For example...
A past life?
This conclusion was so absurd that Shen Sixing held his phone, unable to speak for a long time, only hearing his own steady breathing echoing in the quiet hotel room.
Shen Sixing had always been a firm materialist. He believed in science, and anything that couldn't be explained could be attributed to science.
But Shen Yi's situation still couldn't be explained by science.
It wasn't just some loopholes in her words; if Shen Sixing really wanted to list the little girl's daily flaws, he could fill a whole page.
Shen Sixing didn't care what trouble she might bring, nor did he care about her true origins.
When they first met, he thought she was like a stray cat.
Trying hard to put up a smile, eager to please him.
At the time, he thought it was a natural reaction caused by the poor treatment at the orphanage.
But that wasn't right.
Initially, when facing him, she was too desperate, as if terrified she would be killed in the next second.
In theory, to escape the orphanage, this made sense.
But that wasn't the conclusion.
She lived quite well at the orphanage. The director favored her, and she had always played the role of a little tyrant.
At that time, he even suspected the director was talking nonsense.
He found a few children who were at the orphanage during the same period to ask around. After comparing their accounts, the conclusion he reached was: the Shen Yi he knew and the Shen Yi at the orphanage were completely different personalities.
A normal child could never feel reassured, or even excited, over a little bit of mediocrity from their parents.
Her reaction to rich people wasn't timidity or a lack of confidence.
It was fear.
Everything only led him to speculate in a bizarre direction.
Shen Sixing sorted through his chaotic thoughts. After a long while, he pulled out the points he found strange, word by word, and explained them to his wife.
After listening, Wen Ya remained silent for a full three seconds, then preemptively drew a conclusion:
"Body snatching?"
"Huh??" Shen Sixing never expected his wife's guess to be even more outrageous than his.
"...Am I wrong? Don't you mean that Little Yi took over the original girl's body? And that's why their personalities are completely different?" Wen Ya covered her mouth. "What should we do? Should we strike first? Take care of the Song family first?"
She loved watching short dramas. Having automatically cast her entire family in the villain roles, her fingers clenched slightly as she began to worry with genuine sincerity.
Shen Sixing: "..."
"Besides body snatching, there's actually another thing called rebirth, my dear," he almost sighed.
"Oh..." Wen Ya looked dazed for a moment. "That seems possible too."
"Alright, stop guessing." She thought about it for a moment and felt her head spinning. Wen Ya hated listening to endless deductions the most. "Little Yi said she will tell us everything when you get back."
"Did she?" Shen Sixing was taken aback; he truly hadn't expected this.
Shen Yi was a highly vigilant child, and he had even prepared himself for her to hide it for the rest of her life.
She was actually going to tell them?
Shen Sixing had once looked forward to his daughter's confession, wanting to dig out her secrets. Now that it was about to be revealed, he surprisingly didn't look forward to it as much.
Shen Sixing sighed softly. He rarely wasted his emotions on others.
He hoped Shen Yi's past experiences would make for a good story.
Even though intellectually he knew that was simply impossible.
Shen Yi wrapped herself up tightly like a silkworm baby.
She covered her head and cried intermittently for a while. There was breakdown, there was astonishment, but mostly she was thinking about how she should handle the relationship between the two of them.
What exactly was Song Sijun thinking?
She couldn't figure it out.
The system popped out at an exceptionally inappropriate time, telling her coldly: [His thoughts don't matter, his wishes don't matter. What matters is that whatever you think and whatever decision you make is fine. You don't need to consider anyone else.]
The system had no emotions to speak of. It was a proponent of world-centrism; to it, everyone was an NPC, a tool.
The protagonist naturally had no need to care about the thoughts of NPCs.
Shen Yi paused for a moment: "Then can I just go see him directly?"
[Why not?]
[If he disobeys, just beat him up. You're the older sister anyway.]
That was true. She was the older sister.
Shen Yi's thoughts suddenly cleared up, and she no longer wanted to cry. She threw off the blanket, just in time to meet the gaze of Shen Xun, who had been staring blankly at her from the edge of the bed.
"Can you do me a favor?"
"Of course." Seeing that she had stopped crying, Shen Xun breathed a small sigh of relief and agreed without thinking.
"Thank you. Do you know who in our family is good with computers?" She steadied herself and asked what she really wanted to know. "Like, someone who could help hack into all the surveillance cameras of the nearby schools?"
Before taking action, Shen Yi needed to confirm once more whether the person who went to find her mother was really Song Sijun.
"Dad, or Second Brother."
Just looking at Shen Sixing's gloomy demeanor, one could tell he was a typical science and engineering tech nerd.
"Forget about Dad. He's probably very busy abroad, I won't bother him."
"Then should I go find Second Brother?" Shen Xun thought, if it's Second Brother...
He had probably last seen this wild Second Brother, who was raised outside, when he was around four years old.
Since then, they had lost contact.
In his impression, Second Brother had a very good temper, always smiling, and would never get angry no matter how much you bullied him.
Asking him for help wouldn't be hard.
"I can help you contact him."
Shen Yi instinctively resisted the unfamiliar Second Brother. She still wanted to find someone familiar to help with this matter. "No, wait, I'd better ask Third Brother first."
Early the next morning.
Shen Yi dialed Shen Wenta's number, cutting straight to the chase: "Brother, can you help me get all the invitations related to the Song family recently, as well as the guest lists?"
On the other end of the phone, Shen Wenta was silent for two seconds, seemingly digesting this sudden request.
"What do you need this for?"
"Just some business," Shen Yi didn't elaborate, only asking, "And could you also help me check if there's someone named Song Sijun on those lists?"
Shen Wenta paused.
His instinct was to interrogate her: Who is Song Sijun?
But, for the first time ever, he held back.
After all, he couldn't pour cold water on Shen Yi during one of the few times she made a request.
The people around Shen Wenta had always executed tasks with lightning speed.
They quickly informed Shen Yi.
That person named Song Sijun would be attending a wealthy young lady's birthday banquet.
Shen Yi was overjoyed that there was news so quickly: "Thank you!"
She couldn't control it; the joy in her tone was overflowing.
Shen Wenta tightened his grip on the phone, his smile sinking bit by bit until he completely lost his patience: "You want to attend that kind of boring birthday banquet? Also, who is Song Sijun? Why are you looking into him?"
Speaking of birthday banquets.
Last year, when they had their birthdays, what did he and Shen Yi give each other?
Oh, Shen Wenta had given Shen Yi a pair of elevator shoes.
That's right, elevator shoes.
The reason was that in six months, he had grown rapidly, while Shen Yi hadn't changed much. This made him very proud. When he gave her the shoes, the fake "I'm doing this for your own good" smile on his face was simply punchable.
So, on his birthday, Shen Yi returned the favor by gifting him a bizarre, wriggling sunflower toy.
Expressionless, he gave it a vicious kick.
Right on cue, the blasted thing started belting out some nursery rhyme like, "Dad's dad is called Grandpa."
Then there was that one night when he was already in a foul, irritable mood. For whatever reason, that damn cheap sunflower on his desk went completely haywire and turned itself on in the dead of night. It writhed in the darkness, flashing eerie, multicolored lights while blaring, "A youth has a youth's wild spirit, standing tall with a spine like mountains and rivers!"
At that moment, Shen Wenta genuinely had the urge to strangle her with his bare hands.
