Chapter 623 - 230: Loved Ones Meet
Chapter 623: Chapter 230: Loved Ones Meet
Xu Su Ying was being dressed by her daughter. Her eyes were so heavy with sleep she could barely keep them open, and she slumped entirely onto Chen Wanqing.
"There are only thirty miles left. We could travel by evening and still reach the Capital City. There’s no need to wake up so early. Be a good girl, Mom is too tired. Let me sleep a little longer."
Chen Wanqing spoke softly to her mother. "It’s not that I won’t let you sleep. It’s that my grandmother has come in person to pick you up."
It was a simple sentence, yet it struck with the force of a thunderbolt.
Xu Su Ying’s muddled thoughts instantly cleared, and her eyelids, which had felt glued shut, sprang open.
Still unable to believe it, she asked blankly, "Sweetheart, who did you say came?"
"You heard me right. My grandmother came to pick you up. Early this morning, the news of you clearing your name spread to the Capital City. She must have heard the news and rushed over immediately."
It was only late morning now. The elderly woman must have left her home the moment she received the message, traveling at full speed to arrive precisely at this hour.
But it went without saying that a fast-moving carriage would be terribly bumpy. At over sixty years old and with her chronically poor health, the rushing journey must have taken a harsh toll on her.
"Mom, don’t just sit there in a daze, get up quickly. When I came in, the servant delivering the message said my grandmother was almost at the station’s entrance. She should be here by now. Uncle Shiling and Dad went to greet her, but it won’t take them long."
Right now, even if someone placed a golden Bodhisattva statue directly in front of her grandmother, the elderly woman wouldn’t spare it a second glance. To a mother, nothing was more captivating than the daughter she hadn’t seen in years.
Hearing this, Xu Su Ying stopped dawdling.
She tried to fasten the frog closures on her clothes, but her hands were shaking so much that the knots simply wouldn’t slide into place.
Even her throat felt as if it were stuffed with cotton, making it hard to breathe and difficult to swallow.
For a rare moment, Xu Su Ying’s heart pounded with nervous anticipation. She was actually experiencing the overwhelming anxiety of finally coming home.
Even though Shiling had emphasized several times before that they were nearing the Capital City and would soon see their parents and family, she had felt nothing.
But at this moment, the suffocation, the twisting in her chest, the intense apprehension—it all rushed over her like a tidal wave, causing Xu Su Ying to lose her usual composure.
Chen Wanqing noticed, but she didn’t tease her mother. She quickly finished fastening the buttons and helped her into her shoes and socks.
Once everything was done, Chen Wanqing took her mother’s hand. "Mom, it’s done. Let’s head outside."
"Oh. Right, okay."
Just as she spoke, a flurry of footsteps entered the courtyard.
The courtyard wasn’t large, so Xu Shiling’s voice easily reached the mother and daughter in the room.
"Mom, slow down, be careful not to fall. You’re getting on in years—if you trip and hurt yourself, Dad will skin me alive.
"Mom, can you even see the path? Watch out, don’t walk into the wall..."
Then came an elderly but gentle voice. "You rascal, get out of my way. Your sister’s husband, your nephew, and your niece’s husband are all here, so I’m saving you some face. If you keep spouting nonsense, I’ll have your oldest brother beat you.
"Get out of the way. I don’t want to look at you today. I’m looking for my daughter..."
The gentle voice was both familiar and foreign, seemingly crossing twenty years of time to suddenly pierce Xu Su Ying’s eardrums.
Her scalp throbbed with pain, and her head swelled in waves. It felt as though something was trying to burrow out of her brain, tugging at the nerves throughout her entire body until they tangled into knots.
Xu Su Ying knew she couldn’t afford to think any deeper, or else her illness would flare up again.
She worked hard to steady her thoughts and kept her breathing from becoming too heavy. Then, taking the distance in long strides, she rushed to the door and pulled it open—
Brilliant sunlight cascaded down, bathing the figure outside in a blinding, dazzling glow.
She looked as if she had stepped right out of the light, an extra gift bestowed by the heavens.
The elderly lady of the Xu family stared fixedly at the person standing in the sunlight.
Her eyesight had long been failing, to the point where she couldn’t even see people clearly from a short distance away. Yet at this moment, as she looked at the dazzling golden light and the woman standing within it, everything suddenly became crystal clear.
That was her daughter. That was her Suying.
The old lady struggled out of everyone’s supportive grasp and stumbled forward. "Suying, my Suying, my daughter!"
Though the elderly woman’s voice wasn’t loud, it was laced with the utmost sorrow.
That slurred and aged voice wept blood with every word, sobbing tears with every sentence. Each and every cry was a condemnation of their twenty years of separation, bearing all the desperate longing and despair that had haunted her midnight dreams.
Her daughter—the daughter she had treasured beyond measure and coddled since infancy—had been missing, her fate completely unknown, for two whole decades.