Chapter 152 This sentence will always stand.
Hearing Mai Dong's words, Xie Ting sneered:
“Since you’ve promised, you should keep your word no matter what the reason. You’re a soldier, so you should be even more trustworthy.” Xie Ting’s face remained expressionless as she took Hu Zi’s hand and walked quickly forward.
Mai Dong scratched her head in anguish, then quickly caught up with the mother and child who had already turned the corner.
"Xiaoting! Xiaoting! Wait for me! Listen to me..."
Unexpectedly, just as they arrived at Liu the carpenter's house, they bumped right into Qin Suisui and Pei Jiuyan, who were carrying a wooden rocking chair out of the house.
Mai Dong's pain immediately disappeared, and she smiled and nodded at the two of them.
Qin Suisui pretended not to know anything and greeted him with a smile: "Comrade Mai, you're back?"
Mai Dong nodded: "I've been transferred back to our military region and will officially take up my post next week. If I have the chance tomorrow, I'll visit your home to thank you for taking care of our family during this time."
Qin Suisui chuckled. Was he going to thank her? He was definitely going to repay kindness with enmity, and he would definitely want her to help persuade Xie Ting to change her mind! But persuading her was definitely out of the question. What should she do?
Sure enough, early the next morning, Mai Dong, carrying a bag of steamed egg cakes, a bag of brown sugar, a live chicken, and a lot of vegetables that Grandma Mai had grown in her own garden, knocked on Qin Suisui's door with Mai Da.
Qin Suisui was nestled on the sofa, drinking brown sugar and egg rice wine cooked by Pei Jiuyan, and it was Zanzan who opened the door.
As soon as Zan Zan opened the door, she saw her friend Ada and jumped up excitedly: "Brother Ada, what brings you here? Did you come to play with me?"
Ada's condition has improved a lot recently, and he can express his emotions now. When he saw Zan Zan, he imitated Zan Zan and jumped up and down a little, repeatedly saying, "Play! Play!"
Hearing the noise outside, Qin Suisui felt a chill run down her spine; she knew it must be Mai Dong who had arrived.
Despite the tingling sensation on her scalp, she still had to greet him with a smile. After all, Mai Dong was a "benefactor" in the original book. Even though his position had changed in a way that wasn't in the original book, he was still higher in rank than Pei Jiuyan. They were in the same military region, and given his temperament, what if he offended her and then went on to cause trouble for Pei Jiuyan?
Besides, even for the sake of Grandma Mai and Ada, she couldn't afford to ruin her relationship with Mai Dong.
"Comrade Mai, you've arrived! Oh, you've come all this way, and you've brought so many things, you're too kind!" Once upon a time, Qin Suisui hated this kind of polite but insincere greeting between adults, but now she's become one of them, all because of Mai Dong!
She cursed him in her heart, but on the surface she still smiled without revealing her true feelings.
"No need to be so polite. You can call Xiaoting 'sister,' and it wouldn't be wrong for you to call me 'brother.'" Mai Dong nodded with a smile, seemingly quite at ease in this situation.
Brother?! You're over forty, and I'm only 19! How shameless!
Qin Suisui felt her face was contorting, and she could barely maintain her fake smile.
Pei Jiuyan brought out the tea and, seeing her like this, couldn't help but smile. He then handed the tea to Mai Dong, saying, "Minister Mai, my wife isn't feeling well today. Please don't mind."
The main problem was that Qin Suisui's smile was too fake. How could an old fox like Mai Dong not see through it? Pei Jiuyan had no choice but to smooth things over.
Mai Dong nodded, glancing at Qin Suisui's half-finished brown sugar egg drink, and immediately understood: "I've bothered you a lot today. Since you're not feeling well, I'll keep it short."
“I was transferred back this time for Xiaoting’s sake. You know what happened between us. I know that Xiaoting and Huzi trust you a lot now, so I hope you can help persuade her. Even if she resents and hates me, she has to think about the child. The child can’t live without a father for the rest of his life.”
Look! Look! What did she say? She really came here to ask me to help persuade Xie Ting!
And knowing that the couple had a good relationship, he didn't even try to avoid Pei Jiuyan, as if he wanted to drag her into it. If she didn't help, would he make things difficult for her? What a cunning old fox!
Qin Suisui cursed Mai Dong, that old fox, in her heart.
The smile on his face vanished: "Brother Mai... I know you have deep feelings for Sister Xie Ting, but put yourself in her shoes. If you were her, after going through so much, what would she want most right now?"
Mai Dong was taken aback: "What is it?"
Seeing that Mai Dong was indeed following her train of thought, Qin Suisui continued to patiently persuade her:
“For an ordinary woman, after experiencing so much darkness, she probably wouldn’t want to live anymore. But Sister Xie Ting is different. She is a mother, and she has a son named Hu Zi.”
“You are a true and upright man.” At this point, Qin Suisui paused, suppressing the nausea in her heart, and continued, “You would never understand what a child means to ordinary women like us.”
"I don't know if you've ever been to a pediatric ward in a hospital. There's a saying that goes like this: If one life could be exchanged for another, then the hospital rooftop would be full of mothers."
"Sister Xie Ting is the same. She has lost faith in life, but for Tiger, she will grit her teeth and endure it. For her, Tiger is her everything."
Mai Dong frowned and nodded, clearly finding her words quite reasonable, and continued to ask questions without hesitation.
"So what should I do?"
Qin Suisui slapped her thigh: "I've already made it so obvious, so you should definitely start with Hu Zi! Of course! I'm not suggesting you try to take Hu Zi from her, that would just kill her!"
"Tiger is your son after all. You can think about what a child his age should be doing, and what Tiger shouldn't be doing?" As she spoke, she glanced at Zan Zan's little schoolbag on the table next to her, making her implication very obvious.
Qin Suisui said this because she knew that Hu Zi was an unregistered resident. She learned about this from Xie Ting when Zan Zan went to the base with her and told Hu Zi about what happened at school.
Tiger was an unregistered resident and a member of the cowshed, so he couldn't go to school.
But Tiger was already of school age; if he didn't go to school, he would be illiterate and have no future. Qin Suisui, on the other hand, was awakened by books; she knew that in the future society, the higher one's education, the more opportunities one would have.
Therefore, Qin Suisui felt that she could choose not to help Mai Dong persuade Xie Ting, but if she could use Mai Dong's help to ensure that Hu Zi could go to school, that would be a good thing.
Of course, she will definitely tell Xie Ting everything about her conversation with Mai Dong today.
After all, she couldn't ally with that scumbag.
Sure enough, Mai Dong's eyes lit up when he heard Qin Suisui's "guidance." He clapped his hands, his face full of excitement: "How come I didn't think of that! Thank you so much, Suisui! You are truly our benefactor!"
After saying that, he looked at Pei Jiuyan and extended his hand to him: "Commander Pei, we will be colleagues from now on."
Pei Jiuyan extended his hand and shook hands with him: "Minister Mai, welcome."
Mai Dong smiled kindly and warmly: "You have such a virtuous wife, you are a blessing that many people can only envy."
Pei Jiuyan glanced at Qin Suisui, who was forcing a smile, and suppressed a laugh, saying, "Yes, I'm very lucky."
After exchanging pleasantries with Pei Jiuyan, Mai Dong stood up and said to Ada, who was playing enthusiastically with Zanzan in the yard, "Ada, let's go back!"
Ada was having a great time playing with Zanzan, and for him, Zanzan was more familiar than Maidong, his father. He frowned and shook his head vigorously, saying, "No... I won't go back! I won't go back!"
The little guy resisted fiercely. When Mai Dong tried to pull him away, he sat down on the ground and started crying loudly.
Mai Dong has been away from home for years and has hardly taken care of the child, let alone knows how to coax him. Seeing him like this, her face darkened and she wanted to get angry.
Qin Suisui quickly stepped forward to smooth things over: "It's alright, it's alright. If Ada doesn't want to go back, he can play here for now. I'm going to the herb garden this afternoon, and I'll take him back then."
Mai Dong had heard from her mother that Ada really liked Zan Zan and Qin Sui Sui, so she had no choice but to nod in agreement.
After Mai Dong left, Ada immediately got up from the ground, gave Qin Suisui a sweet smile, and then ran with Zan Zan to the backyard to look at the crayfish.
These crayfish were brought back from that valley yesterday. Qin Suisui had her period yesterday afternoon, so she only ate some easily digestible fish porridge for dinner. She hadn't had time to eat the crayfish and loach yet, and they were currently in a wooden bucket in the backyard.
Qin Suisui smiled and reminded the two children not to play near the well, and Zanzan loudly agreed. However, their family's well already had a custom-made well cover, which was weighed down with a large stone, and the two children couldn't move it.
Pei Jiuyan looked at the free-range chicken that Mai Dong had brought over from the kitchen, which was still flapping its wings, and raised an eyebrow at Qin Suisui: "What should we do? Should we have this or crayfish for lunch?"
"Let's eat chicken! We'll eat half and take the other half to Sister Xie Ting and Hu Zi!" After all, Mai Dong brought a chicken because of them.
Pei Jiuyan naturally agreed and immediately twisted the chicken's neck and took it to the backyard to deal with it. This skill made the two children excited and shout "Wow!"
Qin Suisui smiled and, taking advantage of the fact that no one was in the kitchen, filled the bucket with water from the small stream in her space, and added some rice, flour, and cooking oil. Eating the food from her space for a long time would be good for her health.
The chicken was stewed with hazel mushrooms that Xu Shouquan and his family had brought. Even before it was fully cooked, the aroma filled the yard. The two children stopped playing and ran back from the backyard, staring at the pot and swallowing hard.
Pei Jiuyan was slicing cured pork when Qin Suisui, who was on her period, developed a stronger craving for bamboo shoots stir-fried with cured pork. Fortunately, they had some bamboo shoots that they had dug up earlier, some of which had been pickled and some dried. Now they could just soak the dried ones and stir-fry them with the pork.
Seeing Pei Jiuyan wearing an apron and busy at the stove, Qin Suisui leaned closer and said, "Ayan, you're about to become a stay-at-home husband. Don't you think I'm not virtuous enough?"
Pei Jiuyan's hand, still wielding the spatula, patted her head with his free hand: "We said before we got our marriage certificate that you wouldn't need to do any housework, and that promise will always stand."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
