"Daddy, you can't go back on your word from before, can you?" Lu Yun deliberately pouted, bringing up the topic from before to continue teasing.
"I won't, absolutely not. I promise, from now on, besides mom, I will listen to you," he vowed.
After a series of shocks, Lu Aiguo was led astray by Lu Yun's words and temporarily forgot the jolt he had felt earlier from being called "Daddy." He was on the verge of raising his hand to take an oath with the little girl.
"Fine, let's pinky swear," Lu Yun said, looking distrustful. Lu Aiguo had no choice but to extend his little finger, playing along with this "childish game" that he hadn't played since he was six or seven years old.
"Pinky swear, hang a hundred years, no deception allowed."
Lu Yun happily wiggled their vastly different-sized fingers together, and her innocent smile quickly infected everyone around her.
Xia Yuan, Lu Hongzhen, and Wu Tan all unexpectedly gave Lu Yun a look.
They had all witnessed the near-accident just moments ago, and their hearts had been in their throats, not just Lu Yun's and Lu Aiguo's. But looking at her now, Lu Yun seemed utterly unaffected—it's truly hard to fathom the thoughts of a child!
In fact, the interaction between the young and the old hadn't escaped notice. After all, the tractor's trailer was only so big; everyone was sitting close together, and it would have been nigh impossible for their conversation to remain private.
But seeing their closeness, everyone present was happy to see it. Including Xia Yuan, everyone had just pretended not to notice. Now that Lu Aiguo had become emotional, it was impossible for them to keep up the pretense. That's why everyone had turned their gaze on them in unison.
"Xiaoyun, do you really want to accept Uncle Lu as your dad?"
Xia Yuan's eyes shone with hope as she looked at her daughter. For her daughter to actively call Lu Aiguo "Daddy" was something she hadn't dared to imagine before. As long as her daughter could truly accept Lu Aiguo, she felt her life could be complete.
"Mhm, Mommy, I actually really like Uncle Lu being my dad," Lu Yun, looking at her mother, blinked her big eyes, the ones that resembled her mother's most, and added, "He's nice to me, he helped drive away my second cousin who bullied me, and he gave me White Rabbit candies and white sugar cake to eat. But in the past, grandma told me not to interact with him. I was scared."
Lu Yun lowered her head, pretending to be nervous, but didn't forget to drop hints about Chen Juxiang's manipulations.
"Mommy, can I call Uncle Lu Daddy from now on?"
"Of course you can," Xia Yuan replied, her face showing a mix of laughter and tears, and she blinked hard, failing to keep back the tears that had welled up in her eyes.
Meanwhile, Lu Aiguo's face was a mix of excitement and complexity. He had not expected that Lu Yun, who had always avoided him and never shown him a kind face, didn't dislike him—it was someone else pulling strings behind the scenes.
He clenched his fist and mentally added another grievance against the Su Family.
Lu Hongzhen and Wu Tan felt happiness for Lu Aiguo and an increased contempt and anger toward the Su Family.
"Chen Juxiang truly wreaks havoc on others." Lu Hongzhen spat viciously, inwardly cursing this niece of hers many times over for concocting schemes that split Xia Yuan from her earlier match with Lu Aiguo. If cursing someone could be effective, Chen Juxiang would have been laid low long ago.
"They'll reap what they sow sooner or later." Wu Tan also wore a face full of rage. He had been best friends with Lu Aiguo since they were children, playing together when they were still bare-bottomed. Their relationship was incredibly close. He didn't have a shred of goodwill for the person responsible for Lu Aiguo's rocky path in love.
The Su family is just getting their retribution, aren't they? Lu Yun gave Wu Tan, who was always so blunt, a sweet smile.
It took her a while to recognize him, wasn't this the Wu Tan she had only seen for the first time when her father was on his deathbed in a previous life?
Back then, Wu Tan already looked every inch the laborer, although a few years younger than her father, he seemed more weathered than her dad had been.
She still remembered when her father passed away, how Wu Tan had held him and wept miserably, like a child. He had also worked hard running around dealing with her father's affairs after his death. That year, after helping out, he quietly left, leaving behind a thousand yuan in cash for her before he went. The next time they met was years later, and it was only then that she learned that her father's childhood friend had always lived a life of hardship, known in the village as a very poor family.
Wu Tan's father was the typical troublemaker at home, completely incompetent and looked down upon in the village. He never cared for his family, and whenever he got his hands on some money, he'd go out drinking. Upon getting drunk, rather than creating a scene outside, he'd return home and beat his wife and children.
Wu Tan originally had a brother, who died of a high fever after being beaten by their drunk father and thrown out to freeze overnight.
Wu Tan's mother wasn't without resistance, but unfortunately, she could not prevail and in the end, she resigned herself to her fate for Wu Tan's sake. She feared that if she left, her youngest son's fate would be the same as the eldest's.
Fortunately, Wu Tan's mother had better fortune in her later years. She even went back to the village and paid her a visit. By that time, Wu Tan's father had been bedridden for years due to a broken leg, and he suffered quite a bit at Wu Tan's mother's hands. The Wu family made a ruckus at their door a few times, but eventually kept quiet after Wu Tan's mother threatened to go on strike.
Wu Tan and his wife were very filial to his mother. Of course, Wu Tan's mother was also famously kind to her daughter-in-law, often siding with her and scolding her son during their squabbles. She wasn't pretending, she truly chided him, saying whether he also wanted to end up like his father with no good end, scolding him until he couldn't lift his head. Thus, his wife was genuinely good to her and showed her filial piety. Their son also made them proud and got into university, a very down-to-earth kid. Their household might have been poor, but they were happy and harmonious.
As for the Su family.
Thinking of the Su family, who had made their own miserable end before she even lifted a finger, she felt that justice was loud and clear and that karma never missed.
She liked that phrase, "Long ago, Hanshan asked Shide: 'People in the world slander me, cheat me, insult me, laugh at me, belittle me, despise me, hate me, deceive me, how should I deal with it?' Shide replied: 'Just endure them, let them be, abide them, avoid them, withstand them, respect them, don't pay attention to them. Just wait a few years and you'll see what becomes of them.'"
From start to finish, she actually hadn't done anything herself. At most, she just stood by and watched. During their "downfall," all she did was make them understand that even if she had the power, she wouldn't help them out, instead opting to watch the excitement from the sidelines.
She believed that such a stimulus, seeing something they coveted but could not obtain, would torment them a thousand times more...
"Mom, in the future can you and dad just have little brothers for me and not any sisters, okay?"
Lu Yun saw Xia Yuan's tears falling non-stop and reached out her hands. Xia Yuan hugged her, burying her head into Lu Yun's shoulder. Hearing this, she couldn't help but stop crying, "Why?"
The other three were also extremely curious, their eyes all turned to her in unison, eager to hear what she would say.