After ending the call with Xiu Ling, with a smile on her face, Joann turned to see her husband who was grinning at her brightly and widely. It seemed like the man had won a billion dollars.
"Xu Jing, what is the happy occasion? Why are you smiling so widely?" Joann could not help but ask. To be honest, she was rather unsettled by the apparent happiness showcased by her husband considering the scandal she was facing. Shouldn't Xu Jing be mad at her?
What Joann did not realize was Xu Jing had heard all the explanation he needed from her phone conversation with Xiu Ling. If anything, this was even better than Xu Jing getting the explanation from Joann directly because Joann had less of a reason to lie to Xiu Ling compared to Xu Jing.
Of course, this whole phone conversation could just be a show put forth by his wife and his wife's best friend but Xu Jing did not think Joann nor Xiu Ling could be so calculative.
Instead of answering his wife's question, Xu Jing sidled close to Joann and sneakily hugged her from behind.
Trapped in his sudden bear hug, Joann laughed while jokingly slapping her husband's arms that surrounded her. "Xu Jing, what are you doing?" She asked with the silvery tingle of a laugh in her voice.
Xu Jing hugged her tighter in place of an answer. He then leaned closer to her ear and breathed out satisfactorily, "Joann, I love you."
The sudden proclamation of love stunned Joann. Like most Chinese couples, they were not prone to public display of love so this came as quite as a surprise to her.
She was touched but she could not help but deflect it by saying, "Xu Jing, stop kidding."
Xu Jing smiled noting the discomfort that arose within his wife. Joann was rarely unsettled and Xu Jing appreciated these rare moments of vulnerability in his wife. A sense of bliss bubbled out of his heart, he hoped nothing would ruin it… Especially not the mistakes that he had unfortunately committed in the past.
If he could turn back time, he would have stopped himself from making those stupid errors, but there is a reason why regret is the bitterest medicine in the world.
…
One of the main sources of conflict between mother-in-laws and their daughter-in-laws is generation gap. In a way, the two generation of women live in a different world because their worldviews differ greatly, constructed by the experience and surroundings that they are exposed to.
The most defining reason that contributes to the varying worldviews between modern day mothers and daughters-in-law has to be the advancement in science, especially in terms of proliferation and ease of procurement for information.
Nowadays, most information are just clicks away while for the previous generation, people had to go to library or consult professionals should they require certain information. This could be a source of friction because the mass spreading of information has debunked most of the traditional views and methods that some older generation still swore by.
One such example could be seen in this incident between Xiu Ling and her mother-in-law, Mrs. Lin.
That afternoon, Xiu Ling rushed down the stairs carrying a feverish Lin Xi in her arms. The child's face was flushed and he was moaning uncomfortably, it was the obvious sign of high fever.
Xiu Ling worried about him and decided to bring him to the hospital.
As she reached the bottom of the steps, a voice could be heard coming from the corner, "Xiu Ling, where are you going?"
Xiu Ling turned around and saw Mrs. Lin watching her like a hawk from the doorway that led to the family kitchen. The elder woman had a frown on her face like it did not bring her pleasure to have run into Xiu Ling.
Before Xiu Ling could say anything, Mrs. Lin's eyes fell on Lin Xi in Xiu Ling's arm, and the elder woman began with a subtle hint of warning, "Xiu Ling, where are you going with Lin Xi?"
Mrs. Lin probably thought Xiu Ling was trying to escape the Lin family with the future heir.
Xiu Ling explained, "Mother, Lin Xi is burning up. I have to bring him to the nearest hospital or clinic."
"You are bringing him to the hospital?" Mrs. Lin gasped in horror. For some of the older generations like Mrs. Lin, hospitals are places where heavy Ying energy gathered, it was very bad Feng Shui. This was understandable because in their times, a trip to the hospital was more often than not a one-way trip.
Along the same vein, they had a general distrust of modern western medicine that they believed had an over-reliance on pills and drugs. Instead, they preferred traditional healing methods like folk prescriptions.
Naturally, Mrs. Lin would not allow Xiu Ling to bring Lin Xi to the hospital. "Xiu Ling, you are not going anywhere, neither is Lin Xi. You worry too much. It is just a little light fever, just let him be. He will recover on his own, it will be good for his immune system."
Mrs. Lin's line of argument was similar to saying like boys will be boys, it was natural for children to fall ill, let him burn a little, it would do no harm. She opted for the most natural form of healing, to let the body work out its homeostatic process.
She had a disproportional amount of faith in the boy's natural immune system.
Xiu Ling was appalled at her mother-in-law's cavalier attitude. Unlike Mrs. Lin, she knew better than to underestimate the possible effect of fever in a child. However, months of conditioning inside the Lin household meant that her first response was to follow what Mrs. Lin had to say.
She lowered her head obediently but when she saw how Lin Xi's small face was scrunched up from discomfort, something snapped within her. Worry for her son galvanized Xiu Ling and she did something that she had not done ever since she married into the Lin household.