Chapter 402: Black Sesame Tangyuan

Chapter 402: Chapter 402: Black Sesame Tangyuan

The moment Mr. Rhodes spoke, a subtle, deathly silence fell over the entire ancestral hall for several seconds.

Arabella Donovan sat bolt upright, suddenly wide awake and energized.

’Whoa, Mr. Rhodes is amazing. That silver tongue is on another level. Especially the part about the oath, hahahaha! If his cousin Rhodes actually swears on all that, I wonder if the Providence will really strike him with a lightning bolt, just like that day outside the food street at Brynn University. Or maybe his ancestors will get so angry they’ll claw their way out of their coffins to haunt him in the middle of the night?’

The few people who could hear her innermost thoughts were speechless. To be honest, they were quite eager to see it happen.

Walter Rhodes froze the moment Mr. Rhodes mentioned the oath. When his father looked over, his eyes darted all over the place—up at the ceiling, down at the floor, inside, outside—anywhere but at the man’s face.

It wasn’t as if the others in the room were blind. His reaction told them everything they needed to know.

First Uncle’s expression darkened as well. If it had just been their two families in the room, the situation would have been manageable. But in the short time they’d been talking, a steady stream of relatives had arrived.

After catching up with the first arrivals, they quickly got the full story. Now, they all stood silently to the side, watching the family drama unfold. How could he possibly swallow his pride and back down first with such an audience?

"You... Walter is your own nephew! How can you force him to swear such a vicious oath? Is this how you treat your own family?"

"It’s precisely because he’s family that we need to take drastic measures. Otherwise, how will anyone else be convinced? Besides, Brother, weren’t you the one who said everything Serena just claimed was false? That it was all slander and defamation? If it’s all lies, then Walter swearing this oath will prove his innocence, and he won’t have to worry about it coming true. It kills two birds with one stone. Why wouldn’t he do it?"

The tables had turned in an instant. First Uncle was now the one backed into a corner. His face flushed red with humiliation and anger. "You... You’re going too far!"

Having spat out the words, he planned to storm off, feigning the appearance of an inarticulate man who had been angered beyond words, all to preserve his last shred of dignity.

But how could Mr. Rhodes let him get away with it? The moment he saw him turn to leave, he shot forward, grabbed his arm, and yanked him back.

"Hey, Brother, don’t go. If we don’t clear this up today, I won’t be able to sleep well tonight... oh, no, I mean I won’t be able to sleep well for the next year."

First Uncle was speechless. ’Believe you, my ass! You sly bastard, let go of me! Let go!’

"But if you’re really not willing to have Walter swear that nasty oath, well, we can always think of another way."

"What other way?"

Mr. Rhodes’s eyes crinkled at the corners. He turned to glance at Arabella Donovan. "Brother, you may not know your son, but you certainly know yourself, right? We’ll just have Serena take a look at you instead. Then we’ll know for sure if what she said was true or false."

First Uncle: "!!!"

The onlookers: "!!!"

Arabella Donovan caught Mr. Rhodes’s meaningful glance and was stunned herself.

’I see it now. Mr. Rhodes is definitely one of those black sesame rice balls—all sweet and innocent on the outside, but full of wicked schemes on the inside!’

Everyone who heard her thought: ’Yep, that’s him!’

Meeting the probing, curious, and wary gazes of the crowd, Arabella Donovan took a deep breath and announced in a clear voice, "First Uncle is certainly vigorous for his age. Nearing sixty, he’s still able to father a child. I imagine he’s preparing to be a father and a grandfather at the same time—a double dose of good fortune."

At her words, each member of First Uncle’s family wore a different expression.

First Uncle was genuinely startled. It wasn’t a huge secret that he had other women; many people knew, and he felt no shame about it.

However, very few people knew that his favorite mistress had recently become pregnant again. He didn’t believe for a second that Arabella Donovan had divined this. Instead, he became more suspicious that Caspian Rhodes’s family had found out beforehand and deliberately set this up to make him and his son lose face in front of everyone.

Walter Rhodes’s face was ashen. He felt utterly humiliated by this revelation and a seed of resentment toward his father began to sprout in his heart.

In contrast, the First Uncle’s wife showed no change in expression upon hearing Arabella Donovan’s words. She was clearly long accustomed to her husband’s endless stream of mistresses and illegitimate children.

Compared to that, she was more interested in the part about "becoming a grandfather"...

"Sheila, could it be...?" The First Uncle’s wife looked at her daughter-in-law’s stomach, her expression a mixture of shock and joy.

Sheila Wyatt’s eyes also widened in surprise. She reached out and placed her hand on her mother-in-law’s. An unknowing bystander might have thought the baby was theirs.

The fact that First Uncle had a mistress and an illegitimate child wasn’t exactly a shocking secret, so the crowd’s capacity for empathy and surprise was limited.

Merely stating that didn’t seem to prove much, so after a thoughtful glance at the mother- and daughter-in-law, Arabella Donovan dropped another bombshell, her voice laced with sympathy.

"Ma’am, do you know the combination to your family’s safe?"

The First Uncle’s wife froze. It took her a moment to realize Arabella Donovan was speaking to her, and she completely missed the sudden change in her husband’s expression a few meters away when he heard the word "safe."

"Of course I do."

"Two new documents have recently appeared in your safe. One is an organ donation consent form, with your name written in the donor field. The other is an accident insurance policy that your husband purchased for you, with his name written in the beneficiary field."

The gossiping onlookers: "???"

A moment later: "!!!"

The First Uncle’s wife was stunned once more. This time, however, it was her daughter-in-law who shot to her feet, her expression grim as she stared at Arabella Donovan like a ravenous wolf.

"What do you mean? What’s the significance of those two documents? What are they for?"

"Don’t listen to her nonsense! There’s no such—"

"First Uncle’s mistress—we’ll call her Mrs. Quinn for now—recently became pregnant again, which should be a joyous occasion. Unfortunately, the older son she bore for First Uncle was recently diagnosed with a severe heart condition. He needs a heart transplant to survive. And as it happens, that son’s blood type is a perfect match for the First Uncle’s wife."

Walter Rhodes, her son, finally put it all together. "Are you saying my dad wants my mom to give her heart to that little bastard?"

His words sent an uproar through the room.

Even though the First Uncle’s wife had been heartbroken by her husband’s cold and callous nature for years and had long since given up on him, this sudden truth was still a devastating blow. She swayed on her feet, and her daughter-in-law had to hold her up, their roles from moments before now completely reversed.

Walter Rhodes was furious. Finding his spine for once, he directly confronted First Uncle. "Dad, how could you do something like this?"

Shouted at by his own son, First Uncle, though furious, knew he couldn’t admit to any of it.

"You’ll believe anything she says? We’re talking about a heart! A transplant means death! It’s not like you can just go ahead with a transplant because a consent form was signed!"

"Exactly," Arabella cut in. "That’s why you were planning to stage an accident—drown your wife so her heart could be ’donated’ to your illegitimate son. That’s what the accident insurance policy was for."