Chapter 2109: ‘Peace’ in the Family
He was all too sure that the mother and daughter could only be targeting one person: Qiao Nan. The more ideas they had, the more trouble Qiao Nan would face.
Even when they had conflicts or disagreements, they would always come together to discuss how to scheme against Nan Nan and get the most out of Nan Nan.
Especially after learning that Qiao Nan was pregnant, Qiao Dongliang hoped that the relationship between Ding Jiayi and Qiao Zijin would remain ambiguous. It was impossible for them to have an even bigger fight, much less for them to disown each other.
Ding Jiayi regarded Qiao Zijin as her precious baby, even thinking of Qiao Zijin as her life’s pride and joy. Ding Jiayi was relying on Qiao Zijin to support her in her old age, so there was no way Ding Jiayi would bear to treat Qiao Zijin the way she treated Qiao Nan. No matter how angry she got at Qiao Zijin, she would never be too extreme and cut her off.
The reverse was true too.
The divorced Qiao Zijin had nothing to her name and everything under her name was all thanks to Ding Jiayi snatching them away from Qiao Nan. Without her mother, Ding Jiayi, Qiao Zijin would not even have a single relative by her side. There was no way Qiao Zijin would give up on her mother, who was so useful to her.
Because Ding Jiayi still had value to her and would not only create trouble for her, Ding Jiayi would always be Qiao Zijin’s most beloved mother.
Knowing that the mother and daughter would never sever ties with each other, Qiao Dongliang was not at all worried when they had gotten into an argument. There was no need to persuade them to reconcile with each other. He would let them be.
Knowing that the mother and daughter had made up, Qiao Dongliang knew that trouble was brewing for Qiao Nan, who was caught in a rather precarious situation now since she had three babies growing inside her. If Ding Jiayi and Qiao Zijin were to do anything, he would settle as much as he could. Otherwise, he would have no choice but to call Zhai Sheng for help to deal with them.
Yes, Qiao Dongliang had Zhai Sheng’s number. Zhai Sheng had taken the initiative to give his number to Qiao Dongliang when they had just found out about Qiao Nan’s pregnancy. The Qiao family constantly caused trouble and Qiao Dongliang was the only one in the Qiao family that Qiao Nan could not let go of. Zhai Sheng had wanted Qiao Nan to be more relaxed and stop worrying about the Qiao family during her pregnancy.
As such, Zhai Sheng had given his military phone number to Qiao Dongliang behind Qiao Nan’s back. In case he ran into any trouble he could not solve, he had better not call Qiao Nan. Of course, if he met with any serious trouble, Qiao Dongliang had better not try to bear the burden alone either. That would only result in the matter being delayed and worsening. If such a situation happened, Zhai Sheng instructed Qiao Dongliang to call him as soon as possible for him to deal with it.
Qiao Dongliang understood Zhai Sheng. Qiao Dongliang did not feel that he would be so useless, and as such, he would probably not need to use that phone number. However, in the face of Qiao Zijin and Ding Jiayi, Qiao Dongliang lost his confidence.
The pair of mother and daughter had just made up and had not kicked up a fuss as of yet, but Qiao Dongliang already felt as though they were plotting something. With Qiao Nan and three children’s safety at stake, Qiao Dongliang would much rather put down his dignity to make a call to his son-in-law in times of trouble. Even if his son-in-law did not interfere in the matter, it would be good to get some advice.
“Is there anything wrong with me making up with Zijin?” Ding Jiayi asked in confusion. In the past, when she had been at loggerheads with that wretched girl, Old Qiao had always tried to persuade both of them. Because of Old Qiao, that wretched girl had bowed her head to her and she had no choice but to forgive that wretched girl on Old Qiao’s account.
This time, she had been fighting with Zijin for a considerable amount of time. Throughout this period, Old Qiao had never tried to ease the tension between the two of them. “Old Qiao, I realized that you’re actually biased toward Zijin. In the past, when I fought with that wretched—no, with Qiao Nan, you would always get Qiao Nan to apologize to me. But this time, you didn’t.”
This proved that Old Qiao felt the same way that she did deep down in his heart. They had been husband and wife for so many years. It was only natural for them to have such a tacit understanding. Old Qiao was indeed just like her. Not only did he love Zijin the most, but he even thought that the only person worthy of sharing their joy was their daughter, Zijin.
Qiao Dongliang was amused and angered by Ding Jiayi’s shamelessness. “Do you have any dignity? Are you really sure that I didn’t try to counsel Zijin this time because I’m biased toward her? Do you think that’s the reason Zijin didn’t apologize to you?”
Nonsense!
Compared to Nan Nan, Zijin was an uncontrollable child. Even if he were to list out a hundred different principles, Zijin would not even listen to thirty of them. In short, there was no way Zijin would ever apply those principles in her life.
Since he was certain that he would never get through to Zijin, there was no point in him wasting his effort in trying to accomplish an impossible task by talking to Zijin.
“Did you call me just to ask me about that? If that’s the case, I’ll just let you know directly in case we have any misunderstandings. I didn’t counsel Zijin because she wouldn’t listen to me anyway. Besides, I can’t be bothered to figure out who’s in the wrong between the two of you since my opinion doesn’t matter to you anyway. The scariest part is that both of you might be wrong and it wouldn’t be right for me to counsel either of you. Nan Nan is a good kid. When you fought with her, you were at the wrong ten out of ten times. But Nan Nan had a good personality and I had no choice but to take advantage of that and get her to apologize to you. It was as simple as that. Don’t overthink it.”
At that time, Qiao Dongliang had always thought that Qiao Nan was the child while Ding Jiayi was an elder. Even though Ding Jiayi was truly in the wrong, there was no reason for Ding Jiayi to apologize to Qiao Nan as an elder.
As a daughter, it was only right for Qiao Nan to apologize to her parents so as to appease Ding Jiayi. After all, Ding Jiayi was Qiao Nan’s mother. Who was right or who was wrong was not important. The most important thing was having peace in the family.
As such, Qiao Dongliang had convinced Qiao Nan to apologize to Ding Jiayi every time even though he knew that Qiao Nan was not at fault. It was because of this that Qiao Dongliang knew that the method he had used on Qiao Nan would never work on Qiao Zijin.