Chapter 417: Go Ahead and Check—I'll Take the Fall If Anything Happens

While Gu Sen was lost in memories, Gu Hui knocked and entered, holding documents for him to sign.

He flipped through and confirmed them before signing, then glanced up at Gu Hui and asked, "How are things going?"

"We're checking," Gu Hui replied. "Some hospitals don't have our people, so it'll take some time."

Gu Sen handed the documents over and looked at Gu Hui earnestly, urging him: "Make it fast. For Yin Xue to notice this early, she won't do it herself. Check Yin Xue's friends too."

Gu Yinxue had grown up in the Gu family, and the friends she made were all either wealthy or noble—likely difficult to investigate.

Gu Sen could see Gu Hui's hesitation and told him, "Go ahead and check without worry. If anything happens, I'll take the responsibility."

Though he wasn't the one calling the shots in the Gu family, Gu clan's tourism and cultural division had grown larger and larger over the years, and he still carried weight.

Since it had already come to this, Gu Sen simply told Gu Hui one of his arrangements.

"Find someone to build connections in A City and set up a new project team. I want to expand our business there."

Gu Hui's eyes widened instantly, and he cautioned him: "A tall tree catches the wind. The old man won't agree to this."

"I've thought enough about the Gu family." Gu Sen's voice dropped, every word resounding with weight.

Gu Hui: "For Jiang Lai?"

Visible exhaustion was written all over Gu Sen's face. He shook his head: "No, it's for my own family."

Gu Hui sighed inwardly. Jiang Lai's return this time had not only shown the women of the Gu family another possibility, but had also awakened some of those who had been following the family forward with their eyes shut.

"Why not go directly to Ms. Nian and the Ke Family?"

"No." Gu Sen refused without a second thought. Going to the Ke Family was indeed the fastest way, but it wasn't as if he had no other connections to use.

Gu Hui didn't pursue the topic further, but instead brought something up: "Zhi Yan went to visit the prison. Someone deliberately let him in."

Gu Sen wasn't the least bit surprised: "Most likely Ke Zhongyu. Whoever treats Jiang Lai badly, he treats as an enemy. That kid has a vengeful nature. Zhi Yan needs to suffer some hardship at his hands before he changes. No need to rush him back."

Gu Hui: "What about the selection and the Qu Family matter?"

Gu Sen: "I'm already extending business into A City. He's realized his own mistake. Let him choose his own path going forward—we just need to keep an eye on things so he doesn't go astray again."

Gu Hui: "And your sister-in-law…"

Gu Sen: "She just worries too much and can't bring herself to let go."

He glanced at Gu Hui and asked a question with trepidation: "Do you think I'll live to see the day Jiang Lai calls me Dad?"

Gu Hui couldn't directly answer this question, so he approached it from the side: "Jiang Lai doesn't know how things stood back then."

Gu Sen: "Even if she knew, there'd be no room to make amends, right? If I had found her back then and quietly switched her back, things would be different. I could have entrusted Yin Xue to someone else to raise."

"You looked for her?" Gu Hui was taken aback. He did know a bit more than the others, but not everything.

Gu Sen nodded: "I looked. The moment I saw Shiwei's condition, I knew something was terribly wrong. I could only search near the hospital first. Every trash can and alley nearby—I searched them all. I didn't find her."

He thought of the Fuli Yuan where Jiang Lai had been and the hospital where Song Shiwei had given birth. Even today, he found it hard to believe: "I never expected that a woman who had just given birth could run that far. That might also be why her body never fully recovered even after her postpartum period."

"Too many eyes were watching at the time. The hospital knew Shiwei had given birth to a girl. Among the people who went to see Shiwei, someone had asked whether it was a boy or a girl, so everyone knew it was a girl. I found an abandoned baby girl nearby and figured I'd bring her back first to solve the immediate crisis, then continue searching after sending people away. But the very next day, the Gu family found out."

Although Gu Sen had already arrived in G Province, his every move was being watched by Gu family members, afraid he would do something out of line.

That was why his search for the child couldn't be kept hidden for long.

The old man of the Gu family called immediately upon finding out—first scolding him, then repeatedly ordering him not to search openly, not to put the Gu family on the firing line, and absolutely not to affect Gu Hai's political vetting.

Gu Hui: "So you only searched privately at the time?"

Gu Sen: "Yes, I searched privately. But me alone wasn't enough. I asked my driver at the time to go to various police stations in his name to inquire about the situation. Every time, we came back empty-handed."

Gu Hui suddenly frowned.

Gu Sen noticed and asked, "What is it?"

"Was it a company driver or a personal driver?" Gu Hui was from a side branch of the Gu family. Even though he had worked by Gu Sen's side for years, to the Gu family he was still someone without much ability, so his ties to the Gu family weren't deep. He devoted himself entirely to his own small household and was often an outsider, which meant he saw things from a different angle.

Gu Sen answered after a half-beat delay: "A company driver."

The next second, he pulled out an old-fashioned phone book from a drawer—worn, yellowed, heavily creased, yet always carefully protected.

He flipped through it, pointed at the names, phone numbers, and addresses inside, and said, "Take a photo and go check."

With Gu Hui's reminder, he too began to suspect something.

Back then, he had to stretch himself thin like three people at once: find a new path to support his family, search for his abandoned biological daughter, and keep an eye on his mentally fragile wife, his young son, and the adopted baby girl they had brought home—the adopted girl had a heart condition and was very hard to keep alive.

So much so that he simply couldn't spare the energy to carefully consider whether someone in the Gu family might have interfered.

After two and a half years of searching without finding her, the insiders in the Gu family kept urging him to stop, and he too believed the child had perished on that snowy day.

Gu Hui nodded, indicating he would personally go investigate.

Gu Sen suddenly thought of something and called after him: "Wait. Zhi Yan has no job right now and still isn't home. Let him go investigate."

Gu Hui looked at Gu Sen in surprise: "You want to tell Zhi Yan? He's just been dealt a blow—he might not be able to take another one."

"He'll find out eventually. We can't hide it from him forever. We've treated him as a child for too long." Gu Sen was also somewhat worried that his son wouldn't be able to handle blow after blow. "Don't tell him. Let him investigate on his own. Having him piece things together bit by bit himself will be more effective than us telling him directly."

Gu Hui turned and left, then immediately called Gu Zhiyan.

"Uncle Hui." On the phone, Gu Zhiyan's voice was somewhat listless.

Gu Hui asked with concern: "Zhi Yan, are you sick?"

Gu Zhiyan's voice paused briefly: "No. Are you calling to tell me to come back? I don't plan on going back for now."

"I'm not calling you back." Gu Hui sent the photo he had taken to Gu Zhiyan. "I've sent you information on a person. He was your dad's driver back then and might know the circumstances of how Jiang Lai and Yin Xue were switched at birth. Since you're not coming back, why not go investigate?"

Gu Zhiyan immediately agreed: "Okay. Is this Dad's idea?" After receiving Uncle Hui's affirmative reply, he promised he would thoroughly investigate the baby-switching incident.

He then asked one more thing: "Should I also look for Yin Xue's biological parents along the way?"

Gu Hui was stunned for a long while, even suspecting that his hearing was failing before he'd turned forty.

After all, Gu Zhiyan was the second person in the family to oppose Jiang Lai's return and oppose Gu Yinxue leaving the Gu family.

"Uncle Hui?"

"Ah, yes, I'm here." Gu Hui snapped out of it. Thinking of what he himself had been investigating lately, he said, "If you have the time and inclination, you can look into that too."