Chapter 94: The Small Matter of My Father Actually Being a Hidden Powerhouse, Part 4

The secondary account could not answer the question. It rapidly sifted through everything in its database and finally reached a conclusion.

“This is humanity. At some point, it will always burst forth with a brilliance beyond compare.”

The person in charge also believed Qin Ye was a man of noble character.

Qin Ye, who had just received such high praise, sneezed violently.

The secondary account looked proudly pleased, as though sharing in the honor. Yes, its father was indeed a saint from humanity’s own chronicles.

Qin Ye sneezed again.

“Did you catch a chill sleeping in the chair last night?”

Qin Yancheng had spent the entire night gaming, and by day he looked utterly listless.

Qin Ye gave a snort. “No. Someone’s praising me.”

Qin Yancheng said nothing and closed his eyes to catch up on sleep.

Qin Ye did not mind.

The person in charge acted with astonishing efficiency.

He was even worried that the people below might misunderstand the situation and do something inappropriate, causing an accident. So after the meeting with the secondary account, he immediately took a special flight to the city where Qin Ye was staying.

When the hospital room door opened, Feng Xiaolian was there as well, as usual having come to deliver a meal to Qin Yancheng.

Qin Ye was off to the side drinking soup. The person in charge was a middle-aged man of some age, but he was neither balding nor potbellied, and there was nothing greasy or slick about him. His bearing was cultured and refined, and his first impression on others was excellent.

Qin Ye felt a little sour about it. He had once been a handsome old man too.

So if the original body had cared a little more about personal appearance, why had he not minded his wife and family?

Still, thinking about it, if the original body had cared about his looks, he would have remained the white moonlight of those years. Then Feng Xiaolian and he would never have become a middle-aged couple who could make each other lose their appetites for three days with a single kiss, and Qin Ye would probably still have had to go through a divorce.

Hm. Thinking about it that way, being plain was fine.

After all, Qin Ye was only willing to raise children, not bear them or perform any childbearing acts.

The person in charge’s sudden arrival left Feng Xiaolian and Qin Yancheng staring blankly.

Qin Ye, however, remained quite calm. He stood, went forward to shake the man’s hand, and then greeted him casually, “Care to eat?”

The person in charge had been about to say he was not hungry, but before the words could leave his mouth, his stomach let out a loud rumble.

The person in charge: …

This world was too surreal. He had been so busy being amazed that he had forgotten to eat.

With that rumbling as background music, it was hard to insist he was not hungry, so he simply accepted the invitation and sat down to eat with them.

Although Feng Xiaolian had never met the man before, the sight of the many bodyguards trailing behind him made her uneasy.

But seeing Qin Ye’s attitude, she immediately calmed down as well.

After the meal, the person in charge began discussing business with Qin Ye.

First, of course, he praised him to the heavens, calling Qin Ye a peerless genius and an unprecedented monster of talent, and lamented how the nation had somehow let such a person slip through its fingers.

Then he offered exhaustive praise for Qin Ye’s character, integrity, breadth of vision, and values, before finally stating his true purpose.

The secondary account’s meaning had already been made very clear: my father wants me to surrender, to hand myself over to the state.

The person in charge knew this too, but he still had to meet Qin Ye in person, rather than speak only through the secondary account, the artificial intelligence.

The significance represented by the secondary account, the strategic goals it could achieve, the future role it might play in countless ways, and so on—these were all matters for later discussion and study.

The person in charge felt it would be best to bring the secondary account’s creator along as well.

Even if that person did not intend to devote the rest of his life to the cause, to burn himself away in full and shine for the sake of others,

at the very least, his name ought to be attached to it.

That was the person in charge’s view, anyway.

Qin Ye himself did not feel much about it. He had simply slapped his forehead one day and tempted the third child into making a secondary account.

His original intention had only been to complete the task.

He had never once thought in terms of serving the country and the people, or of making contributions in the present age and benefits for all ages to come.

As for the praise and admiration others gave him, Qin Ye accepted it with perfect composure.

Yes, exactly. That was just who he was. To call him a saint of the present age was not the slightest exaggeration.

The person in charge: …

He had seen thick-skinned people before, but someone this thick-skinned was rare even in his entire life.

Before sending the person in charge off, Qin Ye asked one more question: “The money I made from stock trading myself won’t be confiscated, will it?”

The person in charge glanced at him and smiled. “It won’t.”

Qin Ye gave an “oh,” and that put his mind at ease.

That sum of money was far greater than the combined assets of the Tan family.

Afterward, Qin Ye had the secondary account take out the portion exceeding the Tan family’s wealth and use it for charity.

With the secondary account keeping watch, embezzling charitable funds would not be so easy.

Just now, the person in charge had said that the secondary account still belonged to Qin Ye, but he hoped Qin Ye would visit a certain place and see where the research had gone wrong.

How had they ended up stuck at the level of an artificial idiot?

Qin Ye agreed at once.

After all, the secondary account had already informed them of the original purpose behind his creation.

Once everything was settled, Qin Ye, accompanied that very day by the person in charge’s designated liaison, headed for the Tan family villa.

He did not change into anything high-end, only dressing like an ordinary middle-aged man. There was not a single luxury item on him.

The original body had never cared for such things. The watch on his wrist had even been a birthday gift from Feng Xiaolian.

Nothing branded, nothing extravagant; from head to toe, his clothes and shoes together probably cost no more than a thousand yuan.

It was actually a fairly decent outfit, but in the eyes of the Tan family, it was worth nothing at all.

People who wore or carried hundreds of thousands upon themselves naturally looked down on a few thousand.

Tan Jian was not at home; it seemed he had gone out to discuss some project. Only Madam Tan was there.

She had originally refused to see Qin Ye at all. It was only after learning that the person accompanying him was from the government that she reluctantly opened the door and let him in.

See that? It was not that the original body had never wanted to come to the Tan family to ask for his child back. He simply could not get in. If they would not see him, no amount of fussing would do any good.

As for stirring up public opinion, that was even less of an option. In that regard, these wealthy families were professionals.

There was no access, no channel for exposure. The world was not as bright as people imagined.

Fortunately, there were always people burning themselves away in an effort to spread the light seen by others across every inch of the earth.

If not for the person accompanying him, the Tan family would not have opened the door at all.

So from the very beginning, the Tan family had never put the Qin family, who had raised their own biological daughter, in their eyes.

Nor had they ever considered sending back the adopted daughter they had raised for eighteen years.

From the outline of the plot, Qin Ye guessed that if their adopted daughter, after being renamed Tan Yuanyuan from Qin Yuanyuan, had not met Meng Yuan and then set her entire heart on pleasing him,

and if the Tan family had not known Meng Yuan’s background and welcomed that wholeheartedly, they might never have chosen to give up their adopted daughter.

There was nothing so complicated about the matter of a real and fake heiress. Setting aside the criminal act of malicious child-swapping, for families with money and leisure, the better ones would negotiate properly with the biological parents of the adopted daughter, keeping close contact between both sides and simply treating it as though they had two daughters on each side.

The worse ones would either coldly return each child to where she belonged, or else one side would simply ignore the other.

Just like the Qin and Tan families.

That kind of malicious swap, where the real heiress had suffered every hardship outside, did not count in this discussion.

We do not discuss villains who are very criminal.

We are a great saint of noble character, a living fatherly saint radiating a holiness too blinding to look at directly.

We are not like ordinary people.

Qin Ye wore a faint smile as he looked at Madam Tan.

“Yuanyuan has been taken by you for a week already, and you even transferred her school registration without a word.

I am not saying anything about that. After all, you are Yuanyuan’s true biological parents.

I came here today only to ask one thing: you have taken your child. So where is my child?”

Madam Tan kept smiling as well, though her eyes held a trace of disdain. “Do you know how much effort I have poured into Suqing?

She learned the most expensive dance and music from childhood, along with flower arranging and fashion. What she received was an elite education beyond anything you could even imagine.

And what did Yuanyuan receive? Bringing Yuanyuan back was the best choice for her.

But Suqing may not necessarily need to return to the life you lead. Or are you only trying to reclaim the child, while not caring in the least about her future and prospects?

If Suqing stays with the Tan family, she will still be the Tan family’s eldest daughter, enjoying every resource we can provide. But if things are truly returned to their proper places, what can you give her?

Can you give her the kind of enviable job she would have after graduation, or a spouse of exceptional excellence and distinguished background?

You can give her nothing. If she leaves the Tan family, she will be nothing.”

What a viciously cruel jab.

Qin Ye’s expression did not change. “That is not for you to decide. Suqing gets to decide.”

Madam Tan choked for a moment.

But she remained extremely confident.

Tan Suqing had been a very obedient child since childhood, always striving to do everything as well as possible, just to earn a single word of praise from her parents.

That child was the very image of a perfect young lady, a proper daughter from an elite family at a glance.

And Madam Tan believed that the now-adult Tan Suqing knew very well what choice would be best.

Since she was so confident, she did not mind having someone bring Tan Suqing back so that she could meet her biological father.

In the Qin family’s memories, a person like Tan Suqing still retained a little sense of presence. But in the plot, she had no presence at all.

And in the memories of the Qin family, that presence was not all that strong either.

The original body had fallen gravely ill, Qin Yancheng had not yet grown up overnight, and he was not mature enough.

Meanwhile, Feng Xiaolian had been occupied caring for the original body, looking after the adopted daughter, and dealing with a troublesome son, leaving her too overwhelmed to spare much attention.

As a result, the family inevitably came to overlook Tan Suqing, who had very little presence and never asked for anything on her own.

At the Tan family home, Tan Suqing was practically invisible. Her only value was as a source of pride when her parents spoke of her to others.

And then, when she grew up, she would marry the fine match her parents considered equal to her status.

After returning to the Qin family, the room she stayed in had belonged to Qin Yuanyuan. Everyone in the family was busy with their own affairs, no one noticed her, and no one cared about her.

When she carefully and cautiously tried to融入 the family, she was even snapped at by the immature, brainless Qin Yancheng.

Perhaps Qin Yancheng had never meant to hate his own sister, nor to recognize only Tan Yuanyuan as his sister and not Tan Suqing.

Perhaps he had simply seen Tan Suqing touch something that originally belonged to Tan Yuanyuan and blurted out, “Who told you to mess with other people’s things?”

And those words were enough to pierce the heart, enough to wound deeply.