“Come on, Jiajia. Walk a few more steps toward Grandma. Come, slowly, come over here! Once you take a few more steps, we won’t practice anymore today. Grandma will carry you home. Grandpa will be back soon, and then we’ll have dinner.”
Qiao Zhufang stood in the open space in front of the apartment building, teaching her granddaughter how to walk. She held out her arms and waved, speaking softly and coaxing the little girl to take a few more steps.
Qiao Jiajia’s pretty little face remained expressionless.
To her, walking was something she had already known how to do. It came naturally. Why would she need to learn it all over again?
Before transmigrating, she had lived for more than twenty years. She wasn’t really a one-year-old child who had just learned to walk, so she certainly didn’t need to start from scratch.
However, when she saw the hopeful look on her grandmother’s face and heard her gentle coaxing as she opened her arms, waiting to carry her, Qiao Jiajia couldn’t bear to ignore her.
Although she didn’t want to toddle around slowly like a real one-year-old and would much rather sit quietly and be lazy, after hesitating for a few seconds, she obediently walked a little farther.
On the last step, she finally decided she had had enough.
She threw herself into her grandmother’s arms, hugged her tightly, and then stopped moving altogether, shamelessly taking the opportunity to be carried.
For an adult, that short distance was only a few steps. But for one-year-old Qiao Jiajia, who had only a pair of short little legs, walking that far was still somewhat tiring.
Her fair, soft, chubby little face rested against her grandmother’s shoulder. Anyone who saw her would find her adorable.
Qiao Jiajia had already made up her mind. No matter what Grandma said later, she absolutely wasn’t going to walk anymore.
She was tired.
Seeing her precious granddaughter looking so lazy and exhausted, Qiao Zhufang couldn’t help laughing. She resigned herself to picking up the little lazybones and carrying her.
Her granddaughter was already one year old. Everyone else had to go to the factory to work during the day, so Qiao Zhufang was the one who spent the most time with her.
Jiajia was very easy to take care of. She hardly ever cried or fussed and was much better behaved than other children her age. Qiao Zhufang barely had to worry about her.
However, after spending so much time with the child, Qiao Zhufang soon realized that something seemed a little unusual.
The girl was simply too quiet.
Compared with other children of the same age who cried and made a fuss all day long, her precious granddaughter was completely different. She was almost too easy to care for.
Fortunately, they had taken her to a doctor at the provincial hospital, and the doctor had said there was nothing wrong with her. Only then did the whole family finally relax.
Even though the doctor had assured them that everything was fine, the adults still couldn’t help worrying when the child reached one year old without showing any signs of learning to walk.
She remained quiet and still, and they were afraid that there might actually be something wrong.
There were no child-development experts in this era, nor were there parenting books for them to consult. The only thing they could rely on was the experience passed down by the older generation.
According to that experience, a child should start learning to walk at around one year old.
But their little Jiajia showed no signs of even trying to stand up and walk, which had the adults worried sick.
Perhaps Jiajia had noticed their concern, or perhaps it was simply time for her to start walking. Whatever the reason, a few days later, she suddenly stood up in front of them and wobbled around for a while.
After that, she only needed to practice a few more times before she could walk quite steadily.
The four adults in the family, whose hearts had been hanging in suspense, finally felt a little relieved.
The problem was that even after Jiajia learned to walk, she was still reluctant to move unless absolutely necessary.
She wasn’t constantly demanding to be carried, but she simply didn’t like walking by herself.
Compared with getting up and moving around, the little girl much preferred to lie down or sit quietly.
This tiny little person couldn’t even speak clearly yet, but she seemed to have some kind of plan in her mind.
Every day, she seemed to know exactly how many steps she was willing to take. She absolutely refused to walk even one step more.
Qiao Zhufang found it rather amusing.
After thinking about it, she decided that Jiajia had walked enough for today. In fact, she had walked even longer than she had the previous day.
Satisfied, Qiao Zhufang stopped coaxing her granddaughter to walk any farther.
As long as the child could walk, that was enough.
To be honest, how much strength could a tiny child’s legs possibly have?
If she made the child walk too much and tired her out, Qiao Zhufang would be the one feeling sorry for her.
The Qiao family lived on the first floor of the apartment building, so they had actually been practicing walking right outside their own home. It only took a few steps to turn around and go inside.
The apartment where the Qiao family lived had been allocated to them by the factory.
It was a four-story residential building, but although people called all such buildings “tube buildings,” this one was completely different from the narrow apartment blocks nearby.
Those other buildings, which were several hundred meters away, housed twenty or thirty families on each floor, with each household crammed into only a tiny space.
The building where the Qiao family lived was nicknamed the “Experts’ Building.”
It had originally been where Soviet experts lived.
There were only six households on each floor, and every apartment was spacious. A two-bedroom, one-living-room layout was standard, while the larger units even had three bedrooms and a living room.
The facilities were also excellent.
Each apartment had its own indoor toilet with a water tank. Pull the chain, and water would flow.
The kitchen was separate as well, and there was even a faucet inside, so they didn’t have to go outside and fight with other residents for access to water.
Later, once the Soviet experts had completed their assignments and returned home, the Experts’ Building was left vacant.
Such good apartments obviously couldn’t be left empty.
So, within a couple of months, the factory leadership decided to distribute the apartments to employees as staff housing.
There were twenty-four households in the building, and none of them were ordinary.
They could roughly be divided into three groups.
The first group consisted naturally of factory leaders, who held relatively high positions.
The second group was made up of veteran employees. They had been there since the factory was established and had contributed greatly over the years, so they had seniority.
The final group consisted of skilled technical workers, represented by Grandpa Qiao. They had earned their place through outstanding technical skills.
If someone didn’t belong to any of these three groups, how could they possibly have been assigned such a good apartment?
The excellent living conditions in the Experts’ Building naturally made the other factory workers extremely envious.
However, because the allocation was relatively fair, the more than twenty households living there weren’t all factory leaders. There were also ordinary veteran employees and outstanding technical workers.
So everyone merely sighed and expressed their envy before letting the matter go.
What else could they do?
Even if someone who hadn’t been assigned an apartment there wanted to make a fuss and claim it was unfair, they wouldn’t have much of a case.
They weren’t a leader, they didn’t possess any particularly valuable technical skills, and they weren’t long-serving veteran employees.
If someone like that caused a scene and complained about unfairness, wouldn’t they simply be asking to be scolded?
The Qiao family’s apartment was a three-bedroom, one-living-room unit.
Among the six households on each floor, only one apartment had this layout. The rest were all two-bedroom, one-living-room units.
The reason the Qiao family had received such a large apartment was entirely because of Grandpa Qiao.
At the time, the factory had encountered a major technical problem. Grandpa Qiao had led a group of workers in solving it, and most of the credit had actually gone to him.
Coincidentally, the factory was distributing apartments around the same time.
To reward Grandpa Qiao for his contribution, the factory director directly gave him one of the four available three-bedroom apartments and even let him choose whichever floor he wanted.
The Qiao family didn’t like climbing stairs, so they decisively chose the first floor.
Their home was on the first floor, with a particularly spacious area right outside the entrance, making it perfect for practicing walking.
There were also no other apartment buildings blocking the sunlight in front of them.
Before summer arrived, Qiao Zhufang would often bring her granddaughter outside to enjoy some sunshine whenever she had nothing else to do.
Now that summer had arrived, however, she took Jiajia outside less often because the sun was too strong.
Even when they did come out, they stayed under the shade of the trees.
And now that Jiajia had finished practicing walking, Qiao Zhufang planned to take her straight back inside.
As she carried her granddaughter into the apartment, she happily praised her.
“Our Jiajia is amazing! You walked so many steps today, and you were so steady, too. No other child can compare with our Jiajia! Ah, ah, ah! Come here and let Grandma give you a kiss. Grandma loves our Jiajia the most. Our Jiajia is so pretty, such a beautiful little girl!”
Although her granddaughter was only one year old and probably couldn’t understand many of the adults’ words yet, Qiao Zhufang had gotten into the habit of praising her every day.
Who could blame her?
Her granddaughter was simply too lovable. Qiao Zhufang wished she could pile every compliment in the world onto little Jiajia.
Looking at her granddaughter’s fair, soft, adorable little face, Qiao Zhufang’s heart practically melted.
Whose granddaughter could possibly be prettier than hers?
Qiao Zhufang thought that if the immortals in heaven had little fairy children, they would probably look just like her granddaughter.
How could anyone be more beautiful than this?
At times like this, Qiao Zhufang felt even more strongly that her son, Qiao Heping, had been incredibly lucky to marry such a beautiful wife.
Otherwise, how could they have such a pretty little granddaughter?
Qiao Zhufang firmly believed that Jiajia’s beauty was entirely thanks to her daughter-in-law.
After all, her son hadn’t inherited his father’s good looks when he was growing up. He could only be described as decent-looking. Calling him handsome would be a stretch.
Still, he was her own son, and she herself wasn’t particularly beautiful either, so she didn’t have the heart to criticize him.
Fortunately, both she and her son had married well.
She had found herself a handsome husband, while her son had found a beautiful wife.
Their spouses had made up for their shortcomings in appearance.
If you weren’t good-looking yourself, having a good-looking partner wasn’t bad at all.
In fact, before her granddaughter was born, Qiao Zhufang had worried about this.
She was afraid the baby would take after her father and fail to inherit her mother’s beautiful features.
After all, she herself was a perfect example.
Her husband had been so handsome that when she was pregnant with their son, she had constantly prayed that the child would take after his father and grow up handsome.
But when Qiao Heping was born, he looked almost exactly like her.
He wasn’t ugly, of course, but he was undeniably ordinary. There was absolutely nothing particularly handsome about him.
Of course, no matter what a child looked like after being born, they were still family and would be loved.
But deep down, Qiao Zhufang had desperately hoped that her grandchild would be a beautiful child.
Fortunately, when her granddaughter was born, she immediately looked different from the other newborn babies.
Her little face was rosy, and as the days passed, she became prettier and prettier.
Her skin was fair with a healthy rosy glow, soft and tender enough to make people want to take a bite.
Her features were also incredibly delicate.
She had large eyes, a high nose bridge, and even a tiny beauty mark at the corner of one eye.
Although she was only one year old and still had the round baby fat typical of a toddler, making it impossible to tell what her adult face shape would be, Qiao Zhufang was certain that her granddaughter would inherit her mother’s oval, delicate face.
When she grew up, there was no doubt she would become a stunning beauty.
Qiao Zhufang had already liked her daughter-in-law because she was beautiful.
After her granddaughter was born, she pampered her daughter-in-law even more, treating her almost like her own daughter.
Her husband, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter were all so pleasing to the eye.
Qiao Zhufang felt that life was becoming more enjoyable with every passing day.
She was more than happy to stay home and take care of her granddaughter.
Meanwhile, nestled in her grandmother’s arms and listening to all these praises, Qiao Jiajia’s face turned slightly red.
She felt a little embarrassed.
It was obviously nothing more than walking.
Yet in her grandmother’s mouth, it sounded as though she had accomplished something extraordinary, as if she were the most amazing person in the entire world.
Since the day she was born, she had been praised countless times.
Even when she obediently drank her milk or went to sleep without fussing, Grandma and the rest of the family would shower her with praise.
Qiao Jiajia had truly experienced what it meant to be the apple of everyone’s eye.
And being loved by everyone felt wonderful.
For Qiao Jiajia, this was the greatest gift she had received from being given a second life.
Based on the little knowledge she had gained in her previous life, she knew that life in this era would be difficult.
But Qiao Jiajia wasn’t afraid!
What she feared far more was being completely alone, without a single family member.
She had already lived that kind of life for more than twenty years in her previous life.
She never wanted to live that way again.
Now that she had the warm family she had dreamed of—one that felt almost too perfect to be real—she could willingly give up all the advanced technology and comfortable living conditions of the twenty-first century without the slightest hesitation.
Even if she were given the chance to return now, she would choose to stay.
For an orphan like Qiao Jiajia, there was nothing in the world more tempting than the love of family.
She had already enjoyed a good life in her previous existence.
Although she had been an orphan, she had worked hard and skipped grades all the way through school. Eventually, she was admitted to China’s top university, where she studied finance.
After that, she went on to earn both her master’s and doctoral degrees at a prestigious university overseas.
Following graduation, she seized an excellent opportunity and, within just a few years, was earning an annual salary of one million yuan.
As an orphan, she only had herself to worry about.
She worked hard, but she also knew how to spend money and reward herself.
She had already experienced the good things life had to offer.
So even though transmigrating meant losing the comfortable and privileged life she had once enjoyed, she didn’t feel particularly regretful.
Now, she was learning how to be a real child.
She wanted to properly experience the family affection she had never known before.
She had already forgotten what her childhood in her previous life had been like.
But this time, she would cherish her childhood and truly enjoy it.
She would spend it with her grandparents and her parents.
Thinking about this, she couldn’t help feeling happy again.
Having a family like this made her genuinely happy.
They were exactly like the family she had once imagined and longed for in her previous life.