Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Grandma smiled, and with ruthless efficiency, she introduced Dad to a whole list of women with excellent qualifications.

I quietly shoveled rice into my mouth, my heart aching.

It hurt not only because Grandma had slandered my mother as an “ugly hag,” but even more because of how cold and selfish this family was.

Young women with good backgrounds weren’t something you kept tied to your belt, ready to pull out whenever you wanted.

Grandma had clearly prepared this long ago, and Grandpa must have tacitly approved.

Mom had been gone less than three months. Not a single person in this family still remembered her.

No one remembered how Dad had changed careers, or whose old mentor he had relied on to be promoted from deputy to a full position.

Back when he was making that career shift, the moment his salary came in, he withdrew it all and used it to grease palms and build connections.

When he was assigned out of town, he would be gone for three years, five years at a time.

Those years of tightening our belts, those years when Mom was practically raising me as a widow with a living husband-all of them, she endured with him.

Now that he had been promoted, he could freely pick from women with excellent conditions. Those bleak, bitter years, and that sallow, gaunt dead wife of his, truly didn’t need to be remembered anymore.

I dug my nails into my palm and suddenly thought of a line from a book:

“A daughter grieves, regretting she ever urged her husband to seek rank and glory…”

Mom, back then, when you gave everything you had to help him succeed, did you ever regret it?

Her daughter-in-law had barely died before the mother-in-law started arranging blind dates for her son. Of course my maternal grandparents were furious.

But my family had always had one excellent tradition: we knew what mattered most and what could wait.

When something happened, we borrowed strength to fight strength. We never simply argued, screamed, and threw tantrums.

Right now, the most urgent problem was still Wei Yao. So Grandma on my mother’s side took Grandma’s hand and said earnestly, “We still need to find Zhenjiang a proper woman. If she gives you a grandson in the future, at least you’ll have some assurance.”

Grandma thought of that woman’s behavior and deeply agreed. Out of the many charming candidates, she chose the one with the best qualifications for my dad to get in touch with.

Seeing that all her efforts were about to go down the drain, Wei Yao immediately caused a scene. At this point, she had no better options, so she brought a huge pile of gifts and tried to visit my grandma. But at the entrance of the building, she ran into me while I was playing. I looked at her and shook my head, then said in a soft, childish voice, “Auntie, Grandma doesn’t like bird’s nest or shark fin. Grandma likes baby boys.”

She hesitated a little, and I sighed again. “But the auntie who wants to be my new mommy definitely won’t want you to have a baby boy.”

Wei Yao’s eyes lit up.

A few days later, when my dad was meeting his blind date, she found them and went over. She lied, claiming she was pregnant, hoping to disgust the other woman into leaving.

But Wei Yao had been kept and spoiled for too long. She had no idea that among women with good backgrounds, the honest ones were truly honest, and the fierce ones were truly fierce.

Sure enough, the moment my dad’s new “Hot Auntie” heard that, her eyes went wide. Pointing at Wei Yao, she half laughed and half cursed, “Where did this child come from out of nowhere? Even if there is one, who knows whether its surname should be Li or Zhang! As long as she’s a woman on this street, who can’t do it? Who can’t give birth? Give it a year or so and anyone can produce a child, one that doesn’t have someone else’s blood mixed in, too!”

With that, she grabbed Wei Yao and tried to drag her off for a prenatal checkup, nearly making Wei Yao keel over from rage.

I hid behind a potted plant and laughed to myself. This “hired” Hot Auntie was seriously impressive.