Chapter 418: Chapter 418: No Blood Relation
And she actually resorted to such unscrupulous means to obtain the umbilical cord blood.
The heavy guilt surged from the depths of Ann Vaughn’s heart as soon as she thought of this.
She decided that the next time she slept with him, she promised! To be! More! Gentle!
After a whole night of tossing and turning, Little Dumpling’s low fever finally improved, and when he coughed, he no longer showed a look of excruciating pain.
Soon, Uncle Dexter, following Cyrus Hawthorne’s instructions, came over with some things, and seeing Kenny lying there so weakly, he was extremely worried.
Old Master Hawthorne also got the news, and he was so anxious that he wanted to rush over from Cloudmere Manor to see Kenny. Ann Vaughn reassured him repeatedly that Kenny was fine before managing to convince the old man not to come.
The old gentleman was getting on in years, and it wouldn’t do to have him running around and exerting himself.
After Ann Vaughn gave Kenny another dose of his cold medicine, she received an urgent string of calls from Susie Sommers.
To avoid waking Kenny, who was still sleeping, Ann Vaughn took her phone out of the hospital room to answer the call.
"Hello..."
"Annie! Is your aunt out of her mind?" Susie Sommers’ voice exploded from the other end in frustration. "She’s like a mad dog right now, spreading rumors everywhere, saying you’re not a Vaughn family daughter, but some illegitimate child with an unknown origin! Damn, my tempers rising!"
As soon as she said this, there was another voice on the line, stopping her, "Miss, if you continue to use violent means, don’t blame us for locking you up in the detention room!"
Ann Vaughn was stunned, taking a moment to process Susie’s words.
"Susie, are you sure it was my aunt who said I’m of unknown origin?"
"Exactly, that annoying Hailey Vaughn! But don’t worry, I’ve already sent her to the hospital with a beating. Damn it, if people hadn’t stopped me, I’d have torn her mouth apart for daring to slander my best friend... Don’t pull me! Let go!"
Cursing away, tussle sounds could be heard from Susie’s side.
Ann Vaughn, too shocked to care, hurriedly asked, "What happened to you? Are you okay?"
"These officers insisted on inviting me over for a visit at their precinct, and I had no choice but to enjoy some tea here for an hour. Don’t worry about me," Susie laughed it off, pretending nothing had happened and that she was just fine.
However, in the next second, a gentle and refined male voice chimed in.
"I am Susie’s uncle. May I ask what she has done wrong?"
"Who invited this important figure over, damn it!" Susie swore under her breath, and before she could even say goodbye, she hung up the phone.
...It turned out she called in specifically to report her accomplishments to Ann Vaughn.
Poor Susie might be in for some ’discipline’ from a significant figure next.
Ann Vaughn bit her lip, feeling complicated, as she opened Weibo and, unsurprisingly, the trending topic was "Former Vaughn Family Eldest Miss, Now Vaughn Clinic Owner’s Background."
Just as Susie said, Mrs. Bellamy acted like a mad dog in the interview video, fiercely attacking Ann Vaughn, determined to take a piece of flesh from her before giving up.
And what Ann did not expect was another trending topic, this one about the company where Mrs. Bellamy’s husband worked, which had been acquired by Hawthorne Group today...
Mrs. Bellamy intended to drag her down with her.
Ann Vaughn suddenly felt a chill, furrowing her brows as she returned to the hospital room and made herself a cup of hot coffee.
She didn’t drink it, just held it in her hands, trying to dispel the chill throughout her body.
"Quinn," Ann Vaughn suddenly thought of something, looking through the swirling steam at the man sitting by the window on the sofa, dealing with files. After hesitating for a long time, she decided to directly ask him, "Did you find Jade Shepherd and Howard Vaughn?"
"Hmm?" The man paused his long fingers that were tapping on the keyboard, looked sideways at her, and swallowed twice, "The results are already out."
So soon?
Ann Vaughn, eyes wide with surprise, then realized this was very much in line with his style.
Actually, before Mrs. Bellamy pointed at her nose and cursed, calling her a jinx and illegitimate child, she didn’t particularly care about determining whether she was a Vaughn family child or not.
The reason she thought about it was because Mrs. Bellamy’s words, equivalent to slapping Howard Vaughn in the face, once again raised Ann Vaughn’s suspicions.
If she didn’t know something, why would Mrs. Bellamy say that and be so reckless?
It’s important to know that she and Howard Vaughn always had a good relationship.
Moreover, if it weren’t for the DNA test results from years ago, Ann Vaughn wouldn’t have been so sure she was a Vaughn family child, never once wavering.
But now...
"What are the results? Am I a Vaughn family child?" Ann Vaughn’s slender fingers tightened around the coffee cup, her misty eyes involuntarily betraying deep tension.
Cyrus Hawthorne’s eyes briefly darkened before he motioned to her with a slight wave and said sternly, "Come here."
Ann Vaughn, holding her coffee cup, went over, sat on the carpet under his seat, and looked at the computer.
"Here’s the test result." Cyrus Hawthorne’s fingers, long and fair as jade, tapped a few times on the black keyboard, and immediately a document page popped up on the screen.
As Ann Vaughn read the content word by word, her heart followed suit, tightening bit by bit.
The report’s data showed she had no blood relation with Jade Shepherd or Howard Vaughn...
She wasn’t a Vaughn family child.
Nor was she the granddaughter of her grandfather.
Ann Vaughn’s heart, almost ready to leap from her chest in nervousness, didn’t relax after seeing the result. The tight string in her mind snapped violently into two, leaving her dizzy and shaken.
She didn’t care whether she was a Vaughn family child at all, because all she cared about was being her grandfather’s granddaughter.
Therefore, before seeing the report, she still harbored some hope that if the result matched her previous beliefs, everything would be fine.
On the other hand, intense curiosity and doubts compelled her to prove that she wasn’t, as Mrs. Bellamy claimed, an unwanted illegitimate child...
But with the facts laid bare, she indeed wasn’t a Vaughn family child.
To say it was unexpected would be false, as Ann Vaughn had guessed this might be the case, although she dared not conclude it.
Yet to say it wasn’t, she did feel like a jar of mixed emotions had been overturned within her.
But what to do...
"Quinn, it turns out I’m not my grandfather’s granddaughter after all." Ann Vaughn gave a wry smile, feeling she should be happy for not being the cold-blooded couple’s child, yet her eyes began to moisten.
"Grandfather once told me that the essence of our traditional Chinese medicine family is to be passed down to truly gifted descendants, so he/she can carry it forward. That this generation’s bearer was me, the last hope of the Vaughn family. This was what grandfather told me before he closed his eyes."
"I’ve learned everything grandfather taught me, and I diligently preserve everything he reminded me to remember. Although I’m a daughter, not a son, as long as I work hard enough, I will one day live up to grandfather’s expectations and continue to pass down the Vaughn family’s medical heritage..."
"But grandfather definitely did not expect," Ann Vaughn lowered her head in disarray, her hair and long lashes concealing her reddened eyes, "that the heir he nurtured for so many years wasn’t his biological grandchild, his grandchild of blood."
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