Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Thankfully, Miao Jing still left Qiao Dongliang with some dignity and talked mainly about Ding Jiayi and Qiao Zijin. As for Qiao Dongliang, if she could avoid it, she would. If they had no choice but to talk about it, she would just mention it briefly and pass over it.
At the same time that Er Bao and San Bao were enraged at how Ding Jiayi and Qiao Zijin treated their mother, they felt as though something was wrong. Only Da Bao, who had remained silent, realized it.
When Miao Jing finished speaking, San Bao bit on her lip. “Grandma, if my maternal grandma and auntie are so bad, then what about grandpa? What is grandpa doing?” When these two women were bullying her mother, she had only heard about how her mother had worked hard and that was when her father and master grandpa had helped her mother.
But no matter how they talked about it, there was always one person missing: their grandpa.
Miao Jing did not say anything ill of Qiao Dongliang but took San Bao’s hands into her own and said, “You’re still young. You don’t understand. It’s like how your mom would not help either of you if you and Er Bao start arguing. Rather, she would scold the both of you and get you two to reconcile. To Nan Nan, you are both precious to her. She can’t possibly give up on either of you.”
“That’s not the same. Mom doesn’t help either of us because Er Bao and I are only playing. Our relationship is superb! In the end, Mom always gets us to reconcile with each other. How about grandpa? Did grandpa get them to reconcile with each other? What did he do?” San Bao was dissatisfied with such a superficial answer.
Other than being happy with the intelligence of the three children, Miao Jing could only laugh sheepishly in response to the children’s gazes that were full of curiosity. She would let the children figure out for themselves what her laugh meant. “It hasn’t been easy for Nan Nan. There are some things that Nan Nan doesn’t want to pursue anymore, so we don’t want to talk about it in front of you three either. You three should understand that your grandpa treats you very well. Of course, he hasn’t been bad to Nan Nan either, depending on who you compare him with. In that situation, if your grandpa did not help your mother at all, her life would have been much harder.”
As much as she hated Qiao Dongliang and felt that he was an irresponsible father, Miao Jing still gave him credit where it was due and gave Qiao Dongliang a fair judgment.
It was the first time the three children heard about what had happened to their mother when she was younger, and they were all stunned. What was hardest for the three children to accept was that such a thing had happened to their own beloved mother!
Er Bao’s face which was usually plastered with a smile was now extremely serious. He looked like how Da Bao and Zhai Sheng looked like normally, and his hand unwittingly clenched into a fist. Er Bao, who was now a junior high school student, was a righteous young man. At this time, one could see some parts of Zhai Sheng’s posture and spirit in him.
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“Why does such a person still come to our house to find my mom?” Er Bao’s voice was low. He was clearly enraged.
The moment Er Bao thought about how that grandma whom he had never met in his life forced his mother to work while studying just to provide for his elder aunt whose academic performance was obviously not as good as his mother’s, Er Bao was so furious that he wanted to find someone for a fight to vent all the anger within him.
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Leaving school to work?
Ever since he was old enough to understand the world, he knew how much his mother loved to study, and even after becoming the Minister of Foreign Affairs, she would still spend at least two hours reading every day. Er Bao could not believe that his mother who had such a love for learning had almost lost the opportunity to pursue her studies. To his mother, it must have been excruciating.
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When his mother was faced with such cruelty, she was about the same age as he was now. Thinking about how he had been raised so comfortably, Er Bao was even more enraged. “Grandma, is my maternal grandma really my mom’s mother?” Was there really such a biological mother in the world that would sacrifice the daughter who was gifted to let a daughter who clearly could not study?
No matter how biased she was, she had to be rational, right?
Miao Jing sighed. “I really didn’t want to tell you about this. In your mom’s heart, she probably hopes that she isn’t her biological mother either. If so, it would be much easier to accept everything that she went through.” But it was exactly because she was her biological mother that it was all even more frightening.
Nan Nan was left to struggle on her own. And to uphold their own reputations, Ding Jiayi and Qiao Zijin unhesitatingly smeared Nan Nan’s. Qiao Zijin had been the one who got into an early relationship, but the mother-daughter pair had forced Nan Nan to take the blame.
Qiao Nan had never mentioned all these ‘small’ matters to Miao Jing, but that did not mean that Miao Jing was ignorant of them.
At that time, Miao Jing had not known that Qiao Nan was dating her son. Purely out of her like of Qiao Nan as an elder, she had wanted to understand Qiao Nan further.
When Miao Jing found out what Ding Jiayi and Qiao Zijin had done to Qiao Nan while she was still in high school, Miao Jing was completely speechless. Honestly, a part of Miao Jing’s affection for Qiao Nan was due to Qiao Nan’s experiences.
Before Miao Jing gained affection for Qiao Nan, she had met Ding Jiayi and Qiao Zijin, and at most, she felt sympathetic toward Qiao Nan. She pitied Qiao Nan for having such an unloving mother and such a selfish older sister. But once they got familiar with each other, Miao Jing felt that Qiao Nan was a really fine young lady, and immediately, Miao Jing’s sympathy turned into heartache.
But if Qiao Nan herself did not talk about these experiences, Miao Jing was not going to pick at those scars even if it was out of love.
Today, when her three grandchildren had asked her about it, Miao Jing had only said a little more. Otherwise, even she herself was on the verge of forgetting these events and would only remember that Qiao Nan’s life had gotten better after leaving her mother, Ding Jiayi.
Ordinary people would only see how glorious Qiao Nan was today. Who could imagine that Qiao Nan had such a sad past and childhood?
“Thankfully, Dad appeared. Dad is Mom’s Prince Charming. He rescued her when she was struggling the most.” San Bao was conflicted. When her mother read her fairy tales when she was younger, she had always felt that fairy tales were fictional and could not possibly be true.
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She had never expected that fairy tales could happen in real life too. Her parents were such a couple!
She thought about how her mother was abused so badly by her biological mother that she was always hungry as a child. When her mother met her father, her mother was already malnourished. In an instant, the three children lost any affection for Ding Jiayi and Qiao Zijin, who had hurt their mother.
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Da Bao finally understood why his mother was so filial but had never mentioned their grandma in front of them. Having such a relative was as good as having none at all.