Da Bao didn’t know his father, but he knew his father’s name was Jiang Yan.
He had also noticed his mother’s momentary silence whenever she heard that name.
Su Nanyue was somewhat surprised she hadn’t expected Da Bao to notice.
After only a brief hesitation, she nodded. “Yes.”
Da Bao’s eyes suddenly reddened. Clutching the hem of his clothes, he looked at her cautiously.
“Is Daddy going to marry that bad woman? Does that mean he doesn’t want us anymore?”
Xiao Bao, standing nearby, burst into tears upon hearing Da Bao’s words, his little mouth trembling.
He timidly tugged at Su Nanyue’s sleeve.
Afraid that Su Nanyue might abandon him too.
Sensing the children’s fear, she reached out and pulled them both into her embrace.
She wasn’t someone who easily overflowed with sympathy.
But whenever she saw Da Bao and Xiao Bao, she couldn’t help but feel her heart soften.
Before bringing them here, she had already decided: she would hand the children over to Jiang Yan and then get divorced.
After all, it was already 1973. In just four years, the college entrance exams would resume, and she could take them to attend university.
But now, seeing how cautious and fearful the children were of being abandoned,
She suddenly couldn’t bear to leave them.
In a moment of impulse, she asked, “If Daddy ends up with that auntie, would you be willing to stay with Mom?”
Xiao Bao was the first to speak. “I want to be with Mom.”
Su Nanyue lowered her head and kissed Xiao Bao’s cheek.
Xiao Bao shyly buried his face in her embrace.
Da Bao pressed his lips together tightly, hesitating for a while before finally saying, “I’ll stay with Dad.”
Even as he said this, he clung tightly to Su Nanyue’s waist.
Su Nanyue could sense how dependent he had grown on her these past few days and was somewhat surprised. “Don’t you want to be with Mom?”
Da Bao shook his head, looking at Su Nanyue. “I do want to be with Mom, but Mom is already tired enough taking care of little brother alone.”
Su Nanyue froze.
She never expected this to be the reason.
Something fragile seemed to spread through her chest, and her eyes grew sore.
Da Bao raised his hand, his small fingers covered with chilblains gently wiping away the tears at the corner of her eyes.
His childish voice trembled with sobs. “Don’t cry, Mom. When Da Bao grows up, I’ll come find you and little brother.”
Su Nanyue could no longer hold back and hugged him tightly.
If her earlier words had been spoken in a moment of impulse, now she truly wanted to keep both children.
“Don’t worry. Even if Mom and Dad get divorced, I’ll take you with me. Our family of three—not a single one of us will be missing.”
The mother and her two sons held each other tightly. Xiao Bao could no longer hold back his tears, crying as he spoke, “I’ll eat less from now on, so Mom won’t have to work so hard to raise me.”
Su Nanyue felt as if her heart were being squeezed by a large hand, aching intensely. “Mom will work hard to earn money. In the future, we’ll all have enough to eat.”
By the time the knock came at the door, the three of them had been crying together for quite a while.
All three had red-rimmed eyes.
Guessing who it was, Su Nanyue asked Da Bao to answer the door.
Da Bao slowly extricated himself from her embrace and walked with small steps toward the door.
When the door opened, he tilted his head back. From his angle, he could only see Jiang Yan’s chin.
Without a word, he turned and ran back to Su Nanyue, pressing his body tightly against hers.
Jiang Yan stood at the doorway, watching Su Nanyue seated by the bed with two little ones nestled against her sides.
From the receptionist’s earlier remarks, he had already guessed her identity.
He thought he would remain composed upon seeing them, but when the moment actually arrived, he felt as though an invisible rope bound his body, rendering him immobile.
Su Nanyue remained silent as well, and for a while, the room was eerily quiet.
After a long pause, Jiang Yan finally spoke, “You had children. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Su Nanyue looked up at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed from recent tears, lending her usually striking face a touch of fragility. “Are you blaming me?”
“No,” Jiang Yan denied. “I just didn’t expect it.”
He hadn’t expected her to get pregnant.
He hadn’t expected her to give birth to two children for him.
His impression of Su Nanyue wasn’t vivid—he only remembered her timid gaze that morning when everyone burst into the room.
The woman before him now was completely different from the one in his memories.
Su Nanyue stood up, her captivating peach-blossom eyes fixed steadily on Jiang Yan.
She gave a faint, self-mocking smile. “You ask why I didn’t tell you? How was I supposed to tell you?”
“I had no address for you, no way to contact you.”
“For four years, if you had asked even one more question, you would have known I gave birth to your two children.”
Jiang Yan said, “I’m sorry.”
A sarcastic curve lifted the corner of Su Nanyue’s lips. She wanted to say, “If apologies were useful, what would we need the police for?”
But she held back.
From the moment she learned his name outside the guest house, she had been thinking about how to maximize her own interests.
Her conclusion was to play the victim and win his sympathy.
That way, when they divorced, she could secure more for herself.
With this in mind, she lowered her gaze. “Not long after you left, I discovered I was pregnant.”
“Because I was working in the fields and carrying twins, I went into labor half a month early. Your parents said I was carrying bastards and wanted to throw me out.”
“Da Bao and Xiao Bao were still so small then. To avoid being driven out, I went back to work in the fields just three days after giving birth.”
“I worked ten work points every day, did all the household chores, and after returning home, I washed clothes, cooked, fetched water, chopped firewood—I did everything.”
“Da Bao and Xiao Bao were called bastards by the whole family. I told them to endure it, thinking it didn’t matter as long as we could survive.”
“Not long ago, while I was washing clothes, Jiang Jingzhou pushed me into the river. I hit my head on a stone. Your mother took me back and threw me into a room. I knew she wanted me dead—so no one would ever find out.”
Jiang Yan instinctively glanced at the scar on her forehead. The scab had fallen away, revealing pink, tender flesh.
Remembering the gruesome, frightening scar he had seen when he first spotted her on the train, his expression darkened.
Su Nanyue continued softly, “I lay in a daze for over a week. Da Bao saved bits of his own food every day to secretly feed me. I suppose I’m tough—I survived even that.”
“After I woke up, I secretly looked at the remittance slips you sent them, asked the brigade leader for a letter of introduction, and ran away with the children.”
She lifted her head and looked at Jiang Yan, her face pale, her lips nearly transparent. “I didn’t know you already had a new fiancée. Don’t worry, I won’t cling to you.”
“I’ll start looking for a place tomorrow. Once I find one, we’ll get the divorce certificate, and then I’ll move out with the children.”