Meanwhile, at the Jiang family residence, the air was thick with a suffocating stillness. Not only was the frequently absent father, Jiang Ke, present, but even Old Madam Song had made an appearance.
She was dressed in a black cheongsam [a traditional, high-necked form-fitting Chinese dress] embroidered with verdant bamboo and edged in red silk. Her fingers moved rhythmically over a string of Buddhist prayer beads, her expression a mask of serene detachment.
Jiang Xuan had been sequestered in her room to recuperate, but the Old Master had summoned her downstairs also. For days, consumed by the “loss of face” , she hadn’t dared to take a single step outside. Witnessing this somber assembly now, a cold sense of dread pooled in her stomach.
The tension broke slightly when Jiang Muhang arrived. “Muhang,” Jiang Xuan called out, her voice laced with relief.
He strode into the hall, his black suit jacket dusted with a layer of fresh snow. He shed the coat, tossing it aside with practiced ease. “Grandpa, Maternal Grandma, Dad, Mom—I’m back.” His handsome face remained an unreadable mask of ice as he took his seat beside Jiang Xuan.
“You’ve returned,” Old Master Jiang murmured. His eyes, usually sharp and vigorous despite his age, slowly slid open to fixate on his grandson.
The Old Master had always found his eldest grandson, Jiang Ci, to be a wild, untamable creature. He feared that Jiang Ci’s unruly nature would one day burn the Hengyuan Group and the Jiang legacy to the ground. Thus, he had always favored the younger, Jiang Muhang. While Jiang Muhang was cold, he was also compliant; he was a tool the Old Master could wield. He had felt at peace knowing the empire would pass into Muhang’s hands.
But now, the old man looked utterly defeated. His graying temples made him seem decades older. He stared at Jiang Muhang for a long beat before signaling the butler to present a document.
“This is a DNA paternity test,” he said, the report landing on the coffee table with a final, heavy thud.
Jiang Muhang’s eyes darkened, though his features remained frozen. Opposite him, Song Xiaoqing turned deathly pale, her eyes wide with a horror she couldn’t hide.
“Xiaoqing,” the Old Master said, his voice dropping to a dangerous low as he caught her reaction. “Aren’t you going to read it?”
“Dad, I…” Song Xiaoqing’s usual poised elegance shattered. She turned a pleading, desperate gaze toward her mother, Old Madam Song.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” the Old Master roared, his eyes finally igniting with a long-suppressed rage.
Jiang Muhang reached for the report. As his eyes scanned the results, his hand tightened until the paper was a mangled wreck in his fist. “Grandpa, this is a mistake.” He realized then that the old man had used the family housekeeper to investigate him in secret.
He had been too complacent. He had assumed the Old Master ignored Jiang Ci’s previous taunts, but he had underestimated the depths of the old man’s paranoid nature.
“I had Old Zhang handle the testing personally. He watched the lab every second until the results were printed. There is no mistake,” the Old Master spat. He had hoped his suspicions were wrong, but the truth was a slap in the face.
He had doted on this boy for twenty years. He had meticulously groomed an heir for the Jiang empire, only to find he had been raising a “bastard” [a stinging Chinese insult, zhaozhong, implying a child of an illicit affair].
“Xiaoqing, the Jiang family never mistreated you! And yet you allowed another man’s blood to infiltrate our lineage? You tried to hand our entire legacy to an outsider!” Veins throbbed at his temples as he slammed his palm onto the table. “Old Madam Song! How does your Song family intend to compensate us for this betrayal?”
The Buddhist beads in Old Madam Song’s hand stopped mid-turn. She looked up, her face a calm pond. “I will grant you ten percent of the Song family shares. It is indeed our side that has failed the Jiangs.”
“Ten percent?” the Old Master barked, his fury unabated. “You knew! You knew all along that he wasn’t ours! You sat by while my family raised a changeling. If I hadn’t found out, would our entire fortune have been stolen by this pretender?” He grabbed a celadon teacup [exquisite pale-green Chinese porcelain] and hurled it. It shattered into a thousand jagged pieces.
“I’ll take the shares, but this isn’t over,” he bellowed. “Now, get out of my house! All of you!”
Jiang Xuan sat in a trance of pure shock. Her physical wounds throbbed, but her mind was reeling. How could her husband—the golden heir—suddenly be a “fake prince”?
“Muhang, tell him! Explain it to Grandpa!” she cried, shaking his arm.
Jiang Muhang only stared at the floor, his eyes swirling with a dark, brooding light. He had known the truth since the day Jiang Ci was abducted years ago. His own father had told him: If you want to stay a Jiang, Jiang Ci must disappear. He had lived with that secret like a stone in his heart.
“Grandpa,” Jiang Muhang said, his voice cracking with a rare, calculated warmth. “I knew nothing of this. In my heart, you are my only grandfather.” The flicker of “filial” [devoted family] affection in his eyes made the old man waver for a single, painful second.
“Butler. Throw them out,” the old man gritted through his teeth. He turned his face away, refusing to look at the “grandson” he had loved so dearly.
As the hall cleared, Jiang Ke—the invisible father—stood up from the sofa as if he had just watched a boring play. “Dad, if we’re done, I’ll be going. I have things to do.”
“Do you have nothing to say?” the Old Master hissed. He had neglected this son’s upbringing in favor of the business, leaving Jiang Ke a mediocre, ghost-like figure in the house.
“What is there to say? You’ve always pulled the strings. My marriage, my children—you handled it all. Now that there’s a scandal, you’ve handled that, too,” Jiang Ke said with a thin, sharp smile.
“You resent me,” the old man realized.
“Resentment requires effort, Dad. I’m just an ornament with no power. That’s what you told me back then, isn’t it?” Jiang Ke walked away without a backward glance. He had known Muhang wasn’t his, and he didn’t care.
The Old Master watched him go, a gasp catching in his throat as his body finally slumped into the chair, defeated.
By evening, this news hit the web like a tidal wave. “The Jiang Heir: A Bloodline Fraud” trended everywhere.
“My god, a real-life ‘Fake Prince’ drama? I thought this only happened in 8:00 PM soap operas!”
“He’s so handsome, though! I remember his interview—he looked like a god. All fake?”
“Wait, isn’t he Jiang Xuan’s husband? One is a ‘White Lotus’ [a slang term for someone who acts pure and innocent but is actually manipulative] and the other is a fraud. They really are a couple after all!”
“The Jiang family has been ‘wearing a green hat’ [a Chinese idiom for being cheated on by a spouse] for twenty years! Talk about a dramatic fall from grace.”
Inside their private sanctuary, Su Yue leaned against Jiang Ci, her eyes glued to the chaos on her phone. “Did you leak the report?”
“Mhm,” Jiang Ci hummed. He wasn’t looking at the phone. His fingers were busy kneading the soft, sensitive lobe of Su Yue’s ear, his posture languid and predatory.
Su Yue shivered, her skin tingling from his touch. She swatted his hand away and picked up a ripe, crimson cherry, pressing it to his lips. “Eat this. It’s sweet.”
Jiang Ci’s eyes dropped to her slender, pale fingers holding the fiery fruit. The contrast of red and white was intoxicating. He parted his lips and didn’t just take the cherry—he drew her fingertips into his mouth, his tongue swirling against them with a slow, deliberate heat.
Su Yue’s face flushed a deep peony pink. She yanked her hand back. “It’s dirty! You’ll lick anything!”
Jiang Ci spat the pit out, his gaze dark and heavy as it lingered on her glistening almond eyes. “If it’s yours, it’s not dirty. Why so shy, little Yue’er? What part of you haven’t I tasted yet?”
Su Yue curled her toes under the duvet, her voice a breathless mumble. “Can you stop being so… explicit?”
Jiang Ci leaned in, a wicked grin dancing on his lips. “If you want me to stop talking, you’ll have to find a way to shut me up.” Before she could respond, he captured her lips—which were softer and redder than any cherry.
In the capital city the snow had finally stopped, and the city was draped in festive red. It was the eve of the Lunar New Year. Su Yue, wearing a soft white sweater, rolled up her sleeves to reveal arms that glowed like polished jade.
“Mommy, Hao Hao will help!” Little Jiang Haoyan hurried over, his chubby hands still damp from being washed.
“Of course,” Su Yue laughed, lifting him onto a chair. “Watch Mommy, then you try.”
She placed a dollop of pork and mushroom filling onto a wrapper, her nimble fingers pinching the edges into a perfect, plump crescent.
“Mommy is amazing! My turn!” The little guy clumsily squeezed his dough into a lumpy ball that looked more like a crumpled tissue.
“So clever!” Su Yue praised, stifling a giggle. “It looks… unique.”
Jiang Ci walked over, holding a sheet of red paper for “couplets” [traditional New Year poems written on red paper]. He took one look at the boy’s creation and snorted. “Ugly. You made it, you eat it.”
Hao Hao pouted, looking at his little belly tucked under his dinosaur jacket. “Mommy said I’ll get thin when I grow tall! Mommy, can I put a chicken leg inside? I want chicken leg jiaozi [dumplings].”
Jiang Ci chuckled. “You need to lose weight, kid.”
Su Yue wiped a stray smudge of flour off the boy’s nose. “We can’t put a whole leg in, but I’ll make a special chicken filling just for you.”
As she worked, a few strands of hair fell across her face, making her look ethereal and gentle. Jiang Ci leaned over, mimicking the boy’s whiny tone. “I want mango filling.”
Su Yue just stared at him, speechless.
The hospital was a stark contrast to the festive streets. The VIP floor was a silent, sterile tomb.
Jiang Ci entered the ward, pulling up a chair with zero ceremony. “Tsk. Only a few days and you’re already bedridden?”
Old Master Jiang looked ancient. The fire in his eyes had dimmed to embers. “You knew about Muhang all along,” he croaked. “Why keep it a secret?”
“No particular reason,” Jiang Ci said, crossing his arms. “I only decided to reveal it now to get some ‘revenge’ for my Xiaoyue.”
The Old Master sighed, a sound of pure exhaustion. He had spent years guarding the company against Jiang Ci, fearing a hostile takeover. Now he realized that if Jiang Ci had wanted the empire, he could have burned it down years ago.
“The stock price is tanking because of the scandals you leaked,” the old man said calmly. “I’ve kicked Muhang out. Come back. Take the Group.”
“No time,” Jiang Ci replied instantly.
“You have to take it eventually!”
“Whoever wants it can have it,” Jiang Ci shrugged, standing up. “Old man, if you called me here for this, I’m leaving. I’m busy.”
“Busy? Helping that Sheng family kid with his company?”
Jiang Ci paused at the door, a shameless smirk playing on his lips. “No. I’m busy trying to make a daughter with my wife. Happy New Year, Grandpa. Enjoy the hospital food.”
The Old Master gasped, his blood pressure spiking at his grandson’s sheer audacity. “You brat!” he cursed, though a faint, tired smile touched his lips as he watched the only true Jiang heir walk away.
While the rest of the world celebrated with “reunion dinners” [the most important meal of the Chinese year], the once-mighty Jiang household was finally, hauntingly, empty.Jiang Xuan’s physical wounds had mostly closed, but a dull ache remained, flaring into a sharp sting whenever she moved too quickly—a constant, nagging reminder of her failures.
Standing before the floor-to-ceiling window, she watched the world outside. Even through the glass, the vibrant red of the festive lanterns [symbols of luck and joy during the Lunar New Year] felt like a mockery. A heavy, suffocating gloom settled over her.
Since being cast out of the Jiang family, the “Golden Couple” had been stripped of their armor. Their bank cards were frozen, and though they weren’t destitute—they still held significant savings and a private villa—the days of “unlimited swiping” were over. For Song Xiaoqing, a woman born into old money and accustomed to the absolute authority of the Jiang matriarch, this sudden frugality was a bitter pill to swallow.
Song Xiaoqing emerged from her room, dressed with her usual sharp elegance, her handbag clutched tightly. “Where is Muhang? Has he still not returned?”
“I don’t know. He isn’t answering his phone,” Jiang Xuan replied softly, not daring to meet her mother-in-law’s eyes.
Song Xiaoqing’s brow furrowed in immediate disdain. “What kind of wife are you? You don’t even know your husband’s whereabouts? Perhaps if you spent less time on your ‘wicked schemes’ and more time caring for him, we wouldn’t be in this position.” Ever since discovering that Jiang Xuan’s petty maneuvers had provoked Jiang Ci’s wrath, Song Xiaoqing had viewed her as a curse. If not for Muhang’s protection, she would have forced a divorce long ago.
“It’s my fault,” Jiang Xuan whispered, biting her lip until it bled. “Muhang mentioned he was pitching a new project… searching for a partner.”
“It is entirely your fault,” Song Xiaoqing snapped. “If not for you, would my son be reduced to begging for scraps?” She checked her watch and swept out of the house, leaving Jiang Xuan alone in the unheated living room.
When the door finally opened hours later, Jiang Xuan jumped. “Muhang, you’re back.”
“Mhm.” Jiang Muhang loosened his tie, his face etched with a bone-deep exhaustion.
“Have you eaten? How did the meeting go?” She moved toward the kitchen, only to realize she had given the maid the day off and hadn’t prepared a thing.
Muhang collapsed onto the sofa, his eyes squeezed shut. “When I was the President of Hengyuan, the world knelt at my feet. Now? Now that I’ve lost the Jiang name, they treat me like a ‘rat crossing the street’ [a Chinese idiom meaning someone everyone wants to beat or avoid].”
Jiang Xuan gasped. She had never seen him so broken. She reached out, but the sharp, sour scent of alcohol hit her. “Muhang, don’t rush. Success doesn’t happen overnight.”
His eyes snapped open, bloodshot and burning with a terrifying intensity. “It’s not about time! Jiang Ci has issued an edict. He’s blacklisted me! No one in the industry dares to breathe in my direction, let alone sign a contract.”
For the first time, Muhang realized that his “brilliance” had been a byproduct of the Jiang family’s halo. Without it, he was nothing.
Left alone in the silent room, Jiang Xuan huddled on the sofa, clutching her knees. In her “rebirth” [, she was supposed to be the winner. She was supposed to be the queen of the entertainment industry and the wife of the most powerful man. Instead, she was right back where she started: a defeated woman watching her world crumble while Jiang Ci—the man who was supposed to be a blind, scarred monster—prospered in the light.
On the first day of the Lunar New Year, the sun rose with a gentle, golden warmth. Su Yue woke first, snuggling into Jiang Ci’s chest like a kitten seeking heat.
“Wake up,” Jiang Ci murmured, his voice a low, gravelly vibration against her ear. “It’s noon, Yue’er. Don’t you want to go to the hot springs?” He gave the tip of her ear a playful, sharp nip.
“Ow… what time is it?” She blinked her sleepy almond eyes, feeling the damp warmth of his breath.
Downstairs, little Jiang Haoyan was a bright spark of energy. He was dressed in a festive red cotton outfit with intricate gold threading [traditional New Year attire meant to ward off evil and invite luck]. Su Yue handed him a thick Hongbao [a red envelope filled with “lucky money”]. The little guy beamed, tucking it into his pocket with the seriousness of a man guarding a treasure.
They drove to a secluded resort owned by the Sheng Group. To ensure their privacy, Jiang Ci had the staff clear the paths and transplant the plum blossoms so they would bloom exclusively around their private villa.
The villa sat halfway up the mountain, shrouded in a thin, ethereal veil of mist. Inside their suite, a private courtyard held a steaming hot spring, the white vapor rising to meet the falling frost.
“Ao-ao, it’s beautiful!” Su Yue exclaimed, her eyes widening at the sight of the courtyard.
“Mhm,” Jiang Ci leaned against the doorframe, unbuttoning his shirt with a predatory slowness. “Since you wanted to soak so badly… shall I help you undress?”
“We just got here! Let’s eat first,” she said, her face heating up.
Jiang Ci sighed, his gaze dark and hungry. “I’d rather eat you.” He hadn’t brought her all this way just for the minerals in the water; he wanted to experience her in every corner of this mountain retreat.
By late afternoon, after a cable car ride and a quiet lunch, little Haoyan had fallen asleep. Jiang Ci tucked him in and then immediately cornered Su Yue in their room.
She held up a tiny black swimsuit. “I’m going to change now.”
“Together,” Jiang Ci commanded.
“The pool is too small!” she protested, her heart racing.
“Together,” he repeated, shedding his clothes without a hint of shame.
When Su Yue tried to hide her blushing face, he laughed softly. “Why so shy? Is there any part of me you haven’t touched or used yet?” He snatched the swimsuit from her hand. It was a mere scrap of fabric. “This won’t do. It wouldn’t even cover my palm, let alone you. Don’t bother wearing it—you’ll only have to take it off anyway.”
He swept her up in a “princess carry” and walked into the misty courtyard.
The water there was scalding and silk-smooth. Hours seemed to melt away in the steam. Eventually, Jiang Ci carried a limp, trembling Su Yue back inside, wrapping her in a plush white towel. He laid her on the large white hammock [a suspended bed]. As he leaned down to kiss her red-rimmed eyes, the hammock began to sway gently, swinging back and forth in a rhythm that matched the mountain wind.
Su Yue woke up late that night, her stomach rumbling and her legs feeling like jelly. In the soft, amber glow of the bedside lamp, she noticed something glittering on her finger. A ring.
“Awake?” Jiang Ci entered with a tray of food. He saw her staring at the diamond.
“Jiang Ci… this doesn’t count,” she teased, her eyes sparkling. “You can’t just put a ring on a sleeping person.”
“I asked. You didn’t say no. Silence is consent,” he said, setting the tray down. He leaned in, burying his face in the crook of her neck. “Yue’er… let’s have a real wedding. The last one was a sham.”
“You’re being unreasonable,” she muttered, though she was smiling.
“Fine. Troublesome woman,” he grumbled. Then, to her shock, the arrogant, cold Jiang Ci dropped to one knee beside the hammock. He took her white wrist in his hand, his expression more serious than she had ever seen it.
“Su Yue. Will you marry me? For real this time?”
There were no flowers, no cameras, and no audience. Just the two of them in the quiet of the mountain. Su Yue looked at him, her heart overflowing, and nodded vigorously.
“Yes.”
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