"Oh? What's the matter?" Alexander Hayes asked.
Lily Evans told Alexander Hayes everything she had seen and heard at the Marquis Valor Estate, holding nothing back.
Alexander Hayes listened with pursed lips. When he heard that Lily had switched the medicine, he merely frowned slightly, showing no intention of blaming her.
When Lily finished speaking, Alexander's expression grew even more serious.
"Alex, the Marquis and Marchioness have you as their son, and I'm pregnant with your child. Why would the Marquis, after learning he couldn't have children, say he's left without an heir? Aren't you his son? And what exactly is the big secret the Marchioness knows? Why does it make the Marquis so wary, and why would it mean death for everyone in the estate?" Lily asked curiously.
Alexander Hayes pondered for a long time, then shook his head under Lily's questioning gaze. "I... I really don't know."
"You don't know? You've lived in that estate for twenty years—surely you must know something about this big secret?" Lily pressed.
"I really don't... They've never mentioned it to me. My relationship with them has always been distant, and we rarely talk." Alexander shook his head, clearly still unable to let go of the cold treatment he'd received since childhood.
Seeing Alexander's expression, Lily realized that most of what happened in the estate, the Marquis and Marchioness probably kept from him.
Lily pouted. "You, their own son, seem more like an outsider. Honestly, even Lou Xiaolu seems more like family than you do."
As soon as Lily Evans blurted out those words, both she and Alexander Hayes seemed to realize something at the same time, and met each other's eyes.
Shock and suspicion flashed in Alexander Hayes's eyes, while Lily Evans felt a vague suspicion forming in her heart: Could it be that Alexander Hayes was never truly accepted by Marquis Valor and Marchioness Valor because he isn’t their biological son? And that Marquis Valor and Marchioness Valor were willing to harm Margaret Evans to sabotage Lily and Alexander’s marriage, and even tried to force Lucy Lou onto Alexander as his wife, because Lucy Lou is actually their real daughter?
The moment this idea popped into her head, Lily Evans couldn’t help but get goosebumps all over.
If this guess was true, then Marquis Valor’s comment about 'ending the family line' made sense: Marquis Valor and Marchioness Valor only have Lucy Lou as a daughter, no son—wouldn’t that mean the family line ends with them?
It would also explain Marquis Valor and Marchioness Valor’s coldness toward Alexander Hayes, and their strange concern for Lucy Lou.
Lily Evans saw that same suspicion reflected in Alexander Hayes’s eyes.
For a moment, the couple fell into a strange silence. After a long pause, Alexander Hayes finally spoke: "I’ll have someone look into this."
"Mm..." Lily Evans didn’t know how to comfort him, so she simply held his hand gently. "If it really turns out as we suspect, what will you do?"
Alexander Hayes shook his head and sighed, "My mind is a mess..."
Even though he’d never been accepted by his father and mother, suddenly discovering he might not be their biological child left Alexander Hayes in turmoil, unable to accept it all at once.
Alexander Hayes’s mind was full of questions, like why Marquis Valor and Marchioness Valor never cared for him, yet still adopted him?
For example, if they wanted to adopt, why go to such lengths to send their biological daughter Lucy Lou away first, only to bring her back later?
And then, who are Alexander Hayes’s real parents?
Does the secret that Lou mentioned—the one that concerns the life and death of everyone in the Marquis Valor Estate—have anything to do with his true origins?
Countless mysteries swirled in Alexander Hayes’s mind like burning flames, making his head ache unbearably.
But in the midst of all this confusion, he looked up to see Lily Evans gazing at him with gentle concern. Her slightly rounded belly reminded him: inside was their child.
Looking at his wife and child, Alexander Hayes felt his chaotic heart instantly calm down.