“Let’s see how much longer you can act this way. Qiao Nan really exhausted eighteen lifetimes worth of bad luck having a mother like you. Do you really think that you have a normal mother-daughter relationship with Qiao Nan? We’ll see how you’ll be slapped in the face in the future.”
She had only gone to Ding Jiayi for help as the last resort. Based on what Ding Jiayi had done in the past, there was no way an average person would acknowledge Ding Jiayi as her mother. Had Qiao Nan not run away from her?
So what if Qiao Nan married into a good family? That had nothing to do with Ding Jiayi at all. No matter how well Qiao Nan lived in the future, Ding Jiayi would never enjoy the same life. There was no way Ding Jiayi would be able to take advantage of her relationship with Qiao Nan.
After chasing her old neighbor away, Ding Jiayi felt angry yet joyful at the same time. Ding Jiayi had mentioned Qiao Nan not having graduated high school to provoke her old neighbor. Was it not embarrassing that their daughter, who had not even graduated from high school, could get married to a chief, yet a university graduate wanting to become a civil servant needed help from a primary school graduate?
But Ding Jiayi was truly enraged. Qiao Nan was practically semi-literate with her educational qualifications. How blind was the Zhai family to have taken a liking for someone like Qiao Nan, who had only graduated from primary school, while giving up such a good university graduate in her family?
Zijin had once been married and had already given birth to a child, but so had Zhai Sheng. Since they were both divorced and they were both university graduates, it seemed only right for Zijin to be with Zhai Sheng instead.
In the past, no matter how much Ding Jiayi worried about Qiao Zijin’s future, she would never have dared to put her hopes on Zhai Sheng. After all, the Qiao family was worlds apart from the Zhai family. There was no way they could even get to know each other.
The problem was that Zhai Sheng was now in a relationship with Qiao Nan and was even about to get married. With such a situation in front of her, Ding Jiayi was much bolder and was now thinking of pushing Qiao Zijin toward Zhai Sheng.
“They left?” Qiao Zijin emerged from the room with a dark expression. “Mom, what’s with those neighbors? When we got into trouble last time, they didn’t even try to help us. They even mocked and ridiculed us. Next time, don’t even bother opening the door to them. It’s so noisy.”
They were always talking about how capable Qiao Nan was, asking Qiao Nan to meet them. If they were incapable themselves, whether Qiao Nan did well or not had nothing to do with them at all. It was annoying how they always came over to their house to make a din.
The neighbor who had just taken her leave was still all right. Previously, Qiao Zijin had met a neighbor who had used to praise her. But now, they did not even change their words and simply changed her name to Qiao Nan’s instead, even praising Ding Jiayi for having such brilliant children.
At that time, Qiao Zijin had been so infuriated that she had wanted to leave right then and there. That neighbor was slapping her in the face and Qiao Zijin felt that she had never been so embarrassed and humiliated in her life, even when she had been in the headlines.
Qiao Zijin could not help but wonder if Qiao Nan was her jinx. While Qiao Nan had been down on luck, she had been living her best life. But once Qiao Nan got away from the Qiao family and started her own life, Qiao Zijin’s life had only been going downhill. It was as though the worse her life got, the better Qiao Nan’s got.
If Qiao Nan was not her jinx, Qiao Nan must have put a curse on her to steal all of her good luck away from her. Otherwise, how could it be so coincidental that her bad luck seemed to happen at the very same time as Qiao Nan’s life improved?
“Don’t worry. She won’t come to our family anymore.” These few days, Ding Jiayi had been happy yet suffering at the same time. What she had once envisioned was now becoming reality. Her daughter was the most capable person in the quad and had married a brilliant son-in-law. Because of her daughter and son-in-law, everyone in the quad was now trying to get into her good books.
But the biggest difference between her dreams and reality was that that ‘good’ daughter was not her favorite elder daughter but her younger daughter that she hated the most.
It had not even been half a year since their news had been broadcasted on television. Now that others were praising her for raising her daughter well, Ding Jiayi felt that these were not actually praises but ridicules.
When had she treated Qiao Nan well or raised Qiao Nan well? If she did not remember it wrongly, she had been criticized and called the worst mother on earth when the news had emerged.
With such complex feelings, Ding Jiayi was frustrated by those people coming to look for her, especially by those who were trying to get a favor from her.
Civil servant examination?
It was good being a civil servant. They had stable incomes.
But if she could really do others this favor, she would be much better off getting her own elder daughter to become a civil servant instead of helping someone else. Civil servants had stable incomes from the government and were paid higher than other working-class workers. More importantly, it was an easy job.
The job was easy while offering a high pay. Was that not suitable for Zijin? She would be a fool to let someone else take advantage of that instead of letting her own daughter do so. All those people who had come to ask her for a favor were all fools who did not use their brains.
“Zijin, I think being a civil servant is rather good. This year’s examination is happening soon in Ping Cheng. Why don’t you try it out?” In the past, Ding Jiayi had never said such a thing, but now, she thought that Qiao Zijin had a shot at it.
Qiao Zijin was annoyed. She had already thrown all her books away on her graduation day. That day, she had already promised herself never to study another day or to take another exam in her life.
She had no intention of studying at the time of her graduation. Now, her mom was expecting her to pick up a book and revise her knowledge twenty years down the road? What a joke!
“Mom, stop joking around. Do you think just anyone can take that exam? What’s the point of going to take the exam when I know that I won’t be able to pass it?” She did not want to add to her own suffering, and neither did she want to be disgraced.
Qiao Zijin had not forgotten about how she had graduated from university.
A few decades ago, Qiao Nan had been put aside just for her to have the chance to study. Qiao Zijin had only done so because she knew that she would never be able to improve her life if she did not study. It was not because she enjoyed studying.
