Chapter 39

Author's POV:

A tense silence hung in the air as all eyes turned toward Song Bo. The man's expression was unreadable as he seemed to weigh his next words carefully. When he finally spoke, his voice carried a weariness borne from years of deception.

"Those nights when I stumbled home late, reeking of alcohol...that was my misguided attempt to dull the ache of a crumbling marriage built on lies." 

Chen Xinyi opened her mouth, but Song Bo raised a hand to silence her. 

"When you first told me you were pregnant after...after that one encounter, my own father was deeply skeptical. But he valued family above all else, so he kept his doubts to himself, for my sake."

Song Bo's jaw tightened as he continued.

"But as the months went on, and your belly failed to swell as it should, my own suspicions began to take root. You refused to be intimate, claiming it could endanger the baby. You would not allow me to touch your stomach, to feel the life growing within."

He shook his head slowly. 

"By the time you returned from your supposed trip, having 'given birth' at some nondescript hospital...I knew in my heart that the child you brought home was not of my bloodline."

Inhaling deeply, Song Bo turned to regard Chen Xinyi with an inscrutable gaze.

"All children of the Song family are born with a distinctive birthmark on their left buttock - a mark resembling a small bird that has been passed down for generations. But the baby you presented to me...she did not bear that mark."

Huang Jiang watched intently, while Wu Haoyu continued his unwavering observation of Song Yanyan, whose own expression remained impassive. Chen Xinyi seemed to shrink back under the weight of her husband's words.

Song Bo pressed on relentlessly.

"My own father insisted on a discreet DNA test once the child reached five years old. And the results confirmed his worst fears - she was not my flesh and blood, nor bore even a shred of Song lineage."

With those words, he pushed a slim folder across the table towards Chen Xinyi, whose eyes went wide with shock and dread. 

"This...this is the DNA test from twelve years ago, providing irrefutable proof of your deceit."

A ringing silence fell over the room, broken only by Yangyao's sharp indrawn breath. Chen Xinyi stared down at the folder, her mouth working soundlessly as the weight of her exposed lies seemed to finally render her mute.

Song Bo's following words lashed out like a whip through the stillness.

"I had thought, perhaps, that you had simply been unfaithful - that the child was the product of another man's seed, not mine. As unconscionable as that would have been, I could never have fathomed that you had purchased an infant, perpetrating an outright fabrication about your own pregnancy."

His eyes bored into his wife's, a lifetime of gamely buried hurt and anger seeming to rise inexorably to the surface.

"Now everything makes sense. Your refusal to be unclothed before me as your 'pregnancy' progressed. Your aversion to my hands anywhere near your flat stomach. It was all just another layer of lies, was it not?"

Chen Xinyi seemed to regain her vocal abilities, shaking her head desperately as she took a stumbling step towards her husband.

"Bo, y-you have to understand, I only did what I did because I love you! I knew your family would never accept someone like me if we didn't have a child together."

But Song Bo simply stared at her, his expression hardening further into carved granite.

"So you decided the solution was to traffic an innocent child, robbing her of her true family and identity? Is that your perverted justification, Xinyi?"

Chen Xinyi faltered, seemingly at a loss in the face of her husband's cold contempt. Song Yangyao found her voice again, shrill with indignation.

"F-Father, you can't honestly be suggesting Mother is...is some kind of criminal? This is all clearly a scheme by that...that horrid girl to turn us against each other!"

But even as she spoke, the heat seemed to drain from her words when Song Bo turned his impassive gaze upon his daughter. Once more producing the damning folder, he ran a thumb along its edge.

"I continued raising the child I knew was not mine, despite the DNA results all those years ago," he said, an undercurrent of shame and hurt tingeing his voice. "Because I was a coward, afraid of the public reckoning that would ensue if the truth was revealed."

The words seemed to take the wind from Song Yangyao's sails as she could only gape soundlessly at her father's unexpected admission.

"I reasoned that the child was blameless, that continuing as a family unit was the best path forward for everyone," Song Bo went on heavily. "And in my willful self-delusion, I tried to atone for my wife's sins through spoiling the poor girl with material excess on my business travels away."

He shook his head again, looking wearied beyond his years.

"When in truth, I realized far too late that no amount of indulgence could make up for the cruelties and deprivations she endured from her supposed 'mother' behind closed doors."

At those words, Song Yanyan's eyes slid towards Chen Xinyi, who gave a full-body flinch back from the accusation laid bare so baldly. In that moment, the woman seemed to shrink in on herself, the usual masks of vanity and feigned nobility falling away to reveal something small and pitiable.

The silence that fell this time seemed to linger and stretch interminably before finally, Song Bo spoke again, finality lacing each word.

"No more lies. No more deceptions, Xinyi. Not from you...and not from me either. The time for reckoning has well and truly arrived."

As his gaze bored into his wife's, Chen Xinyi seemed to curl inward further, all pretense falling away as the foundations of her carefully constructed fictions finally crumbled away to bitter dust.