Mind reading saves the whole family; I'm firmly in the role of a charlatan.

Chapter 455 seems to have evened things out.

If Du Anrao had initially known that his family could hear his thoughts, he would have just wanted to dig a hole and bury himself right there.

Now that she knows her true feelings were spoken aloud in front of her entire family without her knowledge, she really wants to pack her bags and flee to the moon immediately!
There is nowhere left for her in this world. Who will save her?

Du Anrao was so shocked by this sudden and terrifying truth that his mind went blank, and half of his soul seemed to have left him.

The Du family members were also filled with anxiety and their minds were elsewhere.
They were like a group of sinners who had confessed their crimes and were now helplessly awaiting Du Anrao's final judgment.

Before this, they had anticipated that Du Anrao would be angry, annoyed, or even hysterical, angrily accusing and questioning them. But they had not expected that after his shock and breakdown, Du Anrao would suddenly burst out laughing as if he had thought of something.

Everyone: "?!?!" What's going on? Did this kid overreact and make them go crazy?!
“An’an…you can vent your anger, dissatisfaction, or unhappiness on us. Mom, oh no, I mean your dad and your brothers are thick-skinned and tough. If you’re really itching to take it out on them, feel free to do so. Just one thing: it’s fine with your dad and your eldest brother, but your second brother makes a living by his looks. Even if you’re angry, you’d better control yourself and not hit his face.”

Du Hexuan: "..." He should be touched. At a time like this, does his mother still remember to protect his face?

Du's father and Du Junyan, who were ruthlessly abandoned because they didn't rely on their looks: "..." It's their own wife (or mother)!

Du Yuxi, the only one who wasn't affected because of her young age and being a girl, pursed her lips and tentatively stepped forward to hold Du Anrao's hand.

"I'm sorry, An'an, we should have told you this a long time ago. We've kept it from you for so long, so it's understandable that you're angry or upset now. I know that whatever we say now sounds like we're making excuses, but we've truly considered you family from the very beginning, and we've always wanted to protect you, even though it seems like you've been protecting us more than anyone else..."

Du Yuxi isn't exactly good at comforting people, and perhaps because she was a little nervous, her speech wasn't as fluent as usual, sounding somewhat hesitant.

Du Anrao seemed to understand her meaning and tightened his grip on her hand to comfort her: "I'm not angry. Although it may have been a little hard to accept at first, but... I have one question for you. Why did you go to so much trouble to hide it from me before, but this time I didn't suspect anything, yet you chose to tell me on your own?"

Everyone was stunned for a moment, and no one spoke.

"It's because you already know about me and Mr. Xi, right? My second brother and fourth sister told you?"

"Ah."

“You were able to hear what I was thinking so early on, so you knew very early on what my older brothers, older sisters, and even my parents would go through. You didn’t say anything at the time because you were the ones involved. You wanted to solve these problems yourselves, or rather, cooperate with me to solve them.”

"Ah."

“But the person who is involved in these things this time is me. Although these things seem to have nothing to do with me, after all... if things had gone according to the original plan, I would have been buried long ago.”

"An'an..." Du's mother already knew about these things before, but hearing her daughter mention them again still made her temples throb.

"Mom, don't worry, I'm fine."

"But you can't keep saying things like that. Pshaw, children say the darndest things, children say the darndest things."

"..." I'm an adult now, I'm not a child anymore!
Du's mother raised her eyebrows sharply: "In your parents' eyes, no matter how old you are, whether you're an adult or not, whether you're married or not, you're still children!"

Du Anrao choked, his face filled with utter despair. [Fine, I forgot again that you can all hear what I'm thinking!]

Her interruption lightened the awkward and somber atmosphere in the family considerably.

Seeing this, Du Anrao's eyes lit up with a smile: "Alright, alright, I really didn't lie to you. When I first found out that you were keeping such a big thing from me, and everyone else knew except me, the person involved, I felt like I was isolated by everyone. I did feel a little uncomfortable."

As soon as Du Anrao finished speaking, Du's mother couldn't help but try to explain, but she was interrupted first.

"Mom, don't say anything yet, let me finish what I have to say."

Mrs. Du was stunned for a moment, her lips moved, but she didn't say anything in the end.

"But when I realized it, I realized that you didn't want to hear my thoughts. It's like walking down the street and hearing people arguing. You can only blame the people for talking too loudly and letting passersby see the commotion. You can't blame the passersby for just passing by at that moment and becoming bystanders, can you?"

"That's what I said..."

"The only thing you feel you owe me is that you knew about this but didn't tell me sooner. But if you think about it, who doesn't have secrets they don't want others to know? Like me, I've been home for so long, but I haven't told you about the library that appeared out of thin air in my head. I even made up a charlatan identity for it."

[Although in the end, this charlatan's identity was inexplicably confirmed.]

Du family members: Pfft...

"Thinking about it this way, it seems like we're even."

The Du family members: "..." It actually makes some sense...

"Moreover, now that I've calmed down and thought about it, perhaps I wasn't completely unaware of what you were just saying."

Since she returned to the Du family, the storylines involving her relatives, family members, and even friends have been completely distorted and broken down, making Du Anrao suspicious before.

Whenever she had the slightest hint of doubt, someone would always suppress it for her. Once or twice was fine, and she might think it was just a coincidence, but after a while, did she really not have any doubts in her mind?
Ultimately, she was simply instinctively unwilling to believe that her loving family members were lying to her, and it was also a natural consequence of self-deception.

Because the outcome is good, she doesn't need to care about the process. As long as the people she cares about are all well, she is happy to ignore the sense of incongruity.

That being said, but...

[It's still so embarrassing! This feeling of having all your thoughts and ideas exposed is so incredibly disturbing!]

God knows, if she had known that Heaven would pull this stunt, she wouldn't have hidden the predetermined plot points, but at least she wouldn't have gone so far as to make all sorts of unrestrained comments.

Now, just thinking about her previous wild ideas of recklessly driving without anyone knowing, Du Anrao wished he could perform a demonstration of digging a villa with his foot right there in front of everyone.

Everyone: Pfft...