Chapter 10: A Conversation Between Two People
Tang Zhinian drank all the soup from his bowl and then put it down, his face filled with worry.
"Let her leave if she wants to, I know, she looks down on me, thinks I'm incapable, I won't hold her back anymore, let her do as she pleases, but, I won't give her Xinxin, Xinxin is my daughter, even if I have to starve for the rest of my life, I won't let my daughter suffer. But she would, I won't let my daughter suffer with her."
"What if she wants Xinxin?" Tang Zhijun felt uneasy about the situation. He hadn't been sleeping well lately, fearing that their little niece would be taken away by her biological mother and then suffer. What then?
"I disagree, she can forget it," Tang Zhinian tasted the bitterness in his mouth, making him wonder if the soup was somewhat bitter, or maybe he had put in soda powder.
"But she's her biological mother."
Tang Zhijun moved his lips, but the last four words were still not spoken.
Yes, it's not just anyone, it's the biological mother, the real mother. If Sang Zhilan wants to take Tang Yuxin away, and Tang Yuxin wants to go with her mother, then what can they do? They can't stop it.
Tang Zhinian put down his bowl and covered his face, a grown man like him, actually started crying.
He didn't cry out loud, just let out a few sobs, but it wasn't hard to hear his sadness.
Tang Yuxin reached into her pocket and pulled out a peanut candy. She unwrapped it, put it in her mouth, and immediately a sweet taste spread. There may not be any candy in the future that tastes as good, but this was the best candy she had ever eaten.
Outside, she could hear the voices of Tang Zhinian and his brother. Their voices weren't loud, so she couldn't hear clearly. But most of what they were discussing centered on the divorce and who she would end up with.
She opened a small drawer and took out a little box, her treasure box. As a child, she had cared about it deeply and didn't let anyone touch it. She even brought it with her to the Wei family. But barely a day after she arrived, Wei Jiani had broken it. She had cried to her mother after Jiani broke her treasure box, but her mother neither comforted her nor reprimanded Jiani. Instead, she told her as the older sister she should be more forgiving. From that day on, she realized she had become an extra, and everything had changed. She now had a stepfather and a stepmother.
She opened the treasure box, reached into her pocket, took out a few peanut candies, and put them back into the treasure box one by one. Then she covered it, put it back in the drawer, and lay down to sleep again.
After Tang Zhinian and Tang Zhijun left, it didn't take long for Sang Zhilan to arrive. They knew Sang Zhilan would come back, otherwise, Tang Zhinian wouldn't have picked this time to go out and leave his daughter alone. For Tang Zhinian, nothing in this world was more important than his daughter, and it was the truth. In his past life, he had suffered all his life, never married, but sacrificed everything for his daughter. All that he got in return, were white hairs on his behalf.
Tang Yuxin was sleeping when she heard the unpleasant sound around, like the sound of a rat gnawing on her fingernails and toenails when she was a child. She was familiar with this sound, so much so that she could never forget it even if she lived a lifetime, through birth and death. When she was little and Sang Zhilan had taken her to the Wei family, they had put her in a little storage room filled with rats that nibbled at her hands and feet every day. She was just three years old then, but no matter how much she called out for her mom and dad at night, nobody came to rescue her. They let her grow up in such a distressing environment.