Chapter 119: Origins (1)

After a long silence, the voice on the other end finally spoke: "I am listening."

Qiao Xi paused, then asked, "Do you love me?"

She asked very softly, waiting for his response.

After a long while, his voice came through: "I have things to attend to. Let's talk another time."

"I see." Her response was incredibly quiet. "Goodbye."

With that, she hung up.

Listening to the dial tone, Ou Ya remained frozen. Was it his imagination? The final tone of her voice had been exceptionally calm, causing his heart to ache with an inexplicable sense of dread.

"Is something wrong?" a gentle, magnetic voice asked.

"It’s nothing." Putting his phone away, Ou Ya looked at the man before him. With his handsome features and gentle demeanor, he possessed a lethal allure to women, to say nothing of his family background and his noble lineage.

In truth, if one looked closely, there was a definite resemblance between them.

This was something Ou Ya least wanted to admit, yet could not deny; the blood of this man truly flowed through his veins.

He had discovered his origins three years ago. He was on his way home from school when a car blocked his path and a man stepped out.

"My name is Ou You, and I am your biological father."

That was how the man had introduced himself back then, his tone gentle yet incredibly blunt.

Since he was old enough to understand, he had wondered why his surname was different from his parents'. No matter how he asked, his parents never gave him an answer, saying only that he would understand when he grew up.

It wasn't until he was seven that he saw his mother crying in secret one day. When he asked her about it, she told him that the man he called Father was not his biological parent. When he asked where his real father was and why his mother had left him, she wept even more bitterly, clutching him as she said, "I have always loved your father, but I couldn't endure it, so I chose to leave with you."

His father didn't know about this—or perhaps he did, but chose not to speak of it.

As for that biological father, he had asked his mother about him when he was young, but she never spoke his name. Over time, he stopped thinking about it.

That was until this man appeared.

Ou You... Ou Ya.

The name seemed to provide the answer itself.

Yet he could not accept the conclusion based on a shared surname alone, not until the paternity test results were placed in his hands.

He began to learn about the man. To put it elegantly, he was a philanderer; in truth, he simply went from woman to woman.

It was then that he finally understood why his mother chose to leave.

Yet, this man was capable of saying to him, "The one I love most is still your mother."

When he heard that, he only felt a sense of absurdity. Was the man ridiculous, or was the love he spoke of the joke? He could not tell.

When he told his mother about it, she cried—the first time he had seen her cry since he was seven. She cried with a smile.

"Do you believe him?" he remembered asking her at the time.

His mother caressed his face and said, "I believe him. I have always believed him." She added, "You are free to return to him whenever you wish, but I will not."

He did not understand.

Why must they separate if they loved each other?

Why could the man not give up other women for the love he claimed to hold? He could not understand how his mother could love that man yet spend her entire life with another.

Since he was small... he had never understood.

Now that he was grown and knew more, he understood even less.

"Come back to your father."

So, when the man said those words to him, he refused.