Reborn As Super Heiress

Chapter 413: Chapter 409: Conspiracy and Past Events

Liang Jinhong returned home at night, and naturally, Liang Ruicheng and An Hongmei brought up the matter of the Huang Family to their son.

”The Liang Family making such a grand display of hosting a banquet must certainly be intentional.”

”When your grandfather kicked Liang Ruining and her son out of the house, compelling them to start their own separate household, the Huang Family must have been unable to swallow that humiliation. After so many years, they’ve harbored a grudge, and I think they just want to use this opportunity to embarrass our family.”

Liang Ruicheng felt that he had seen through the true nature of this matter, but Liang Jinhong didn’t agree.

”Dad, could this be a conspiracy?”

Having never experienced the ridicule of being a bastard, Liang Jinhong didn’t have much animosity towards the Huang Family.

However, letting a niece with an unknown background into the clan, who might later enjoy the same inheritance as the third generation of the Huang Family, seemed to be a losing deal for them.

Liang Jinhong felt that the Huang Family wouldn’t be so foolish; surely, there was some hidden information they didn’t know about.

”A conspiracy?” Liang Ruicheng was puzzled and didn’t understand what Liang Jinhong meant.

”Think about it, why would the Huang Family acknowledge a powerless, insignificant girl with no background? Even if this little girl cured Huang Chengyi’s leg, he could have just paid her and been done with it. What use could such a little girl be?”

”What are you implying?” Liang Ruicheng still didn’t understand.

Liang Jinhong was exasperated, ”Ah, how can you not understand? When Liang Ruining died, a large inheritance was left behind. Don’t you remember? Back then, Grandpa even went to inquire at the military base, and weren’t we told that he had already signed a will and had dealt with that inheritance himself?”

As soon as Liang Ruicheng heard this, his expression turned sour. When he had heard the news of Liang Ruining’s death, he immediately instigated Liang Pengzhi to make a fuss at the military base, hoping to take over the properties left behind by Liang Ruining and Huang Chengxiang, only to be informed that those inheritances already had an owner.

”Are you suggesting that Liang Ruining left all those things to his child, and that’s why the Huang Family now wants to acknowledge that child, to keep the inheritance in their own hands?” Liang Ruicheng slowly grasped the implication in Liang Jinhong’s words.

Liang Jinhong nodded, ”That’s right, Dad. Please try to recall, when Liang Ruining and her son left the Liang Family, exactly how much and what valuables did they take with them?”

Liang Ruicheng’s expression stiffened, and he looked awkwardly at An Hongmei and Liang Jinhong before dryly saying, ”When Liang Ruining and her son left, they left with nothing but the clothes on their backs.”

At that, Liang Jinhong was stunned and he looked incredulously at Liang Ruicheng, ”That can’t be possible, Dad. What kind of joke is this?”

Liang Ruicheng nodded, ”Huang Chengxiang indeed left with nothing. At that time, your grandmother and I had already joined the Liang Family, and we saw with our own eyes that they left empty-handed.”

”Did they ever come back after leaving?” Liang Jinhong asked unwillingly.

”No,” replied Liang Ruicheng.

Liang Jinhong found it too strange, ”How can this be possible? After leaving the Liang Family, Liang Ruining established her own household. If they left with nothing, where did the money come from for a mother and orphan to stand on their own?”

Liang Ruicheng shook his head, ”That was also something that puzzled your grandfather and me at the time. They didn’t even take the Huang Family’s dowry with them, and the Huang Family itself was not in a good situation; they never went back to the Huang Family. It wasn’t long before we heard that they had bought a house on Chang’an Street and set up their own household.”

Liang Jinhong had originally thought that the Huang Family was recognizing a girl of unknown origin with the sole goal of seizing Liang Ruining’s inheritance, which was why he was keen on investigating exactly how much of the Liang Family’s assets had been allocated to Liang Ruining and her son in those years. However, hearing what Liang Ruicheng said, he was completely dumbfounded.

”So, you mean to say you and Grandpa also have no idea how much inheritance Liang Ruining actually left behind?”

Liang Jinhong was fixated on the matter of the inheritance, because, in his view, as Liang Ruining was a child of the Liang Family, the inheritance she left behind should rightfully be passed down to his grandfather, Liang Pengzhi, and should not fall into the Huang Family’s hands at all.

Moreover, Liang Ruining’s death had happened very suddenly, and it was unclear to everyone whether there was a will or not. And with the Huang Family’s connections to the military, it was possible that the will had been their doing.

At the time, he was too young to remember anything about Liang Ruining’s death; otherwise, he definitely would not have let it go at that.

Liang Jinhong felt that Liang Ruining and her son were definitely not as destitute as they appeared on the surface. The house on Chang’an Street, even over forty years ago, would not have been easy to acquire.

If a woman could earn enough to buy a house in such a short period, that Huang Chengxiang must not have been simple. The tale of a mistress driving her to divorce without a penny might well be a façade. It’s possible that woman had long wanted to break away from the Liang Family but lacked a pretext, and then opportunely, his grandfather’s affair presented her with one.

Liang Jinhong suspected that Huang Chengxiang might have hidden away a significant private fortune, meant for Liang Ruining’s child. The Huang Family couldn’t access it, so they likely found a child of unknown origin to claim ancestry and recognition, all to get their hands on that inheritance.

It was quite possible that the Huang Family had already reached an agreement with the girl in secret, offering the child the status of a hereditary family, while the girl, in turn, would relinquish any claim to the private fortune left by Huang Chengxiang.

The more he thought about it, the more Liang Jinhong felt his theory was the most logical explanation; all of it was a thorough and complete conspiracy.

Regardless of what the Liang Family members each had in mind, the Huang Family’s ancestral rites were still carried out as scheduled.

On the twenty-fourth of the twelfth lunar month, Huo Sining paid her respects to the ancestral deities of the Huang Family in the presence of many relatives and friends, and she also burned three incense sticks each in front of her grandmother’s and father’s memorial tablets.

After the ceremony concluded, Huo Sining’s name was formally recorded in the family registry, under the branch of Liang Ruining.

At the beginning, the Huang Family had asked Huo Sining if she wished to change her surname to Huang, but she had declined.

Her father’s surname was Liang, and her mother’s was Huo. Taking either her father’s or her mother’s surname would have been fine.

But had she not taken her father’s or her mother’s surname and instead taken on her grandmother’s, it would have been weird to people.

Huo Sining had no desire to change her surname to Liang, so she decided to keep her mother’s surname Huo, and after being called by this name for nearly twenty years, she had grown accustomed to it; suddenly changing it felt rather uncomfortable to her.

Fortunately, the Huang Family were very understanding and, seeing Huo Sining’s firmness in not changing her surname, did not press the issue.

And so, both Huo Sining and her father, Liang Ruining, were recorded in the Huang Family’s genealogy with their foreign surnames.

”A Ning, are you really going to give me the most powerful grasshopper?”

After the ancestral worship had concluded, as Huo Sining walked out from the hall with everyone, Huang Xiaoyi, who had been silent until then, rushed over to her.