Chapter 2312: Not Opening (1)
Qiao Zijin was already forty. How shameless she was to return to her family’s house to leech off them! If she was foolish enough to open the door for Qiao Zijin today and allow her to leech off them again, Ding Jiayi knew that Qiao Dongliang would never agree to meet her in the future, and she would never be able to mend their relations.h.i.+p ever again.
If she had to make a choice between her husband and her daughter, Ding Jiayi had already decided that she would choose Qiao Dongliang. She no longer wanted that evil and unfilial daughter, Qiao Zijin.
Having made that decision, there was no way Ding Jiayi could warmly welcome Qiao Zijin in as she had done before. It was entirely Qiao Zijin’s fault that she had become a lonely old person with no children or husband by her side.
Qiao Zijin was already in her forties. Which other woman of her age was still living at home on her parents’ accounts? Even though Qiao Nan had only gotten married at the age of forty, she had moved out and paid for her own expenses even before her marriage.
She had spent much more effort raising Qiao Zijin. If Qiao Nan could do it, why couldn’t Qiao Zijin? In the future, Qiao Zijin had better live her own life. She wasn’t going to interfere in Qiao Zijin’s life anymore, and neither would she ever cause any trouble for her daughter.
If she were to encounter any problems, she wouldn’t have to worry. Although she didn’t have a close relations.h.i.+p with Qiao Nan, she would never leave her mom to die. As long as Qiao Nan was around, she wouldn’t have to worry about having no one to take care of her. Having Qiao Zijin support her? Forget it. What she worried most about was having to support Qiao Zijin instead. Then, all the money that Qiao Nan gave her would be spent on Qiao Zijin instead of herself.
It was because of that incident over the ident.i.ty card that Ding Jiayi was finally able to let go of everything she hadn’t been able to in the past. She was already at such an old age and she had never held a job either. It was rare that Qiao Nan was willing to give her allowance just because of her blood ties. It was better for her to stop there and live her own life with that sum of money.
If she used all of Qiao Nan’s money to support Qiao Zijin, how was she going to live?
Besides, Qiao Nan used to be obedient and had given Ding Jiayi a lot more money than she did now. At that time, Ding Jiayi had never worried about running out of money by supporting Qiao Zijin. Even if she did, that wouldn’t matter. She would simply ask Qiao Nan for more. Qiao Nan would never refuse anyway.
Things were different now. Qiao Nan was no longer as gullible, and she simply gave Ding Jiayi a fixed monthly allowance. As long as Ding Jiayi didn’t spend excessively, that amount of money was definitely sufficient. However, if Ding Jiayi was foolish and bought expensive goods that she couldn’t afford or used it to support Qiao Zijin, then that would be her own problem. Qiao Nan was not going to care about that.
At the very most, Ding Jiayi could sue Qiao Nan. It was not as though she hadn’t done that in the past.
Because she had done so before, Ding Jiayi knew that Qiao Nan wouldn’t lose out even if she really sued her. It was not as though Qiao Nan had truly left her in the lurch by not supporting her. Whose fault was it that she had used up all the money?
The law only governed that children had to support their parents, but it didn’t state that children had the obligation to sell their bodies to meet the endless and extravagant demands of their parents.
Because Qiao Nan was no longer as ‘obedient’ as before, Ding Jiayi couldn’t afford to spend her money as freely and wantonly as before. She would have to hold her purse strings tightly and not give in freely to others.
Since the money Qiao Nan gave Ding Jiayi had decreased, and she had become stricter in her att.i.tude, Ding Jiayi dared not spend that small sum of money that she had in her pockets so freely. While she had been in the capital, Qiao Zijin had stolen more than a thousand yuan from her! Now, money was more important than Qiao Zijin in Ding Jiayi’s heart.
Ding Jiayi had already made up her mind not to care about Qiao Zijin, or to let her leech off the family any longer.
In the moment that her phone rang, Ding Jiayi regretted not having switched off her phone earlier. The person who should have called her hadn’t, but the person who shouldn’t have called her, and had even declared that she would never contact her ever again, had. By the time Ding Jiayi finally came to her senses and switched off her phone, Qiao Zijin had already heard the ringtone and knew that Ding Jiayi was at home.
“Mom, I’m tired and hungry. Hurry and open the door for me. Hurry up!” After confirming that Ding Jiayi was indeed at home, Qiao Zijin was starting to lose her patience. In the past, she had never needed to knock on the door or make any calls. As long as she made the slightest noise, her mom would immediately come rus.h.i.+ng out to take her things and to pour her a gla.s.s of water.
More importantly, Qiao Zijin was starving and was in a foul mood. Naturally, her patience was running dry.
“Mom, what are you doing? Did you not hear me? Hurry and open the door. I’m not purposely making trouble for you or trying to be arrogant. I can’t open the door with my key. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have called you either.” Qiao Zijin had the urge to scold someone, but she was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to control her volume and would disturb her neighbors.
It wasn’t that Qiao Zijin had suddenly become considerate to think that she shouldn’t disturb her neighbors. The problem was that she always set off for the capital full of confidence that she would return in glory, yet she always returned in a disheveled mess every single time.
It was better for others not to see her in such a state. If she were to raise her voice and let her neighbors know that she had returned from the capital in this state, she would definitely become a joke in their eyes. Qiao Zijin hadn’t forgotten just how badly they had mocked and ridiculed Qiao Nan in the past. She had no intention of becoming the object of gossip in these old neighbor’s conversations as Qiao Nan had at that time.
“Mom? Mom!” Qiao Zijin’s anger was rising. She had called her mom and not only had she heard her mom’s phone ring, but her mom had even rejected her call! That meant that her mom definitely knew that she was back!
Qiao Zijin had initially felt a little uneasy when Ding Jiayi had first rejected her call. But very soon, she regained her senses. She was still using a phone card from the capital. Now that she was back in Ping Cheng, it would cost her more than one yuan to make a call. It was right for her mom to have rejected that call.
It seemed like she had not taught her mom so much in vain. Even she had been muddleheaded in this situation, but her mom hadn’t!