Chapter 290

The mountain clinic's conditions were heartbreakingly primitive.

When Madam Zade went into premature labor, there wasn't even a proper hospital bed. She lay on a rough wooden plank in the rural health center. Weak from childbirth, she couldn't get basic nutrition, let alone produce milk.

The newborn's face turned blue from hunger, its cries as faint as a kitten's.

Fate intervened. Another family named Young was staying at the clinic, their daughter-in-law having just delivered a healthy baby boy with more than enough milk. Madam Zade offered all her valuables, begging for just a few drops.

The Youngs' kindness brought tears to one's eyes. They refused payment and took Madam Zade into their humble home. They brewed ginger tea, stewed chicken, even shared half their own child's food.

But tragedy struck.

On the fifth night, Madam Zade hemorrhaged violently. The clinic staff scrambled to stop the bleeding, but it gushed like floodwaters. The county ambulance took six treacherous hours through a storm to arrive.

When the infant was left with the Youngs, no one anticipated the storm would trigger a mudslide.

By the time Vincent Sullivan reached the provincial hospital, his wife hovered near death. The mountain roads had been obliterated by landslides.

Three months passed before the roads reopened.

Madam Zade wept endlessly in her hospital bed. Old Mrs. Sullivan's curses stung worse than the antiseptic: "Jinx! Can't even keep track of your own child!"

When travel became possible again, Vincent got tied up with a company crisis. He sent his closest friend Hugo Lee in his stead.

Hugo returned cradling a frail, undersized baby.

Madam Zade's trembling hands received the child, her tears splashing on its sallow face. Old Mrs. Sullivan suddenly shrieked: "This bastard looks nothing like our Sullivans!"

Ironically, the same grandmother who hurled the cruelest insults would later spoil Xavier Stapleton rotten.

To ease tensions, Vincent bought a duplex villa. But the old woman constantly demanded her grandson's company, eventually taking Xavier in permanently.

Meanwhile, the real Young heir was chopping firewood in the mountains.

Roman Young stood on stools to cook at age five, worked the fields by seven. His only refuge was the village's leaky schoolhouse—books his sole sanctuary.

During middle school entrance exams, he knelt before the principal: "Let me study, and I'll stay in the top three." The principal saw a spark in the skeletal boy's eyes.

The day his university acceptance letter arrived, the entire village celebrated.

But fate is cruel. During his senior year, his adoptive parents confessed a devastating truth on their deathbeds. They sought their biological son to live in luxury, unknowingly inviting death to their doorstep.

When Xavier met the elderly couple, their mirror-like faces made him tremble. Worse yet, Hugo Lee reappeared unexpectedly.

The former accomplice now studied everyone with icy calculation.