Chapter 55: The Illegitimate Child The proprietress serving dishes interrupted their conversation.
Ruan Yu initially had little appetite, but the moment she caught the aroma, she realized she was quite hungry.
The dishes on the table were all home-style, simply plated but rich in color, aroma, and taste. What was rare was that each dish matched the photos on the menu perfectly, even exceeding the portions shown.
Teng Yi pushed a bowl of bone broth toward Ruan Yu.
"Try it."
Ruan Yu nodded, picked up a spoon, and took a sip.
The broth was thick, mellow, and incredibly fresh—not the artificial kind from MSG, but a natural, deep richness. With just one sip, warmth spread through her entire body.
"It's made with marrow bones. My husband and I picked the freshest ones at the market early this morning and simmered them all morning," the proprietress added from the side.
"It's delicious."
"Have more if you like it. All the dishes are served now, so take your time."
With that, the proprietress retreated to the kitchen.
The dining area fell quiet again, but the earlier topic had already been completely dropped.
Ruan Yu ate in silence, while Teng Yi barely touched his food.
"Aren’t you going to eat?"
"You eat." He took a sip of tea. "Didn’t you hear earlier? This is mainly to thank you. Without you, Teng Hao wouldn’t have improved so much."
"You heard it too, right? I should be the one thanking you. Without this job, I wouldn’t have been able to save up enough for tuition." Ruan Yu poked at the bone in her soup bowl with her chopsticks, her wavy bangs covering her eyes and masking her emotions.
"Enough, no more thanking back and forth." Teng Yi nudged the plate in front of her. "Eat up."
Ruan Yu curved her lips slightly and lowered her head to continue sipping the soup—small, slow sips, her mind still weighed down.
After a long pause, she suddenly spoke. "I really envy the relationship you have with your mom. You’re family, but also like friends. It’s so nice."
Teng Yi didn’t respond.
She didn’t seem to need him to.
"I hate my mom. After my dad passed, she abandoned me… Her leaving turned me into the ‘wild child with no parents’ in everyone’s eyes."
Tears welled up in her eyes.
Teng Yi could tell that saying these words and holding back those tears had taken every ounce of her strength.
"I hated my mom too, once," he said.
Ruan Yu was caught off guard. The moment her attention shifted, tears rolled down her cheeks. She quickly wiped them away, as if crying was something she was terrible at and deeply ashamed of.
"Why?"
Their mother-son relationship seemed so harmonious.
"Because of my father." Teng Yi spun the teapot beside him absentmindedly. "Teng Hao and I never knew who our father was. We only knew his surname was Teng."
Ruan Yu froze.
She had never heard Teng Yi or Teng Hao mention their father before. She had assumed that someone who never came up in conversation had either left this world or their lives. It had never occurred to her that the man had never had a name to begin with.
"Compared to having no father, the stigma of being an illegitimate child is far worse." Teng Yi gazed out the window at a distant boat, his thoughts drifting.
There was a time when everyone around them talked about his and his brother’s origins, about their mother Shen Bing’s disgraceful past. Though few bring it up now, every big name in the business world knows Shen Bing’s story all too well.Yes, Shen Bing once fell in love with a man in her naive youth and spent six years as his secret mistress.
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