Chapter 391: The Bad People Have Gotten Old

Chapter 391: Chapter 391: The Bad People Have Gotten Old

"Wh-what... what is this?"

Mr. and Mrs. Croft held the papers Lillian Donovan had slammed down, their faces ghastly pale, as if they were holding their own execution orders.

"What is it?" Lillian Donovan sneered. "It’s the paternity test for your son and that precious grandson of yours. And the court verdict convicting him of bigamy, marriage fraud, and malicious transfer of marital assets."

Mr. Croft’s hand trembled, and he threw the documents straight to the ground. "Why are you showing these to us? We... we’re uneducated. We can’t read them."

"If you can’t read them, that’s fine. I can read them to you myself."

As she spoke, Lillian Donovan gave a subtle look to the person beside her. A bodyguard immediately stepped forward, picked up the documents from the floor, dusted them off, and handed them back to her.

"It says here that your son, Julian Croft, had a second, secret family while we were married. He used our marital assets, as well as my own personal premarital assets, to support this other family. To compensate for my losses, the court ordered the recovery of all the money he spent on you, his other wife, and their child. The grand total is fifty-seven million, eight hundred ninety-six thousand, seven hundred... I won’t bother with the small change. Let’s just drop the cents and round it up for you. We’ll call it an even fifty-eight million."

Hearing this, Arabella Donovan and the others could barely stifle their laughter. It was the first time they’d ever seen someone "round off" a number by making it bigger!

Mr. and Mrs. Croft, however, didn’t notice this detail. They were completely stunned, dizzy from a number larger than any they had ever encountered in their entire lives.

’Their son now owes Lillian Donovan fifty-eight million? How is that possible? How could he possibly have spent that much money on them over the years?’

Lillian Donovan watched their dumbfounded expressions, the mockery on her face deepening. "Originally, I was thinking that debts should be paid by the debtor. The person who cheated me out of my money was Julian Croft, so naturally, he should be the one to pay it back. There’s no need to involve innocent parties. It’s only for three or four years; I can afford to wait. But now, since you’ve decided to show up here..."

Before Lillian Donovan could even finish, Mr. Croft reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, his hackles rising instantly.

"N-No... this debt has nothing to do with us! Don’t come to us for it. We won’t pay it, and we don’t have the money to pay it anyway."

"That’s right, that’s right! We don’t have any money. Go find whoever owes you the money. In any case, it has absolutely nothing to do with us."

"How could it have nothing to do with you?" Arabella Donovan sidled up to her aunt with a wide grin. "Julian Croft is your biological son, after all. There’s a saying that a son pays his father’s debts. Well, the reverse is also true—a father can pay his son’s. It’s just that..."

"Just what?"

"Usually, that happens when an elderly parent has to bury their child—the son passes away before his parents and has no wife or children of his own. In that case, the parents are the ones who inherit his estate, and debts are part of that estate."

The old couple’s faces went deathly pale. Calming down and thinking it over, they recalled that back in their village, it wasn’t unheard of for worthless sons to rack up huge debts that their parents were forced to repay.

’What could they do in those situations? He was their own son. They couldn’t just let the debt collectors hound him to death.’

It was just that their son had always been so sensible and eager to make them proud. The old couple had never imagined that one day they would be saddled with enormous debt because of him.

"Of course, there is a way to solve this," Arabella added.

By now, Mrs. Croft was completely taken in by their well-coordinated performance and asked subconsciously, "What way?"

"You can voluntarily renounce your inheritance... oops, I mean, this debt."

"Then we’ll voluntarily renounce it—"

"Not so fast. Renouncing something means you give up all the downsides associated with that person, as well as all the upsides. Simply put, when a person dies, they might leave behind savings and debts. You have to either inherit both the savings and the debts, or renounce both. You can’t pick and choose."

Hearing this, Eloise Donovan understood her sister’s plan and chimed in at the right moment. "This debt belongs to your son. It’s just that he’s currently in prison and can’t repay it, so you, his parents, are required to. By the same token, the duty to support you in your old age also belongs to your son. But since he is unable to support you, that responsibility falls to his two children.

If you want these two children to support you, then you must also take on this debt. However, if you agree to stop harassing the two of them..."

Mrs. Croft’s eyes lit up. "Then she won’t come after us for the money?"

Arabella Donovan and the others exchanged a glance, then nodded.

In truth, Lillian Donovan never intended to get the money from these two old crooks. They were already in their seventies and eighties; they could work until they dropped dead and never repay her that much. If she really pushed them to the brink, they’d just throw themselves on the ground and probably try to extort money from *her*.

She had brought out the documents solely to scare these two greedy old fools, to make them too afraid to use their status as elders to come to the school and bother the children again. As for the debt itself, she would settle that score properly with Julian Croft once he got out.

’After all, I only said I wouldn’t demand it from these two old relics, not that I wouldn’t demand it from Julian Croft.’

The old couple was indeed intimidated. But if they could be scared off that easily, Lillian Donovan wouldn’t have been deceived by their family for so many years without a clue. She had needed the "cheat code" that was Arabella Donovan to finally see them for who they truly were.

Seeing that he was losing the upper hand again, and that the two money trees he’d been targeting were about to be uprooted and taken from him for good, Mr. Croft’s expression darkened. He surreptitiously shot his wife a look.

Seeing his signal, Mrs. Croft didn’t hesitate. She plopped right down on the ground and began to wail at the top of her lungs. "Oh, the heavens are cruel! They’re trying to drive my husband and me to our graves! What sins did our family commit to end up with a daughter-in-law like her, to have this happen to us? Oh, my son, you’re not here, and your father and I are being hounded to death!"

It had to be said, Mrs. Croft’s acting was genuinely impressive. The tears came on command, and her sobs were utterly wretched. Any uninformed passerby who saw this would surely assume that these glamorous-looking young people were bullying a pair of poor, elderly folks.

In the past, Iris Donovan and Sean Donovan had been left completely helpless and unable to defend themselves against this very tactic from the old woman.

Now, seeing her pull the same old trick, their expressions soured. They instinctively started to step forward to say something but were stopped by Eloise Donovan.

"Wait."

Before Iris and Sean could ask why, the crowd’s reaction provided the answer.

"That old woman is definitely trouble. The moment she starts losing the argument, she plays the victim. If that’s not a guilty conscience, I don’t know what is."

"I thought something was off about those two when they came to cause a scene before. And sure enough... tsk, tsk. It’s like they say, it’s not that good people have gone bad in their old age; it’s that bad people have just gotten old."

"I can’t stand old scoundrels like that. You try to reason with them, and they act shameless. You try to get tough with them, and they just lie down on the ground. It’s infuriating just to watch."

"..."