Chapter 550: Chapter 549 - 523: Speak Up

After the tables were cleared, Father Liao went to drive the car, and Jia Xiufang and her group stood by the roadside waiting.

“I don’t know if your Uncle Liao’s car can fit so many people, why didn’t Minglang drive over?” Jia Xiufang asked Yu Minglang.

“Drinking and not driving.” Xiao Qian answered for Yu Minglang.

“That’s true, then we’ll just squeeze together. Minglang, you’ll take a taxi back?”

Yu Minglang coughed and took advantage of Jia Xiufang’s distraction to bump Xiao Qian behind him.

Xiao Qian found his obviously anxious but pretending to be calm appearance amusing but didn’t want to tease him too much.

“I’ll go back to school and have Minglang send me.”

“Chen, Xiao, Qian!” Jia Xiufang gritted her teeth, thinking she could not hear the hidden intention. This girl wanted to spend another night at Yu Minglang’s house!

Her daughter had said she was going back to school yesterday, but today she arrived less than 10 minutes after Jia Xiufang called her, obviously having spent the night with Yu Minglang already.

It wasn’t good to be like this before marriage. Jia Xiufang had known for a long time that her daughter probably had already slept with Yu Minglang, but to say that she wasn’t going home in front of the mother was a bit much.

“Mom, I know what I’m doing, you don’t need to worry about me, just take care of yourself.”

Yu Minglang chimed in with a smile, “Aunt, don’t worry, I’ll definitely send Xiao Qian back to school safely.”

Sending her, however, would be tomorrow’s business.

They had agreed on one day and two nights, even a few hours less wouldn’t do. This was a matter of principle.

“It’s so late, can’t you just stay home for the night?” Jia Xiufang hinted at Xiao Qian.

Yu Minglang felt like his little beauty was about to sprout wings and fly away, and his future mother-in-law seemed to be trying to break them up.

Xiao Qian waved at him, indicating for him to leave with Chen Zilong. She wanted to talk to Jia Xiufang alone.

“Mom, do you know what Uncle Liao does for a living?”

“What does it have to do with him? Talk about yourself.” Jia Xiufang didn’t understand why her daughter suddenly mentioned this.

“From the age of 18, I knew exactly what I was doing with every decision I made, but you don’t even know who’s around you. Take this Uncle Liao for example, do you know what he does?”

“He works in the court, how could I not know!”

“What’s his rank? Do you know?”

“Working is just working, what rank… but I heard they have good benefits at their workplace, and we still haven’t finished the fruits they gave us for the holidays.”

Though Jia Xiufang was a nouveau riche, she didn’t know much about these things and seemed ignorant. All she knew was that workplaces with fruit benefits had good treatment.

“You might not understand the judge’s rank, so I’ll put it bluntly: he has the equivalent treatment of a Deputy Minister, roughly equal to half a prefecture-level city mayor. In terms you can understand, he’s like the governor in the TV series you watch, not a county head. Do you understand?”

Jia Xiufang was taken aback.

“You mean, we’re living next to a Qingtian Grandmaster who haggles over cabbage prices?!”

“The exact rank and such might not be calculated like this, but the treatment and such are roughly the same. I just wanted to give you an approximate equivalent.”

Xiao Qian used a concept Jia Xiufang could understand to explain. In reality, there would certainly be no comparability. Each position had its own responsibilities and was equivalent to being ranked between fourth and fifth in the Qing Dynasty. He was a mid-level cadre.

“My god, how can a Qingtian Grandmaster live in a two-bedroom old house? He even buys cabbage… His son’s car isn’t as good as my son-in-law’s!”

In Jia Xiufang’s mind, these people were all super mysterious.

“Qingtian Grandmasters can be clean officials or corrupt ones. The neighbor buying cabbage and bargaining with you is obviously a clean official. He may not earn more than you, but he is still a Grandmaster, and his noble and low-key lifestyle just shows his integrity. But there is still a gap between his level and ours.”

“Qian’er, what are you trying to say?”

“I don’t object to you finding me a stepfather, but this is based on the premise that you both have a common language and can live happily together. I don’t want your second marriage to be unhappy either. If you don’t have a common background, at least have a common language like Minglang and me. You and Uncle Liao don’t have any of that. I invited him and his son to dinner today because I don’t want to owe them any favors, do you understand what I mean?”

Jia Xiufang stared wide-eyed, feeling like her daughter had said something shocking. She wanted to rebut the child’s nonsense, but it felt like she had cotton stuck in her throat and she couldn’t speak.

Perhaps Xiao Qian had just poked through a layer of paper in her mother’s heart.

“I repeat, I know what I’m doing, and I hope you know what you’re doing too. Those who don’t plan for the future end up worrying in the present.”

Xiao Qian didn’t confront her mother just to distract her attention from spending a night with her boyfriend. This was the best time to say it, especially after the damage they had experienced from Trash Dad. Xiao Qian wanted her innocent mother to have a stable and happy life in the second half of her life.

But after saying it, seeing her mother’s devastated look, Xiao Qian felt like a terrible, unforgivable villain.

If she wasn’t bad now, should she wait until her mother was hurt before being bad?

So Xiao Qian suppressed her reluctance to see her mother in pain and spoke rationally.

“There are many paths to choose in life. When you’re young, if you make a mistake, you can still change. But at your age, there isn’t that much time and emotion left for you to choose again. I hope that every step you take in the future is the right one.”

Jia Xiufang’s eyes turned red as her daughter spoke, not knowing what to say, she could only look up at the sky to stop her tears from falling.

After saying it, Xiao Qian felt that she had been too emotional tonight. Minglang had led her astray!

Father Liao drove over and called Jia Xiufang to get in the car.

“No need to bother, my son and I will take a taxi back…” Jia Xiufang turned away, not letting the Liao family see her discomposed state, she was about to cry.

“It’s all on the way, how could it be a bother?” Father Liao hadn’t noticed Jia Xiufang’s change yet.

“Thank you, Uncle Liao, really no need. I already feel bad about the times my mother needed your help before. My mother was troubling you, it was my negligence.”

Xiao Qian’s words sounded like gratitude, but they had a deeper meaning.

Father Liao was a smart man and caught on. He got out of the car and confronted Xiao Qian directly.

“Xiao Qian, why are you being so polite?”

“It’s not about being polite, I’m serious. As the saying goes, distant relatives are not as good as close neighbors, but it’s still not right for us to inconvenience you since we are not related. My fiancé will help my mother find a more suitable place where the environment will be better for her and my younger brother.”

“I understand…” Father Liao took in the meaning of Xiao Qian’s words, and after a moment of silence, looked at the neighbor who had turned her back on him and bid farewell.

Jia Xiufang waited for his car to drive away before turning back around. Seeing her mother’s reluctant gaze, Xiao Qian felt ten thousand alpacas running wild in her heart.

Why did she feel like the Queen Mother of the West, drawing a silver river with a hairpin? Her mother’s gaze was like that of a weaver girl, the old cowherd driving his rickety car with his son and heading north, and the old weaver girl staring in the distance with tearful eyes and unspeakable choking.

Xiao Qian had acted like a bad guy, wanting to find some comfort from Minglang, and when she glanced over at him, she almost got a crooked nose.