"How could this happen!" Huang Ling stumbled and collapsed to the ground, her face deathly pale.
Old Mrs. Chen shook her hand: "Ah Ling, what should we do? If your brother goes to jail, his life will be ruined!"
Huang Ling's mind was in complete disarray; she was utterly disoriented.
"Big sister, Ah Zhong was arrested because of you! You have to find a way to save him!" Jiang Juan grabbed Huang Ling's hand and said incoherently, "Why don't you go and beg Lu Siqiao to change her testimony and say that Ah Zhong sent people not to arrest her, but to invite her over for fun..."
Let a human trafficker take her out to play?
Huang Ling's face was ashen, and she murmured, "It's over, it's all over."
Seeing that she wouldn't listen, Jiang Juan simply sat down on the ground and cried out, "If Ah Zhong gets caught, what are we, a widow and orphan, going to do?"
Huang Ling's expression was neither a smile nor a cry.
At this moment, the door to the house opened, and Ruan Mingyuan walked out, his face ashen.
"Son-in-law—" Seeing that she could no longer rely on her daughter, Old Mrs. Chen came up to Lu Mingyuan for help.
Lu Mingyuan got the gist of it and immediately confronted Huang Ling, asking, "You sent someone to mess with Qiao Wa?"
Old Mrs. Ruan also came out, her face as cold as a stranger's. She spat and said, "Ah Ling, no matter how much you dislike Qiao Wa, she is still your daughter. How could you do such a stupid thing!"
Faced with the overwhelming accusations, Huang Ling looked ashen-faced and dejectedly stared at Lu Mingyuan: "You ask me why I went to harm Qiao Wa? Hah, you still have the nerve to ask?"
Lu Mingyuan said impatiently, "Huang Ling, are you crazy? You'll kill someone!"
"Lu Siqiao deserves to die!" Huang Ling seemed to have found an outlet for her anger, her face turning crazed. "It's one thing for her to disown me, but she's not even as good as a stranger. Does she even have any regard for me as her own mother? I want her to disappear, I wish she were dead, so I can get rid of her sight and mind, hahaha..."
"Are you... are you crazy? If you go to jail, where will I and the child put our faces?" Lu Mingyuan grabbed her collar and said viciously, "Do you want to kill us?"
Huang Ling shoved him away: "Lu Mingyuan, stop your crocodile tears! Don't think I don't know you have a lover outside. You despise me for not being able to have a son, you bastard! What's wrong with me kidnapping my own daughter? Is that illegal? I just don't like her, I want her dead. That damned girl, I hate her!"
"She killed my son, she transferred my son's good fortune to Luo Xiaoxue, she stole the luck from our whole family!"
"If I had known, I would have strangled her the moment she was born, and that would have ended it all!"
"I hate it! How could I have raised such an ungrateful child? I—" She ran to the storage room, took out a bottle of pesticide, and poured it into her mouth, shamelessly declaring, "Don't worry, I'll pay with my life, fulfilling her wish!"
Suddenly, the house was in chaos again.
When Huang Ling woke up, she was already lying in the town's health clinic.
It was dusk, and Lu Siqiao sat in front of her, his back to the light.
Neither of them spoke.
After a long while, Huang Ling spoke up: "Release your uncle. I was the one who ordered everything. I'm going to turn myself in."
This was the only time that the mother and daughter sat down calmly and had a proper talk.
Lu Siqiao said calmly, "It's too late. Huang Zhong took all the blame and will probably be sentenced to two years."
Huang Ling felt a wave of suffocation.
But she simply didn't have the strength to argue, and let two streams of tears flow freely.
She said, "I know you hate me."
Lu Siqiao clasped her hands together slightly and gave a self-deprecating smile: "Once, I also longed for a mother's love, but after everything was shattered, I realized that no matter how hard I tried, you would never love me. I gave up."
"You're right to give up. I just don't like you." Huang Ling didn't deny it; on the contrary, she felt much lighter.
Since Huang Zhong has confessed, she will do her best to compensate his family in the future.
"You have no idea how much torment I endured, how many sleepless nights I spent trying to have a son, and how much I had to bear the pointing fingers and whispering of others," Huang Ling began, as if reminiscing about something. "I'm a strong-willed person. I wasn't willing to spend my whole life unable to hold my head high. When I was pregnant with you, everyone said it was going to be a son. Your grandma and your dad treated me with utmost care and affection."
Lu Siqiao lowered her eyes: "According to you, do families who have daughters have no reason to live?"
“They are not me. You don’t know how great the hope is, the greater the disappointment is.” Huang Ling’s face became distorted. “Your two older sisters were delivered at home, unlike you. In order to welcome you, your father specially took me to the People’s Hospital to prepare for childbirth.”
"When the nurse carried you out, everyone thought they had brought the wrong baby."
"I still feel a little relieved. This isn't the child I carried for ten months. I should have given birth to a son!"
Lu Siqiao sighed, "You've gone mad. The bond between children and parents is preordained. So many people long for a child but never get one." For example, Luo Xiaoxue, even if she gave birth to a daughter, she would probably be very happy.
"Pah, what do you know? You ruined everything for me: my job, my in-laws' love, and the shame of not being able to hold my head up high. I've been suffering for seven years, and every time I see your face, it reminds me of how unbearable my life has been."
Huang Ling stared intently at her, as if she wanted to carve a hole in her.
Seeing that the conversation was going nowhere, Lu Siqiao stood up and said calmly, "I also want to say that if you had a different mindset back then, things might have been different. I was young before and always thought that I was a burden to you, which is why you looked down on me. It turns out I was wrong. It was your arrogance that hurt you."
"The person you love most has always been yourself. To achieve your own selfish desires, you can betray your closest relatives. You don't love me, nor do you love Siling and the others. You keep saying that you need to have a son to support a family, but that's just an excuse. Everything is cause and effect, and you are suffering this kind of retribution for the fruits you have sown."
She turned around and said coldly, "Lu Mingyuan wants a divorce, and the child will stay with him. There's no place for you here anymore."
After saying that, he strode away.
Huang Ling sat there blankly, her face calm and expressionless.
Then she buried her head in the blanket and began to sob softly.
When Lu Siqiao returned home, Lu Mingfeng and his wife were standing at the door, looking at her with pity.
Lu Siqiao's eyes reddened, and she rushed towards them: "Dad, Mom, brother..."
Her tears flowed freely and uncontrollably.
Even though this was the perfect ending, a wave of sadness washed over her.
For Huang Ling, and for herself.
Luo Xiaoxue hugged her and said softly, "Qiaowa, don't cry, it's all over now. The good days are just beginning."
"Yes, from now on, our family of five will be together, all together, and we will never be separated again."
Lu Mingfeng patted her head: "In the future, you must fulfill your responsibilities as an older sister and take care of Jin'an."
From Li Bai's poem: The road is hard, the road is hard, there are many forks in the road, where am I now?
There will be times when the wind and waves will be strong, and we will set sail to cross the vast ocean.
Lu Jin'an is the name Lu Siqiao gave to her younger brother.
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