Chapter 31

Ruan Tang was completely dumbfounded, utterly unable to understand how he was being associated with the spoiled, runaway-wife type of little spouse, and he also greatly admired Auston's remarkable power of association.

He had long known that Auston's logic was unconventional. Seeing Auston acting as if it were perfectly natural, Ruan Tang thought, in order not to appear a fool before a madman.

Ruan Tang could only adjust his expression, muster his patience, and explain to Auston: “Your Grace, you misunderstand. I didn't run away from home. I just missed my mother and my brother and sister too much, so I went to visit them… It was my fault for not informing you in advance.”

Although he felt that his relationship with Auston wasn't yet close enough to require reporting his outings, Ruan Tang nevertheless spoke these pleasantries very smoothly…

“Then why didn't you answer my calls?” Auston asked him.

He had tried calling Ruan Tang countless times that day.

Ruan Tang honestly answered: “Because of what happened yesterday with Ruan Xi, he has too many protective knights, all wanting to argue with me. I found it too annoying and didn't want my personal terminal to keep ringing, so I just turned it off.”

In any case, Ruan Tang was used to coming and going alone and thought no one would look for him, but he hadn't counted on Auston.

Auston calmed down and thought it over: while this Omega was spoiled and hard to keep, he really didn't seem like the type to run away from home. Thus his expression relaxed a bit, and he accepted Ruan Tang's explanation, asking, “...Your mother and brother and sister?”

Aren't Ruan Tang's mother and brother and sister supposed to be at the Ruan Family?

By common sense, since Ruan Tang had so thoroughly slapped the face of Ruan Ming's most beloved son yesterday, and had been so upset today, he should not have wanted to return to the Ruan Family.

“When I agreed to marry you, Your Grace, I already negotiated terms with Marshal Ruan Ming to move my mother and brother and sister out of the Ruan Family. They are currently settled in a sanatorium. Although the sanatorium has a good environment, I can never feel at ease if I don't visit often.” Seeing the question in his eyes, Ruan Tang immediately took the initiative to explain his family's current situation.

Auston looked deeply at him for a long moment, saying nothing.

Ruan Tang thought the matter was over, but that night, after Auston came as usual to sniff and touch him like one would a cat, he didn't leave immediately.

Instead, in the darkness, he said to Ruan Tang, “Since you're worried about your mother and brother and sister, why not bring them to the mansion to live together?”

“Ah? But this is the Ducal Palace!” Ruan Tang was greatly astonished.

He had never expected Auston to say this. Although in ordinary families it is quite common for a son-in-law to invite his mother-in-law to stay long-term to care for the elderly, for aristocrats who valued propriety, this was very unusual.

Especially since it wasn't just taking care of a senile mother-in-law, but also a vegetative brother-in-law and an insane sister-in-law.

But Auston dismissed this: “What's the big deal? With a mansion this big, you're saying I can't house three more people or afford to feed them?”

He was already supporting Ruan Tang anyway, so he didn't mind supporting his family as well to make him happy.

“...Then thank you, Your Grace.” Ruan Tang was overjoyed.

For the first time, he appreciated the benefit of Auston's nature of not caring about others' gossip. No matter how good the sanatorium was, it couldn't compare to being able to keep his mother and siblings by his side.

It was wonderful that Auston didn't mind them moving into the Ducal Palace.

Auston gave a soft “hmph”: “Trifling matter.”

Then, without giving Ruan Tang a chance to thank him further, he directly wheeled his chair away.

At this moment, in the Ruan Family Mansion located in the most luxurious area of the Imperial Star, Ruan Xi was frantically explaining to Shen Mozhi.

“Mozhi, you have to believe me, believe me! All this was really Ruan Tang, Ruan Tang and his husband conspiring to frame me. I don't know how the surveillance camera was set up to show me like that, but I really didn't say anything else to him, let alone seduce him…” Ruan Xi cried pitifully, clutching Shen Mozhi's hand and refusing to let go: “I was just asking him to let Ruan Tang go and let Ruan Tang be with Zhou Yao…”

As tears flowed, he seemed to have suffered endless wrongs: “Who would have thought, who would have thought they would deliberately set me up…”

He had beautiful eyes—pitiful, tender, and full of affection. When tears fell from such eyes, they always evoked sympathy.

Shen Mozhi looked at Ruan Xi this way. He wanted to believe him, but whenever he recalled the way Ruan Xi looked in the video, he couldn't manage any expression.

He loved Ruan Xi very much…

Because, when Ruan Xi was young, during his most destitute and empty time, Ruan Xi not only didn't look down on him, but helped him and encouraged him, rekindling the courage to live, to compete with others, to fight against fate, and to keep climbing upward when he was on the verge of despair.

At that time, looking at that little Omega who was also bullied like himself, he swore in his heart that if one day he could truly climb up as Ruan Xi had said, he would definitely return to protect Ruan Xi, give him everything he wanted, and hold him in the palm of his hand, spoiling him to the skies.

At that time, Ruan Xi was the only light, the only warmth in his dark life…

Just a single flash that dispelled all the cold from his body and supported him through the most bitter and difficult journey.

But now, looking at the Ruan Xi before him, Shen Mozhi found that his state of mind could no longer return to what it once was.

He even began to doubt himself, wondering whether his regard for Ruan Xi as his pure first love was only a product of the suspension bridge effect, and not true feelings…

“I don't know how to explain it to you, but the truth really isn't what you saw. I… I couldn't do something to betray you…” Ruan Xi cried hoarsely.

Xia Ruzhi immediately pulled a long face, rebuking him openly while defending him covertly: “Child, you know what kind of person Ruan Tang is, why are you so trusting and unguarded? He told you he wanted to divorce Auston, and you actually went to that madman to plead for him…”

“And now look, you've been set up, haven't you?”

While scolding Ruan Xi, she looked at Shen Mozhi and defended him: “Mozhi, Xixi really didn't mean it. He's just too kind and was framed. He loves you so much, how could he possibly seduce that madman?”

“Mozhi, I was wrong, I was really wrong. I shouldn't have been so unguarded, fallen into someone's trap, ruined my reputation like this, and implicated you…” Ruan Xi admitted his fault promptly, crying in extreme grief, and was about to pull Shen Mozhi's sleeve and kneel to him: “Please forgive me just this once, Mozhi. I promise it won't happen again…”

Seeing him like this, Shen Mozhi quickly helped him up before he could kneel: “Don't be like this. I believe you…”

He would never watch his own lifesaver kneel before him, no matter what.

“Really?” Ruan Xi wept with brimming tears, looking at him with hopeful eyes.

Shen Mozhi, not knowing what expression to make, said at once, word by word: “Of course it's true. You are my fiancé. If I don't trust you, who else would I trust? Once this storm has passed, we'll be married immediately.”

No matter what the truth was, as long as Ruan Xi needed him, he would stand by his side, even if a thousand fingers pointed at him.

Just as Ruan Xi had treated him back then, he needed to repay this debt of gratitude.

“That's wonderful! I knew you would believe me, Mozhi.” Ruan Xi immediately threw himself into Shen Mozhi's arms excitedly.

Shen Mozhi held him with a blank expression, but felt that the feeling between them could hardly return to how it was at the beginning.

After seeing Shen Mozhi off, Ruan Xi thought back to Auston's ruthlessness, his own extremely poor reputation in the Imperial Star, and the fact that he was now shut out from the noble Omega circle. His face immediately turned livid, and with a sullen expression, he began throwing things in his room: “Ruan Tang, Auston… I won't let you get away with this!”

“Reminder: your golden finger has developed cracks. If you don't find a way to suppress Ruan Tang's reputation on a large scale and make him completely disgraced to repair the cracks, your cracks will continue to widen!” The System's mechanical prompt sounded in Ruan Xi's mind.

Ruan Xi's face, already deathly pale from the lingering effects of the mental attack, instantly turned extremely gloomy, and he said irritably, “I know, I know, stop pushing me.”

He suppressed his temper and replied one by one to those who cared for and believed in him, playing the pitiful role before them. But in his heart, he was brewing a plan to pull out a big move, striking a heavy blow at Ruan Tang to ruin his reputation completely…

“I wasn't going to do this so soon, but you forced my hand. It was you who forced me, Ruan Tang.” Ruan Xi was almost hysterical.

He was extremely busy, trying to whitewash himself and deal with Ruan Tang, but he overlooked the fact that one person who should have asked about him was missing…

…

Wen Run searched for news about Ruan Tang in shock and discovered that he had already married Auston, and was instantly full of disbelief.

Thinking about what Ruan Tang might be suffering now, he unconsciously reddened around the eyes…

He never expected that, waking up from a nap, he had been reborn, returned to more than a decade ago, when all the tragedies and stories had yet to begin…

On the surface, he was an unloved child from a minor noble family, and had grown up with Ruan Tang as a childhood friend and close companion.

He was an outstanding Beta.

But in reality, he was the illegitimate child born to Ruan Tang's elder sister Ruan Yue and her abandoned ex-boyfriend, a stain on Ruan Yue. Thus, from birth, he had also been abandoned by Ruan Yue and given to his biological father.

No one in the entire Ruan Family knew of his existence. When he was five, his biological father, who had pined for Ruan Yue his whole life, died accidentally, and only then was Wen Run adopted by the family he now lived with.

Wen Run had known his background since childhood. When he moved to the Imperial Star with his adoptive family, he happened to meet Ruan Tang, and becoming friends with Ruan Tang was intentional on his part.

He had always wanted to see what the eldest daughter of the Ruan Family, who had abandoned both him and his father twice for ambition and power, looked like.

Because of his father's death, he had always harbored an inexplicable and twisted resentment toward his biological mother.

At first, he got along well with Ruan Tang, but later, he unconsciously redirected his dark resentment toward Ruan Yue onto Ruan Tang…

Because Ruan Tang, in temperament and every other aspect, was too similar to the normal-state Ruan Yue that his father had described to him.

In the early days when Ruan Tang and Ruan Xi were fighting, he always sided with Ruan Tang, because although Ruan Tang didn't know, he knew that they shared blood—Ruan Tang was his maternal uncle.

But from some point on—

Wen Run saw more and more of Ruan Yue in Ruan Tang, and gradually his mental state became unbalanced.

Watching Ruan Tang care for Madam Ruan, Ruan Yang, and Ruan Yue without complaint, Wen Run, influenced by something, began to think that Ruan Tang was scheming—using care for his mother and sister to gain Ruan Ming's sympathy, seize the high ground in public opinion, and contend with Xia Ruzhi. Otherwise, if he truly had backbone and ambition, why didn't he leave the Ruan Family with his mother and siblings instead of continuing to enjoy everything the Ruan Family provided, pretending to be aloof with his noble status?

Compared to Ruan Xi, who had no relation to Ruan Yang, Ruan Yue, or their mother—in fact, their mothers were enemies—yet was deeply favored and often spoke well of them before Ruan Ming out of kindness, pleading for better living conditions, making his goodness seem more genuine.

He began to demonize Ruan Tang. Everything Ruan Tang did, he found hypocritical.

When Ruan Tang broke two engagements in succession, he thought Ruan Tang was reaping what he sowed, trying to snatch something from Ruan Xi but ending up with nothing.

Deep down, Wen Run had inexplicably convinced himself that Ruan Tang was exactly like the ambitious, unscrupulous biological mother of his imagination.

The only difference was—

His mother had succeeded, while Ruan Tang, who played with people's hearts and used marriage as a bargaining chip to gain power, had failed and suffered the consequences.

At that time, watching Ruan Tang's successive misfortunes, Wen Run even felt a condescending attitude toward this Omega's self-destruction, a stance of 'angry at his lack of fight, saddened by his misfortune' toward this little uncle.

Seeing Ruan Tang miserable, he showed nothing on his face, but in his heart, he even felt a certain schadenfreude that his mother, who abandoned him and his father for power, was getting her comeuppance.

But he ignored the fact that Ruan Tang was not Ruan Yue, and his biological mother Ruan Yue was also different from what he imagined.

But at that time, he didn't know. Wen Run persisted in his paranoid belief in Ruan Xi, demonizing Ruan Tang deep in his heart, until his research results were stolen by Ruan Xi, he was framed for murder, and he was driven to the brink of death. It was then that Ruan Tang, who had learned his true background, stood alone and fearless against the various forces that wanted him dead, risked assassination, and persisted in seeking the truth for him amidst the vortex of powers to clear his name…

Wen Run had awakened in prison, filled with immense regret.

Because of his outstanding research talent and astonishing mecha-building skills, he had been rescued from prison by the Rebel Army. His first reaction upon getting out was to search for his ill-fated and misunderstood uncle, wanting to reconnect with him…

But by the time the Rebel Army invaded the Imperial Star, Ruan Tang was already gone forever.

He would never have the chance to apologize to Ruan Tang.

Recalling how, in his youth, he had been too trusting of Ruan Xi, and had harbored stubborn misunderstandings, contempt, disdain, and self-righteous arrogance toward Ruan Tang, Wen Run's heart ached as if pierced by needles, dense and painful.

Having finally returned to the past, Wen Run had thought he would have the chance to make it up to this little uncle, but he didn't expect that the world seemed to have been stirred by the butterfly effect of his rebirth.

In the previous life, Ruan Tang had never married in his lifetime, but now he had actually married Auston, that terrifying madman.