Hearing this, Jiang Tong silently leaned against the side of the sofa and said, "I’m sorry."
Seeing her like this, Xia Qiao shrugged indifferently and comforted her, "Alright, stop worrying about all these things, I don’t want you to get upset as well."
Every family has its own difficulties, and even if Jiang Tong wanted to intervene, she couldn’t really help much.
It’s better for Xia Qiao to handle these things alone.
With her words, the topic quickly came to an end.
The two of them tacitly switched to other topics and chatted about embarrassing high school incidents for a while before going to sleep.
...
The next morning, sunlight spilled onto the floor-to-ceiling windows of the master bedroom.
Jiang Tong rubbed her eyes and, still sleepy, kneeled on the bed.
Since she was in charge of entertaining Chen Changlu yesterday, Xu Rongguang generously gave her a day off.
Rarely having a day off, Jiang Tong struggled to get up and changed into a set of casual clothes.
Xia Qiao was nowhere to be seen early in the morning; she had likely gone to the hospital to care for her father.
On the dining table, there was breakfast left for her, a simple meal of fried eggs and lean pork congee, all her favorites.
Indeed.
Xia Qiao still treats her well.
A simple breakfast moved Jiang Tong to tears, making her sniffle.
After finishing her breakfast and tidying the dishes.
She drove slowly towards the old city in the south.
This is an old district within Beijing, and it’s indeed a miracle that such a small urban area can survive as the center.
This time, Jiang Tong planned to visit a group of retired teachers there.
She discovered these retired teachers during a city-wide legal survey last time.
Somehow, they started chatting, and Jiang Tong ended up using her salary to support them.
For her, this group of elderly people had become her family.
"Xiao Tong, you’re here!"
As soon as she stepped into the narrow alley where they lived, Grandma Liu, who lived in the room near the entrance, greeted her with a smile.
Jiang Tong, carrying a grocery bag, greeted her back, "Hello, Grandma Liu. Where’s Grandpa Zhang?"
"Old Zhang? He’s in his little shabby room doing research, even at his age, he still thinks he can be like those young people."
These people were used to bantering with each other, something Jiang Tong had grown accustomed to.
Zhang Haining was a retired chemistry teacher, but he seemed somewhat different from ordinary chemistry teachers.
Because none of the research data he worked on had Jiang Tong ever seen before.
But every time, Zhang Haining would smile and explain to her that he was just making things up, so she wouldn’t understand.
Jiang Tong majored in law in college and hadn’t been in touch with chemical engineering stuff for a long time, so she could only nod along, somewhat cluelessly.
"Xiao Tong, why are you just coming now? Have you been busy lately?"
A woman dressed in a qipao slowly emerged from the alley entrance. Although her hair was grey, her aura remained undiminished.
"Grandma Lu."
Jiang Tong smiled, revealing two little tiger teeth, and approached Lu Juan.
Lu Juan lightly tapped her on the head, chuckling, "You, you, not visiting us old ladies and old folks for all these days, I thought you’d forgotten about us."
"How could I! It’s just that there have been a lot of prosecutions recently. As soon as I had a day off, I rushed over to see you all!" Jiang Tong said, holding onto Lu Juan’s arm and shaking it.
Only in front of her would she show such a childlike side.