Chapter 1980: Agreed
If Wei De were to show up, Jiajia would not know how to face her father and might not know how to reject him.
If Zhai Hua was around, the situation would be entirely different. Zhai Hua would be the one dealing with Wei De and would also be the one rejecting him. Once Jiajia graduated from middle school and went to high school, it would be even more convenient. Once she was in high school, Jiajia would be in a boarding school. Then, Zhai Hua would only need to send and pick Jiajia up once every two weeks.
Jiajia, who learned of this decision after waking up from anesthesia, did not refuse. “Mom, why has Dad become like this?” Both she and her mom had witnessed her dad sleeping with her aunt. After the court agreed to her parents’ divorce, her dad had the cheek to show up in front of her, saying that it was entirely her aunt’s fault and that he was innocent.
Jiajia said that she might be young and thus ignorant about the adults’ world and relations.h.i.+p troubles. However, she did know that Wei Wei, who was a few years older than her, was her father’s son. That could not be denied. With Wei Wei’s existence, all of her father’s explanations did not matter to her. He was not being truthful, and he was even trying to lie directly in her face! Did he treat her as a three-year-old child?
Jiajia was broken and infuriated because of her father’s foolishness. In Jiajia’s heart, her father had always been an upright soldier. A hero!
Because the hero in her eyes had suddenly become a big fat liar, Jiajia had no intention of seeing Wei De for the time being. The more interactions she had with him, the greater the destruction of her father’s image in her mind was until there was nothing left.
Even after she got into a car accident, Jiajia still could not understand why her father was so different from the image she had of him in her mind. Her father was not sincere, not great, and not upright at all. In fact, her father was much more like those evil villains in the television dramas that her grandma used to watch!
It was also because Wei De himself had destroyed the upright image of him that Jiajia had that Jiajia tried her best to avoid him. It was because she was trying to get away from him that she had not seen the oncoming traffic and had been knocked down and hospitalized. Now, as the anesthesia was slowly wearing off, Jiajia could not help but wonder if she had had a nightmare or if this was reality.
It was only when the anesthesia completely wore off and the pain in her injured areas struck her that Jiajia confirmed that she had not been dreaming and that this was, in fact, reality.
Jiajia had intended to ask some questions, but upon seeing Zhai Hua feel sorry and heartbroken for her, Jiajia swallowed those questions and asked instead, “Mom, why did you fall for Dad at that time? You must have been blind. I have never met my great-grandpa, but I’ve seen how good my grandpa and uncle are. With such great examples by your side, how could you have married someone like my dad? You’re amazing, Mom!”
If this had not been her dad, her words would have been much ruder.
Real men should be like her grandpa and uncle. Her dad could never compare with her grandpa or uncle. Her grandpa respected her grandma, and even though they were already old, they shared a better relations.h.i.+p than young couples nowadays. Even though her uncle had not married Auntie Qiao yet, her uncle treated Auntie Qiao with so much care and protection.
They were nothing like her dad or paternal grandpa, who always lazed around on the sofa, waiting for the women in the house to serve them like they were emperors. Even though her dad’s actions were not as exaggerated when they were in their own house, her dad was always trying to be controlling although her mom was the one forking out the money.
After seeing how the women in the Zhai family lived and thinking about how her mother lived, Jiajia could not understand how her mother had managed to regress to such a stage. She wondered if her mother had really grown up together with her uncle. After getting used to living with the Zhai family, how could her mom have accepted the Wei family’s lifestyles?
“At that time, your mom wasn’t just blind. Her whole mind was filled with water!” Since her daughter was in the mood for jokes, Zhai Hua played along. Zhai Hua had always felt guilty toward Jiajia. Just because of a mistake that she had made in the past, she had lived a miserable life in the following decade after getting married. More importantly, she had implicated her daughter, Jiajia.
She had once said that she would let her daughter live a better life than herself if she ever had a daughter and would never let her daughter go through whatever she had. But in the end? Her daughter had never gotten what she had never had, and neither did her daughter have what she had.
Jiajia laughed, discovering for the first time that her mother was rather humorous. “Mom, let’s forget it. But in the future…” Jiajia was rather sensible since she was already a teen. She knew that her dad had wronged her mom, betrayed their family, and had committed an unforgivable sin.
What Jiajia had not said was just how much she had given up on her father, Wei De, in that moment she had gotten into the accident. She had fallen backward indeed, but as long as her father had grabbed onto her, she might not have been knocked down. But her father had been afraid. Not only had he not tried to save her, but he had even jumped backward to save himself!
Her father had been chasing her all the while and had even been so close that he would have been able to grab onto her if he stuck his arm out. Then, there was a loud screeching noise before Jiajia felt as though she had been electrocuted. Initially, she only felt that she had been knocked down but did not feel any pain.
It was only when she saw her father panic did Jiajia slowly start to feel the pain. She did have some memory of all this. But in the end, the one who sent her to the hospital was not her father.
“In the future, as long as I don’t agree to it, he’ll never have the chance to meet you or interact with you,” Zhai Hua said coldly. “We reapplied to the court, and because of his behavior, the court agreed. Jiajia, you don’t have to worry. Mom will protect you.”
After a long while, Jiajia only hummed in agreement. Jiajia did not know what more she could say. Jiajia was still a child and had moments of willfulness. After getting into such an accident, it was hard for Jiajia not to get angry at Wei De or even find an excuse for him. Besides, Wei De had never even shown up to express his concern. Taking all these into consideration, Jiajia had no intention of meeting her father, Wei De, for the time being. She was simply afraid that seeing him would hurt her again.