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

These memories flashed through my mind like a revolving lantern at this moment.

Then the image of someone kneeling through the crack in the door shattered my illusion.

She found herself crying.

Tears streamed down my face uncontrollably.

She wasn't crying about betrayal.

To be honest, the word "betrayal" hasn't yet taken shape in her mind.

Her brain hadn't had time to make such a complex moral judgment.

She wasn't crying because she felt nauseous.

The fact that a mother knelt before a man and called him "master" is shocking and incomprehensible.

Strangely, it did not cause Qiao Jinlin any physiological aversion.

Perhaps it was because she herself had witnessed Han Yunmei doing something similar, and her reaction at the time was...more curiosity than aversion.

She was crying about something else entirely.

Something that is hard to explain or describe.

She suddenly realized something.

My mother has never been with a man in the past eighteen years.

Not even once.

She used to think it was because her mother was too strong, so strong that she didn't need a man.

Now she knows.

It's not that we don't need it, it's that we can't.

The reasons for this "cannot" are complex, including family face, official rules, protection for the daughter, and certain desires that the mother herself dares not face.

Eighteen years.

She was only twenty years old, while her mother had been supporting her alone for eighteen years.

"Are you stupid?" Qiao Jinlin said in a hoarse voice.

The sentence is disjointed and the subject is unclear.

You could interpret it as her calling her mother stupid, or you could interpret it as her calling herself stupid... stupid for only realizing it today.

Qiao Feiyu did not answer.

She knelt there, tears streaming down her face.

The mother and daughter were crying; one was sitting on the ground, and the other was kneeling on the ground, crying.

The scene was indescribably absurd.

Ning Xiuyang waited for a long time.

It went on for so long that he could hear birds chirping outside the window.

In the autumn of Beijing, birds begin to sing as early as four or five in the morning.

Qiao Jingtang's courtyard house had two pomegranate trees and a jujube tree, and many birds lived in the trees.

He assessed the situation and then walked from the desk to Qiao Jinlin.

He knelt down in front of her.

He squatted on one knee, with one hand on his knee, his eyes level with Qiao Jinlin's.

"Jinlin".

Qiao Jinlin looked at him with red eyes.

"You can hate me," Ning Xiuyang said slowly, each word clear and distinct, "but don't blame your mother."

"She's a normal woman too. Everyone has joys and sorrows, happiness and resentment. It was fate that brought us together."

Qiao Jinlin's lips moved a few times.

I have something to say, but I can't say it.

Or rather, there's so much to say that I don't know where to begin.

In the end, she chose the most direct one.

"Get out."

Her voice was hoarse, but the meaning was clear.

"I need to talk to my mom alone."

Ning Xiuyang looked at her for three seconds.

Then he stood up and walked towards the door.

He paused briefly as he passed by Qiao Feiyu.

He didn't speak, but just looked down at Qiao Feiyu.

Qiao Feiyu did not look up.

But her shoulder twitched slightly... a very small movement... indicating that she understood.

The door opened and then closed.

The corridor was dark, with only one wall lamp lit at the end.

The lamps Qiao Jingtang used were all warm, dim yellow, which cast an old photograph-like effect on the mahogany window frames.

Ning Xiuyang stood in the corridor for about two minutes.

He could faintly hear hushed voices behind the door.

I can't make out the content, but I can hear the rhythm...

Qiao Jinlin would say a sentence, and Qiao Feiyu would reply with a sentence.

Interspersed among them were occasional sobs.

He turned and walked back to his room.

The lights were off.

Moonlight streamed in through the window, casting a milky-white quadrilateral on the wooden floor.

Ning Xiuyang sat on the edge of the bed and picked up his phone to check the time.

03: 17.

He put down his phone, placed his hands on his knees, leaned forward, and stared at the tips of his shoes.

He was reviewing the situation.

Judging from the outcome, tonight's events were not within his plan.

His original optimal plan was to first deal with Qiao Jingtang, and then let Qiao Jinlin know about it in a more dignified way and at a more appropriate time.

Instead of being broken into by an unlocked door at three in the morning.

But he didn't regret coming to Qiao Feiyu's room.

In fact, if he didn't come tonight, the emotions that Qiao Feiyu had vented in front of his father during the day would have no outlet, which would be a bigger problem.

The only issue is that the door wasn't locked...

He closed his eyes briefly.

Admittedly, this was his oversight.

Or rather, it was Qiao Feiyu's oversight.

But it's pointless to try and figure out whose fault it was. What's done is done.

There's only one question now: Qiao Jinlin's reaction.

He went through all the behavioral patterns of this twenty-year-old girl from the time they met until now.

Her frankness on the archery range, her stubborn insistence on paying compensation after the car accident, her saying "I need time" instead of crying and breaking up after knowing he had many women around him, and tonight...

Tonight, her first reaction wasn't to smash things, to be hysterical, or to run out, but rather, "Get out of here, I need to talk to my mom alone."

This level of judgment, appearing in a girl who has just turned twenty and has just experienced the biggest cognitive shock of her life, can only mean two things...

foundation.

The foundation that Qiao Jingtang cultivated.

Ning Xiuyang let out a long breath.

He looked at the moon outside the window, his heart hanging in suspense.

He knew that tonight's outcome would determine the future of him and the entire Qiao family.

But the outcome was not in his control.

……

Only the two of them remained in the room.

Qiao Jinlin got up from the ground and sat down on the edge of the bed.

But then I felt that sitting on the bed wasn't right... It was too comfortable, and it didn't match my mood at the moment.

She moved to the corner, leaned against the wall, tucked her knees to her chest, and wrapped her arms around her calves.

Qiao Feiyu changed from a kneeling position to a sitting position.

She didn't get into bed or sit in a chair; she just sat cross-legged on the carpet, about a meter away from her daughter.

Not far away.

But they didn't dare get any closer.

Neither of them spoke.

Qiao Jinlin didn't know how long the clock in the room had been gone.

She only felt that the ticking sound was particularly loud.

Things that you would never normally notice are magnified infinitely in this quiet.

Qiao Jinlin spoke first.

His voice was hoarse.

It's like a dull saw trying to pull a wooden board.

"How long has it been?"

Three words.

Qiao Feiyu answered quickly, as if he had been prepared for it.

"Even before you knew him."

Qiao Jinlin closed his eyes briefly.

What does this mean?

This means that on the day her Aston Martin was shot by Old Wang, when she met Ning Xiuyang on the roadside...

No, even earlier... her mother already had some kind of relationship with this person.

That's why her mother told her not to associate with Ning Xiuyang.

That's why her mother's attitude suddenly changed 180 degrees after she found out that she had fallen for Ning Xiuyang.

It's not a turn.

It's about making way.

"At first you wouldn't let me have any contact with him," Qiao Jinlin's voice trailed off, "but then you stopped stopping me. Which one is the real one?"

"It's all true." Qiao Feiyu's voice was low but clear. "The reason I didn't let you have contact with him was because Mom knew he had many women around him. Later, she stopped stopping you because..."

She paused for a moment.

"It's because Mom can't stop herself, and she can't stop you either."