Liu Dashan and Liu Qinghe invited people into their home.
The couple looked at Su Ying with great restraint.
Liu Dashan was very grateful to Commander Gu's wife for saving them.
"Thank you, Mrs. Gu, for saving my little one. That child is our lifeline. If something had happened to him, we wouldn't know what to do."
Su Ying smiled lightly, "I saved Xiao Bao out of respect for human life. I would save anyone, so you don't need to be so polite."
Liu Qinghe knew that city people liked to drink tea or sweet soup, but his family had nothing, so they only brought up a bowl of plain water.
"We don't have anything good in our countryside, only free water. Please don't mind, Mrs. Gu."
"No. I'm just thirsty, and plain water will quench my thirst."
The moment he put down his bowl, he noticed that Liu Dashan and Liu Qinghe felt very uncomfortable having strangers in their home.
She didn't want to disturb other people's lives too much, so she got straight to the point.
"I came here to see you today. Finding Xiaobao is secondary; the important thing is that I came here to see you."
The couple looked at each other, somewhat puzzled. They were farmers from the countryside; what could Commander Gu's wife possibly want from them?
"Speak plainly. We country folk haven't been to school and don't understand all the intricacies. If you need any help, just say so. We'll definitely help if we can, and we'll never refuse."
"Yes, yes, yes. Our whole family was saved by Commander Gu's wife. If you hadn't found us that day, our whole family would have been buried underground and never saw the light of day again."
“That’s a debt of gratitude that cost three lives. Our Liu family will never forget it and will remember you for the rest of our lives.”
As the conversation progressed and things had come to this point, Su Ying decided to cut to the chase without holding back.
I learned from our conversation that they are illiterate, so there's no need to show them the paternity test report; they can't understand it.
Now I can only describe it verbally.
"Brother Liu, didn't you rescue Xiaobao at the foot of the mountain three years ago?"
Liu Dashan's pupils contracted. How did the regimental commander's wife know about this? He had already spoken to the battalion commander, and no one had spread the rumor that Xiaobao was not their biological child in the past three years. How did they know?
Liu Dashan was a little flustered. After his initial panic subsided, he glanced at Su Ying and felt that she looked familiar, but he couldn't remember where he had seen her before.
Now, Commander Gu's wife suddenly brought up Xiao Bao's background, and considering Commander Gu's wife's face...
He finally remembered who Commander Gu's wife looked like.
She and Xiaobao look exactly alike.
No one in Qingshuihe mentions Xiaobao's background, and Xiaobao still believes she is their daughter.
Liu Dashan and Liu Qinghe did this because they only wanted Xiaobao to grow up healthy and didn't want those rumors to hurt the child.
The person who suddenly showed up must have seen Xiaobao's face during the rescue that day and had become suspicious.
"Even if I really was Chongshan that day and found Xiaobao, it doesn't mean that Xiaobao is your daughter."
“If you couldn’t bear to part with the child… how could you throw the child off the mountain? You didn’t want the child to live at all.”
Liu Qinghe chimed in, “Yes, yes, yes. It was so cold that day, and the child was dressed so thinly. Your family must be well-off. You can’t just abandon her because she’s a girl and throw her off the mountain. You don’t want her to live at all.”
"Now you come here wanting the child... no way... the child was raised by my husband and me, we will not let Xiaobao live with heartless parents like you."
Liu Qinghe was furious just thinking about it. She seemed to have heard that they had a child in their family that day, a boy, the same age as Xiao Bao.
"Girls are human beings. You give birth to a girl and then throw her away. Do you know that a child thrown from such a height can really die?"
“My husband said that Xiao Bao was lucky. He didn’t fall directly to the ground, but was caught by a tree branch and survived.”
"Now that I see how well-behaved and cute the child is, I want to take her back. No way! You want to take my little treasure away? Let's see if you have the ability. I've loved my little treasure since she was a baby. No one is allowed to take her away, not even her biological parents."
"Since the child has already been abandoned, just pretend she doesn't exist anymore. She has no connection with your Gu family anymore, so why bother looking for her again?"
“It’s good that you’re staying with our Liu family. The children love being with us. I’ll pretend I never met you today.”
Su Ying stepped forward and stopped Liu Qinghe, who was about to leave. "Liu, don't rush off. Even if you're going to torture us, you should at least let me tell you the whole story before sentencing us."
Liu Dashan nodded, "That's right, wife. Commander Gu and his wife seem like good people, not the kind who would abandon their child. They love children very much, so how could they possibly treat the child differently because of the child's gender?"
Upon reflection, Liu Qinghe realized it was true. Commander Gu was a high-ranking official with a decent salary; he wasn't the type who couldn't afford to raise a child.
"Let's just listen to it for now."
Su Ying recounted in detail how the child was lost and how he was thrown off the mountain, including how they had never given up searching for the child in the past three years.
Liu Qinghe never expected that there was such a story behind Xiao Bao's background, and he couldn't stop crying.
“The child is yours… Logically, we shouldn’t stop them, after all, it’s better for them to be with you than to suffer in the countryside with us.”
“But Xiaobao is someone we raised with love. You have another child in your family, so this child can stay with us. We won’t stop you from recognizing your child. You can come and see the child whenever you want.”
"But you can't take the child away. Xiaobao is the reason we live. If you take her away, we really can't go on living."
Liu Qinghe knew that the common people could not fight against the officials, and besides, the child was not their own. He could only keep Xiaobao by taking advantage of this.
How will the couple survive now that Xiaobao is gone?
For the first three years, even without the help of the regimental commander's wife and others, the children lived just fine. Xiao Bao lived a happy life even without them.
Isn't it better to just keep going like this?
Thinking of this, she realized that she could only rely on playing the victim to keep the child, otherwise they had no chance of winning, so she knelt down with a thud.
"Our child is our precious child. We don't know how we would live without him. Please, please don't take our child away."
Su Ying had already made preparations, and things were going much as she had expected...
She has a solution.
"How about this... I have a condition. If you agree to let me take the child, you will never see the child again. I will also give you a sum of money as a way of 'buying back' the debt of raising the child, how about that?"
"What conditions? Nothing in this world is more important than Xiaobao. No matter how eloquently you try to persuade me, I will not give up Xiaobao, and you cannot take Xiaobao away."
"The conditions haven't been stated yet, how can you be so sure you won't agree?"
Liu Qinghe raised an eyebrow, "Tell me!"
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