Jiang Xue was so regretful that her intestines were turning green. If she had known that her classmates did not know that Shen Xi was the eldest daughter of the Jiang family, she would not have mentioned that she knew Shen Xi and would not have said anything about the matter. She would have treated her as a stranger.
She needed to do something to salvage the situation.
If she told Su Ni that the woman was not Shen Xi's mother but hers, how would she explain why her mother would attend Shen Xi's parent-teacher meeting?
Jiang Xue wanted to say that she and Shen Xi's mother used to know each other. Coming from a poor family, Shen Xi despised her mother's shabby, village woman appearance and mindset, so she begged Xia Chun to attend in her mother's place. If she spun the narrative well, she might be able to create the image of Shen Xi as a vain woman who was so ashamed of her mother that she could barely acknowledge her.