Chapter 281: Chapter 281: She Wants to Marry, but My Dad Wouldn’t Marry Her
"Take care, Second Uncle Dong. See you tomorrow. And let me wish you a happy wedding in advance!" Gu Jiaojiao said with a sweet smile.
"Jiaojiao, I’m so sorry. Tomorrow, please bring your father-in-law, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law with you."
Second Uncle Dong said, his face etched with remorse. Looking at his niece, he felt both incredibly proud and deeply ashamed.
Gu Jiaojiao was speechless.
’We aren’t even that close. He doesn’t need to apologize. I only agreed to go to the wedding for the sake of Dong Qiming and Dong Baozhu.’
Seeing Gu Jiaojiao apparently moved to silence, Second Uncle Dong felt even more like a terrible person.
When he first arrived, he’d looked down on his niece. Yet, she had shown him so much respect. Incredibly, even Su Shuochi seemed to follow her lead.
His older sister had always been very good to him, but he’d grown into a boorish man and never repaid her kindness, not even a little, when he had the chance.
He had muddled through most of his life, and his family had never benefited from him in the slightest.
He didn’t even know when his own son and daughter had learned to set up a street stall to earn their own school fees.
And here he was, their father, romancing a woman and getting remarried!
He knew he wasn’t a good father, but he didn’t know what else to do. Before his divorce, he had never done a single chore.
After the divorce, his life was a complete mess. But ever since he met this new woman, she had taken excellent care of him.
She even said she would help him take good care of his children, and her gentle, considerate nature made him happy.
And so, he decided to marry her, because both he and his children needed someone to take care of them.
Lost in these thoughts, Second Uncle Dong had already left the Su family’s home, but he kept looking back at Gu Jiaojiao.
This completely baffled Gu Jiaojiao. ’Second Uncle Dong is being a little unsettling. Does he really feel that indebted to me?’
"Jiaojiao, your uncle really does feel he’s let you down. He’s incredibly guilty," her maternal grandfather said, waiting until Second Uncle Dong was out of earshot.
He had been observing quietly, wanting to see how Jiaojiao truly felt about her uncle.
She was still as pure-hearted as she’d been in her childhood; if someone was kind to her, she was happy.
"I don’t feel like Second Uncle Dong owes me anything. After all... he didn’t know I was his niece before."
Gu Jiaojiao had been about to say they were practically strangers, but looking at her maternal grandfather’s loving gaze, she decided to put it more delicately.
"Grandfather, would you like to rest here at our house? Jiaojiao and I have an errand to run."
Su Shuochi didn’t want his wife driving back alone, and he still had molds to work on.
"No, you two go on ahead. I’m going to find Old Man Xie for a game of chess. I’ll be back after dinner for the acupuncture with the silver needles."
With that, her maternal grandfather left reluctantly. He didn’t really want to play chess, but he would have felt awkward staying at the Su family’s home by himself.
Though he himself had never wronged Jiaojiao, his own daughter had treated her coldly and shown blatant favoritism ever since Yueyue returned.
"Grandfather, let me give you a ride to Grandpa Xie’s house," Gu Jiaojiao offered after helping Su Shuochi into the car and noticing her grandfather watching her with longing eyes.
"You two go on and get busy. I’d like to take a walk and look at the scenery."
"All right, then. Take care." Gu Jiaojiao got into the driver’s seat, started the car, and stepped on the gas, speeding away.
Xiao Lv hadn’t come to pick up his car by nightfall, so Gu Jiaojiao drove her own car home and gave Xiao Lv’s car to Gao Xiangming.
"You can use this car for now. If someone comes to claim it, just give it to them."
"Boss, if no one comes to claim it, does that mean it’s ours to keep?" Gao Xiangming asked hopefully.
"That’s right. Xiao Lv has a nice car. When we make enough money, we’ll buy one like this for you."
Gu Jiaojiao wasn’t just saying it casually. A good boss has to know how to dangle a carrot in front of their employees to get them to work harder.
"This car is nowhere near as nice as yours, Boss. If we’re going to buy one, it should be a car like yours."
Just as Gu Jiaojiao was wondering how to respond, Su Shuochi said calmly, "Why buy one? We’ll be manufacturing our own."
He said it with such a matter-of-fact tone that Gu Jiaojiao almost believed him.
She shook her head with a wry smile. ’Men draw even bigger and more outrageous pies than I do.’
"Awesome! We’ll be waiting, sir!" Gao Xiangming’s eyes lit up, and he grinned cheekily.
He and Sheng Shiwu deftly helped Su Shuochi into the car and made sure he was settled, while Gu Jiaojiao got ready to drive.
Sheng Shiwu had only learned to drive over the summer break, so Gu Jiaojiao didn’t dare let him drive. She would drive herself.
"Third Brother, do you have to go home and cook tonight?" Gu Jiaojiao was implying that if he had to do housework, he shouldn’t be coming to haul bricks with them.
"I don’t have to cook tonight. Aunt Li, who used to cook and clean for us, is back. But I want to go home and have dinner with my dad and my second brother."
"Yeah, you should spend more time with them," Gu Jiaojiao said lamely.
She didn’t know how to comfort him. The Sheng family’s drama was entirely Mrs. Sheng’s own doing; it really had nothing to do with her.
’Women these days are so willful! They’ll stir up trouble in a perfectly good home until it ends in divorce.’
Gu Jiaojiao remembered that even in the future, there were wives who knew full well their husbands treated them poorly.
Even when their husbands were abusive, they would still hesitate, unwilling to divorce. They had invested too much emotionally and had brought children into the world.
So they felt the price of divorce was too high; no matter how much they suffered, they couldn’t bring themselves to get one.
Whoever invests the most, cares the most, and paradoxically, ends up the most powerless. That was a fundamental weakness of human nature.
It was like putting one crab in a basket—it will climb out. But if you put in several crabs, none of them can escape.
Because every time one crab tries to climb out, the others pull it back down.
The "crab effect" was the most typical manifestation of this aspect of human nature in daily life: people dragging each other down.
’If I’m not doing well, then no one around me is allowed to do better. If I can’t climb out, I’ll pull you down to sink with me.’
"Jiaojiao, did you know your Second Uncle Dong is getting remarried?" Sheng Shiwu’s voice broke through Gu Jiaojiao’s thoughts.
"I know. He came to our house at noon today to invite us to the banquet."
"How shameless can he be? He never contacts your family, but now he’s getting remarried and he invites you?"
"I agreed for the sake of Dong Qiming and his sister. Besides, the customary wedding gift isn’t that much money nowadays."
"Then I’ll sit at your table tomorrow. He invited us too, but my dad won’t go, and my second brother can’t go because he’s in a wheelchair."
Sheng Shiwu rambled on, telling Gu Jiaojiao that ever since his parents divorced, Ren Xiaofang had been constantly finding excuses to see his dad, always bringing something over or asking to borrow something.
"She’s not trying to marry your dad, is she?!" Gu Jiaojiao was stunned. Even if Ren Xiaofang dared to divorce with the intent to remarry, Mr. Sheng wouldn’t dare marry her.
After all, Ren Xiaofang’s current husband was from the same generation as Mr. Sheng’s own uncle, and they were neighbors on top of that.
"She might want to marry him, but my dad would never have her. He told her to her face that he wasn’t interested in her even when they were young."
My dad even warned her, ’Mrs. Dong, you’d best stop coming over to our house, or Uncle Dong might get upset.’
That sent her running off in tears, and she never came to our house again."
