“You keep putting off going to Old Zhao to give him an explanation. It’s like a knife is hanging over our family’s head. You’re a minor leader now, but it’s not a high position. It’s something you’ve worked hard to climb up over decades.”
“Our children still rely on you, so you can’t let anything happen to them. If you’re free tomorrow, take me with you to apologize. Just pin the blame on me.”
"But there's one thing: we both share responsibility for the mix-up of the Zhao family's granddaughter. I've tolerated it all on the surface, but when we get home, you need to understand that I'm the one taking the blame for you."
Shi Jingpei found it strange. Whenever something happened, his wife would run faster than anyone else, but she had never taken the initiative to apologize like this before.
However, after thinking about it, he realized it was true; husband and wife are one, and their fates are intertwined. If he were to be removed from his position by Old Master Zhao, no one in the family would be happy.
He said calmly, "It's good that you can figure it out. I won't go into what exactly happened back then. Anyway, more than 20 years have passed, and what happened can never be erased."
“We sincerely apologize. Even saints make mistakes, and we believe that Elder Zhao won’t hold a grudge against us forever. But we have to be prepared to suffer a huge loss.”
"How can we let someone's own granddaughter suffer outside for over twenty years, and then just dismiss it with a casual 'sorry' for the baby being switched at birth?"
Ling Xinlan's eyes widened, and her heart began to ache. "How much money do you want to pay? The Qin family has so much money, our few hundred or a thousand is not enough at all."
Shi Jingpei closed his eyes and sighed deeply, "It's their business if they have a lot of money. If we don't act decisively, we'll really be unhappy later!"
Thinking of her own family, Ling Xinlan could only bite the bullet and say, "Honey, you're the head of the household, you decide."
I just hope the Zhao family can calm down and stop causing trouble for the Ling family.
Without further ado, Shi Jingpei was also afraid that if they dragged it out for too long, Old Zhao would lose patience. After dinner, the two of them took out most of their savings and rushed to the compound.
Grandpa Zhao was listening to his granddaughter's program, squinting his eyes and swaying his head, looking very relaxed and content.
Upon seeing the person enter through the door, he immediately turned off the recorder and picked up the newspaper from the table to read.
Shi Jingpei smiled apologetically and handed over the cigarettes and alcohol, saying, "Old Zhao, I've brought Ling Xinlan to apologize to you."
Old Master Zhao shook the newspaper a few times and said indifferently, "I wouldn't dare. Director Shi is such a powerful figure. How could I, a retired old man, accept your apology?"
Shi Jingpei still had bruises on his forehead and crisscrossing scratches on his face. Combined with his deliberately disheveled clothes and hair, he looked as pathetic as a stray dog.
"Mr. Zhao, please don't tease me. It was my fault for not handling things well back then. If you have any grievances, take them out on me. Don't get yourself sick from getting angry."
“I shouldn’t have just left things to Ling Xinlan. She was tricked into having her baby switched at birth without my knowledge, which caused you to be separated from your granddaughter for over twenty years.”
"No matter how many times we apologize, we can't make up for the more than twenty years of estrangement between you and Comrade Ke Meiyu. Please give us a chance to make amends..."
Old Master Zhao sneered and slammed the newspaper down. "Director Shi, how can this old man blame you? I can only blame myself for focusing so much on my work and not realizing I had a wolf in sheep's clothing by my side."
"You're so filial to your mother that you can just casually delegate the search for your relatives to someone else. Is it so difficult for you to just tell me and I'll send someone else?"
"So you messed things up, but still got a lot of benefits. Now that things have come to light, you can sincerely apologize and offer some compensation, and everything will be over?"
“If I were to argue too much, I would be being unreasonable. If it weren’t for my granddaughter being so capable, who knows what kind of life she would be living now!”
Do you know how many times she almost didn't make it through the past twenty years?
"If something really happens, it's a living, breathing person. Can you take responsibility?"
The old man's heartbroken series of questions left Shi Jingpei speechless.
Ling Xinlan had been standing timidly since she entered the room, not saying a word. Now that she saw the old man making trouble, she wished she could shrink into a ball.
"You can leave now," the old man glanced at Ling Xinlan and said indifferently, "You reap what you sow. I won't pursue this matter, but I believe that a hypocrite like you must have done many things insincerely, and you will get your comeuppance sooner or later."
Shi Jingpei gritted his teeth, "Old Zhao..."
"Get out, take your cigarettes and alcohol with you," Old Master Zhao said, picking up a rather heavy stone ashtray and gesturing to him.
Shi Jingpei felt a sharp pain in his forehead and quickly said, "Old Zhao, you're still angry. I'll apologize to you later."
After saying that, he picked up his things again and walked out.
Ling Xinlan was somewhat unwilling and couldn't help but say, "Grandpa Zhao, this is not the old society anymore. If I made a mistake, you can punish me, but you shouldn't involve innocent people."
Old Master Zhao sneered: "Innocent? What right does your Ling family have to live in the compound? You're just upset that your chance to take advantage was canceled?"
"You're living in a place that belongs to someone else, how can you be so shameless? No wonder you could go against your conscience and move your own granddaughter to my house, and then, seeing that my granddaughter is successful, you eagerly try to take advantage of her?"
"The Ling family is truly capable; they've been using the same trick for over twenty years before it was exposed. I'm just an old man, too stupid and foolish, so now you're trying to get away with it again?"
Ling Xinlan's face turned deathly pale at this moment.
She looked at Old Master Zhao in disbelief, then turned her head with great difficulty to look at Shi Jingpei.
The latter was equally shocked.
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