A Substitute Bride With Multiple Identities
Chapter 140 If

Chapter 140: Chapter 140 If

The room was utterly silent.

Jiang Yun’s limbs were icy cold, her mind a blank.

What had he just said?

Did he know?

Did he know what she had done?

A tiny twitch appeared at the corner of her mouth as she forced a strained, unnatural smile, "Yanhe, what are you talking about? Mom doesn’t understand, Mom..."

"The poison I’ve been subjected to in the Fu Family, it was you who administered it, wasn’t it?" Fu Yanhe didn’t give Jiang Yun any chance to muddle through, interrupting her with his faint voice.

"The food you personally prepared for me, it was all poisoned."

Jiang Yun’s smile slowly faded, and she looked at Fu Yanhe with an expressionless face.

"Why?" Fu Yanhe said indifferently as he looked at her, asking.

Jiang Yun stared back without expression, remaining silent without a word.

After a long time, she turned around slowly, facing a photograph on the table behind her.

"Yanhe, you should remember how you came to possess all that you have now, shouldn’t you?"

As she moved, the photograph that had been obscured by her came gradually into view.

The photograph was of a gracefully elegant and handsome young man.

The young man faced the camera, revealing a faint smile.

And his features bore some resemblance to Fu Yanhe’s features, yet were more gentle.

In front of the photograph was an incense burner, into which someone had inserted three sticks of incense.

Jiang Yun looked at the young man in the photo, her eyes filled with deep sorrow, "If it weren’t for your elder brother’s car accident, your father feared that the company, which he had just taken over, would become unstable."

"You would never have been brought back to the Fu Family."

She tilted her head slightly, her voice cold and merciless as she looked at Fu Yanhe, "And don’t forget, within the Fu Family, you are nothing but a substitute, bearing your elder brother’s name."

Fu Yanhe’s eyes fell slightly, his face expressionless.

Indeed.

He was not the eldest son of the Fu Family.

His true identity was that of the second young master of the Fu Family.

The child the Fu Family had once discarded and then reclaimed.

The Fu Family had deceived everyone with a changeling.

Fu Yanhe’s gaze sharpened, his long fingers resting on the armrest of his wheelchair moved subtly, and he looked at Jiang Yun with an impassive expression.

"So, you drugged me in order to control me?"

"Fearful that I would grow too independent and leave the Fu Family behind?"

Jiang Yun nodded frankly, "That’s right."

"Your father told me that when he found you, you had already grown up, but you were different from your gentle-natured elder brother; you were too aloof, too inscrutable."

Without a trace of apology on her face, she told him bluntly, "To ensure that you would always stay with the Fu Family and work for it, we had to control you with drugs."

"Unfortunately, I wasn’t careful enough and you discovered it."

"However, rest assured, now that you’ve found out, I won’t poison you anymore," Jiang Yun said indifferently, showing none of the affectionate warmth she had exhibited in previous days.

She looked like a complete stranger.

"I advise you not to do anything unnecessary. Even if the scars on your face are fortunate enough to heal, you’re still disabled."

"A disabled person, no matter how capable, will be looked down upon by others when they go out. Staying in the Fu Family is the best option for you."

Jiang Yun looked at him with an emotionless gaze, her tone harsh, "Also, your father told me to tell you, if you want freedom, then hurry up and have Shen Yanhe bear the Fu Family’s heir."

"Once the Fu Family has an heir, he will return to personally mentor them, and then you’ll be able to leave the Fu Family."

Fu Yanhe listened quietly to what Jiang Yun had said, his eyes flashing with a hint of irony.

He looked up, his gaze cold as he looked at Jiang Yun, "Why would you think that I, as I am now, would still obediently listen to you and let you manipulate me?"

Jiang Yun was stunned.

"The Fu Family was the one who threw me away and abandoned me in the first place."

Fu Yanhe clasped his hands on his legs and leaned slightly back, watching her calmly, "And the Fu Family is what I detest most."

"So how can you be so sure that in all these years I’ve been in charge of the Fu Family’s company, I haven’t done anything?"

His gaze and demeanor were clearly calm.

Jiang Yun, however, felt her hands and feet go cold and her breathing become difficult under his gaze.

It was only now, facing the pressure that Fu Yanhe exerted, that she belatedly realized he had grown formidable enough to be feared.

His wings were fully formed.

He was no longer the youth who could be manipulated by her.

Realizing this, Jiang Yun felt a creeping chill down her spine and couldn’t help but clench her fists, saying with difficulty, "You wouldn’t dare."

"Without the Fu Family, you are nothing."

"With the Fu Family, I’m also nothing," Fu Yanhe spoke calmly, his pitch nearly unchanging as his deep black pupils looked at her.

"You know this better than anyone, don’t you?"

Jiang Yun’s complexion shifted slightly, her fingernails digging into her flesh, "What else do you know?"

"You’ll get no comment from me," Fu Yanhe raised his eyes, "But rest assured, I will keep the Fu Family intact before I and Fu Weizhi settle our final accounts."

As his words fell, he added, "But that’s not guaranteed either."

"If you disturb Yanyan and make her unhappy, who knows, I might just take action ahead of time,"

"So, if you still want to continue being the wealthy lady of the house, behave and don’t stir up trouble."

Jiang Yun’s face turned shades of green and white, her gaze settled on Fu Yanhe with a foreignness, as if she was meeting him for the first time.

When had this young man, whom she always thought she could manipulate, grown to this extent?

Fu Yanhe was disinterested and had no intention of continuing the conversation, so he simply turned his wheelchair and left.

Jiang Yun was rattled by his words and didn’t dare to stop him, only able to watch him leave helplessly.

-

On the way back to his room, Fu Yanhe did not call for anyone to come and pick him up.

He ventured into the darkness alone.

The pitch-black pathway echoed only the sound of his wheelchair’s rolling wheels.

His face was expressionless.

Before returning to the Fu Family, he had already investigated the Fu Family inside out.

He knew that the Fu Family was a lineage with ancient traditions, but as generations passed, the family’s offspring had lost their way.

Moreover, the Fu Family’s elders clung to feudal dregs passed down from their ancestors.

Such as physical examinations, the belief that the birth of twins was an ominous sign, and emphasis on the eldest son.

Fu Shuqin, his grandmother, in particular, was strict about these rules.

Unfortunately,

when Jiang Yun was pregnant and gave birth, she had twins: Fu Yanhe and Fu Yanheng.

Once Fu Shuqin heard the news, she immediately sent people to forcibly take the child born later away, insisting that only the eldest son be kept.

She believed that the birth of twins would bring disaster to the Fu Family and end the century-long glory and wealth of their lineage.

And he was the child who was born three minutes later than his elder brother, Fu Yanheng.

Because of this absurd and laughable rule, he was discarded by the Fu Family.

It was only because Fu Weizhi was unwilling to let his own blood wander outside and argued with Fu Shuqin that he managed to persuade her to let him raise Fu Yanhe.

The only condition was that Fu Yanhe had to live an ordinary life for the rest of his days and never appear in front of her.

But what Fu Weizhi called ’raising’ was buying a villa in a secluded suburb, hiring a nanny, maids, and bodyguards, and keeping Fu Yanhe like a dog within.

He never visited him.

And because of Fu Shuqin, Fu Yanhe was restricted from traveling and studying from a young age.

But he was too clever, with a photographic memory, precociously sharp and sensible, which made the nanny pity him.

The nanny taught him using a mobile phone, secretly buying learning devices for him, downloading games and materials, teaching him little by little.

The more he understood, the more Fu Yanhe longed for the outside world.

So when he was seven or eight years old, he begged the nanny to take him to see the outside world, and the soft-hearted nanny agreed to take him out.

Not wanting to return to that cage so soon, he ran away when the nanny was distracted, only to wander into an abandoned icehouse, where he met that girl.

It was also during that time that Fu Yanhe first saw Fu Weizhi, his nominal father.

It was also the first time he asked Fu Weizhi why he couldn’t leave the estate.

Perhaps Fu Weizhi thought he was too young at the time to escape his control.

So, he sincerely told Fu Yanhe about his origins.

The unwanted, discarded twin, born with an ominous implication.

He was the one who was abandoned, thrown away, unimportant, and not hoped for.

Keeping Fu Yanhe on the estate was partly to control him, to prevent the blood of the Fu Family from being disgraced outside.

And partly in case Fu Yanheng fell ill or had an accident requiring an organ transplant, he would be there to replace him.

The young Fu Yanhe, fearful and hating Fu Weizhi, secretly cultivated his own power during those growth years.

Several years passed by.

Until Fu Yanheng died in a car accident.

Fu Weizhi had already retired and was not managing affairs by that time, and Fu Yanheng had just taken over the Fu Family’s company. His death, once it became known, would bring great turmoil to the Fu Family.

Fu Weizhi appeared once again, forcibly bringing the unfledged him back to the Fu Family.

He was exceedingly cautious, yet never imagined that Fu Weizhi, out of madness, arranged an unavoidable car accident for him during the return journey.

To thoroughly cloak him in Fu Yanheng’s shell.

In order to naturally change his name, they even fabricated a story about seeking a name from Buddha at a temple and having the Buddha himself bestow the name.

Even if Jiang Yun hadn’t brought it up today,

he would never forget his real identity, nor would he forget what the Fu Family had done to him.

It’s just that what Jiang Yun did to him did not fail to stir emotions in his heart.

When he had just returned to the Fu Family and was pretending to be Fu Yanheng, Jiang Yun was exceedingly good to him.

She showed warmth and careful attention.

In the life Fu Yanhe had grown up in, the role of a mother was already vacant. He resented and hated her, yet he couldn’t help but want to get close to her.

Had he not discovered that Jiang Yun was treating him as a substitute,

he really might have come to think of Jiang Yun as his mother.