Qi Qingyao looked up, lost in thought, her gaze seemingly staring into the distance. After a while, she murmured, “Everything that she could remember is within my mind.”
After saying that, she set Xiaobao on the seat opposite her. She spoke slowly and with seriousness, as if they were both adults, “Now you have only two paths you can take.”
The children looked up at her with teary eyes.
“First, if you think I’m not worthy of being your mother, please return to your grandfather, Old Man Qi. I won’t hold it against you.”
“For the second path, you can come with me. I will not marry anyone in this life and will take good care of the three of you until you grow up to be adults, although I might die before that happens… This world is very dangerous after all. There are many powerful people in this world and many dangers out there. I don’t think I can live more than ten years in peace… Perhaps…”
Xiaobao immediately interrupted her, “You can’t die! Don’t talk about such things!”
“Fine, I won’t talk about dying anymore.”
Those teary eyes were so pitiful. Qi Qingyao, on the other hand, remained calm.
“Don’t worry. Even if I die, I’ll have your futures all planned out well in advance.”
“Actually, if you don’t think I’m worthy of being your mother and also don’t want to return to the Qi family, there is still a third path. I can find a decent village, locate a kind-hearted couple who can’t have kids, give them a large sum of money and then have them take care of you. This is quite a good option too. In my hometown, those people who couldn’t have children often did that.”
“No, no, no,” Xiaobao pounced onto her lap again. His tiny fists caught the hem of her dress and he said determinedly, “You’re my mother! God sent you here to save us!”
“Mother!” Dabao and Erniu pounced over too, like little cannon balls.
Erniu pouted; her eyes were filled with tears, “I don’t want to leave Mother. You have all her memories, so you’re her!”
“Uwaaaah, I don’t wanna leave Mother!” Dabao wiped all his snot and tears on Qi Qingyao.
Qi Qingyao affectionately patted their soft backs and said gently, “I won’t marry in the future. I’ll definitely take good care of you all and try my best to have you grow up happily, my babies.”
“Mother~~~” The children called unanimously.
“Good boys and girls!” Qi Qingyao replied.
“We’ll be your good boys and girls forever!” Xiaobao said softly and cutely from where he was in her lap.
Qi Qingyao smiled. “You’ll have to keep this a secret for me then. Everything we talked about just now is a secret between the four of us!”
“We’ll keep this a secret forever.” The children all looked up at the same time and said seriously.
…
Jiang Yeqian reclined on a willow tree a distance away from the carriage.
He looked at the carriage from afar.
He heard the conversation going on in the carriage very clearly.
Everything…
This made him lose his composure slightly.
He took the Bull-head mask out from inside his clothes and put it on casually, covering his face.
Under the mask, his dark eyes gleamed mysteriously. His eyes were filled with incredulity as he thought about the conversation going on in the carriage.
He had not expected her to talk about this topic so openly with the children and tell them, just like that, that she was not their mother.
She had treated her children as if they were adults; she respected their decisions when they talked about serious topics.
She had given them the chance to choose if they wanted to stay or leave.
The children wanted her as a mother though.
At this thought, Jiang Yeqian smiled.
Reincarnation, huh…
This woman was really so, so interesting.