward by police officers.
The three parties met in the narrow corridor.
"Li Jiang! You bastard, how dare you implicate us?" The Village Chief and his son were the first to see Li Jiang, and they started shouting hysterically.
Li Jiang looked at them coldly: "How could I be the only one to suffer for this?"
"Li Jiang! I'll curse your ancestors!"
Sheng Yuxiao frowned and raised his hand to cover Li Xiaoya's ears.
At this moment, Li Jiang also saw them.
Li Jiang's face bore various degrees of abrasions. He tried to smile but winced in pain as his facial muscles twitched. He immediately had to retract his smile.
"Xiaoya, have you come to plead for me?" Li Jiang asked.
"Xiaoya?" The Village Chief and his son turned their heads with difficulty upon hearing this, and also saw Li Xiaoya, along with Sheng Yuxiao standing beside her.
"Young Master Sheng! Please save us, isn't my granddaughter still at your house?" The Village Chief cried out, trying to kneel down, but was firmly held up by the police.
Sheng Yuxiao's lips twisted into a sneer, his tone cold and cruel: "Two wolves raising a little beast... You thought you could connect with high society through the opportunities you gained by underhanded means?"
"Have you been frogs at the bottom of a well for so long that you've come up with such delusional, idiotic ideas?"
"Rest assured, your granddaughter is definitely destined for juvenile detention in the future."
"You can go ahead and set a good precedent by being executed first."
Sheng Yuxiao's eyes narrowed, exuding a fierce aura.
"What did you say? How can you say such things?" The Village Chief's son glared with hatred.
One of the police officers couldn't help but cough lightly.
Sheng Yuxiao ignored them and took out his phone, finding a recording he had kept for a long time.
He pressed play.
...
"What if Young Master Sheng finds out the truth..."
"Dad, you're overthinking it. So what if he knows? It's just recording a show, who would care about a little girl without parents?"
...
The voices of the Village Chief and his son came clearly from the phone.
It was evidently a conversation they had at home, discussing how to spread rumors to replace Li Xiaoya's spot, and planning how to prevent Li Xiaoya from meeting Sheng Yuxiao...
At this, all the police officers present furrowed their brows.
So there was such a backstory to the show...
To say they had done every evil deed possible was truly not an exaggeration.
Unexpectedly, their true colors were exposed in front of so many people.
The Village Chief shouted in a rage: "When did you record this? So you knew all along! You... you... you were toying with us?!"
"Is it called toying with you when I'm just repeating what you did?" Sheng Yuxiao sneered.
Li Xiaoya was still a bit dazed.
So... she was the one originally chosen for the show?
But the Village Chief had manipulated things to replace her with Li Qingqing.
Sheng Yuxiao's gaze was still fixed on the Village Chief and his son, but his hand raised to rest on Li Xiaoya's head, stroking her cheek. This was a comforting gesture.
"Do you know what this is called?" Sheng Yuxiao asked.
"Does the high and mighty young master want to talk about karma?" The Village Chief's son cursed loudly.
"It's called destiny. No matter how you package yourselves, you can't turn a pile of cow dung into flowers. And no matter how hard you try to hide a pearl, even if you bury it in the ground and cover it in mud, it will still shine."
"You are that pile of cow dung, so is Li Qingqing, and so is Li Family Village... and you too, Li Jiang. It's destined that no matter how hard you try, no matter what you sacrifice, what doesn't belong to you will ultimately disappear! Because you don't deserve it, understand?"
Sheng Yuxiao turned away contemptuously, hugging Li Xiaoya as they walked into a nearby meeting room.
They could only watch as the door closed behind the two.
Li Xiaoya...
That damned Li Xiaoya, they now desperately reached out their hands, but couldn't even touch the soles of her shoes...
"Sheng Yuxiao! You rich young master, what do you know..."
Their voices gradually faded away as the police led them off.
In the meeting room.
A police officer brought them two cups of warm water.
Sheng Yuxiao didn't drink, instead pushing both cups in front of Li Xiaoya and saying: "Wait for me here."
"Am I not going?" Li Xiaoya looked up and asked.
"Mm, adults need to say some dirty words, children shouldn't listen."
Li Xiaoya corrected him: "You're not an adult either, you're not of age yet."
Sheng Yuxiao smiled: "Next month is my birthday. By the way, Ning Heng called me and said you gave Qin Sui a very precious birthday gift."
"Ah..." Li Xiaoya's gaze flickered. How did Ning Heng know?
"What will you give me? I'm already looking forward to it. Xiaoya, take your time to think about it." Sheng Yuxiao patted her head and turned to walk out.
As soon as he left the room, Sheng Yuxiao's face completely changed.
This was the Young Master Sheng who had originally come to Li Family Village.
It's just that he had spent so much time with Li Xiaoya that he seemed to have become more good-tempered.
"You only have half an hour for the conversation." A person who looked like a lawyer approached Sheng Yuxiao.
Sheng Yuxiao said: "I won't need half an hour."
Then he pushed open the door behind the lawyer.
Li Jiang was sitting inside.
"Young Master was very impressive just now." Li Jiang looked up askance and said, "It's really Xiaoya's luck to meet young masters like you who were born with silver spoons in your mouths. No wonder she stopped caring about me so quickly..."
Sheng Yuxiao couldn't be bothered to respond to his words, only casually tossing a file folder in front of him.
"Why don't you open it yourself and take a look?" Sheng Yuxiao said, then paused, his lips curling into a smirk, "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot, you don't have hands now."
"With your hands crushed like that, the fact that you survived after emergency treatment, is it because trash like you is particularly good at enduring torture?"
Beads of sweat appeared on Li Jiang's forehead, his teeth clenched tightly, making an uncontrollable grinding sound.
"Let me open it for you. You went to high school, so you surely know what this is..."
Sheng Yuxiao pulled out a document and slapped it on his face.
The pages fell onto the table, and Li Jiang looked down.
A paternity test report.
"...Subject 1 and Subject 2, paternity relationship excluded"
"What's the use of saying you're her father a million times? Idiot."
Although he was very annoyed, Sheng Yuxiao still said: "As long as Xiaoya wants, she can be a daughter of the Sheng family, or a daughter of the Qin family... There's no one in this upper-class circle who doesn't like her."
"When you were lurking in the shadows, didn't you see with your own eyes how many people surrounded and supported her?"
"Just like Ms. Wei Wenyu back then. Honestly, vermin like you, forget about walking beside people like this, even if they accidentally stepped on you, they would feel unlucky and disgusted."
