51. Parents' Emotional Connection
Zhou Yi rushed over as soon as she got off the plane, partly because she was eager to surprise her granddaughter, and partly because her woman's intuition urged her to come.
Her sixth sense was never unfounded. Back then, she resolutely went north because she had a strong premonition that only by going north could she change her predicament and be reborn.
As it turns out, she made the right choice.
Fortunately, she had the foresight to not forget to pick out a gift for her son's girlfriend while traveling in Japan.
As soon as they finished ordering, Zhou Yi took out the gift, looked at Meng Zhi, and smiled:
"Your aunt didn't know your preferences, so she bought you a perfume set suitable for young girls like you. Do you like it?"
Meng Zhiyao comes from a wealthy family. Although she doesn't usually use high-end products, her mother, Song Ling, is a typical rich lady, and everything she wears and uses is a high-end brand.
Therefore, she recognized the perfume from brand A at a glance.
That's the same style worn by the international film queen. It was sold out a while ago, and I don't know how Zhou Yi managed to buy it. It shows how sincere she is.
Because of the gift's value, Meng Zhiyao was even less able to accept it.
That was a gift from the other party to her son's girlfriend; she couldn't accept something that didn't belong to her under someone else's name.
Meng Zhi shook her head and declined, but Zhou Yi grew to like this shy and gentle girl even more and persuaded her even more enthusiastically.
Seeing that a protracted battle was about to begin, Pei Yiyan decisively took on the 'hot potato' for Meng Zhiyao.
Faced with Zhou Yi's slightly surprised gaze, Pei Yiyan said calmly, "She's shy and embarrassed, so I'll accept it for her."
Meng Zhi was surprised. She had guessed that he would help her out of the predicament, but she did not expect him to say such intimate words.
Her tense and slender body relaxed slightly, as if she had found someone to lean on and felt at ease.
Zhou Yi seemed to understand immediately, and nodded with a smile: "Okay, okay, let's eat."
The adults' conversation didn't attract Xixi's attention at all; she was busy eating heartily, her cheeks bulging with flesh.
After finishing her meal, Zhou Yi didn't linger and went straight home. Before leaving, she exchanged contact information with Meng Zhiyao.
Meng Zhiyao was not good at refusing, especially when faced with such a warm and kind elder. She readily added the other person's WeChat and agreed to go shopping together when she had time.
The two sides said goodbye at exactly 2 p.m., which is usually the time when Xixi would have woken up from her afternoon nap.
The child didn't take a nap on time today. He kept yawning, looking tired and sleepy.
While rubbing her eyes, Xixi kept muttering that she wanted to go to the amusement park to play on the trampoline.
Seeing that the child's feet were wobbling and he might fall flat on his face at any moment, Pei Yiyan simply scooped the child up and held him in his arms with one hand.
Xi Xi immediately adjusted to a comfortable position, lying on Pei Yiyan's broad shoulder, her chubby cheek pressed together, and her eyelids slowly closed.
Pei Yiyan pinched her soft cheeks: "Don't sleep yet, Daddy has something to ask you."
The chubby child squeezed out indistinct syllables from his throat.
"You just said you have many boyfriends at school, what's going on?"
Xi Xi's mind had already wandered off: "Mmm, Xi Xi has many boyfriends."
The child is getting rounder and rounder, especially after the New Year, he is even heavier to hold. Pei Yiyan lifted him up a bit: "Friends are friends, regardless of gender, there is no need to emphasize gender."
"You're not allowed to tell anyone you have a boyfriend anymore, it'll cause misunderstandings. At your age, just play in the mud."
Pei Yiyan's voice was deep and resonant, much more so than his usual lullabies, and Xixi tilted her head and drifted off to sleep.
Confirming the child was fast asleep, Pei Yiyan glanced to his side, his eyelashes lowered, and suddenly spoke in a low voice:
“I didn’t know my mom would come suddenly. I remember she was supposed to be on a flight back to China tomorrow. I’m sorry for scaring you.”
Meng Zhiyao snapped out of her daze as if waking from a dream, her fingers unconsciously tightening around her tucked-in-her-pockets.
Wen smiled and shook her head: "It's okay, Auntie is a very nice person."
Having known her for so long, Pei Yiyan seemed to have never heard her say 'no'.
She was always so gentle and tolerant, without a trace of sharp edges.
Pei Yiyan pursed his lips and said patiently, "Don't force yourself. Just delete her when you get back, and I'll explain everything to her."
Meng Zhiyao asked in surprise, "You mean WeChat?"
"Hmm." Pei Yiyan looked over with his dark and deep eyes, his words carrying a hint of ambiguity, "You can be a little thicker-skinned in the future, you don't have to be nice to everyone."
Meng Zhiyao was stunned, and her steps slowed down.
She looked at the aloof young man holding the child in front of her. He had broad shoulders and a narrow waist, and even his back view was so dazzling. He was only a few steps away from her, and she could reach out and touch the clean hem of his clothes.
Pei Yiyan looked down at his phone and casually said, "The car will be here soon."
You've misunderstood.
The girl's voice was neither fast nor slow: "I'm not nice to everyone."
Hearing the noise behind him, Pei Yiyan turned around.
Meng Zhiyao stopped in front of him, looked up to meet his gaze, and said in a soft tone, "I'm not shy with everyone."
Interesting, Pei Yiyan raised an eyebrow slightly.
Aside from the issue of Xixi's upbringing, this was the first time she had directly refuted him like this.
Pei Yiyan didn't speak for a moment, and Meng Zhiyao felt a little uncomfortable under his gaze. She touched her face.
"Your face is clean, there's nothing dirty on it." Pei Yiyan said, opening the door of the ride-hailing car and gesturing with his chin, "Get in first."
The two of them stepped out of the elevator together and walked confidently to their respective room doors. Meng Zhi gently grasped the doorknob with her fair fingers and politely said goodbye.
"I'll go in now, goodbye."
"Wait."
"Take the gift, consider it compensation." Pei Yiyan rushed to her in a few quick steps, and she could even see his movements clearly as the gift box was already in her hands.
Meng Zhi shook her head in surprise: "No need, no need."
Pei Yiyan had already opened the door and waved to her, saying, "See you later, good afternoon."
Meng Zhiyao was left standing there, looking at the gift in her hand with a dilemma.
Zhou Yi had decided that Meng Zhiyao was her future daughter-in-law, so she would always send her extra food and drinks, especially beautiful clothes, bags, and expensive skincare products, which she would send every month without fail.
Meng Zhiyao was filled with trepidation. She and Pei Yiyan were not dating; they had only raised a child together and were at most business partners.
However, they couldn't come up with any compelling arguments to convince Zhou Yi. After all, Xi Xi's "Mom" carried too much weight and couldn't fool Zhou Yi, who possessed normal human thinking and intelligence.
Every time Meng Zhiyao received a gift from Zhou Yi, she would find Pei Yiyan to return it to her.
After accepting it twice, Pei Yiyan became a little impatient: "Just accept it."
"No, this was given to your girlfriend by your mother, not me."
Pei Yiyan: "Then I'll take it and throw it away."
Meng Zhiyao's almond-shaped eyes widened: "Ah, how can you do that?"
“I threw away the first two,” Pei Yiyan said nonchalantly, his hands in his pockets. “I’m a grown man, I don’t need lipstick or perfume.”
The first two gifts were lipstick and perfume gift sets, all from high-end brands, costing five figures for a set.
Meng Zhiyao felt heartbroken upon hearing this.
"That's such a waste. It's Auntie's kind gesture, after all."
Pei Yiyan: "But I don't need it."
Meng Zhi shook her head, sensing his willfulness and capriciousness once again.
"Then you should keep it with me for safekeeping," she sighed.
Rather than throwing it in the trash and wasting it, it's better to keep it with her for now.
She looked up at him and said, "You should talk to your aunt and tell her not to send any more gifts. These gifts are too expensive, and I can't keep accepting them."
Pei Yiyan snorted: "If she had listened to me, none of this would have happened. You don't need to feel guilty. If she's willing to give it to you, just accept it. She's not short of money."
“”
Although Meng Zhiyao accepted the gifts, she kept them all intact. Originally, she planned to sell the gifts and deposit the cash into Xixi's card as pocket money for Xixi.
On second thought, he felt it was inappropriate and was at a loss as to what to do with the gifts.
Before she could figure it out, Zhou Yi invited her to a family gathering. After class that evening, she sent a screenshot of the chat to Pei Yiyan.
An hour later, they replied: "[It's okay, you don't have to participate if you don't want to.]"
I will take good care of Xixi.
Meng Zhi shook her head: "Haven't you explained things clearly to your aunt yet?"
Half a semester has passed since the last meal together.
Words don't have the warmth of spoken language, and she worried that her sentence might sound accusatory, so she quickly added:
What I mean is, since it's your family gathering, it's definitely inappropriate for me to go.
Pei Yiyan's message popped up the next second: 【You're Xixi's mother, no one is more suitable than you.】
It's okay, I'll refuse for you if you don't want to go.
Strangely, without any embellishment of expression, without the slightest ambiguity, and with concise and clear statements, just a glance at it made her fingers burn.
Meng Zhiyao let out a soft breath, a faint joy appearing in the corners of her eyes and brows.
Okay, thank you.
Actually, at their first meeting at her doorstep, Meng Zhiyao had a vague idea of the relationship between Pei Yiyan and Zhou Yi, because the mother and son looked about 60% alike.
When Meng Zhiyao was in high school, she heard people say that Pei Yiyan had a bad relationship with his mother. Everyone said that he was a child abandoned by his mother, and that Zhou Yi was a selfish and vain mother.
After spending time with her over the years, she realized that the truth was not at all what everyone thought.
The mother and son were indeed not that close, but they were not as bad as everyone thought. The idea that they had become enemies was simply nonsense.
Pei Yiyan's attitude towards Zhou Yi was like that of a rebellious child, sometimes distant, sometimes unintentionally close. Zhou Yi, on the other hand, was like an ordinary mother, always trying to get closer to him and tolerating the child's stubbornness.
Every time Meng Zhiyao sees Zhou Yi, she can't help but think of Song Ling.
Song Ling and Zhou Yi are both beauties with outstanding temperaments and are about the same age, but they give her completely different feelings.
Zhou Yi possesses both a gentleness that emanates from her very bones and a straightforwardness that is unconcerned with trivialities. In contrast to her gentle and graceful appearance reminiscent of the misty Jiangnan region, Song Ling is more aloof and dignified, and is also more strict in her dealings with others.
In comparison, Pei Yiyan's temperament is more like that of Song Ling's child.
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