The facts had already proved that they were alone. They could never depend on the Feng family to give them a good life. In fact, the Feng family had nearly thrown her daughter into a fiery pit. With a family like that, why would Feng Cheng be willing to give up her only daughter for her family?

  Feng Cheng could not be clearer about distance and importance of relatives at this point.

  After distancing herself from the Feng family, the Feng family seemed to treat Feng Cheng and Shi Qing with greater respect and spoke cautiously as though they were their ancestors.

  The more her family did that, the more united Feng Cheng and Shi Qing were. Did the Feng family need a favor from her daughter? Of course, they had a right to talk about it, but it would be her daughter’s decision whether she would help them. She would not try to interfere in the matter. As such, the Feng family could not possibly accuse her of not treating the Feng family as her family.

  Qing Qing was the most important to her. If the Feng family were to neglect Qing Qing, they could take it as though she did not exist and was not part of the Feng family.

  In short, the mother and daughter were alone. That was why they had to band together so that no one, not even their ‘relatives’, would be able to bully them.

  \r \r \r

  Once Feng Cheng’s attitude changed, the Feng family immediately became helpless. As such, they could only treat Feng Cheng and Shi Qing politely, and of course, there was no way they could try to control Shi Qing’s life to their advantage anymore.

  Without Shi Peng, Shi Qing had managed to rise up from the ashes to stand back up on her own feet by her own abilities, even propping the entire Shi family up. Shi Qing was the pillar of the Shi family. She would not need to depend on anyone, much less the Feng family. She was an independent individual!

  Shi Qing had grown from a young girl who knew nothing about the world into a female general whom everyone, including the Feng family, looked up to. Shi Qing was the only one who knew how hard it had been along the way. As such, Shi Qing’s reputation had been rather good in her circle of acquaintances even though she was the only one left in her family, and she had become the ‘other people’s children’ that others often talked about.

  Most people only envied Shi Qing’s success, but a good friend like Zhai Hua felt bad for Shi Qing for all the suffering she had gone through while she had been forced to grow up. Everyone had to pay a price while growing up. Often, this was not a small price. One had to be like a knight, cutting through the thorns until one was riddled with injuries so as to grow through those experiences.

  Shi Qing smiled. “We haven’t been in contact for such a long time but you’re still willing to acknowledge me as your younger sister. It seems that I was a little too much for never coming to visit you.” It was not that she had not wanted to visit. She had not dared to do so. Just hearing about what had happened to Brother Zhai, she had almost felt that her young heart was still beating for Brother Zhai.

  But even before Zhai Sheng had married Qiu Chenxi, Shi Qing had already realized one thing. Even if Zhai Sheng had not married Qiu Chenxi, and Qiu Chenxi had never appeared, Zhai Sheng would never have married her. In Zhai Sheng’s eyes, she was the same as Zhai Hua. She was simply Zhai Sheng’s younger sister. How could a brother develop romantic feelings for his own sister?

  After realizing that, Shi Qing could only try to control her own heart and distance herself from Zhai Sheng in case she fell even deeper for him. Now that Zhai Sheng was getting married again, Shi Qing wanted to see for herself if Zhai Sheng would be able to gain happiness so that she would finally be able to give up on him.

  “Don’t worry. I’m older than you. I won’t take issue with such a trivial matter.” Zhai Hua hugged Shi Qing’s shoulder, magnanimously declaring that she would not care about that. Zhai Hua knew how Shi Qing felt toward Zhai Sheng.

  Before Zhai Sheng had married Qiu Chenxi, Zhai Hua had given Zhai Sheng a suggestion because she could not stand Qiu Chenxi and Qi Minlan. If he was going to get married, he might as well marry Shi Qing. No matter what, Qiu Chenxi had only gotten close to the Zhai family because of Qi Minlan, who had been their mother’s love rival. Instead of marrying the daughter of their mother’s love rival, he might as well marry their master’s daughter instead.

  Qi Minlan was Zhai Sheng’s master’s younger sister. That made for quite a close relationship.

  Of course, Zhai Sheng had not agreed to Zhai Hua’s suggestion. Zhai Sheng simply repeated what he had told Shi Qing to Zhai Hua. He did not have any feelings for Qiu Chenxi, whom he treated as a stranger. On the contrary, he did have feelings for Shi Qing, but Shi Qing was nothing more than a sister to him.

  As such, there was no way he could have such a relationship with Shi Qing.

  “Mom, who’s this auntie?” Seeing that Zhai Hua was chatting joyfully with Shi Qing, Jiajia drew closer to Zhai Hua and tugged on her arm, wanting her to introduce Shi Qing.

  Zhai Hua smiled as she caressed Jiajia’s head. “Shi Qing, this is my daughter, Jiajia. Jiajia, this is Auntie Shi Qing. We played together when we were younger. Now, she’s a female general and I can tell you very proudly that I was the one who made her this way.”

  “Wow, she’s amazing!” Jiajia’s eyes widened. Zhai Hua had been passionate about the military and so had Wei De. With such parents, Jiajia was naturally influenced and had a different mindset toward the military. Upon hearing that Shi Qing was a rare female general, and an exceptional one at that, Jiajia nearly became starry-eyed. “Hello, Auntie Shi Qing, I’m Jiajia. I just graduated from junior high school. When I grow up, I want to go to the military just like you and become an exceptional soldier.”

  A female general was so cool!

  “You want to join the military too?” Shi Qing raised her eyebrow. “You resemble your mom in that aspect.” She wondered if this child would follow in Sister Zhai Hua’s footsteps, abandoning her ideals and passion for so-called ‘love’ and ‘marriage’.

  Zhai Hua stopped Jiajia. “Don’t talk nonsense. What do you mean by joining the military? Didn’t you say that you want to be a doctor?” She treated her daughter in a different way from the way she treated herself.

  Zhai Hua enjoyed being in the military, but that was a tough life. Society might be more peaceful now, but there were many other factors that could destabilize this peace both locally and abroad. As such, a soldier could be sent on a mission at any time. Then, whether or not a soldier would be able to return would depend firstly on his ability, and secondly, his luck.

  Apart from her family, Zhai Hua had only Jiajia left. There was no way Zhai Hua would allow her only daughter to take such a risk or suffer to become even stronger than ordinary women. It’d be better for her daughter to get a normal job and live peacefully for the rest of her life.