Thankfully, one didn’t air dirty linen in public. If people knew that she had such parents, it would be absolutely embarrassing.

  Ding Jiayi scratched her head. “The problem is that your father accepted the two hundred thousand yuan but is still giving me this attitude. What does that mean?” If Old Qiao didn’t take the two hundred thousand yuan, she wouldn’t have felt so terrible now. By accepting the money, didn’t that mean he had forgiven her and no longer wanted to argue with her?

  “How would I know?!” The more Ding Jiayi said, the angrier Qiao Zijin felt. In her eyes, Ding Jiayi and Qiao Dongliang were birds of the same feather. Their greedy faces were equally ugly. When she refused to fork out money before, her mom even argued with her.

  Great. Now, her dad accepted the two hundred thousand yuan but didn’t have the intention to reconcile with her mom. So, what was the point of her mom throwing tantrums at her for about a month previously? “Mom, aside from money, don’t you have other ways to coax my dad?”

  Qiao Zijin didn’t want to care about Ding Jiayi’s and Qiao Dongliang’s matters. She didn’t care if her parents were on good terms or not. The only thing she cared about was now that her parents’ relationship was like this, would the two of them still be able to wholeheartedly help her improve her relationship with Qiao Nan such that once Qiao Nan didn’t survive after giving birth, they would help her persuade Qiao Nan to let Zhai Sheng marry her and for her to take care of Qiao Nan’s three children?

  It had been almost two years since she got a divorce from Chen Jun. It wasn’t easy for Qiao Zijin to finally find the best way out for herself. As such, she really didn’t want to give up on this best way.

  \r \r \r

  Once this matter succeeded, her second marriage would only become more successful than the first. It would also be more enviable. How many people’s first marriages could be compared to her second marriage, let alone their second marriages?

  “How do I know?” Ding Jiayi didn’t know what to do either. Over the years, it had always been Qiao Dongliang coaxing Ding Jiayi. Ding Jiayi had never coaxed Qiao Dongliang before. She saw how it was always the husband scolding the wife in other people’s houses. In their house, Qiao Dongliang rarely threw temper at her. He wasn’t like her dad, who always laid a hand on his wife when he was in a bad mood.

  Upon thinking that her mom was beaten up by her dad before but Qiao Dongliang never touched even a single strand of her hair, Ding Jiayi was proud of this marriage. It was until last year that Qiao Dongliang broke the habit of never laying a hand on Ding Jiayi and beat her up.

  “You don’t know. Apart from not knowing anything, can you say something else? Qiao Nan is only close to Dad now. If Dad doesn’t help us, our previous discussion would be for nothing. Dad has to help me in this matter.” From the way Qiao Nan only kept in contact with their dad, it wasn’t hard to tell that among all the people in the Qiao family, Qiao Nan only had a little bit of affection toward Qiao Dongliang, her birth dad.

  In that case, Qiao Nan would definitely not listen to her mom’s and her words. In the entire family, only her dad could possibly persuade Qiao Nan.

  “Don’t be anxious. Isn’t there a few more months?” It wasn’t as if Qiao Nan was going to die the next day. There wasn’t a need to be so much in a hurry. “You should know how your dad’s temper is like. At least, your dad has already accepted the two hundred thousand yuan. This could be considered a good start. At the very most, both of us could be more united in the future and continue to coax him. No matter how bad-tempered your dad is, he would be appeased one day as well. When your dad’s attitude softens, it will be easy to resolve the matter regarding Qiao Nan.”

  “Is it really that easy?” Qiao Zijin didn’t quite believe Ding Jiayi’s words. After all, based on the current situation, she was at a loss as to how to improve her sibling relationship with Qiao Nan.

  “Of course. Trust me. Let’s not argue anymore. Of course, in front of your dad, it’s either you don’t mention Qiao Nan at all or say more good words about Qiao Nan. Not too long later, your dad’s heart would soften and he would treat us as good as before. Just like we have discussed before, your dad must not know what we will be up to after Qiao Nan dies from giving birth.”

  Old Qiao’s role was to act as a matchmaker in the middle. As long as Old Qiao mended their relationship with Qiao Nan, she and Zijin would naturally take care of what happened next. As long as Old Qiao didn’t know too much, this plan was still feasible.

  If Old Qiao knew about their plans too early, everything would be ruined. In this lifetime, it would be impossible for Qiao Zijin to be the chief’s wife.

  Qiao Zijin rolled her eyes. She restrained her temper and stuck to Ding Jiayi. “Mom, you’re the best to me. I’ll listen to you. After I become the chief’s wife, I’ll fetch you to the capital to stay in a big house together with us!”

  She had to fetch her mom over. Even Fengfeng, her birth son, was brought up by the elders from both families and Qiao Nan. She didn’t even raise her own son before. How would she be willing to raise Qiao Nan’s three children? She didn’t know how to bring a child up.

  Rather than let the three children be miserably taken care of by her, why didn’t she put them in the hands of someone who could take care of them well from the start? What she could do was to wait for the three children to grow up, help them find a good school, and urge them to study hard so that they wouldn’t be like their birth mother, who only had a junior high school certificate and was semi-illiterate.

  Although she was the three children’s stepmother, she was also their birth aunt. She was a university student. Her son, Fengfeng, would definitely be a university student in the future as well. She believed that under her and Fengfeng’s influence, no matter how poor Qiao Nan’s genes were, she would be able to raise Qiao Nan’s three children up to be more outstanding than Qiao Nan.

  As a stepmother, she was willing to urge the three children more than Qiao Nan. That was considered good, right?

  Forget it that Qiao Zijin once snatched Chen Jun, this scum, away from her hands. How would Qiao Nan have guessed that while she was happily pregnant with triplets, Qiao Zijin had already calculated that all four of them wouldn’t be safe and she was just waiting for her to die so that she could take over her children, her man, and everything she had in the Zhai family?

  “Ouch……” Touching her stomach and looking at that small baby bump, Qiao Nan expressed that that kick was hard enough and she didn’t know who had kicked her.

  “What’s wrong? Are the children troubling you?” As Qiao Nan’s stomach grew bigger, everyone in the Zhai family became very nervous.

  During National Day, Zhai Hua brought Jiajia over to the capital to visit Nan Nan. Jiajia couldn’t wait to be by Qiao Nan’s side twenty-four seven. Especially after hearing the younger siblings in Qiao Nan’s stomach start to react and would greet people with small fists and kicks from time to time, Jiajia’s eyes were practically glued to Qiao Nan’s stomach.