"What a shame! Senior Zhang has always been at the top of his class, both in high school and college! And yet he ended up with a family like that! When I was in school, I heard many teachers praise Senior Zhang, but they also lamented his humble background!"
Olivia Jones and Sophia Miller went to the same high school. They had a good relationship since childhood because their families had business dealings.
During his high school years, the school's famous senior, Siheng Zhang, was actually known for his poor family and excellent academic performance.
Not many people in the school knew about these things in his family. But after Siheng Zhang became involved with those school bullies, the news suddenly became a hot topic in the school. It would be difficult for the two of them not to know about it.
"When I was in high school, a lot of rumors against Senior Zhang suddenly appeared in the school. Senior Zhang's family affairs and his life experience became known to everyone. At that time, many people were talking about Senior Zhang's family affairs behind his back! Some people even mocked him in front of him! Alas, if it were me, I would definitely collapse, but unexpectedly, Senior Zhang gritted his teeth and persevered, and successfully got into college! I didn't expect it either!" Olivia said with emotion.
Everyone sighed when they heard this.
The evil deeds of parents will eventually be repaid by their children, which is quite unfortunate!
"Actually, the rumors that started out were all about Siheng Zhang's mother being a mistress who stole someone else's fiancé, 'Siheng Zhang's mother used improper means to seduce a wealthy young master,' 'Siheng Zhang's mother is an undisciplined woman who specifically seduces married men,' 'Siheng Zhang is a wealthy family's illegitimate child, the kind the wealthy family won't acknowledge!' And so on. There were also a lot of obscene and filthy things that were too hard to hear."
"The rumor started with Siheng Zhang's mother, then spread to him. It said Siheng Zhang had always had a strange and unpleasant personality since childhood, and then it spread to him that he cursed loudly at his family, beat up his cousins, and bullied other students privately.
At that time, even though Siheng Zhang wore cheap old clothes every day, he was treated differently by his teachers and classmates because of his good grades in school. No one laughed at him because of his poor background.
But once this series of targeted rumors came out, the attitude of people around him changed 180 degrees!
Even though many students were skeptical at first, there were still many adults in the local area who knew about the past, so the story of Siheng Zhang's background quickly became known to all students.
"The identity of an illegitimate child is a sensitive one. Even though Siheng Zhang's parents were single when they conceived him, and his father, Thomson, was not married at the time, Thomson had already quickly married someone else when Siheng Zhang was born. This made Siheng Zhang's identity difficult to scrutinize.
As a result, Siheng Zhang's background was completely exposed, and he was always pointed at whenever he went out. It also led to him not having a single friend throughout high school.
Despite this situation, Siheng Zhang was able to successfully gain admission to the best university in the United States with his own abilities and was awarded a full scholarship by the school."
This is something that Olivia admires very much.
"Didn't Siheng Zhang come out to explain? At least ask the teacher to help clarify that when his parents were together, his father was not married, and his mother was not the kind of person who destroyed other people's families!" Li Nanxing asked.
In Li Nanxing's opinion, unmarried couples are not considered legal couples!
Having a fiancée and having a family are two different things. Anyway, they are not marriages in the legal sense, so it is not a matter of destroying someone's family!
"Um, I don't think I've heard that Senior Zhang has come out to clarify things, right?" Olivia glanced at Sophia next to her and said uncertainly.
Sophia said with certainty, "Definitely not! If Siheng Zhang came forward to clarify, then I would definitely know! If I haven't heard of it, then it doesn't exist!"
Sophia simply loved to listen to and talk about gossip, and her ability to find out about it was quite strong. She didn't feel much about Zhang Siheng's situation. After all, she had heard a lot of gossip and all kinds of tragic stories. To her, all of these were just stories! She just listened to them and forgot about them!
Olivia, on the other hand, was more sensitive. After hearing about Zhang Siheng's family situation, she felt a certain degree of sympathy, but considering that he might be involved with those school bullies, Olivia hesitated.
In fact, there were students and teachers in the school who tried to help Siheng Zhang, but for some reason, the matter was often left unresolved.
Olivia didn't know whether it was because of Siheng Zhang's self-esteem that he rejected these people's kindness, or whether the school bully did something behind the scenes.
Li Nanxing felt that Zhang Siheng was a bit unlucky. It wasn't because he had a bad background, it was purely because of bad luck!
In fact, if the Thomson family doesn't want to be criticized, they will definitely not be vague about alimony, and the amount they give is definitely enough to raise a child to adulthood.
But after hearing from them that Zhang Siheng didn't have enough to eat during high school and wore hand-me-down clothes, it was obvious that the alimony was embezzled by her mother and her maternal grandparents.
Actually, this kid is a bit stubborn!
Regardless of whether the Thomson family used the alimony to completely give up the custody of Zhang Siheng, if you can't even fill your stomach, you can still run to your father's house to ask for money for food!
Raising underage children is the responsibility of parents, especially in Europe and the United States. There are still many laws and regulations to protect minors. However, the 1970s were not as perfect as they would be decades later. At that time, it should still be a mandatory requirement to raise underage children until they are over 18 years old.
Li Nanxing didn't know much about the U.S. juvenile protection laws of that era, but as long as the Thomson family didn't want to be laughed to death by people in the circle, they would definitely not let their offspring starve to death outside.
However, according to Li Nanxing's observation, Zhang Siheng seems to have a strong sense of self-esteem, and he really has problems in dealing with people and interacting with others.
She felt that Zhang Siheng was probably too stubborn to beg for mercy, and would not put down his pride to go to his father to ask for money. Even if this was actually what the other party deserved, he probably thought that this was no different from begging for money!
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