After the school beauty rejected me, I became her mom's number one fan!

These words were extremely sincere and extremely clever.

Instead of refuting Qiao Jingtang's accusations, he focused on "Qiao Jinlin's choice" and "future promises".

This both gave the elderly a way out and made their own attitude clear.

Qiao Jingtang slowly turned his head, his sharp eyes lingering on Ning Xiuyang's face for a long time, as if carefully weighing how much of his words were true and how much were false.

Eventually, the anger in his eyes was replaced by a hint of weariness.

He sighed softly.

"Let's go inside and talk."

These three simple words are like a temporarily effective ceasefire agreement.

Upon seeing this, Qiao Jinlin quickly ran over, grabbed Ning Xiuyang's hand, and nervously squeezed it; his palm was covered in sweat.

Qiao Feiyu also breathed a sigh of relief. She walked over and said to Qiao Jinlin and Ning Xiuyang, "You two go and rest in the east wing first. I... I want to talk to your grandfather alone."

Qiao Jinlin glanced at his mother with some concern.

Qiao Feiyu gave her a reassuring smile: "Don't worry, Mom knows what she's doing."

The door to the side room was closed.

In the main hall, only Qiao Jingtang and his daughter Qiao Feiyu remained.

The smile on Qiao Feiyu's face vanished instantly, replaced by a solemn expression.

Qiao Jingtang sat on the armchair, his cane held upright between his legs, his hands folded over the top of the cane.

He didn't look at his daughter; his gaze fell on the landscape painting that had been hanging on the wall for thirty years.

Qiao Feiyu stood in front of him for about half a minute.

Then she bent her knees and knelt down.

It's not the kind of kneeling a daughter does when she's being affectionate, nor is it the kind of kneeling she does when she's making a mistake and asking for forgiveness.

Her back was very straight, and her hands were placed on her legs, as if in a ritual after making a decision.

Qiao Jingtang turned his gaze from the landscape painting to the top of her head.

What are you doing?

Qiao Feiyu looked up and met her father's gaze.

"Dad, there's something I've been keeping from you for a long time. Today, I don't want to hide it anymore."

Qiao Jingtang didn't speak, but tapped the tip of his cane twice with his fingers. This was his habit, meaning "to speak".

Qiao Feiyu took a deep breath.

She had gone over this passage in her mind countless times before she came, scrutinizing every single word.

She knew that, given her father's temperament and perspective, he would never accept his master.

If you want him to accept it, you have no choice but to expose your relationship with your master!

But when the moment actually came to say it, she realized that all the words and all the preparation were superfluous.

"Ning Xiuyang is not only Jinlin's boyfriend."

She paused for a moment.

"He is my man too."

The main hall was silent for about three seconds.

Qiao Jingtang's cane slipped from his hand and hit the floor tiles with a crisp sound.

The sandalwood cane that had been with him for over twenty years bounced on the blue brick floor and rolled half a foot away.

The old man's expression underwent an extremely slow change.

First, there was a stunned silence, a pure, emotionless stunned silence... as if I had heard a sentence that didn't belong in this context at all.

Then comes understanding.

He understood.

Finally, there was the iron-blue color.

The bluish-gray tinge spread upwards from the base of his neck all the way to his forehead.

His lips were trembling.

"You, you, you, what nonsense are you spouting?!"

Qiao Feiyu did not repeat himself, nor did he bow his head.

Qiao Jingtang stood up, supporting himself on the armrests of the chair, causing the armchair to slide back a few inches.

He pointed at Qiao Feiyu, his finger trembling violently in the air, as if he were having a Parkinson's attack.

But he didn't have Parkinson's; he was just angry.

"You, a vice-ministerial level official, a forty-two-year-old woman! Stealing a man from your daughter?!"

The last three words were almost shouted out.

Qiao Jingtang rarely lost his composure in his life. Having spent decades navigating the officialdom, he had seen it all.

But at that moment his voice cracked, like a fissure appearing on a piece of porcelain.

"I, Qiao Jingtang, have lived a life of integrity! While in office, I never took a single penny that I shouldn't have, and after retiring, I never gave anyone special treatment! The reputation of the Qiao family is the result of generations of hard work! Are you trying to trample my reputation into the ground?!"

Qiao Feiyu did not cry.

She knelt there, her back still very straight.

She waited for her father to finish scolding, for his fingers to stop trembling, and for him to sit back down in his chair.

Although this time I sat very heavily, it felt like my legs couldn't support me anymore.

Then she took a small bottle out of her pants pocket.

A white plastic bottle, the kind you often see in pharmacies.

The label reads "Zopiclon tablets".

Sleeping pills.

She placed the bottle on the floor tiles in front of her very gently, but in the quiet main hall, the sound of the plastic bottom hitting the blue bricks was exceptionally clear.

"dad."

Her voice was so calm it was almost unnatural.

"I've been divorced for eighteen years, and in those eighteen years I haven't touched a single man. Not one, not even one."

Qiao Jingtang stared at the medicine bottle on the ground, his pupils suddenly contracting.

"I got married at 22 and was abandoned at 26. From then on, I raised my child alone and climbed the corporate ladder on my own. I held that position at China Overseas for six years. Every day, I woke up to meetings, approved documents, and answered phone calls. Even when I closed my eyes, it was still meetings, approval documents, and phone calls. While others were having family meals during holidays, I was eating boxed lunches in the office."

She paused for a moment.

"I've become the person you wanted me to be: a strong, resilient woman; a good mayor who serves the country and its people; a good daughter of the Qiao family; but I'm not myself!"

"I don't want to do this anymore."

Qiao Jingtang did not speak.

His gaze was fixed on the medicine bottle.

He knows his daughter too well.

When other people's children take out sleeping pills, nine times out of ten they're just trying to scare people.

But Qiao Feiyu wouldn't.

She's always been this way since she was little.

They are a person of their word, and once they've made a decision, they never look back.

His daughter's stubbornness was exactly the same as his.

"You can disown me as your daughter," Qiao Feiyu said in a flat voice, "but you can't let me live another twenty years as a walking corpse."

"He's the person I chose myself. Just like you chose Mom back then. I don't need anyone else's approval."

When his deceased wife was mentioned, Qiao Jingtang's eyelids twitched.

A long silence fell over the main hall.

The second hand of the old-fashioned wall clock had completed a full circle.

The cicadas in the yard had all changed their song.

Qiao Jingtang bent down.

He bent over very slowly, his lumbar spine and knees protesting.

His 78-year-old body no longer allowed him to move as nimbly as he had in his youth.

His hand touched the cane on the floor tile, he grasped it, and used it to stand up.

Then he walked up to Qiao Feiyu.

The sound of footsteps, one after another, and the tapping of the cane echoed in the empty main hall.

Qiao Feiyu looked up as her father's shoes appeared in front of her.

Qiao Jingtang raised his right hand.

Qiao Feiyu did not dodge.

She thought her father was going to hit her.

Let her fight; she can take it.

But the hand did not fall.

It hovered in the air for a moment, then gently landed on her head.

I pressed it lightly, as if afraid of breaking something.

The old man's voice was so hoarse that it was almost inaudible.

"Get up, stop kneeling."