Chapter 404 Should She Save Him?
She turned her head suddenly, her clear eyes wide open, staring at Lu Yiran in disbelief, her gaze seemed to penetrate his calm appearance, eagerly searching for any trace of a joke or misunderstanding.
"Found it?"
There was a trance-like tremor in her voice, as if she was afraid of disturbing something.
"Didn't you say before that there was no match in the gene pool? How did you suddenly find one? Did you... did you find new clues later and match someone else?"
Her breathing unconsciously quickened, and a series of questions poured out of her mind uncontrollably. Her eyes were filled with intense shock, blank confusion, and a faint expectation that had been suppressed for a long time and that she dared not release easily.
Ever since Lu Yiran told her that nothing was found in the DNA database, she had actually already quietly put aside this extravagant hope.
She once convinced herself that perhaps she and her biological father were destined to be apart. They had not met in the vast sea of people for more than 20 years. Haicheng was so big, where should she go to look for him?
Just when she was almost determined to bury this matter deep in her heart and no longer have any expectations, Lu Yiran suddenly told her that he had found it.
Lu Yiran took in every subtle reaction of hers, and his heart felt as if it was being crushed by something, causing a tingling pain.
He squeezed her cold fingers even harder, trying to calm her panic with the warmth of his palm. His eyes were calm and certain, repeating and confirming each word clearly and accurately:
"Yes, Nan Yan, we found him. We found your biological father."
He paused deliberately, giving her the almost frozen air to digest this fact, and then, in the calmest possible tone, he dropped the final bombshell:
"Besides, he... is actually someone you've known for a long time and have seen often lately."
Mu Nanyan's pupils suddenly contracted due to extreme confusion. She subconsciously quickly scanned the faces of all the male elders she had recently come into contact with in her mind, but found nothing, and felt even more confused.
Lu Yiran looked deeply into her bewildered eyes, and finally said the name in a deep voice:
"He is Shangguan He."
“........”
Mu Nanyan's lips opened slightly, but she seemed to have suddenly lost her voice and could not utter a single syllable.
The whole world seemed to stop in front of her eyes for a moment, then shattered into pieces, and then forcibly reassembled along an absurd trajectory.
Shangguan He?
The life lying in the sterile ward, with tubes inserted all over the body, the candle of life flickering, waiting for her to donate hematopoietic stem cells to save it?
The father of Shangguan Jiuze and Fuling, whom she decided to help out of pure kindness and sympathy?
...He is actually her biological father?
The huge sense of absurdity and the overwhelming shock swept over her like a tsunami, draining all her strength and thinking ability.
Her face suddenly lost its color and turned pale, and her body swayed slightly, almost imperceptibly, as if she would be crushed by this huge truth at any time.
"How...how is this possible? Is this...a mistake?"
Mu Nanyan's voice trembled slightly. She still couldn't believe this subversive truth. How could her biological father be Shangguan He, who was lying on the hospital bed and needed her help?
Seeing her dazed look, Lu Yiran knew that her words were not enough.
He said softly:
"Please sit down for a while. I'll get you something."
After saying that, he stood up and walked straight to the study.
A moment later, he came out of the study with a simple but heavy brown paper file bag in his hand.
He returned to her and gently handed her the DNA test report.
Mu Nanyan's eyes fell on the file bag, as if it was something hot. Her hands subconsciously curled up and she didn't have the courage to raise her hands to take it.
She had imagined countless possible identities of her biological father in her mind, perhaps an ordinary person, or perhaps a passer-by who had long since gone far away, but she had never thought that it would be Shangguan He, whom she had known for a long time and whose family relationship was complicated.
How is this possible?
But Lu Yiran's solemn expression and the cold report silently told the truth.
She was silent for a long time, took a deep breath, as if to accumulate enough strength, and finally slowly reached out her hand and took the thin document.
The report is only a few pages long, but it carries a great deal of weight.
On the homepage, the names "Mu Nanyan" and "Shangguan He" were lined up side by side, cold and eye-catching.
Her fingertips trembled as she skipped over the complex genetic data comparison charts in the middle and turned to the decisive last page.
Her eyes were fixed on the final concluding line of text—
DNA analysis supports the existence of a biological father-daughter relationship between Mu Nanyan and Shangguan He.
It's written in black and white, clear and unmistakable.
The last glimmer of hope was completely shattered.
She had to believe this seemingly absurd but extremely true fact.
Lu Yiran had been quietly accompanying her the entire time, and only now did he speak in a deep voice, explaining the cause of all this:
"Earlier, when the HLA typing results for you and Mr. Shangguan showed a 100% match, I became suspicious. Even his direct descendants couldn't match, yet you, an 'outsider', were perfectly compatible. The probability was incredibly low. At that time, I speculated that there might be some unknown blood connection between you."
He paused, his tone carrying a hint of unexpected emotion:
"But I didn't expect the connection to be so direct... He's actually your biological father."
Mu Nanyan's fingertips were cold as she tightly gripped the thin pages of paper, her knuckles turning white from the force.
Her eyes were fixed on the last line of conclusion. Every word was like a red-hot iron, burning deeply into her eyes, her mind, and the depths of her soul.
The air seemed to freeze.
She remained silent for a long time, motionless, only her slightly trembling shoulders revealed the tremendous wave of shock in her heart.
Lu Yiran did not urge her, nor did he say anything more. He just sat quietly beside her, accompanying her silently, giving her time and space to digest this shocking truth.
It was unknown how long it took before Mu Nanyan raised her head very slowly, her eyes filled with great confusion and a kind of almost shattered realization.
Her voice was dry and hoarse, filled with incomprehensible confusion:
"So...so the person I decided to save...turns out to be mine..."
She almost whispered the word "father" at the end, so lightly that it seemed as if it would break if touched.
The impact of this realization was far beyond her imagination.
Her originally pure decision, made out of morality and kindness, was now given a completely different, suffocating weight.
She suddenly thought of another person, the woman who was hostile to her and even wanted to kill her.
"Then Song Yajun... wouldn't that make her my... stepmother?"
She murmured, a clear sense of pain and absurdity flashing across her eyes.
The thought made her feel nauseous.
The cold humiliation and deep fear of the past, entangled with the title of "stepmother", seem extremely ironic.
Suddenly, as if she thought of something important, she suddenly grabbed Lu Yiran's arm, her fingertips trembling slightly due to the force, and her voice was filled with a hint of anxious confirmation:
"Then...does Song Yajun know? Does she know about my...relationship with Shangguan He?"
This issue is crucial.
Did the woman who regarded her as a thorn in her side already know that she was her husband's biological daughter?
If we knew, then the persecutions in the past were not just due to partisanship, but were based on deeper and chilling malice.
Lu Yiran held her cold hand in his backhand, and looked into her anxious eyes with a calm and sure look:
"Based on my investigation and judgment, she didn't know."
He spoke in a firm tone, trying to soothe her anxiety:
"If she knew you were Shangguan He's biological daughter, given her personality and methods, she wouldn't have resorted to more than just the embarrassment she's experienced before. She would have used even more thorough and brutal means to make you disappear forever. Her hatred for your mother and her need to protect her own status make it impossible for her to tolerate your existence."
He concluded with a voice that spoke with persuasive force,
"So, she must have been kept in the dark just like you. This truth must be a huge shock to her as well."
After listening to this, Mu Nanyan's tense shoulders relaxed a little, but the complex emotions in her eyes did not fade away.
Even if Song Yajun didn't know, it couldn't change the relationship between them, which had completely changed and become more antagonistic.
All interpersonal relationships are completely overturned and reorganized at this moment.
She felt like she was suddenly thrown into the center of a completely unfamiliar vortex.
She subconsciously looked in the direction of the hospital where Shangguan He was, her eyes extremely complicated.
Lu Yiran looked at her, his voice low and gentle, but with a weight that could not be avoided:
"Nan Yan, after knowing who he is, are you still willing to...save him?"
Lu Yiran's question was like a stone thrown into the chaotic lake of her heart, causing deeper ripples.
Mu Nanyan was completely stunned, her pupils trembling slightly.
The huge shock made her only focus on digesting the fact of "who he was", and she had no spare energy to think about the more cruel choice of "whether to save him or not".
Save him?
The person she decided to save out of humanitarianism and kindness was now given a completely different meaning - he was her biological father, Shangguan He.
He was also the man who made her mother pregnant out of wedlock and made her bear worldly pressure, and then he was absent from their entire lives, instead starting a family and having children with another woman.
It was he who indirectly caused his mother's subsequent tragedy, and it was he who cast an indelible shadow over her childhood and even her entire life.
A man who had never fulfilled his fatherly responsibilities for a single day, and now she was asked to save him at the cost of possibly suffering physical discomfort?
Hatred and resentment surged up almost instinctively, like a cold tide that instantly drowned the original pure kindness.
Why?
She opened her mouth, but found that her throat was blocked by some sour emotion and no sound came out.
Should she save him?
The answer to this question suddenly became extremely heavy and complicated.
Lu Yiran didn't urge her, but just looked at her quietly, waiting for the storm in her heart to subside.
He understood her struggle. This choice was about blood ties, but more importantly, it was about the grievances and pain she had suffered for more than 20 years.
In Mu Nanyan's mind, Shangguan Fuling's innocent and naive little face involuntarily emerged.
The girl was carefully protected by everyone, like the most delicate flower in a greenhouse. She had never experienced wind and rain, and even the cruel reality of her father's serious illness was kindly isolated from her.
She used to envy Fuling.
But at this moment, this envy suddenly changed, turning into a sharp and piercing bitterness and injustice, which pierced her heart.
She is also Shangguan He’s daughter!
Why?
Why can Fuling take it for granted that she can enjoy complete fatherly love, a comfortable life, a carefree childhood, and become the little princess in everyone's palm?
But she, Mu Nanyan, can only have six years of beautiful memories that her mother tried her best to leave behind, which were as short as a shooting star?
In the following twenty years of her life, she was forced to learn to read people's faces early on, grew up with difficulty in indifference and neglect, and faced all the storms and thorns of life alone.
The fear of having no one to rely on, the grievances of living under someone else's roof, the tears that she had to swallow alone in the middle of the night... Only she remembered them clearly!
Everything that should have belonged to her - her father's love, a complete family, a carefree childhood - was accidentally and even cruelly given to another girl.
And the man who created all these different fates is now lying on the hospital bed, waiting for her - the daughter whom he has forgotten intentionally or unintentionally for more than 20 years to donate hematopoietic stem cells to save her life.
How ironic! And how unfair!
The huge grievance and years of accumulated resentment were like boiling magma, surging violently in her chest, almost breaking through the dam of reason.
Her eyes instantly turned red, not because of sadness, but because of a resentment and anger so strong that it almost suffocated her.
Lu Yiran clearly saw the pain and struggle in her eyes. He didn't say anything, but just silently hugged her tighter in his arms, silently bearing all her trembling.
Mu Nanyan leaned in Lu Yiran's arms, her body trembling slightly due to intense emotions.
The grievances and bitterness that had been buried by time surged out at this moment like a flood that broke through a dam, almost drowning her.
She remembered the love her mother had when she was alive, which was complete and warm.
But after her mother left, her world changed completely.
The cautiousness and observation in her adoptive father's house, Lin Wan's gentle appearance but actually cold calculations and hints, and the lingering feeling of being an "outsider" in that family... all this should not have been her fate!
If Shangguan He had taken more responsibility back then, if he could find her and her daughter, even if he just gave them a little bit of shelter, would her life be completely different?
Would her mother have died earlier? Would she have grown up carefree in the sunshine like Fuling, instead of learning to be independent and hide away so early?
These "ifs" were like fine needles, densely piercing her heart, bringing sharp and long-lasting pain.
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