The male supporting character was actually myself.

But soon, he encountered the second misfortune of his life.

The camera focused, and the adoption records of Chen Yang and Zhou Lilian were clearly displayed on the screen.

"The Chen couple were diagnosed by the hospital as being in good health, but they had been unable to conceive for a long time. Under the policies at the time, this situation did not allow them to go through the adoption process. After all, in an adoptive family, one of the partners must be diagnosed as infertile to ensure that the adopted child would not be treated unfairly."

Chen Yang and Zhou Lilian went through some illegal means to complete the adoption procedures, and instead of waiting in line, they cut in line and directly took Wei Jiangchen home and named her Chen Yixiao.

One of the individuals who processed the adoption for the couple died four years ago; the other is elderly and suffers from Alzheimer's disease, rendering them unable to care for themselves. The case resulted in accountability and fines, but no suspects were criminally detained.

Three photos were displayed on the screen one by one, and the female host explained: "By looking at the differences between these three photos, you can see that the child who changed his name to Chen Yixiao is not living a happy life in this family."

The family of three was overjoyed when they were first adopted;

The group photo taken during the Spring Festival that year showed a happy and harmonious scene, but in the third photo, everyone could see at a glance that Chen Yang and Zhou Lilian had their own biological child and regarded her as the apple of their eye, and Chen Yixiao, who was only six years old, became an extra member.

According to Wei Jiangchen's own recollection and interviews with many neighbors from that time, after Chen Yang and his wife successfully gave birth to their daughter, the young Chen Yixiao became a 'nanny'.

He had to stand on a stool to cook; he had to feed his younger sister formula and change her diapers; and many neighbors even witnessed Chen Yang and his wife physically abusing Chen Yixiao for trivial matters, even denying him food.

The unequal treatment of adopted and biological children was not the worst thing this couple did.

After taking the third family photo, Zhou Lilian discovered she was pregnant again and quickly found out through connections that she was carrying a boy. This time, the couple completely rejected their adopted son, Chen Yixiao, but since the orphanage had adopted him, they couldn't send him back without special circumstances.

Moreover, Chen Yixiao was already seven years old at the time. Fearing damage to their reputation and unwilling to continue raising him, Chen Yang and his wife came up with a vicious plan.

They hired human traffickers to sell Chen Yixiao for 1,000 yuan, and deceived him by saying that he was just going to stay at a relative's house for a while, and that they would bring him back after his mother gave birth to his younger brother.

After Chen Yixiao believed and followed the traffickers, the traffickers confessed on the road that he had been sold by his adoptive parents for 1,000 yuan. Sold from one trafficker to another, Chen Yixiao was repeatedly sold into the depths of the mountains.

A buyer named Niu Dan spent 5,000 yuan to buy him from human traffickers and renamed him Niu Changgeng.

During the trial, Chen Yang and Zhou Lilian, standing in the dock, insisted that they were not traffickers but were tricked. However, when the traffickers who had been in contact with them were brought to court, Jiang Chen presented evidence that should not have existed in the first place—a receipt for the exchange of money for the person. The clear signature on the receipt immediately sealed Chen Yang's fate!

"(ˉ▽￣～) Tch~~" The fluffy ball of fur swayed its tail drunkenly and said disdainfully, "If you don't want people to know, then don't do it in the first place. The fact that it existed can never be completely erased. My host used a precious item to get this receipt. You guys are in jail for good reason!"

Liao Su-fen personally appeared in court to testify.

However, the evidence that cow eggs were used to buy and sell children and women and abuse them came from deep in the mountains.

The prosecutors sent people to question and collect evidence. Initially, the villagers showed great sympathy for Niu Dan's plight. However, upon further questioning, the root of their sympathy turned out to be the villagers' statement that it was just buying a wife; more than half of the wives in the village had been bought!

It's just hitting a woman, isn't it?

All the men in the village beat women, and that's not a problem.

Buying a child? That's normal. So-and-so couldn't have a son, so they bought one last year to carry on the family line. It's a sin to have no sons or descendants. Buying a child is doing a good deed. Otherwise, if human traffickers kidnapped children and no one bought them, wouldn't they just kill or maim them?

Well, not only did they successfully convict Niu Dan, they also teamed up with the police to pull off a coordinated attack.

From this center, the rescue efforts spread to several surrounding villages, resulting in the rescuing of over forty trafficked women and six trafficked children. Thanks to Jiang Chen's extensive publicity efforts, which generated considerable online buzz and gathered numerous leads, the rescue of even more trafficked children and women was facilitated…

Ultimately, the two human traffickers were sentenced to ten years in prison.

Chen Yang was sentenced to ten years in prison;

Zhou Lilian was sentenced to eight years in prison;

Niu Dan was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

The final case was a lawsuit filed by the person in charge of the Lotus Building against a group of people for assault and damage to valuable property. The instigators of the assault, Niu Dan, Er Hunzi, Yao Zhijun, and others, were fined and ordered to compensate the Lotus Building banquet hall for the damage.

Given that Niu Dan, Yao Zhijun, Chen Yang, and others are all injured, they are temporarily detained in a detention center with medical facilities pending their recovery before being transferred to prison.

"It's finally over!" After seeing Liao Sufen and her husband off, Jiang Chen turned around and naturally took Ye Ruoyi's hand, asking softly, "The mountain villa is ready too. In a few days, we'll move there and start our secluded life."

Is there anything else you need to buy in the next couple of days?

Ye Ruoyi blushed slightly, thought for a moment, and shook her head, saying, "There's nothing I need to buy, right? Besides, it's the internet age now. I can just order anything online and have it delivered right to my door."

My work coordination is complete, and I can work online from now on.

only……"

She felt a headache coming on when she thought of her parents, who were waiting to leech off her. She whispered, "Let's not have a big engagement party. Let's just move out quietly. Otherwise, if my parents find out, they'll demand millions in dowry to raise their son!"

I don't want to suck your blood to feed my brother and make him Voldemort!

"There has to be a ceremony, otherwise it's not fair that you live with me without even a proper status."

"What era are we living in? Status and titles aren't that important anymore, are they?"

"No, it's very important! You must have what others have. Since you don't want to make a big fuss, let's have a small engagement party at the company, and then announce our wedding to the world with a big celebration!"

Ye Ruoyi felt a sweet warmth in her heart. She had just nodded in agreement when she remembered that Yu Dazhi and the others were still waiting at the hotel to recognize him. She asked softly, "Are you planning to acknowledge your maternal grandparents?"

"Whether they admit it or not depends on what role they played back then." Jiang Chen said expressionlessly, "If they were not at fault, then they should admit it, but I think that just based on their behavior of following Yao Zhijun to sue the hospital instead of pursuing the culprit, this family is not a good person either."

Yu Dazhi has been in a very good mood lately.

He truly hadn't expected his eldest nephew to be so decisive and ruthless, sentencing Yao Zhijun to death without any hesitation!

This is great! Not only did he avenge his sister, but he also completely severed all those messy relationships. His biological father, adoptive parents, and the buyer were all sent to jail, and he didn't acknowledge any of them.

Yao Zhijun's family line had long since died out. If you do the math, Wei Jiangchen only has his maternal grandparents, uncles, and aunts as blood relatives. He even thoughtfully arranged for his family to stay in a hotel, saying that once he finished his work and recognized his relatives, he would finally have a good life!

When you think about how Wei Jiangchen earns tens of millions, and how a super-rich tycoon buys his uncle a villa and a luxury car and arranges a lucrative job for him, aren't these all minor matters?

"Brother, our nephew is here!" Yu Lidan exclaimed excitedly, her face flushed. She pushed open the door and called out to him, "Hurry up! He went straight to Mom and Dad's room as soon as he arrived!"

Yu Dazhi jumped up immediately, "Damn it! Silly old lady, don't say anything wrong and anger my nephew!"

Jiang Chen did not contact Yu Dazhi, but had someone directly stop the brother and sister outside.

How could you possibly learn the truth about what happened back then by talking to someone who says one thing to one person and another to another?

"My poor Liyun!" The old lady burst into tears at the mention of her daughter. The old man sighed heavily for a moment and then muttered, "That was her fate. No one could stop her from dying!"

The old lady cried for a while, wiped away her tears, and said, "You said she was the prettiest girl in the whole area back then, and a rare college student. College students in those days! How could she be so heartless? Didn't she know how hard her parents worked to support her education?"

He only wants to be a big star, and no amount of persuasion will stop him.

You should at least finish your university education and get a good job. Take your time. Do you really want to jump straight to the top like university students in Beijing, making calendars and movies? That's impossible!

But she wouldn't listen to any advice. Her parents tried to persuade her, and her teachers even came to her house to try to persuade her, but she wouldn't listen to a word. She insisted on going to Beijing to work, saying she wanted to pursue some kind of dream and that we were all country bumpkins who didn't understand her ideals.

She went to Beijing, but we don't know if she worked there or not. When she came back, she brought Yao Zhijun home with her big belly.

Yao Zhijun was clearly not a good person; he was glib and boastful, never saying a serious word.

I advised Liyun to get ready while she was still in the early stages of her pregnancy. You're a college student, and you're good-looking. You could find a husband anywhere, so why do you have to go after a street urchin?

She wouldn't listen. She said Yao Zhijun treated her well, said he couldn't bear to part with the child, and wanted us to support the family of three for another two years, saying she would go back to work to earn money to support the child and the family when the child was older.

The old lady regretted her decision back then, saying, "I shouldn't have been so heartless as to kick Liyun out!"

I figured that since she wouldn't listen to advice and wouldn't turn back, she probably hadn't suffered enough yet. I'd wait until she'd suffered enough and woken up before making plans and finding solutions for her.

Not long after she left, she... she...

"That's her fate!" The old man muttered over and over again. "She didn't go to university, she didn't come home, and she just ran off with some random guy. She even stole her household registration book to get her marriage certificate. What use is a daughter like that to me?"

She abandoned her parents for some random man, defiantly following him back then; even in death, it was her own choice!

He pushed his hand away and lowered his voice, saying, "Child, you've had a tough time these past few years, and earning money isn't easy either. As your grandparents, we didn't take care of your mother or look after you for a single day back then. We're not here for anything."

The old man glanced at the door and sighed, "I'm old, and my words don't carry any weight anymore. Especially since I have to rely on my son for old age in the village, there's no way around it. If my son asks me to come and acknowledge him, I have to come along; if he asks me to say something, I won't say it because I feel bad. And if Dazhi asks you for anything later, don't give it to him."

We, the two of us, don't know how to raise children.

The eldest daughter, Liyun, ran away with Yao Zhijun and died in the hospital, never seeing him one last time; the son was greedy for money, thinking he could extort money from the hospital by suing them, so he went along with the commotion; the youngest daughter was the same… sigh…”

“I have two questions. Why didn’t my grandparents sue Yao Zhijun back then? He refused to sign the papers, which led to my mother’s death, and then he abandoned me. Logically, you should have sued him.”

"We sued him." The old lady wiped away her tears. "What did we know back then? We didn't understand anything. We took someone's advice and hired a lawyer, which cost a lot of money. They said they would sue him for manslaughter, and apparently he would be held responsible if he didn't sign the consent form to save someone."

The court rejected the application, saying that they didn't handle that area.

There's no evidence that Liyun's death was due to Yao Zhijun's refusal to sign the consent form. Even if he had signed and the surgery had been performed, Liyun might not have survived. The law doesn't care. Yao Zhijun sued the hospital unsuccessfully and has disappeared; what else can be done?

My child… Yao Zhijun said you were already dead when you were born, and the hospital tried to extort money from you by putting you in an incubator. He took you out and buried you. That's how dead babies were handled in the countryside back then; they'd find a secluded spot, dig a hole, and bury them.

We thought that he was, after all, his own flesh and blood. Yao Zhijun hoped that even if his son was cold-blooded, he wouldn't be so cruel as to harm his own son. Who knew he would commit such a heinous act...

Many farmers today lack legal knowledge, so expecting those two honest and simple farmers from back then to be held accountable seems unrealistic.

Jiang Chen thought for a moment and asked, "Where are my mother's ashes buried?"

"According to the customs of the countryside, a woman should be buried in her husband's family's grave after she dies. But we don't even know where Yao Zhijun is from. He ran away, and we're left to go to the hospital to collect his body. What else can we do?"

The old woman blew her nose with a tissue and sobbed, "Girls can't be buried in the family's cemetery. The whole family is watching, so we can't bury them. At first, we kept them in the temple for two years, spending some money to have a high monk perform a ritual for them."

Later, I realized that I had to find a burial site for my child so that he could rest in peace.

After searching for a long time, we found her a young, unmarried man of similar age who had died in an accident in a neighboring county for a ghost marriage. She was buried in his ancestral grave. If you want to visit, we can go together during the Qingming Festival. I go every year to burn paper money there, and I've seen that the family takes good care of the grave…”

Jiang Chen nodded, feeling somewhat heavy-hearted.

They keep talking about equality, but family property is tacitly given to the son, village land is given to the son, and even women who die are not entitled to be buried in the cemetery. How can this be fair?

The elderly couple, who couldn't stop their eldest daughter from ruining her future due to being obsessed with love, and then dying tragically in the hospital because of a scumbag, truly had a tough time.

It was reasonable that they refused to take in the lazy and good-for-nothing Yao Zhijun back then, and that should not completely negate the hard work the two elders put into raising the original owner's mother.

"Thank you for telling me all this." He paused for a moment and then asked, "Is Yu Dazhi filial?"

The old man didn't speak, he just sighed.

The old lady muttered under her breath, "His wife is formidable. Who told us to raise such a good-for-nothing? Anyway, he's just so-so."

"Okay, I know what to do." Jiang Chen whispered a few instructions and got up to leave. When he pushed open the door, he saw Yu Dazhi and Yu Lidan with big smiles on their faces. The two of them warmly greeted their nephew.

He thought for a moment and said to the original owner's biological mother's younger brother and sister, "My maternal grandparents are getting old and need to be supported. I will set up a retirement fund for them, and no one can touch the money in it before they pass away."

Now that men and women are equal and both have inheritance rights, how the inheritance will be distributed in the future depends on the maternal grandparents' wishes.

"What the hell?" Yu Dazhi was stunned. "That's it?!"

He didn't even call me "uncle," and just left like that?

He rushed into the house to ask his parents what was going on. Yu Lidan was also so anxious that she kept scratching her head, thinking about what her eldest nephew had said and afraid that she would get less than her share. She hurriedly followed him into the house to find out.

With money as an incentive, there's no need to worry about the brother and sister mistreating the elderly.

At least until their deaths, the sons and daughters must sincerely be filial to them, make them happy, and win their favor, which can be considered as fulfilling their filial duty to the original owner.

The script was no longer updated. After Jiang Chen and Ye Ruoyi held their engagement ceremony at the company and moved into a semi-secluded villa in the mountains, the fluffy little thing suddenly walked over with its head held high and chest out, looking very proud and said, "Host, let me tell you something!"

Under Miao's diligent urging, the main system finally repaired the passage and sent Meng Xiaosu back.