Rebirth: Different Way

Zhou Mingmei disappeared silently; when Shen Rong woke up, he was in a trance for a while before he realised what had happened before.

At this moment, he had been sent back to his room and was lying on the bed there. Shen Rong looked around in horror, but there was no one else in the room except him. When he thought of what he had heard earlier and the blood stain that he had noticed behind the door, his complexion turned extremely white.

Why? Didn’t Wang Changlin have a good relationship with his mother? Hadn’t he always acted as if he was very fond of Shen Rong? Why would he do this? Why?

When he couldn’t find the answers to these questions, Shen Rong suddenly thought of something, eagerly crawled to the edge of the bed and struggled to reach for the mobile phone on the table. He couldn’t stay here. Wang Changlin was a madman, he would kill him, he had to find someone to save him, yes, find someone to save him.

The phone was soon in his hands and Shen Rong fumbled for the number in a panic. Who could save him at this time? Shen Ji, Shen Cheng or Shen Xi? He couldn’t think of anyone else; the people around him were not his friends, he only got close to them by offering his body, and now that he was like this, no one of those people was willing to take care of him. Only now did Shen Rong realise sadly that once something happened to him, the first people he would think of to turn for help were actually his three brothers.

Shen Rong searched through the phone for the numbers of the three of them. He didn’t have the numbers of the other two, except for Shen Cheng. But would Shen Cheng answer his call? Shen Rong didn’t have time to think too much; his only thought at this moment was to find someone to save him. Shaking, Shen Rong tapped on the number about to dial it when the door of the room was suddenly pushed open and Wang Changlin appeared at the door with a kind expression on his face.

“Ah Rong, who do you want to contact?”

Shen Rong’s movements froze; he lifted his head a little as if he were a puppet, looking towards the door in shock, his voice trembling, “I, I, I don’t know.”

Wang Changlin took a step into the room and walked towards him with a faint smile, “What’s wrong? So scared?”

Seeing Wang Changlin approach step by step, Shen Rong instinctively dragged his body backwards and shrank back in the bed, “You, don’t come over!”

Wang Changlin looked at him affectionately, as if he was looking at a disobedient child, and smilingly reached out and placed his hand on top of Shen Rong’s head, “Ah Rong, why are you so afraid of me? Didn’t I say that in my heart you are just like my own son? Don’t you believe my words?”

Shen Rong no longer knew what expression he should put on now. Wang Changlin’s hand seemed to carry an insidious coldness. As it moved over his head, he only felt chills all over his body, trembling uncontrollably.

His behaviour caused disappointment to pass through Wang Changlin’s eyes, “Ah Rong, you are so cowardly, it’s really too disappointing for me.”

Shen Rong couldn’t say a word; he just kept trembling.

Wang Changlin reached out and took the phone away from him, smiling as he said, “Although I don’t object to you contacting Shen Ji and the others, I still have a few things left to do, so to avoid trouble, it’s better for you to be obedient and stay put.”

Shen Rong watched as Wang Changlin took away his hope and couldn’t help but muster up the courage to say in a trembling voice, “Uncle Wang, can you let me go? I’ll do as I’m told, I’ll leave the country immediately, I promise I’ll never return to Zhongjing in my lifetime, I’ll never get in your way, Uncle Wang, please let me go, I beg you.”

The smile on Wang Changlin’s face faded. He looked at Shen Rong’s pleading face in silence. Seeing Shen Rong’s pathetic look, he sneered, “I swore to eliminate the Shen family. There will be no more Shen family in this world.”

Shen Rong’s eyes became desperate little by little. He didn’t know where he got the courage from but he fiercely lunged towards Wang Changlin, trying to grab his throat. Wang Changlin took a nimble step back and Shen Rong fell heavily to the ground, Wang Changlin did not even look at him and turned to leave the room.

Shen Rong could have never imagined that Wang Changlin would harbour such hatred towards the Shen family, and even retaliate against him. What was it for?

The question that Shen Rong could not understand was the very question that Li Mingxuan was trying to solve at this moment.

Ye Han handed the USB flash drive in his hand to Li Mingxuan with an odd expression, “This contains part of the information about Wang Changlin. I think you need to read it first.”

Li Mingxuan looked at Ye Han in confusion, “Part of the information?”

Ye Han nodded and explained, “Wang Changlin grew up abroad since he was young. A lot of information is hard to find after a long time. This is all the information before he returned to China. This part took a long time to gather. As for the information after he returned to China, they are still looking into it now. It’s just that after they sorted out the previous information, I thought you needed to take a look first. It’s best to be mentally prepared.”

Ye Han’s words made Li Mingxuan’s expression become serious. Although he felt that since the shares in Shen Xi’s hands had already been transferred to Wang Changlin, the overall situation had been decided, so there was no longer any need to investigate Wang Changlin anymore. But Ye Han’s expression made him wary, as if there was something hidden behind Wang Changlin’s back.

The USB drive was quickly opened. It contained only one document, marked with the words “Wang Changlin”. Li Mingxuan clicked in and the first thing that caught his eye was a picture of a man. When he saw the face of the somewhat romantic looking young man in the picture, Li Mingxuan froze.

“Grandpa?” Li Mingxuan muttered. The man in the photo looked exactly the same as his grandfather when he was young in the photos Li Mingxuan had seen before. Li Mingxuan reacted quickly and looked at Ye Han with a shocked expression, “Is it Wang Changlin?”

Ye Han nodded affirmatively, “It was Wang Changlin when he was young. At that time he was not yet called Wang Changlin, but Shen Shang.”

“Shen Shang!” Li Mingxuan repeated this particular name, basically confirming Wang Changlin’s identity. He had previously envisioned countless reasons for Wang Changlin to side with the Han family, but this was the only one he hadn’t thought of. It was because Wang Changlin bore no resemblance to his grandfather, and everyone in Zhongjing knew that his grandfather and grandmother had been lovingly married all their lives, so he would never have thought that his grandfather would have an illegitimate son. So Wang Changlin was also his uncle? No wonder Ye Han asked him to prepare himself mentally.

Ye Han smiled bitterly at Li Mingxuan’s reaction. The news was so unexpected that not to mention Li Mingxuan, even he didn’t believe it at first. But Wang Changlin’s face was so convincing that he couldn’t deny it if he wanted to.

Li Mingxuan looked at the information on the USB drive in silence, unable to say anything for a long time. In fact he didn’t know what to say.

Wang Changlin’s life seemed to be a tragedy, and the creator of this tragedy was his maternal grandfather.

When his grandfather was young, the Shen family had only become rich recently. In order to look good, his grandfather was sent to study abroad. Alone in a foreign country, his grandfather soon met his beloved girlfriend and they dated for three years. His grandfather was planning to propose to his girlfriend upon graduation when he received a telegram from home. The Shen family’s business was in trouble due to the economic crisis. At the time when his grandfather was lost and confused, his female classmate, who had always secretly had a crush on him, proposed marriage. After the marriage, she could persuade her family to fund the Shen family to help them get through their difficulties. But Grandpa had to promise to completely break off his relationship with his ex-girlfriend.

Li Mingxuan did not know what kind of struggle his grandfather went through back then, but in the end Grandpa chose to compromise. He broke up with his girlfriend quickly, and soon married his classmate, Li Mingxuan’s grandmother. Grandpa broke up with his ex-girlfriend as he had promised, not knowing that she was pregnant at the time. What Grandpa also didn’t know was that his grandmother knew all about his girlfriend’s pregnancy. In those days, it was a very disgraceful thing to be pregnant out of wedlock, and after sending his grandfather back to China under some pretext, his grandmother secretly made it public and his grandfather’s ex-girlfriend was expelled from school.

The ex-girlfriend then raised Shen Shang alone, suffering a lot of hardships. When Shen Shang graduated from university, she was diagnosed with cancer and her only wish was to see Li Mingxuan’s grandfather before she died. Shen Shang travelled all the way to Zhongjing to find his own father but even though Grandpa was happy with Shen Shang’s existence, he refused his request because he wanted to keep the promise he made to Grandma. Shen Shang was already resentful because of Grandpa’s refusal, but even more unexpected, when he was about to leave Zhongjing, Grandma engineered a car accident in which Shen Shang was seriously injured. By the time he was able to get out of the hospital and rush home, his mother had died alone and he missed seeing her for the last time.

A year later, Shen Shang returned to Zhongjing again. By that time, he had completely transformed into Wang Changlin.

Li Mingxuan sighed and looked at Ye Han, “Where is the real Wang Changlin?”

Ye Han smiled bitterly, “Dead. The real Wang Changlin died from his injuries in that car accident back then, and Shen Shang was seriously injured and recuperated for half a year. According to the investigation, the real Wang Changlin was an orphan with an introverted personality and didn’t interact much with people around him. Plus he disappeared for more than a year, so when Shen Shang appeared with his name, no one noticed the change. In fact, the two had similar body shape and voice; I guess that’s why Shen Shang chose to pretend to be Wang Changlin.”

The information on the USB drive ended with Shen Shang’s return to China, and now Li Mingxuan couldn’t wait to know what he did after returning to China.

Rubbing his temples with a headache, Li Mingxuan wondered, “There are so many families in Zhongjing, why did he pick the Han family? And also managed to appear at Elder Han’s side successfully?”

“I haven’t found out what he did after he returned to China, but I do know the answer for your question.” Ye Han sat down opposite Li Mingxuan and explained, “Back then, the Han family did a lot of charity in order to accumulate blessings because of having few children. The most important part was that Elder Han sponsored many poor students in the name of the Han family, and the real Wang Changlin was one of them. However, before Shen Shang became him, Wang Changlin was not conspicuous at all because of his personality, but after Shen Shang became Wang Changlin, he soon stood out among the crowd of sponsored students with his outstanding ability, and not only was he deeply appreciated by Elder Han, but he also gained Han Yu’s friendship.”

As Ye Han was speaking, Li Mingxuan had already guessed that the reason why Shen Shang had returned to China under the identity of Wang Changlin must have been to target the Han family, wanting to take revenge on the Shen family through the power of the Han family. Although he did not know how he intended to do so in the first place, Li Mingxuan had a vague feeling that there must be something else in this that he did not know. But no matter what, Shen Shang was full of calculations against the Han family and there was no slightest bit of goodwill.

Thinking about Shen Xi’s trust in Wang Changlin and Lu Gesen’s identity, Li Mingxuan felt that he needed to let Shen Xi know this.

Thinking of this, Li Mingxuan quickly picked up his coat, “I’m going out.”

Ye Han knew what Li Mingxuan was going to do and patted him meaningfully on the shoulder, “I hope the next time I see you is tomorrow morning.”

Li Mingxuan smiled bitterly. He did not have this hope.