Chapter 67: Stepping Stone

Chapter 67: Chapter 67: Stepping Stone

There was no point in wrestling with mud; you only get dirtier.

Song Yao stared quietly at Yao Yuzhen, her voice unnervingly calm. "Mom, is this really what you want? For Shen Shuangshuang’s sake, you’d rather let a bunch of filthy gossips drag my name through the mud?"

Yao Yuzhen’s fingertips recoiled, and a chill ran through her.

She instinctively looked away, not daring to meet those eyes again.

Turning to Liu Yumin, her voice became soft and light. "Comrade Yumin, your family had it so tough back then, yet you were still willing to raise the child. I will remember this kindness."

"If you truly had no heart, you would have abandoned her long ago, but you didn’t. That’s why I believe that swapping the babies back then was just a moment of confusion."

She paused after speaking, her lips quivering slightly.

Before Liu Yumin could respond, she quickly shifted her gaze to Song Shunqiang, then swept it over the few relatives sitting nearby.

Song Yao gently closed her eyes.

She didn’t make a sound, just sat there, her shoulders drawn tight.

’It’s come to this, and Yao Yuzhen is still giving Liu Yumin and Song Shunqiang a way to save face...’

She knew perfectly well that Yao Yuzhen was cleaning up Shen Shuangshuang’s background.

If Shen Shuangshuang’s biological parents became notorious, then no matter how much Sheng Hui liked her, the Sheng Family’s patriarch would never give his approval.

To protect this promising path for Shen Shuangshuang, Yao Yuzhen had insisted on inviting Song Shunqiang and his wife here, using Song Yao’s reputation as a stepping stone for Shen Shuangshuang to climb on!

’What kind of mother does that?’

"Biologically, Shuangshuang is your child, but she grew up in the Shen Family. She is the daughter I, Yao Yuzhen, raised. From now on, her surname will be Shen. That will never change."

"I also implore you, for my sake, to stop dredging up the past. What happened back then, right or wrong, was forced by hardship. My daughter isn’t a bad person; she’s just had a bitter fate."

Yao Yuzhen spoke very slowly.

She turned sideways toward the main table, as if making a statement to everyone present.

After she finished, she lowered her head and took a sip of tea.

That last sentence sounded like a defense, but upon closer inspection, it was a knife she had delivered herself.

By speaking out as the birth mother, she was essentially giving the slander her official stamp of approval.

Her words certified it: Song Yao had indeed acted immorally, and her only defense was that she had been "forced into it."

The statement didn’t specify what Song Yao had done, but it pushed all the ambiguity onto her.

No one asked for details, but everyone’s gaze had quietly turned to Song Yao.

Some frowned, others shook their heads. The entire hall fell silent.

No one had expected that a lively family reunion banquet would, in the blink of an eye, turn into a vicious scene of public shaming.

The banquet was not over. The cold dishes were still on the tables, and only a couple of hot dishes had been served.

But the atmosphere had completely collapsed, without a trace of celebration left.

Song Yao was supposed to be the true victim of the switch.

She was swapped at birth and had only just returned to the Shen Family.

But no one mentioned a word of this today.

With her adoptive parents’ wailing and her birth mother’s placating words, her reputation was shattered on the spot.

Which of the notable families in Beijing would dare to get involved with Song Yao now?

Sheng Hui didn’t attend today, but his secretary was here. He sat at the third table in a side section and hadn’t touched his chopsticks the entire time.

Before leaving, he glanced in Song Yao’s direction. His expression was indifferent, and he quickly looked away.

Even if it was later proven that she had done nothing wrong, the neighborhood gossips wouldn’t care about the truth.

How could Yao Yuzhen not understand this?

Hearing Yao Yuzhen praise her biological daughter like that, Liu Yumin was so smug she could have flown. "Hmph, I’m not just bragging, but you kids from so-called respectable families are rotten to the core! We painstakingly raised Song Yao from a baby, and what did we get? An ungrateful wretch who turned her back on us!"

"Back in our hometown, a brat like her would’ve been strung up from a tree and whipped! We were just too soft-hearted, always letting her run wild! Even after we found out she was fooling around with men and ruining our family’s reputation, we didn’t have the heart to drown her in the river. The most we did was promise her to that simpleton, Zhang Laosan."

As she spoke, she rubbed the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand, squeezing out a couple of tears.

"Actually, I’ve regretted it for a long time... If I hadn’t been out of my mind, why would I have swapped the babies?"

She sized up Shen Shuangshuang from the corner of her eye, liking what she saw more and more. The corners of her mouth nearly split to her ears.

"Look at Shuangshuang, so pretty and accomplished! Then look at Song Yao. Never mind her petty thievery as a child, she started sleeping around at fourteen or fifteen. She’s got promiscuity in her bones!"

Just as she finished speaking, Song Yao slowly strolled in from the doorway.

There wasn’t a single ripple of emotion on her face.

Shen Shuangshuang had been waiting to enjoy the show, but seeing Song Yao’s composure made her chest tighten with frustration.

But she had learned her lesson and kept her mouth shut, lest she draw the fire onto herself.

So she covered her mouth lightly and coughed twice.

Hidden in the crowd, Cheng Hai instantly shot up as if he’d heard a starting gun and hollered, "The Cheng Family? Don’t even think about it! A woman like that isn’t worthy of stepping foot in our home!"

Wu Yufeng immediately chimed in with a sarcastic laugh. "Forget the great families of Beijing. Even an old man who hauls manure in the village would probably ask about the dowry before agreeing to take in this ’great Buddha.’"

The Cheng Family and the Wu Family were both big names in Beijing.

Both families had ancestors who were officials, and their fathers’ generation had also held important positions for many years.

Once the two of them spoke, everyone else understood that their words more or less represented the consensus in the room.

However, no one wanted to offend Shen Zhenwu, so they just kept their mouths shut and tried to be invisible.

Without so much as raising an eyelid, Song Yao swept her gaze over the two of them.

"Don’t worry. If every other man on earth dropped dead, I’d rather raise ten dogs than give either of you a second glance."

"You spend all day wagging your tails around Shen Shuangshuang. I haven’t even thrown up yet, and you already reek."

The moment she said this, the color drained from Cheng Hai’s and Wu Yufeng’s faces, and blood rushed to their heads.

"You tramp, how dare you..."

Cheng Hai was so angry he was hopping mad. He roared, "How can you be so shameless?!"

Song Yao didn’t even look up as she retorted, "Shen Shuangshuang and you lot are always getting tangled up. When it comes to messy entanglements, every woman in Beijing would have to step aside for her. After all, who’s better at attracting admirers than she is?"

Shen Shuangshuang’s ears perked up, and she instantly exploded. "Song Yao! You—"

"Enough!"

Song Yao raised a hand. "It’s not your turn to speak."

Her eyes swept over, and Shen Shuangshuang froze on the spot, her palms slick with sweat.

"Well now, Comrade Song Yao has quite the imposing air."

The words had barely faded when a figure sauntered in through the doorway.

Sheng Hui had arrived.

He was quite late, but the moment he entered, he lit the fuse of the explosive atmosphere.

He was wearing a Zhongshan suit and carrying a brown paper package. His gaze swept across the room before finally landing on Song Yao’s face.

"Sheng Hui..."

Shen Shuangshuang’s eyes immediately reddened as she looked at him pitifully.

Yao Yuzhen’s heart eased, and the corners of her lips curled up secretly. ’She’d made the right bet today.’

’If she hadn’t insisted on dragging Song Shunqiang and Liu Yumin here from the countryside, Song Yao might have stolen the show at this banquet. If the Sheng Family had genuinely taken a liking to her and decided to accept Song Yao as family-in-law instead, then Shuangshuang would have been completely out of the picture.’

’In terms of looks and education, wasn’t Shuangshuang superior to Song Yao in every way?’

’But the problem was, the Yao family’s status had declined. The Sheng Family was after the real power Shen Zhenwu held, so naturally, they’d be more willing to favor Shen Zhenwu’s daughter.’

’Yao Yuzhen had been out of options, which was why she played this ruthless gambit that cut off all of Song Yao’s escape routes.’

’She knew that with this move, Song Yao would have no way to recover, and she also understood that she herself might not come away with a good reputation in the future.’