Chapter 107 The Truth: The Gratitude of Raising is Greater than the Gratitude of Giving Birth
Yang Xue regained her composure in a split second. She gave an apologetic smile to the staff member who came to clean up the broken teacup, then returned her gaze to Yang Guisi. "How did she die?"
"Don't you know yet?" Yang Guisi observed her expression and told her, "On our eighth birthday, the mountain was blocked by heavy snow. Zhang Li said that Auntie had bought a cake and was coming home, and asked us to go and get it."
Before she could finish her words, Yang Xue interrupted her. Yang Xue frowned slightly, as if she hadn't figured it out yet. She retorted, "How could that be? I haven't been back to China since your seventh birthday."
"Yeah..." Yang Guisi lowered his head and murmured, "So, Junyi couldn't pick you up at all, and she never came back."
Previously, Zhang Li and Yang Zong had insisted that Yang Xue's return to her hometown was indeed true. However, due to the long time since the incident and the remoteness of Yangjia Village, there was no surveillance system and few people left, so the matter remained unresolved.
"Is there some misunderstanding?" Yang Xue still couldn't believe that Yang Junyi had died so many years ago. She glanced around the audience and asked, "Are your parents here today? Let them talk to me in person."
Yang Guisi sneered: "They are not worthy of being my parents."
"No matter what, the grace of raising someone is greater than the grace of giving birth to them." Yang Xue disapproved of Yang Guisi's harsh words and said, "After so many years, I almost don't recognize you, Guisi."
"I don't need it." Yang Guisi's willingness to participate in the show this time had nothing to do with the online discussions about creating hype, increasing popularity, or making money. She didn't care about the show's performance either. She asked Yang Xue directly, "I just want to ask you, do you know what happened back then? Who are my biological parents?"
"Aren't my brother and sister-in-law your biological parents? What else do you want me to say?" Yang Xue lowered her eyes. Back then, she was studying in a distant university and only returned home for the Spring Festival during winter break. When she returned, Yang Xue had already given birth to twins.
When Fang Xinai saw this, he said with some frustration: "Ah, so Aunt Guisi doesn't know the truth either..." No wonder Yang Guisi was a little depressed when she came back.
Chang Xile frowned and said, "Strange."
Fang Xin'ai wanted to ask her what she had discovered, but Chang Xile raised a hand and motioned her to continue looking.
The host, Sister Zhang Liu, is well-known for her eloquence. She tried several times to guide the two guests to follow the original script, but she couldn't find a starting point.
However, the fact that two relatives who hadn't seen each other for a long time were at loggerheads from the start was quite a show-stopping sight. After all, if you want to "reconcile" someone, you have to start a conflict between the two sides first before there is room for "reconciliation."
Sister Zhang Liu finally found a break in the silence and spoke, "Designer Yang, I'm actually quite curious. I heard you say the two sisters haven't returned home since they were seven years old. Is it because, as the rumors say, you went abroad to pursue your dreams and met the love of your life?"
Yang Xue glanced at the audience with a complicated expression. Her foreign partner, who barely understood Chinese, was still holding their daughter, bewildered. The daughter, still young, simply stared at her mother with a silly smile.
"You haven't been back home for so many years. Do you miss your family? Have you ever thought about going back to visit your country?" Sister Zhang Liu pressed on.
"I...had some difficulties back then, and I couldn't do the work without help." Yang Xue bit her lip slightly, leaving half of her words unfinished - later on, she became homesick and didn't dare to go home.
"So—Guisi, have you ever blamed Auntie over all these years?" Sister Zhang Liu turned to Yang Guisi and asked. She wanted to provoke the core conflict in their relationship, dissecting it one by one, so she could move on to reconciliation.
Yang Guisi looked at Yang Xue, her expression far less emotional than hers. She nodded, then shook her head, looking Yang Xue in the eye and answering, "Originally, you were just an aunt, with no obligation to visit us. If I'm not Zhang Li and Yang Zong's biological daughter, then you're not even an aunt, and there's no reason to blame you."
She suddenly stood up as if making a decision and said, "Since you don't know the truth of what happened back then, then I don't think there's any need for us to continue talking." Yang Guisi looked at Sister Zhang Liu and asked, "We're not family, so there's no need to reconcile, right?"
Zhang Liu was nearly distracted by her interruption. But she had experience. If she had let Yang Guisi, such an important guest, leave like that today, it would have been a disaster for the show! She came to the rescue, saying, "Life is made up of experiences. Yang Xue has been your aunt for over twenty years. She's not a relative, but she's better than family. At least your aunt's love for you during those first seven years was genuine. Isn't that more precious than a vague, unknown relative?"
Yang Guisi seemed unmoved. She only said, "I'm sorry, I will pay the penalty."
She is not a fool. What Chang Xile guessed while watching TV, Yang Guisi, as the person involved, must be even more perceptive.
She couldn't help but think that it was a good thing that Junyi was practicing with his master in the mountains.
It was Yang Xue who stopped her: "Wait!"
Yang Guisi stopped walking but did not turn around.
After a few seconds of silence, Yang Xue asked, "I haven't finished asking. Since I never said I wanted to go home that year, why did your parents tell Juan Yi that I was coming?"
Yang Guisi finally turned around, as if she felt that even this required an explanation. Yang Xue was terribly naive. She smiled and said, "Who knows? Maybe the family's food supply is low, maybe they can't afford to raise two children, or maybe they simply despise my long-term illness and want to give up on me."
One less child means one less burden.
"How is it possible to kill a child just for this reason?" Yang Xue's beautiful eyes, widened with shock, were exactly the same as Yang Guisi's.
"How is that impossible?" Yang Guisi asked, "You grew up in Yangjia Village, don't you know who they are?"
"But... I clearly send money back every year, and they also promised to take good care of you. Are all these people evil-hearted?" After Yang Xue blurted out the words, she suddenly realized her gaffe. She turned her head to avoid the sight of Yang Guisi and the audience.
"You send money back every year?" This was the first time Yang Guisi had heard of this. She seemed to understand something, but was still surprised. She asked her, "Why?"
According to Yang Xue, she had a difficult time during her first few years abroad, so she had no spare money to send home. As her aunt, there was no need for her to do so. It wasn't just this one thing; many of the things she did were completely illogical.
News about Yang Guisi was everywhere online; even if you didn't search specifically, you'd always find an entry somewhere. Yang Xue had just returned from abroad and didn't pay much attention to domestic websites, perhaps even skipping the news. So, she didn't even know Yang Junyi had passed away.
But she just admonished Yang Guisi that "the grace of raising is greater than the grace of giving birth."
This tacitly confirmed that Zhang Li and the others were not the biological parents of Yang Guisi and Yang Junyi. But how could Yang Xue, who didn't even know about Junyi's death, know this?
What's more, the fact that Yang Guisi and Yang Xue look so similar is enough to show that the relationship between the two is intricately linked.
But Yang Guisi had never thought about it in this way before.
Yang Guisi laughed and said, "Forget it, you don't have to answer me."
"Anyway, I've endured these hard times for so many years. I haven't seen a cent of the money you mentioned sending me, and I haven't had the privilege of using it. There's no point in arguing about it now. I can live on my own, and from now on I'll just consider myself an orphan."
She came here to find out who her biological parents were, to find out if there had ever been another possibility for her life. Was she abducted or sold? If their biological parents had taken care of them, would Junyi have survived?
But when the answer was right in front of her, Yang Guisi didn't dare to look. She thought to herself, "At least now I don't have to support Zhang Li and the others anymore, right?"
"Let's just pretend we've never met today. You are my distant and unreachable aunt, and I am the little girl you once took care of."
Tears welled up in Yang Xue's eyes. After hearing these words, she seemed to be extremely heartbroken. She wiped her tears and muttered to herself, "No... Guisi, you are not an orphan... It's your mother who is sorry for you."
Listening to their conversation, the connection between them was easy to grasp. Zhang Liu, a sharp-eyed woman standing nearby, rolled her eyes before suddenly realizing what was going on. She glanced back and forth between Yang Xue and Yang Guisi in surprise, realizing she had no role to play. She remained silent, minimizing her presence, waiting for them to utter another shocking remark.
A mixed-race girl in the audience was a little confused. She looked up and asked her father in her native language: "Why does Mom call herself Mom to others?"
The foreign man looked a little sad, but not surprised, clearly knowing the inside story. He reached out and shushed her, saying soothingly, "Mom has her own past. We'll tell you later, okay?"
The girl nodded sensibly, turned around and continued to look at her mother seriously.
Yang Xue no longer had the gentle and rational look she had at the beginning of the show. Instead, she looked regretful and stammered as she answered the few questions she had just avoided asking Yang Guisi.
From these words, it is not difficult to piece together the truth of what happened back then.
One year during her university winter break, Yang Xue returned home. She walked all the way to Yangjia Village on a rainy night, her belly bulging. She was already pregnant, and the size of her belly couldn't be hidden at school. She was always ridiculed before calling home to ask for money. With no other options, Yang Xue returned home.
At that time, if a girl became pregnant before marriage, it meant that the entire family had serious problems. Zhang Li and Yang Zong had not originally planned to return to Yangjia Village that year, but they rushed back all the way for this matter, and the family had been thinking about it for a long time behind closed doors.
After some discussion, they agreed that after Yang Xue gave birth, the child would be considered Yang Zong and Zhang Li's. After all, the couple had been away doing business that year, and Yang Xue had been away studying at university. It wasn't too difficult to deceive outsiders about who had carried the child for ten months.
However, Yang Xue couldn't deceive herself. Those two girls were her daughters, pieces of flesh that had fallen from her body. As time passed, Yang Guisi and Yang Junyi really liked her as their "aunt."
But Zhang Li didn't like this - what? The child has already been given to me, and you still want to take him back to take care of you in your old age?
There can't be two tigers in one mountain, and there can't be two mothers for one child. Eight years after the children were born, Yang Xue quietly went abroad, returning the complete ownership of the family to Zhang Li.
She sent money home regularly as agreed, to comfort herself that she had fulfilled her obligation to support her child.
However, Yang Guisi said that Zhang Li and others had treated her extremely harshly over the years, and she had never seen the money.
The faith that had been supporting Yang Xue suddenly collapsed.
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