“Xingxing, why are you not saying anything? Have you been frightened by today’s incident?” Only upon reaching home did Mother Zhou realize that Zhou Xing had not uttered a single word ever since Zhou Zheng left.
Zhou Xing’s eyes were lost in a daze, resembling the eyes of a dead fish.
“Hey, come out quickly. Xingxing doesn’t look right. She seems to have been badly frightened by Zhou Zheng. Shall we hurry and send Xingxing to the hospital?”
“Let me take a look!” Upon hearing that, Father Zhou was frantic too. He immediately ran to Zhou Xing to check on her.
Looking at her anxious grandparents around her, Zhou Xing burst out in tears. “Grandpa, grandma, it’s aching. My heart’s aching…”
Just this simple sentence caused Mother Zhou to tear up uncontrollably. In that instant, Mother Zhou felt as though someone had stabbed her in the heart. No one understood Zhou Xing’s feelings more than Mother Zhou. Her heart ached because she had lost her son, while her granddaughter’s heart ached because she had lost her father.
Zhou Zheng was entirely bewitched by that woman and could not even listen to anyone else. What a scoundrel! She had wasted her efforts raising that son.
“Hubby, from today onward, remember to never open the door for anyone from that family. Even if Zhou Zheng himself comes, don’t ever open the door for him. We’ll just treat it as though we’ve never had a son like him. In the future, we’ll only have Xingxing as our granddaughter.” Qiao Zijin was really not outstanding at all. But even though Qiao Zijin had a hundred weaknesses, she still had two strengths.
Firstly, when Qiao Zijin was around, Zhou Zheng had never acted so crazily. Secondly, Qiao Zijin had left Zhou Xing to accompany her and her husband.
Mother Zhou could not imagine how her son thought only about his wife and not about his parents now that he had gotten remarried. That woman did not look like she was easy to deal with. If they did not have Zhou Xing around, that woman might very well have taken control of the entire Zhou family!
Having toiled so hard for decades with her husband to finally own whatever she did, Mother Zhou flared up thinking about how it would land up in the hands of such a scheming b*tch. But thankfully, that was just a supposition, not reality. Apart from her son, Zhou Zheng, she still had a granddaughter.
Even if her granddaughter were to get married in the future and would no longer have the surname Zhou, she would still much rather leave everything she owned to her granddaughter than let Zhou Zheng and Zhou Cheng have anything of hers.
It was at this point in time that Mother Zhou made a decision that she would find a lawyer and make a will with her husband. Zhou Zheng had gone behind their backs to find Zhou Xing and had even slapped Zhou Xing while they were still alive and well. If they were to pass away and no one was around to protect Zhou Xing, she could only imagine just how badly her granddaughter would be bullied.
“Don’t cry, don’t cry. Xingxing, don’t cry. Grandma and grandpa will always be by your side.” Father Zhou hugged his granddaughter and tried to coax her. He had a rough sense of what had happened. Father Zhou was angry about Zhou Cheng stealing from them too. In his whole life, he had never shortchanged anyone, even when he was running a business. The reason why he named his son Zhou Zheng was because he hoped that his son would be a righteous person.
But who would have expected that his grandson would turn out to be a thief! Taking an elder’s money without permission was also stealing!
The thought of having such a thief in the Zhou family made Father Zhou infuriated. When he had caught Zhou Cheng in the act the other day and had even been called an old foggy by Zhou Cheng, Father Zhou had wanted to deal with Zhou Cheng right then and there. Even though Zhou Cheng was only a five-year-old child, he had committed wrongdoing and should have been punished for it.
That was how he had taught his son and brought his son up. The saying ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ may not entirely be true, but there was still some truth in it most of the time.
Unfortunately, even though Father Zhou was willing to be tough on Zhou Cheng, he was no match for that little rascal’s cleverness. Huihui had probably taught Zhou Cheng what to do in case Father and Mother Zhou did not like Zhou Cheng and wanted to beat him because of Zhou Xing instigating them.
Thus, just as Father Zhou was about to hit Zhou Cheng, Zhou Cheng instinctively kicked Father Zhou’s shin. Because the five-year-old Zhou Cheng was chubby, his kick was powerful and had hurt Father Zhou.
Taking advantage of Father Zhou doubling down in pain, Zhou Cheng escaped from Father Zhou’s grasp and rushed out of the Zhou family’s house. After escaping, Zhou Cheng took out the phone hanging from his neck and made a call to his mom. “Mom, grandpa was being bad. He wanted to hit me, so I ran out. Mom, hurry and pick me up. I’m starving. I want to eat meat.”
Upon hearing that, Huihui was frantic. Without hesitation, she rushed down to pick her son up. When they reached home and Huihui finally came to her senses, she asked her son why her father-in-law wanted to hit her son. Was her mother-in-law not standing by his side? Was it Zhou Xing who had instigated them?
For some unknown reason, Zhou Cheng did not tell her the truth and did not say that his grandpa wanted to hit him because he had been caught in the act taking his grandpa’s money just like his mom had instructed him to do. When he heard his mom put the blame on Zhou Xing, Zhou Cheng’s eyes sparkled and he nodded immediately.
Zhou Cheng knew that he had two elder sisters. One of his elder sisters lived with him. That was his biological elder sister. He had a good relationship with his biological elder sister. The one that stayed with his grandparents was a bad elder sister. He could not get along with that bad elder sister.
So he could not be wrong in putting the blame on that bad elder sister. Once Zhou Cheng nodded, Huihui unhesitatingly placed the blame of her son almost getting hit on Zhou Xing. When Zhou Zheng returned home and received a call from Father Zhou to say that Zhou Cheng was no longer welcome in their house, Huihui was even more convinced that Zhou Xing had been instigating them.
Not only had Zhou Xing caused her son to almost suffer a beating from her father-in-law, but she had even encouraged her parents-in-law to stop seeing her son. Did they take her for a fool? Her parents-in-law did like their grandson. But if they were to meet him less often, their relationship with Zhou Xing would only get better, while their relationship with her son would only fade.
In that case, who could tell how much those two old foggies would leave to Zhou Xing.
She had never expected that Zhou Xing would be even more scheming than her even though she was just an elementary school student. If she did not come up with a plan, everything that was supposed to be her son’s would be taken away by Zhou Xing.
That was why Huihui tried to influence Zhou Zheng, asking him to frighten and warn Zhou Xing to stop instigating Father and Mother Zhou.
Zhou Zheng still bore hopes of reconciling with his parents and living harmoniously together again. A few years had passed, and his son was already five years old, but his parents were showing no sign of backing down.
Zhou Xing was even instigating them! As such, without doing any investigations of his own, Zhou Zheng let out all his pent-up anger on Zhou Xing.
