“What are you doing?” Having been hugged out of nowhere, he didn’t immediately realise what was happening. “Let me hug you for a bit,” said Ming Luchuan. Ming Luchuan hugged him very tightly and, through the thin layers of their pyjamas, with their chests squeezed together, they could virtually feel each other’s heartbeat. Xia Wennan had no clue what had triggered Ming Luchuan’s sudden emotional outburst, and he wondered whether it was because Ming Luchuan was upset because the man he thought was his real father, wasn’t. At that moment, Xia Wennan put himself in Ming Luchuan’s shoes and was struck by grief as he empathised with his circumstances. He raised a hand and held Ming Luchuan, palm gently patting his back in an attempt to soothe him. After some thought, he said, “You once said that you despise Lu Wenxing. That man doesn’t deserve your sadness.” “I wasn’t sad,” Ming Luchuan said slowly. “But I have bad news for you.” Xia Wennan immediately drew back from his embrace and studied Ming Luchuan’s expression. “What is it?” “Lu Wenxing is my biological alpha father,” said Ming Luchuan. Xia Wennan froze and, thinking that he hadn’t conveyed his meaning to Ming Luchuan clearly, he said, “He isn’t. He personally told me that he and Ming Qin weren’t in a relationship. He said that there’s no way that they could possibly have a child.” Ming Luchuan only smiled, but his smile contained a hint of ridicule. “What do you mean?” Xia Wennan inquired. “Was he lying?”
“He wasn’t lying.” Ming Luchuan kept his gaze on Xia Wennan. “I’m not his and Ming Qin’s child.” When he heard what Ming Luchuan said, he suddenly recalled his absurd guess and grabbed onto Ming Luchuan’s arm. “You’re his and someone else’s child?” Ming Luchuan didn’t speak. Xia Wennan took that as a silent admission. “Didn’t you say that he and Ming Qin were together, but he never marked Ming Qin…” Ming Luchuan skipped right to the end of the movie, where the credits began to appear, and at the bottom of the cast list, there were seven or eight names who played the role of a student, one of which was Ming Qian. Ming Luchuan then adeptly returned to the thirty-seventh minute of the movie. The shot showed Lu Wenxing sitted on a stool, engrossed in carving, while around him, seven to eight students stood around and watched. Because the scene was wholly centred on Lu Wenxing’s face, there was only a single sweeping shot of the students’ faces. Had Xia Wennan been unprepared, he never would’ve noticed a student standing to the back of the group who looked extremely similar to Ming Qin. That student should be none other than Ming Qian. Afterwards, Ming Luchuan pressed pause on that shot and asked Xia Wennan, “Got it?” “Yeah.” Xia Wennan felt as if too many things had transpired in one night, as if it were a never-ending, bizarre dream. “He looks a lot like Ming Qin.”