"When my parents returned with the one more baby with them, everyone thought it was my parent's baby as they returned after a year. The whole family was happy and my father didn't bother to tell anyone about the truth. My grandfather gave the name to a baby, Lu Chen. So this is what happened." Saying Lu Jinhai stopped.
"How did you get to know about it, father?" Lu Qiang asked as he knew when all this happened, his father was a baby and there was no way that his other would know about it other than his grandparents.
"When father-mother shifted here in the city with us, they used to receive letters from the village. Initially, I ignored it thinking it must be something that is not of much concern but one day when father and mother went to your aunt's home to visit her, a letter came. I was curious to know who wrote these letters to father every month. I opened the letter and inside there were words from a dying woman. The old lady wrote those letters to get the news about her grandson."
"In that particular letter, she mentioned how thankful she was towards my father to give her grandson his name and a better life. She wrote so many things to thank him that it was enough for me to understand the scenario. She asked my father to bring her grandson to meet her so that she can see him before she dies."
"When my father returned home, I showed him a letter and apologized for reading it behind his back. I never ever thought there must be something serious inside those letters that my father was trying to protect for so many years just to fulfill the promise made by him."
"Father didn't confront me or anything but told me the whole story and in my heart, I promised myself to protect what my father was trying for so many years. Your uncle doesn't know about it, we will never tell him. Father took him to meet his grandma saying she is the person who looked after him when he was a baby and she wanted to see him for the last time."
"So other than you three, no one knows about it," Lu Qiang asked to confirm, as he had a doubt that Lu Feng must have caught something.
"Your aunt, Lu Zhilan accidentally got to know about it. Her smart brain caught up to the things after my accident. "
"Accident!" This word was enough for Lu Qiang to get the clue. It was the time when Lu Feng changed suddenly.
"Father, can you tell me how she got to know about it?"
"When I was hospitalized, I lost so much blood in the accident and needed the blood. Father and mother were not eligible to give me blood and my both siblings had different blood groups from me. Fortunately, they found a matching donor and it helped. No one thought about anything but after two to three days of my surgery when I was still in a comatose condition, my sister went through a few reports which also had blood group reports of the family members and her smart brain didn't fail to catch a flaw in it."
"My Father had blood group A positive and mother had B positive. Lu Zhilan had blood group A positive just as my father and I took after mother the one with B positive blood group. Lu Zhilan's blood group didn't match with me but when she looked into Lu Chen's reports expecting he must have the same blood group as hers, she got a shock to see Lu Chen was O negative."
"She thought it was a mistake by the hospital and she went to confirm it but they assured her it was the right report. Though she had knowledge about the things, she still went to the doctor to make sure if such conditions were there then what it showed and the doctor told her it was obvious that the person is not the child of that couple."
"Not being able to hold herself back, she straightaway went to our parents who were in the VIP waiting room and asked them. As the curtain was blown away, my parents told her everything just as they told me. They asked her to keep it to herself and she agreed."
Elder Lu: "For me, Lu Chen is my son and I never thought of him as the adopted one. I expect both of you to do the same and never think about him as another person. In the future. If you and Lu Jinhai ever try to isolate him from the family, knowing the fact that he is not your real brother, I and your mother will move with him and will always be with him as our son while we will abandon you both."
Lu Zhilan: No, father. For me, Lu Chen would always be my younger brother, whom I loved as much as I loved Lu Jinhai. This mere fact that we don't share the same blood won't change my love for him. The relationship, the love we shared for all these years, can't be converted to nothing just like this. I assure you that there won't be any change in my relationship with my brother and I won't ever let him know this."
"Father-mother could trust their kids and they knew we would protect what he tried to do for a long time."
While listening to her father, Lu Qiang was trying to connect it with Lu Feng. He remembered, the day Lu Feng avoided him was the one when he went to the hospital as his grandpa called him there and if he remembered it correctly, it was around two to three days after the accident. Since that day, Lu Feng changed, and he thought Lu Feng must have overheard the conversation.
As Lu Qiang was lost in his thoughts, his father called him. "Lu Qiang" and turned around to look at him.
Coming out of his thoughts, hearing his father, Lu Qiang finally spoke. "Yes, Father."
"What my father expected from me and my sister, I expect the same from you."
"I understood, Father," said Lu Qiang.