That's ridiculous. If he hadn't posted that, and those small-scale rumor posts had been deleted, no one would have been so bored as to keep watching them.
After all, Ruan Bei and he were not close at all. Anyone with eyes could tell that they couldn't possibly have any relationship.
However, this so-called clarification post actually caused trouble for Ruan Bei.
Long after that wedding livestream mishap, Lu Siyuan's identity had been thoroughly exposed at school, so his sudden statement immediately piqued everyone's curiosity.
The private affairs of wealthy families are always the easiest to attract attention. Once there is any gossip, the news will spread like wildfire.
Ruan Beigang was so angry that he asked someone to delete the post, but before the post was completely deleted, his family background and birth date were exposed.
The Ruan family and the Lu family don't seem to be related at all.
Someone took a screenshot of Lu Minghai and Feng Zhihui, a couple who appeared in that live stream, and then placed Ruan Bei's photo in the middle of them. It was as if the best features of the two of them had been taken to form Ruan Bei's face.
This led to all sorts of speculation, and it was easy to conclude that Ruan Bei might be a child of the Lu family.
However, the Lu family also has Lu Sibai, who is about the same age as Ruan Bei. As a party involved in the recording incident, he is much more famous than Lu Siyuan.
Someone had previously dug up his information, and I vaguely remember that his birth year was not far from Ruan Bei's.
Looking back at the messages, sure enough, their birthdays were only three days apart.
This is very strange. Ruan Bei and Lu Sibai could not possibly be twins. Even if they are fraternal, they don't look alike, so why are their parents different?
Lu Jiasheng had twins, and then one of them was lost?
I haven't heard of that. If something like that had happened, it's impossible that nothing would have been cleared up back then.
Some people speculated that the babies might have been switched at birth. This speculation immediately propelled the development of the matter to a climax. The entire incident was no longer just discussed on the school's forum, but was also put on a larger platform, sparking even more heated discussions.
The topic of babies being switched at birth in wealthy families is enough to attract attention, and one of the parties involved even made headlines last year with a major revelation.
It's only the beginning of the year, and he's already been dragged into this again, and it's not for a good reason either.
Especially when his photos and information about Ruan Bei were put side by side, he couldn't compare in appearance and temperament. Although Lu Sibai was not bad-looking, Ruan Bei's appearance was exceptionally outstanding.
Lu Sibai's academic performance was inferior to Ruan Bei's; Ruan Bei skipped grades, became the top student, and attended a prestigious university. Lu Sibai's grades were unclear, but he could never compare to Ruan Bei.
As for his personality and character, there's no need to mention it. You can easily find dirt on Lu Sibai with just a quick glance. "The textbook example of a green tea bitch" is not a compliment.
Compared to others, Lu Sibai is inferior in every way. If the two children were really switched at birth, then he enjoyed better resources but grew up like this. What else is there to say?
Is it really true that dragons beget dragons and phoenixes beget phoenixes, and a rat's son knows how to dig holes?
As more and more attention was drawn to this matter, so-called insiders immediately appeared and revealed that Lu Sibai had been kicked out of the Lu family years ago.
Immediately afterwards, someone posted photos of Lu Sibai looking disheveled; he was no longer the radiant, prince-like figure he had been when he attended the wedding banquet.
Living alone, my clothes aren't as neatly styled as before, and my hair isn't the same either. I used to have a stylist carefully trim and style it every now and then, but now that it's grown a bit longer, it looks messy and lifeless.
Coupled with his sorrowful expression and unpleasant complexion, he appeared even more dejected, a stark contrast to his previous appearance.
If it weren't for the fact that his facial features haven't changed much, judging from his current gloomy temperament and appearance, it would be hard to believe that this is the same person.
Things had developed to this point, beyond Ruan Bei's control, and the topic of the baby being switched at birth in a wealthy family immediately rose to the top of the trending searches that day.
What disgusted Ruan Bei was that, because of Lu Sibai, Haiming Group was implicated. Although there was the reason that a rival company intervened, the logic was very clear at the time: Lu Sibai's cheating and ruining his reputation was the root cause.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Haiming Group's official Weibo account made some ambiguous statements, separating Lu Sibai from Haiming Group and implying that his poor character was innate and that he could not represent Haiming Group.
Ruan Bei, this excellent student, is the true young master of the Lu family, representing the Lu family's outstanding bloodline.
Ruan Bei was so angry that he almost went to fight Lu Siyuan.
He thought that the Lu family was already troublesome enough by only releasing Lu Siyuan, and that ignoring him would calm them down. He didn't expect them to be so persistent.
How can this be tolerated? People online have started digging into his parents and sister's past. They said he was switched at birth, and if Ruan Bei was switched at birth, then Lu Sibai was switched at birth too. Everyone wants to see what kind of parents could give birth to such a child.
Ruan Bei doesn't have many media resources, but he has connections. Bai Miaomiao and his godmother are both willing to help him.
Qin Gu also contacted trusted colleagues, those families of metaphysical practitioners. Not all members of the family necessarily have the talent for cultivation. Those without talent still have to make a living in the secular world.
Their family has a powerful background and special abilities, making it easy for them to make a name for themselves.
Ruanbei is weak and isolated, and the news he releases is easily suppressed. But if these forces work together, the wave they create will be significant.
They don't need to expend much effort to suppress the news of the baby being switched at birth; the discussion about this matter is currently at its peak, and the more they suppress it, the easier it is to cause a backlash.
Ruan Bei thought, "If you're heartless, don't blame me for being ruthless too." He had someone spread the news that he had been abandoned rather than switched at birth.
This news caused a huge uproar.
The mix-up at birth is gossip, but abandonment is illegal. This jump from the entertainment channel to the legal channel is so drastic that it almost caused netizens to tear each other apart.
However, this time Lu Minghai was perfectly sober, and having learned from his previous experience, he did not take online rumors lightly.
After someone from Ruanbei spoke up, Lu Minghai immediately went to the police station to report the incident and request an investigation into the fact that his son had been taken away and abandoned eighteen years ago.
He couldn't let people think that they had abandoned Ruan Bei, get involved in illegal activities, or even have a chance to make a living in the country.
The police station accepted the report and began an investigation, but too much time had passed, and the information they found was almost identical to what the Lu family had found themselves.
Back then, someone must have sneaked into the hospital and swapped Ruan Bei with their own child. Private hospitals have thorough records of medical staff and can withstand scrutiny, so it's highly likely that an outsider came in to make the swap.
However, the pregnant women who gave birth at that hospital all came from wealthy and influential families, so it was impossible to determine whether they were specifically targeting the Lu family or had simply been switched to another one.
After that person took Ruan Bei away, he abandoned her at the hospital where Ruan's mother gave birth, where she was found by Ruan's father.
At the time, because they planned to raise Ruan Bei as their own child and not tell anyone that he was an adopted child, they did not go through the adoption procedures.
However, procedures were not always complete in those days, so if a de facto adoption was established, the adoption relationship could still be recognized.
Therefore, Ruan Bei is now considered an adopted child of the Ruan family. It was a case of mistaken identity at birth, and the Lu family can still demand that the Ruan family return the child. Ruan Bei is not yet seventeen years old, and minors are still subject to certain restrictions.
Adoption is permitted, and the law recognizes this kinship relationship.
Logically speaking, if Ruan Bei were willing to accept his biological parents, they could definitely negotiate a solution. But he was unwilling, and the Lu family could do nothing but spread the word that this was their child.
If the Ruan and Lu families were to switch their economic status, and Ruan Bei refused to go back, people would definitely criticize him for being a snob.
But now the Ruan family is poor while the Lu family is wealthy. He would rather stay at his adoptive parents' home than return to the Lu family. So everyone thinks he is a good child with a conscience, integrity, filial piety and good character.
Compared to him, Lu Sibai is utterly awful. To compare Ruan Bei to him is an insult to Ruan Bei.
Now, if netizens criticize Lu Sibai again, they can't drag Ruan's parents into it, because they're also quite aggrieved; they have absolutely nothing to do with Lu Sibai.
Some of those who had previously insulted Ruan's parents felt embarrassed and apologized, but most were unwilling to back down. However, they transferred their resentment onto Lu Sibai.
They didn't think they had done anything wrong. It was clearly Lu Sibai who had fooled and misled them, so Lu Sibai's biological parents were verbally abused.
They didn't know who Lu Sibai's parents were, so they just started cursing him using his name. Eventually, Lu Sibai didn't dare to show his face anymore, and Lu Siyuan even started worrying about whether to change his name.
After things escalated like this, Ruan Bei completely let loose.
He knows everything he needs to know, so he no longer needs to hide anything. The Lu family can't force him to go back, nor can they compel him to.
He is now a legitimate member of the Ruan family, protected by law, and has family by his side—it couldn't be better.
Besides the increase in the number of people paying attention to him, he also gained a group of inexplicable fans—Ruan Bei didn't know why they were fans of him, since he was neither a star nor a celebrity, but just an ordinary student.
A photo of him walking under the tree-lined path on campus with a Yu'an umbrella went viral. Soon after, Bai Miaomiao even found "Ruan Bei's style" on Taobao. People were even making imitations of his Yu'an umbrella, which made Ruan Bei both amused and exasperated.
However, their imitations weren't quite right, since his Yu'an Umbrella was a magical artifact, and its materials were extraordinary.
The umbrella was drawn by Kunkun, because he kept adding different talismans, and the pattern kept changing and increasing.
Later, when he used the large talisman above, some patterns would fade and he would have to redraw them, so Ruan Bei laughed it off.
During this time, the ghosts in the eastern suburbs, having finished their holiday, went back to work. Ruan Bei felt that Lu Sibai was now driven to a dead end. If he could contact his biological parents, he would definitely do so.
Lu Sibai is now truly down on his luck. His identity has been completely exposed, and he is being cursed everywhere.
If it weren't for that previous recording of him cheating, people might have been more understanding that he knew nothing at the time and could be considered somewhat innocent.
But with such a bad character, who would sympathize with him? Everyone would come to curse him, saying all sorts of nasty things.
The school he used to attend, where he was once the pampered young master of the Lu family, surrounded by friends and followers, has now turned him into a stray dog, able to trample on anyone he used to look down on.
Thankfully, the Lu family paid the tuition for a whole year in advance and didn't force him to drop out, otherwise he would have had to drop out of school.
But many students at that school were already biased towards those below them and those above them. In his previous life, Ruan Bei received a certain treatment there, and Lu Sibai would only be worse off than him.
Being splashed with water and having his books torn up are minor incidents. One of Qin Shen's admirers, who knew about Lu Sibai's past relationship with Qin Shen, had someone strip him naked and lock him in a toilet stall.
He was about to leave when a bucket of water used for washing mops was poured over him and splashed all over him.
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