Wei Liang looked at his son, utterly speechless.
"Zhouzhou, I'm not joking with you," Wei Liang said seriously.
Wei Xingzhou stared back at Wei Liang, exasperated. "I don't believe you."
Wei Liang had anticipated this reaction. He pulled two genetic comparison reports from his desk drawer and handed them to Wei Xingzhou. "This is your paternity test. Take a look yourself."
Just then, the study door opened, and Cui Cui stood in the doorway.
Upon seeing his precious daughter, Wei Xingzhou panicked. His body reacted faster than his brain, and he instantly rushed over, scooping her into his arms.
"My dear girl, don't listen to their nonsense. You are my daughter, and you always will be!" Wei Xingzhou said anxiously.
Cui Cui's small body tensed up. She looked at her grandfather, her eyes welling up with tears.
"Let me see," Cui Cui said.
Wei Liang looked at the child, hesitated for a moment, then handed the documents to Cui Cui.
Wei Xingzhou's hand shot out instantly, snatching the papers away.
"What are you looking at? This must be fake. Cui Cui, you were cultivated by Dad himself. There's no mistake!" Lu Wanqing said with certainty, hugging her cherished daughter.
Wei Xingzhou tossed the paternity test towards the robot vacuum cleaner.
The robot vacuum cleaner opened its mouth, and its intelligent shredding function activated, immediately pulverizing and ingesting the document.
Cui Cui raised her hand and plucked a strand of hair from Wei Xingzhou.
"Awoo!!!" Wei Xingzhou yelped in pain, then looked at Cui Cui in shock. "Cui Cui, what are you doing? Don't you believe your dad?"
Wei Xingzhou then pretended to sob, putting on a pained expression as if he had been wronged.
Cui Cui had long since become immune to her father's eccentric behavior. She ignored him and turned to her grandfather. "Grandpa, may I borrow the home instruments?"
Wei Liang looked at the child and nodded. "You may."
Cui Cui had grown up in the Wei family and was familiar with their equipment. She knew at least the basic functions. Identifying a parent-child relationship was not a complicated matter.
"There's no need," Wei Xingzhou said, grabbing Cui Cui's hand. He then turned to his father and continued, "Yes, Cui Cui isn't my biological daughter, but so what?"
"You knew?" Wei Liang was shocked, looking at his son in disbelief.
Wei Xingzhou remained silent.
Cui Cui's eyes widened, and she looked at her father in disbelief. Was she... really not Dad's child? And Dad had known for a long time?
Wei Liang's expression soured. After a long silence, he finally asked coldly, "Wei Xingzhou, what exactly is going on?"
Wei Xingzhou shrugged indifferently. "When I was about to cultivate with two sets of genes, something came up, and I had to leave for a bit. When I returned, my set of genes was gone."
Wei Xingzhou then lowered his gaze to Cui Cui. He was silent for a moment longer before saying, "At the time, I happened to have another set of genes from an ancient Earthling. Although I don't know whose genes they were, I figured that since Lu Wanqing is an ancient Earthling, and I had another set of ancient Earthling genes, they might be the most compatible. So, I decided to cultivate them together using these two sets of ancient Earthling genes, and thus Cui Cui was born."
Cui Cui: !!!
Wei Liang: !!!
Both grandfather and granddaughter stared at Wei Xingzhou in stunned disbelief, unable to comprehend what he had done.
Wei Xingzhou pulled Cui Cui closer and scoffed, "Whether you acknowledge it or not, Cui Cui is my daughter, and she will be my precious daughter forever!"
Wei Liang's eyelids twitched uncontrollably. After a while, he took a deep breath and tried to regain his composure. "So, the person downstairs is the child cultivated from the genes that were stolen from you back then?"
Wei Xingzhou frowned at his father's question. "How should I know?"
When he had planned to cultivate a child, something had come up. He had left with Lu Wanqing's genes, leaving his own set alone in the lab. Who knew that when he turned around, his genes would be gone?
"Even if it is, her mother isn't exactly a good person," Wei Xingzhou added.
To dare use stolen genes to secretly cultivate a child, anyone could tell that woman had malicious intentions.
"It wasn't her," Wei Liang said, rubbing his temples. "We investigated. The mother of that child was simply being used. They wanted to use this mother and daughter to deal with us. However, when that child, I mean, that woman, learned of their objective, she secretly escaped. By then, the embryo of you and her had already been implanted in her. She was pregnant."
"Later, she gave birth to the child alone and didn't think of coming to us. It was only because the child fell ill that her mother had no other choice but to return to us."
Wei Liang looked at Wei Xingzhou, his heart a complex mix of emotions. "At first, your mother and I didn't believe it. But when we saw that child, we were shocked because she looked so much like you."
"Although we were suspicious, we couldn't resist and conducted a paternity test ourselves, which is how we found out."
"So, that child is Dad's real child?" Cui Cui asked.
Wei Liang looked at Cui Cui and nodded. "Yes."
"Then I'll give her the shares back," Cui Cui pouted. She didn't care about the Wei family shares; she could earn her own.
Wei Liang was stunned by her words, then filled with surprise and finally, relief.
Wei Liang reached out to pat Cui Cui's head. "Good child~"
"Don't touch her," Wei Xingzhou said, batting his father's hand away. He retorted, "You're all so hypocritical."
Wei Liang: ...
"If the Wei family shares aren't given to Cui Cui, then they aren't. I'll earn her a commercial empire myself, so she'll never have to worry about anything for the rest of her life!" Wei Xingzhou declared.
Cui Cui looked up at her father.
Wei Xingzhou ruffled Cui Cui's hair and said, "Let's go, my dear girl!"
"Okay," Cui Cui replied.
"Hey!" Wei Liang quickly caught up and stopped them.
Wei Xingzhou paused and impatiently asked, "Do you need something else?"
Wei Liang's words were stuck in his throat, unable to come up or go down. "You..."
Wei Xingzhou and Cui Cui's reactions were completely unexpected by Wei Liang. He and his wife had considered countless possibilities and scenarios, even fantasizing about many conspiracies, but they had never imagined that the truth would turn out this way. From the very beginning, Xingzhou had known Cui Cui was not his biological daughter, and that Cui Cui had been cultivated by him using someone else's genes.
"Zhouzhou," Father Wei sighed, unable to help himself. "I'm sorry."
They knew Xingzhou had always loved Cui Cui dearly, doting on her more than anything. They too had loved Cui Cui deeply, even intending to leave all of the Wei family's assets to her. But now that they knew Cui Cui wasn't their blood relative, they felt they had no choice.