Chapter 352 - 309: Real Parents
Chapter 352: Chapter 309: Real Parents
Later, Grandma told Xiao Man, "You can actually tell if someone’s related with just one glance!"
Jiabao was their first child, born when her love for Grandpa was at its strongest. His birth brought them endless joy and happiness, and they cherished him beyond measure. During that first month, they would spend their free time just holding him and gazing at his face. Jiabao was a very well-behaved baby. He would be awake to play with his parents for a bit during the day, and at night he slept soundly, never fussing or crying. He didn’t have any obvious birthmarks. After losing their son, Grandpa and Grandma were frantic and heartbroken. The more they missed him, the more his face and smile seemed to fade from memory. In reality, his every expression was deeply etched in their minds, but the pain, compounded by the passage of time, had buried those memories.
But when they walked into the hospital room and saw that man smile at his children, some of those memories came flooding back. Grandpa and Grandma both remembered: their baby had a distinct dimple on his left cheek.
Grandma even saw a resemblance to her own younger brother in his swollen face. Just as the old saying goes: a nephew takes after his maternal uncle!
There was another, more important detail that Xiao Man herself noticed: this "Jiabao’s" voice was identical to Grandpa’s!
Genetics are a wondrous thing!
Tang Qingyun had noticed this as well, but he had his reasons for not mentioning it earlier.
"Jiabao" was incredibly emotional, but he was more hesitant than anyone and didn’t dare to rashly accept them as his family. Wiping away his tears, he said over and over, "I’m so grateful to you for saving my life. I’ll definitely repay you! But... I really don’t know if we’re actually related. What if we aren’t? I want to find my real mom and dad..."
But Grandma grew strong in that moment. She took his less injured hand and asked what had become of that vile couple, Hu Laosan and his wife. "Are they dead?" Grandma described their features, saying that for years, she had dreamed of killing the pair of thieves. They had stolen her child while she was out washing and hanging diapers to dry, causing her to cry herself blind for more than ten years and sentencing her and Grandpa to a lifetime of agony!
Then Grandpa pulled the two children closer and, with tears in his eyes, finally spoke. "Jiabao... I really am your father. This is your mother. You’re our only child! The two of us fled from the North back to the South, and you were born on the road... You had just passed your first month when that thieving couple, Hu Laosan and his wife, stole you away. Your mother cried her eyes out for you... This year, you should be forty-one years old!"
"Jiabao" finally believed them. He broke down in tears again and tried to struggle up to kowtow to his parents. Grandma quickly pushed him back down and gestured for his wife to help. But the woman understood her husband’s intentions. She first helped Grandpa and Grandma into their seats, then pulled her two children forward to kneel properly on the ground and give the old couple three resounding kowtows.
"Dad, Mom," Jiabao cried, "I’ll make it up to you when I’m better. From now on, I’ll never leave you again!"
Grandma went to help the mother and her two children up. She patted the children’s heads and said through clenched teeth, "You are my son. If anyone tries to take you from me again, I’ll fight them to the death!"
"No, no, no one’s going to take me away. Even if they tried, I wouldn’t go!" Mo Jiabao quickly reassured Grandma. "Hu Laosan can forget about me ever acknowledging him! That... that woman, Mrs. Hu, she died much earlier. She died of an illness when I was seven. She only had time to tell me that she wasn’t my real mother. She said my real family was connected to this jade lock and told me to hide it so no one could take it, and to use it to find my real parents one day. She passed away after saying just that. I had no idea where my real parents were. After I grew up, I asked Hu Laosan about it, but he just tricked me into working like a slave for his family and refused to tell me the truth."
Grandma sighed, her voice full of pity. "My child, you’ve suffered so much, haven’t you?"
Mo Jiabao shook his head. "It wasn’t that bad. It’s all in the past. Now that I’ve found my real parents, my whole life has been worth it!"
He pointed to his two children and his wife. "These are my fourth and fifth, and this is their mother, Yu Wumei. There was a famine in her hometown, and her parents and brother were going to trade her for grain by marrying her off to an old man. She refused and ran all the way to our village, where she fell gravely ill. I carried her on my back to get treatment. After she recovered, she agreed to marry me, and we became husband and wife. We had five children in total, but we were too poor. Our second son got sick, and we had no money for medicine, so we could only watch as he died. Our eldest, Xinghua, is a capable and wonderful girl, but that black-hearted Old Mrs. Hu sold her off. I brought the whole family out to search for her, but who would have thought... we lost our third child on the road... I’m a useless father!"
Mo Jiabao choked up, unable to continue.
Xiao Man sighed. She took the fruit from the basket and divided it between the fourth and fifth child. Then she handed cups of cooled water to Grandpa, Grandma, and Yu Wumei. She was about to get another cup for Mo Jiabao, but Grandpa didn’t drink his. He took his cup over to give Mo Jiabao a sip. "Jiabao, don’t be sad," he said. "You have a mom and dad now. No matter how difficult things get, we will share the burden with you! We can only remember our second grandson now, but we absolutely must find your eldest and third children!"
"Dad..." Mo Jiabao leaned into Grandpa’s embrace and began to wail, letting all his grief pour out.
Yu Wumei silently wiped away her tears. Grandma took her hand and asked, "Tell me, what happened to your eldest? And who is this Old Mrs. Hu?"
"Mom, it’s a long story."
"That’s all right. Take your time and tell me."
With tears in her eyes, Yu Wumei began. "When Hu Laosan and his wife stole Jiabao from his real parents, it must have been that Mrs. Hu’s idea, since she was barren. She genuinely treated Jiabao as her own son and was pretty good to him. But Hu Laosan went and had a son with a young widow and brought the child home. The couple fought constantly, and eventually, the secret that Jiabao wasn’t their biological child got out. When Hu Laosan’s parents found out, they let the widow formally move in with him. Mrs. Hu was forced to either return to her parents’ home with Jiabao or live in a small hut in the outer courtyard. Her own family wasn’t wealthy; they couldn’t possibly take her in. So she had to just get by with Jiabao. When he was seven, she died from an illness.
Meanwhile, Hu Laosan and his new wife had four or five more children of their own. Why would they care about Jiabao? The only reason Hu Laosan kept him around was to try and trick him into selling the jade lock for cash. But even as a little boy, Jiabao knew that if he lost the jade lock, he would never find his real parents. He hid it away and wouldn’t give it to them, even if they beat him to death. That evil couple worked him like an ox, never giving him enough to eat or warm clothes to wear. He didn’t have a family of his own until he met me at twenty-five. We moved out of the Hu Family Courtyard, built a small thatched hut, and eventually managed to build a three-room mud-brick house. Our children were born one after another, and for a while, we had a peaceful life.
But then, Hu Laosan’s two oldest sons were gored to death by a wild boar while they were out trapping animals. He still had three younger children who needed to get married and go to school. That’s when Hu Laosan began insisting that Jiabao was his eldest son and demanded that we move back in. When we refused, he threw a fit, crying and shouting, and even got the village party secretary and the production team leaders to pressure us. In the end, he set fire to our house in the middle of the night. It was the dead of winter; the children couldn’t stand the cold, so we had no choice but to move back. From then on, my husband and I worked ourselves to death every day, earning work points to support all of Hu Laosan’s family. We paid for his children to marry and go to school, while our own young children couldn’t get an education and were stuck at home doing all the chores. And that Old Mrs. Hu... she would beat and scream at them for no reason at all..."