Reborn: The Return of the Villainous Mr. Liu

Yating slowly got up from his seat and faced Butler Mo, who was trying to keep his smile intact. "What's wrong, Uncle?"

Butler Mo held his hand and with his anxious gaze, tried to convey his complicated feelings. "Young master, you cannot believe in anything that they say! Whether it's Cheng Yin or…Duan Ren! Th-They must have a hidden agenda!"

"I am not believing anything-"

"What…what is happening here?"

They looked back and saw Gu Rong standing at the stairs with a dazed and lost gaze. The empty water jug in his hand was trembling and close to falling.

"What is this…about Duan Ren I am hearing?"

Butler Mo silently gasped.

"Master, you heard it wrongly-"

"No, I didn't. You mentioned her…Why did you mention her?"

He let go of the jug from his hands that shattered with impact on the floor and immediately rushed towards Yating. He grabbed his shoulders with a distinct fear laced in his eyes.

"Y-you met Duan Ren?" The color from his face was rapidly draining out. "Why? W-why would you meet her?"

If Mom had been there then…

Gu Rong remembered those stinging words from before and thought that Yating chose to meet her himself.

"Master, you are misunderstanding! Young master didn't go to meet her. She did. She approached him herself."

He froze. That felt akin to a bomb exploding upon him.

She…approached him? After so many years…

Gu Rong shook hard.

Yating's eyes widened and he held him. "Dad, what's wrong?"

"What…! What did she say!? What…wh-what nonsense was she spouting?" Gu Rong roared in a loud but panicked shriek. "You-you don't believe anything she says, okay! You cannot believe anything she says! She hates me!

She doesn't want to see me happy. She just wants the money so she will go to any lengths to secure her goal!"

Yating stared at him, incredulous. He had never seen Gu Rong so agitated before. It was as if he had seen a ghost.

Butler Mo quickly pulled him back and tried to placate him. "Master, please calm down."

"How can I calm down!?" His voice screeched even louder. "She…why would she try to talk to my son? Why would she approach him after years! It's only to frame me! It's only to fill his ears against me!" His breaths grew heavier and disoriented. "Tell me what happened.

Tell me everything! What happened and who said what about me…I want to know everything!"

Butler Mo knew that Gu Rong wasn't in any state to listen to anything. At this rate, he would collapse only out of sheer panic.

"Master, I will take you to your room-"

But he shook him off harshly. He had no intention of letting this go until he would hear the entire truth. The atmosphere at the Gu villa was as bleak as that of a cemetery.

"Yating…" he breathlessly asked, "What did she say? What happened at the party tonight?"

Now Yating definitely didn't want to reveal what Yin had said because it was as clear as daylight that Gu Rong wouldn't be able to take the news. He didn't understand the source of his panic but there was definitely a grave matter that elicited such a reaction out of him.

"Dad, nothing happened-"

"You have to tell me the truth, Yating! There is a reason why you came here tonight right? I knew it. You wanted to ask me something but you didn't! Fine! If you won't tell me then I will ask for it myself!"

"Dad!"

"Master!"

Both of them stopped him at once from reaching his phone. Yating grew frustrated with his adamance. "Fine! I will tell you but you have to promise that you won't panic about it because you have no reason to. I already know it's a bunch of nonsense so you don't have to explain anything, okay? I just want you to tightly fix that in your mind!"

He gritted his teeth but eventually made an attempt to take deep breaths and calm his pounding heartbeats. "Fine, I will be calm. Now tell me everything."

Butler Mo still wasn't convinced, but he was helpless.

Yating pressed his brows and grudgingly narrated the incident to his father. But at every point of concern, he ensured that he wasn't letting the conversation go astray or letting Gu Rong's defenses break.

But nothing proved to be useful because the moment Gu Rong heard the word killer, it was as if his whole world had collapsed. At that point, he felt he wasn't standing on anything concrete but instead falling into an abyss that he always dreaded so much.

Killer…killer…

His gaze turned vacant at that and the flood of memories invaded his mind without his permission. The past surfacing before him made him tremble but the future consequences of it made him fearful like a little child.

He knows now…Yating knows now…

It's over…

It's all over…

I am never getting my son back. I have lost him…

The more he thought, the more he lost himself into the vicious cycle of those painful imaginations. He imagined Yating looking at him with contempt upon the realization of the truth. He imagined him breaking all his relations with him and leaving his side forever.

"Dad, will you please stop thinking useless things!" Yating shook him hard. "I am not believing anything he is saying! I know who my father is. I don't need to hear it from anybody else!"

Gu Rong paled and his heart sank further into despair.

Yating expressed his unwavering trust in him but Gu Rong couldn't even celebrate it because in the depths of his heart, he knew what the truth was. But Yating was believing in the false version of himself. A version he created only to keep Yating by his side at any cost.

But now he could see everything collapsing and shattering before him.

Gu Rong breathed hard and he couldn't gather the energy to speak up anything. Instead, a sharp pain from within his chest jolted him and his palm clutched onto his shirt tightly.

Butler Mo froze. "Mast-"

Gu Rong's vision dulled and he fell down on the floor with a soft thud. Yating stared at the empty space ahead where his father was standing just a moment ago but now remained motionless on the floor.

"Dad...?"