As Ye Jiu stepped through the front gate, someone hastened to report, "Old Madam, Old Madam, the fifth young lady is back..."
Everyone knew that Ye Jiu was the apple of Madam He's eye. Last night, despite the late hour, they didn't manage to stop the Old Madam from going out to find her daughter.
Although they didn't understand why Ye Jiu hadn't returned with her in the end, the moment Ye Jiu appeared, naturally, there was no shortage of people rushing to inform.
Upon hearing the news of Ye Jiu's return, Madam He excitedly sat up from her kàng, put aside the needlework she was doing, put on her shoes, and headed outside.
However, upon reaching the doorway, she suddenly came back to her senses, and her originally joyful expression quickly turned somber and tinged with bitterness.
Madam He walked back to the kàng and took off her shoes to sit back down, but she busied herself with something to do, afraid that she might suddenly grow soft-hearted. She picked up her needlework and continued sewing.
When Ye Jiu entered, her face was filled with joy as usual, as if the events of the previous night were but an illusion—just a dream they had shared. With the dream over, one could pretend as if nothing had happened.
However, her tightly clasped hands betrayed her true emotions at that moment.
"Mother, are you sewing clothes?" Ye Jiu approached, trying to make conversation.
Madam He replied coldly, "Didn't I tell you to go with your birth father and never come back? Why are you back here again?"
"I can't bear to leave you and father," said Ye Jiu, her expression sorrowful.
Madam He's eyes suddenly reddened, and she forced herself to turn her head to one side, secretly wiping away her tears.
Turning back around, Madam He said, "We're not blood, so stop calling me that from now on."
Ye Jiu took a deep breath and suddenly knelt on the ground. "The grace of upbringing is greater than the grace of birth. They gave me my first life but also took half of it away. I owe them nothing. However, in my heart, I vividly remember it was father and mother who gave me a second life, who bore the pressure and took care of me for decades, allowing me the opportunity to live in this world."
"Mother, you might think you just raised me, but for me, what you've given is not merely the grace of upbringing. Without you, I wouldn't have had the chance to survive, and even if I had, I would not be the Ye Jiu that I am now," Ye Jiu continued, melancholy. Content orıginally comes from 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩~𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢~𝔫𝔢𝔱
Ye Jiu's heart was extremely fragile—once poisoned and left incapacitated, simple movements were a struggle, and she had endured abandonment time after time. Back then, Ye Jiu despised the whole world.
It was Madam He who tirelessly cared for her, even straining the labor of the entire household, just to keep her alive.
To the other members of the Ye Family, Madam He was an unreasonable and harsh old lady, but to Ye Jiu, without Madam He's harshness, there would have been no chance for her to survive.
After Ye Jiu finished speaking, Madam He could no longer hold back, her voice choked with emotion.
Ye Jiu said that Madam He was her redemption, but isn't she also Madam He's redemption!
Back then, Madam He had just outlived Old Madam Ye, ending her life of being exploited by the Ye Family, but then she encountered a natural disaster.
The continuous toil made her, heavily pregnant at the time, almost lose hope of survival.
Because, for her, life was a disaster, with nothing but pain given by others, except for a few short years of happiness in her youth.
It was her daughter's birth that gave her the hope to keep persevering.