TL: Hua

Chapter 106: Clarify

Yanran:

Thank you all for your concern regarding my background.

This was originally a private matter that happened six or seven years ago, and I didn’t want to bring it up again.

However, some false rumors are now causing unnecessary harm to people important to me. Therefore, I thought it would be better for you to hear the story from me personally rather than through hearsay.

Writing this Weibo post also serves as a final farewell to those past events that I once deliberately tried to forget and was afraid to face.

Before the age of sixteen, I did indeed live with the Xuan family. Before my household registration was changed, my name was Xuan Yanran.

These are facts, just as you all know.

However, regarding the speculation that Xuan Yihan and I were swapped at birth, I must clarify: we were not swapped.

From childhood, I was very clear about my identity. I was told countless times that I was not their biological child but a child picked up from the side of the road. Because of this act of kindness by my foster parents, I was able to survive.

Therefore, from the moment I gained consciousness, I must understand and remember to always be grateful to my parents.

In both logic and emotion, I truly should have been grateful. After all, they saved me and raised me for sixteen years.

But if heaven could give me a chance to choose, I think I might have preferred to stay on the side of the road.

I used to think that being violently beaten and verbally abused, being locked in small dark rooms, being forbidden from eating, and being given the cold shoulder were all correct.

They told me that the reason they were so strict with me was because they treated me as their own son and had high expectations. They said I had failed them, that I wasn’t excellent enough in any area, and that I had disgraced the parents who raised me. Therefore, all the punishments they gave me were deserved.

For a useless orphan like me, being adopted by a family was a blessing from heaven.

I heard these words countless times and once deeply agreed with them. I felt I should be grateful and content, thinking this was just their way of expressing love, albeit an extreme one.

It wasn’t until my foster parents recognized Xuan Yihan, the tutor whom I invited home, as their biological son that I realized parents aren’t only capable of hitting and scolding.

It was just that their care and love were never meant for me.

Even so, fearing that I would become an orphan again, I couldn’t bear to let go of that familial bond. At that time, I hoped so much that I could become excellent so that my parents might look at me just once more.

I tried hard to please them and tried hard to change, but I never expected that what awaited me was being sent to an internet addiction treatment center.

In front of me, my mother told the principal that I was addicted to games, neglected my duties, and was a total internet-addicted youth. She insisted that I must be reformed with double the effort.

But in reality, I didn’t even know how to play games at the time…

Inside, as electric currents passed through my body every day and I was in such agony that I didn’t want to live, I really wanted to ask my mother, “Why did you lie? Why are you so heartless?

It wasn’t until six months later that I understood. Internet addiction was just an excuse.

The truth was they didn’t want me anymore; they wanted to force me to leave.

So, six months later, when I signed the contract brought by the instructor of the addiction school, promising to leave the house with nothing and never harass the Xuan family again, my “internet addiction” was miraculously cured the very next day…

For a long time after leaving home, I firmly believed that I was simply a loathsome person. I didn’t understand why the world seemed colorful for everyone else, while for me, it was nothing but darkness…

Living in a daze, it took me six years to finally pay back the 5 million yuan my foster parents spent raising me.

The moment I realized I truly didn’t owe them anymore, I finally understood: my life could actually start over. It could be bright and brilliant… it was just that the past “me” had trapped himself in thorns.

So, I am working hard to find the light, to find back the courage and confidence to live.

Now, I have no relationship with the Xuan family.

In the future, I only hope to live a more fulfilling life, simply for myself.

—

Behind Lin Yanran’s Weibo post, he attached several images.

One was the 5 million yuan transfer to Xuan Hongwei from last year.

The rest were some medical diagnosis records left behind by the original owner, which he had accidentally found during the last move.

Those diagnosis records were from many years ago, crumpled and yellowing.

However, the contents were evidence of the original owner’s hypoglycemia, anemia, and malnutrition caused by being abused and locked in dark rooms without food, as well as evidence of violent beatings.

Only these records remained, cruelly yet gently helping the original owner document everything he had once endured…

Lin Yanran didn’t hire any PR to polish the text; all the content was the truth reconstructed from the original owner’s diary.

While editing the image of the 5 million yuan transfer, he suddenly realized that it was exactly when he had arrived.

At that time, the original owner was being cursed and misunderstood by everyone. The world showed him no kindness, as if everything he did was wrong…

Yet, even in such a predicament, he had tried to write a ten-thousand-word letter to his mother and worked hard to secure the mentor position on Super Idol.

So, when he returned that money to Xuan Hongwei, was he also preparing to make a clean break from the past and start a new life?

Lin Yanran had no answer, and no one could answer him.

But at the very least, what he could do now was seek justice for him and clear his name.

Once Lin Yanran’s Weibo post was released, it immediately caused a massive sensation.

Ever since the relationship between Lin Yanran and Xuan Yihan was unearthed a few days ago, the matter has been causing quite a stir.

Speculation about Lin Yanran’s background and his past experiences could easily spark a huge online debate whenever netizens brought it up.

They said all sorts of things and made countless guesses about their relationship.

But even those who guessed that the Xuan family might have wanted to abandon Lin Yanran in the past could never have imagined that the truth could be this cruel…

Lin Yanran didn’t deliberately play the victim; the entire Weibo post used a relatively calm tone to narrate past events.

However, netizens felt both heartbroken and infuriated as they read it.

No wonder Shang Chengcheng said he was so depressed he wanted to commit suicide. Being gaslit by his parents, loathed by his parents, abused by his parents, and then discarded…

In the past sixteen years, or rather, the past twenty-two years, his life hadn’t seen a single ray of light or a shred of kindness…

Yet, despite experiencing so much, he still treated this bizarre pair of foster parents and the world with gentleness.

He held so much evidence in his hands, yet for all these years, he never thought of coming forward to play the victim and take down his foster parents.

If Xuan Yihan’s fans hadn’t courted death and forced him to clarify this time, he likely would never have spoken of his ordeal in this lifetime.

Why has this world always treated him so harshly?

Many netizens who had been following the events of the past few days were moved to tears after reading this long Weibo post.

Yanran has really had it too hard—far too hard!!

[I finally know why he took every single job that trash company arranged for him in the past. It turns out he was trying to scrape together enough money for the “cost of upbringing”…]

[With his company’s commission rate, it must have been incredibly difficult to save up 5 million.]

[I checked the timestamp on the screenshot of the text message. He had just prepared to step out of that haze when netizens started telling him to get out of the entertainment industry.]

[I also followed the crowd and cursed him back then. I’m truly sorry.]

[We can say “I’m sorry” lightly now, but the actual harm done to him back then can’t be compensated for even with an apology… I don’t even dare to imagine how he managed to crawl out of it bit by bit.]

Initially, most people were focused on sympathizing with Lin Yanran’s plight. Ten minutes later, some people looked closely at the content of the subsequent screenshots and discovered a new wave of even more unbearable details.

Describing the evils the Xuan family committed through text alone didn’t impact the netizens nearly as much as the timeline they unearthed from the medical reports.

When someone organized the descriptions of the conditions and the dates on the reports for everyone, netizens realized just how poisonous the Xuan family truly was.

The earliest diagnosis of anemia and malnutrition was from ten years ago. At that time, Yanran was still an elementary school student, right when he was growing up.

Two years later, he was diagnosed by a doctor with a concussion caused by a blow to the head, along with binding marks and multiple whip scars on his body…

After seeing this, netizens were completely enraged.

What kind of scumbags are the Xuans? They actually subjected Yanran to various forms of abuse when he was just a child!

That was a defenseless little boy!!

Seeing all this, they truly could not tolerate such a pair of scumbags living freely and happily after doing something so cruel…

Thus, unable to find where the Xuan couple lived, the angry netizens vented their fury on Xuan Yihan’s Weibo, which was easily accessible.

[What breed of idiots are your parents?]

[If you didn’t want to treat him well, why did you adopt him in the first place? Such cruel methods, it’s absolutely sickening.]

[Does your whole family even deserve to live?]

[Hurry up and come out to apologize!]

[Pah!]

[Wait to be dragged off to prison, you family of trash!]

Lin Yanran’s Weibo post was so sudden that Xuan Yihan and his parents were left completely stunned.

They never expected that Lin Yanran would actually come out and post on Weibo to denounce their crimes, let alone that he held so much evidence.

Seeing public opinion fermenting so quickly, with some people even starting to ask for the Xuan residence’s address to throw rotten eggs, the Xuan couple panicked.

“What do we do?”

Qiu Yayu was so scared she was close to tears, clutching her husband’s arm helplessly.

Xuan Hongwei wasn’t part of the entertainment industry and had no idea how to handle such a situation. He could only call his son.

Looking at the abuse on his own Weibo, Xuan Yihan replied to his idiotic parents through gritted teeth, “What else can we do? Find a way to whitewash it!”

Xuan Yihan hung up and hurried to find his manager to ask for help, only to find that the other party was standing idly by.

Xuan Yihan knew he had been abandoned, but he wasn’t willing to give up and had to find a way to whitewash his image himself.

He had Qiu Yayu quickly register a Weibo account and post an ambiguous, cryptic message.

Qiu: I never expected that sixteen years of nurturing would be met with such ingratitude.

Following that, Xuan Yihan prepared to seize on the point that Lin Yanran used to have poor grades and bad character, implying that Yanran had problems himself. He planned to suggest that Yanran held a grudge for being kicked out of a wealthy family and was throwing mud at his foster parents.

Those reports of him being beaten? He got those from picking fights himself; it had nothing to do with his parents.

The malnutrition and anemia? That was because he was a picky eater and wouldn’t listen…

In short, his current strategy was to throw all the mud back.

After all, there were no videos, and no one had actually seen his parents doing those things.

The war of public opinion is just a lot of wrangling; it all comes down to who finds more so-called “evidence.”

Just as Xuan Yihan was buying water armies to act as “witnesses” and flip the narrative, he never expected that Song Yingming would come out to hammer him on Lin Yanran’s behalf!

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