That oath was vicious—a direct hit to Granny Guo’s weak spot.
"Qin i!" Granny Guo shot up in a fury, rushing toward Qin i with surprising agility. Her eyes blazed with a tidal wave of anger.
"Granny Guo," Jie Jingchen warned, his voice cold. His gaze was chillingly nacing, and anger began to cloud his features. He grabbed Qin i’s small hand and pulled her protectively behind him.
"Jing Si, your wife is a malicious woman!" Granny Guo accused, raising a wrinkled hand to point a trembling finger at Qin i.
"You’re the one falsely accusing her." Jie Jingchen’s voice was as sharp and cold as a blade. He showed no deference, despite Granny Guo’s age. "You know perfectly well whether Qin i told you the baby’s gender or not."
"I..." Granny Guo’s confidence instantly evaporated. She would dare to swear on her own life, but she wouldn’t risk her grandson’s. She had to have a grandson to hold. If she went her whole life without one, she would never be able to rest in peace.
"Sister Guo, so after all that, you were falsely accusing Jing Si’s wife," a neighbor piped up, seizing the mont.
"That’s right! Jing Si’s wife never lied to you. How could you accuse her like that? You misled all of us into thinking badly of her too," soone else added.
"Sister Guo, you’re a grandmother now. How could you just go around making false accusations against Jing Si’s wife?" another person challenged.
"Exactly. We have to speak from the heart. Say what happened, and don’t make things up. How can you just accuse people baselessly?"
The neighbors’ comnts, coming one after another, made Granny Guo’s face flush red with sha.
"You all need to be more understanding of Sister Guo’s feelings. Expecting a grandson and getting a granddaughter instead... if that happened to any of you, you’d probably raise an even bigger stink," Li Axiu said, sticking by Granny Guo. "Besides, there’s no smoke without fire."
Li Axiu didn’t say it outright, but her implication was clear: the bla still lay with Qin i. The Hero’s wife had a baby girl, and for Sister Guo to confront Qin i and no one else, there had to be a reason.
Spurred on by Li Axiu, Sister Guo’s anger flared anew. "You didn’t tell directly, but you told the Second Sister and had her pass the ssage to ! Everyone knows you two are the closest. Telling her is the sa as telling !"
"’The sa as telling you?’ Hmph. That’s absurd." Qin i laughed in exasperation at Granny Guo’s logic. She stepped out from behind Jie Jingchen and fixed the fuming woman with a cold stare. "I’ll say it again: I only revealed the baby’s gender to the parents. As for the Second Auntie, I didn’t say a single word to her about it. We may be close, but we’re not so close that we have no secrets from each other."
"Oh my god! The ’Hero’ and his wife knew it was a girl?" a neighbor exclaid.
"Why else do you think the Hero took his pregnant wife to live at her mother’s house?" Mrs. Xie said. She, too, had only just learned of this.
"That’s not just ’living there,’ that’s clearly going there to have the baby," soone remarked.
"It’s a good thing the Hero had the foresight. If the Hero’s wife had stayed here... Ai! Let’s not even go there." Every family had its own troubles. Most people preferred grandsons over granddaughters; it was the pot calling the kettle black, really. They were all more or less the sa.
"What is everyone crowded around here for? Don’t you all have work to do?" a resonant voice called out.
It was followed by the Second Auntie’s voice. "Everyone, please make way! Let us through."
The Second Auntie was escorting the head of the Neighborhood Committee. The mont the crowd saw her, they fell silent and quickly parted to form a path.
The committee head wore a red armband and had a serious, authoritative air about her. "Doctor Qiao."
Mrs. Xie’s cold expression vanished, replaced by an elegant smile. "Sister Ning."
Seeing that the head of the Neighborhood Committee had co, Mr. Xie rose and walked out of the main room. "Ning."
"Ah, Director Jie is ho as well," the committee head said, smiling at Mr. Xie.
Mr. Xie gave an awkward smile and moved to stand beside his wife. Mrs. Xie ignored him, instead pulling Qin i forward for an introduction. "Sister Ning, this is my son Jing Si’s wife, Qin i. Xiao i, address her as Granny Ning."
"Hello, Granny Ning," Qin i said dutifully.
"What a good child, and so pretty. Jing Si is a lucky man," the committee head praised effusively. "I heard from the Second Sister that you two have been married for almost a year. When are you planning on giving your parents a big, healthy boy to dote on?"
’Leave it to the head of the Neighborhood Committee to push people to have kids the second she ets them.’
"Sister Ning, we’d prefer a daughter," Jie Jingchen stated plainly.
The committee head paused, taken aback, then broke into a smile. She patted Jie Jingchen’s arm, gratified, but her eyes shifted to Mr. Xie and Mrs. Xie. "Director Jie, Doctor Qiao, your fourth son is quite progressive in his thinking. If everyone were like Jing Si and didn’t have these backward, patriarchal ideas, my job would be so much easier."
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