Before Qiao Jiajia could finish getting angry, her grandfather spoke first.
“Whether our family has a boy or a girl, and whether we eventually have a man marry into the family or not, our life will still be better than yours, even though you have a son.
“At least we don’t have to keep bleeding our married daughters dry for the sake of a son, constantly making trouble for their families until their marriages fall apart.
“Anyone who didn’t know better might think your family gave birth to a blood-sucking leech instead of a son. He does nothing but suck the blood of his own sisters to grow up.”
Qiao Qiusheng had never been someone who was easy to provoke. This time, he directly fired back at Master Hu without holding back at all.
Although Qiao Qiusheng had a sharp tongue, he knew when to use it. He treated good people kindly and was harsh only toward unreasonable people. This was simply his way of fighting back.
Master Hu was furious after being stabbed where it hurt, but he couldn’t think of any good way to retaliate.
He certainly didn’t dare to fight.
Everyone at the factory knew how formidable Qiao Qiusheng was. He had even once caught a spy who was trying to escape while carrying a gun. Besides, how could someone become a Grade Eight fitter without having considerable strength?
Qiao Qiusheng was incredibly strong.
If Master Hu tried to fight him, he would only end up getting beaten.
As for arguing back, the only thing he could say was that Qiao’s son and daughter-in-law had been married for five or six years and had only had a daughter. Other than that, he had nothing to say.
In the end, he could only angrily throw out one sentence:
“Whatever! My family has a son!”
When Qiao Zhufang heard this, she didn’t even curse at him. She merely said calmly,
“If we’re talking about having sons, you’re the same generation as us. We had our son more than twenty years before you did. What exactly are you so proud of?”
At this point, Qiao Zhufang couldn’t help thinking that Master Hu might have something wrong with his head.
His own son had only just been born. His grandson wasn’t even a possibility yet.
Yet here he was, worrying about whether her family would have a grandson or granddaughter.
Wasn’t this just like a dog worrying about someone else’s business?
Master Hu was left speechless by Qiao Zhufang’s words. His expression changed several times.
After all, the facts were right there.
Master Hu was from the same generation as Qiao Zhufang and Qiao Qiusheng. In fact, he was even a year older than Qiao Qiusheng.
It was only because his son had been born around the same time as the Qiao family’s granddaughter—and his child happened to be a boy—that, for some strange reason, he had developed the feeling that his family had somehow beaten the Qiaos.
In almost every other respect, his family couldn’t compare with the Qiaos.
So the fact that he had finally had a son was the only thing he could use to make himself feel better.
Just then, a woman’s voice came from inside the apartment.
“Why are you still outside? If you don’t bring the food in soon, it’ll get cold. If I go hungry, where am I supposed to get enough milk to feed our son?”
It was Master Hu’s wife, who was holding their baby boy as she lifted the curtain and called out to him.
Hearing this, Master Hu immediately took advantage of the opportunity to retreat.
As he walked away, he said,
“Forget it. I’m not talking to you anymore. I’m going home to hold my son.”
Inside her bamboo cradle, Qiao Jiajia listened to her grandfather and grandmother’s sharp comebacks.
Watching that man walk away dejectedly, she instantly felt refreshed.
She really liked her grandparents’ tempers!
Later that evening, when Qiao Heping and He Yingying returned home and heard what had happened, He Yingying became furious. She put her hands on her hips and cursed,
“What kind of person does he think he is? His son is the real money-losing burden! My daughter is precious! Does he think everyone is like his family, selling their daughters for bride money?”
He Yingying was beautiful, but she also had a fiery personality.
Back in the village, she had been excellent at arguing, and no one had dared bully her.
If it hadn’t already been so late and she hadn’t been worried about disturbing the other neighbors’ sleep, she would definitely have gone straight to the Hu family’s door and given them a piece of her mind.
Qiao Heping smiled as he tried to calm his wife.
“Don’t be angry, don’t be angry. Leave this to me.”
How dare anyone look down on his daughter?
Although Qiao Heping hadn’t cursed like his wife, his anger was no less intense.
His daughter was the precious little treasure that the entire family held in the palms of their hands. How could they tolerate anyone saying a single bad word about her?
And that man had even said those things right in front of his daughter.
Didn’t he know that she was already learning how to talk?
What if she understood what he said and became upset?
Despite his neat and harmless appearance, Qiao Heping was actually the type of person who looked innocent on the outside but was quite crafty underneath.
Whenever he wanted to get back at someone, he had plenty of tricks up his sleeve.
The Qiao family was considered an outsider family in Hejia Village. Although the village chief had looked after them quite a bit because of his grandmother, there were still things the village chief couldn’t control.
For example, when the village children played together, it was inevitable that they would form little groups and gangs.
As a child whose surname was different from everyone else’s, Qiao Heping naturally became one of the easiest targets for bullying.
But with his clever mind, Qiao Heping managed to thrive among the village children despite being an outsider.
He even gathered several younger boys around him.
Three of them later listened to his advice and followed him to the city. All three eventually became workers.
Their families back in the countryside also ended up living much better than most other households.
Because of this, they were extremely grateful to their former leader, Qiao Heping.
Whenever he needed something, they would follow his lead without hesitation and never refuse to help.
So in less than two seconds, Qiao Heping had already come up with a way to get revenge.
He leaned toward his wife’s ear and whispered his plan to her.
After hearing it, He Yingying’s expression finally improved.
She snorted.
“He deserves to have some trouble brought to his doorstep. Maybe then he’ll stop sticking his nose into other people’s business.”
Qiao Jiajia craned her little head and pricked up her ears.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard she listened, she couldn’t hear what her father had just whispered to her mother.
She was dying of curiosity.
What exactly had Dad whispered into Mom’s ear?
She wanted to know too!
Unfortunately, Qiao Heping had no idea that his daughter was curious about his secret plan.
Seeing how energetic his daughter was, he scooped her into his arms and kissed her little cheek.
Then he leaned close to her and smiled.
“Oh, Daddy’s little sweetheart isn’t sleepy yet? We haven’t seen each other all day. Did Jiajia miss Mommy and Daddy? Come on, say ‘Daddy.’”
Ever since his daughter was born, Qiao Heping had held her countless times.
By now, picking her up was second nature to him. His movements were practically professional, and he made sure she was completely comfortable in his arms.
Having had her cheeks kissed by her parents countless times, Qiao Jiajia was already used to it.
She obediently called out,
“Daddy.”
Of course, she didn’t forget her mother, who was watching her from nearby with a loving expression.
She turned toward her mother and sweetly called,
“Mommy.”
Hearing her daughter’s soft, sweet voice, He Yingying’s heart immediately melted.
She couldn’t resist leaning over and planting several loud kisses on her daughter’s little face.
Then she said,
“Daughters are the most thoughtful. They’re a hundred times better than those stinky boys.
“Just look at the family next door. They act as if they can’t survive without a son.
“As for me, having a daughter is enough. What’s so great about having a son? I don’t want one at all.”
He Yingying had helped take care of her nephews many times in the past—several of them at once.
Taking care of one child was already difficult enough. Looking after several boys together meant there was never a moment of peace.
The amount of trouble they caused was something only the person taking care of them could understand.
But she hadn’t had a choice back then.
She wasn’t married yet, so she had to help with the housework.
The fact that her mother hadn’t made her go out to work in the fields with everyone else already meant that her mother loved her dearly.
So He Yingying had absolutely no special fondness for boys.
Her two older brothers had already had plenty of sons. She had a total of five nephews!
Although she felt a little guilty toward her parents-in-law, to be honest, when she was pregnant, there had been a long period when she secretly hoped the baby in her belly would be a girl.
No one in the family disagreed with He Yingying’s words.
For Qiao Zhufang, who was secretly a bit of a beauty enthusiast, the fact that her granddaughter was so pretty already meant her son and daughter-in-law had hit the jackpot.
As for whether they had another son, she didn’t really care.
They could simply let nature take its course.
She herself was an only daughter, so she had never developed the belief that a family had to produce a boy in order to continue the family line.
Qiao Qiusheng’s attitude had always followed Qiao Zhufang’s.
Whether they had a grandson or granddaughter, he would love the child just the same.
He himself had married into his wife’s family and had even voluntarily changed his surname.
So, just like his wife, he had no obsession with having a son or grandson simply to prevent the family line from being “cut off.”
As for Qiao Heping, he had been raised and taught by his grandmother, Qiao Lao Taijun.
A woman who had been willing to arrange for her only daughter to have a husband marry into her family—would someone like that really teach her grandson to favor boys over girls?
Of course not.
So Qiao Heping genuinely didn’t care whether his child was a boy or a girl.
In fact, he wasn’t particularly interested in having a second child at all.
He himself was an only child.
His mother was an only daughter.
He had grown accustomed to the family structure of having only one child.
That way, there was no favoritism and no endless family drama.
Wasn’t that wonderful?
Once there were more children in a family, there were always more messy and dramatic situations.
He had seen plenty of examples around him.
Take his own father, for example.
His father hadn’t been an only child. He had a younger brother.
During the great famine and mass migration back then, his father had been given away as a child husband in exchange for food.
And his wife, Yingying, wasn’t an only daughter either.
She had two older brothers, along with several male cousins. Her grandmother also favored the children of her eldest uncle’s family, so she had suffered plenty of unfair treatment growing up.
There were also two of the brothers who had followed Qiao Heping to the city.
Their situations were almost complete opposites.
One of them was an only child.
He worked as a factory worker in the city, while his parents remained in the countryside.
Every month, whenever he sent money home, his parents would always send it back to him.
Once the elderly couple realized that everything in the city had to be bought with money, they felt even more sorry for their son.
They often carried vegetables from their own fields and walked ten or twenty li to bring them to the city.
They even deliberately raised chickens just to collect eggs and send them to their son.
But the other brother was different.
He had both an older brother and a younger brother.
Compared with the brother whose family supported him, this man received absolutely no help from home.
Instead, his parents practically wanted to squeeze every last penny out of him.
They always felt that he was living a better life than his brothers in the countryside, so he should help support the family.
In Qiao Heping’s opinion, all these problems happened because families had too many children.
People always said that parents loved all their children equally, that the palm and back of the hand were both made of flesh, and that with several children they could treat everyone fairly.
But even the flesh on the palm and the back of the hand wasn’t necessarily the same.
Some parts were thicker than others.
In reality, it was difficult to distribute everything equally.
So, having one child was still the best.
There would be no trouble, and no child would have to suffer unfair treatment in the future.
No one had taught Qiao Heping to think this way.
It was something he had figured out himself.
He was an only child.
How could he not know how good it was to be one?
Now that he had a daughter, he already felt completely satisfied.
There was no need to have another child.
Whether the second child was a boy or a girl, he felt it would only create more trouble.
Because he had always thought this way, when he heard his wife say what she did, he not only nodded but also agreed with her.
“Yingying is right. Having Jiajia is enough for our family.
“Besides, if we had another child, we wouldn’t even have another room. How cramped would it be for two children to share one room?
“And what if we had another boy? Are we supposed to make Jiajia, a girl, share a room with her younger brother?
“No way!”