Chapter 28 - 24: Taking the Opportunity to Ask for Mr. Xie’s Car
"..." Jie Jingchen.
"..." Mr. Xie.
"..." Mrs. Xie.
The three of them wore varying expressions of bewilderment and shock.
They had told her to be bold, and she had truly been audacious.
"Qin Mei," Jie Jingchen said, a headache coming on. Asking for a car was far greedier than simply asking for money.
"Um... Xiao Mei, I still have a bicycle ration coupon. I’ll go buy you a bicycle tomorrow," Mrs. Xie said. She, too, felt that Qin Mei asking for a car was unrealistic.
Qin Mei looked completely innocent. It was Mrs. Xie who had told her to be bold and say what she wanted. She had, and now they thought she was being fanciful. "Mom, I don’t know how to ride a bicycle."
"That’s alright, Jing Si can teach you," Mrs. Xie said with a smile. She glanced at Jie Jingchen, then added, "But you’ll have to wait until he’s fully recovered before he can teach you."
Qin Mei gave a small smile and lowered her gaze, staring at the tips of her shoes.
Seeing this, Mrs. Xie felt a pang of guilt. ’I shouldn’t have encouraged her.’ The feeling of making a promise you couldn’t keep was a bitter one.
"You don’t even know how to drive. What would you do with Dad’s car?" Jie Jingchen wasn’t being sarcastic; he simply didn’t want her getting her hopes up for no reason.
"I..." Qin Mei started to say that she did, in fact, have a driver’s license. But then she caught herself. ’This is the seventies. How could I possibly know how to drive? If I said I did, it would be impossible to explain.’
Mrs. Xie didn’t like what Jie Jingchen said and retorted, "Your father doesn’t know how to drive either. That’s what a driver is for."
𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞
Jie Jingchen shot Qin Mei a dirty look before turning to his mother. "So if we give her the car, are we supposed to give her Xiao Wang, too?"
Mrs. Xie was left speechless. Xiao Wang was Mr. Xie’s driver.
Qin Mei remained silent. ’Mrs. Xie isn’t defending me because she wants me to have the car,’ she realized. ’She’s just upset that Jie Jingchen is looking down on me.’ To be more precise, Mrs. Xie was a forward-thinking woman who firmly believed that "women hold up half the sky" and couldn’t stand seeing men belittle women.
Mr. Xie, who had been silent all this time, finally spoke up. "Xiao Mei, I can’t give you the car. However, if you need to use it, just let me know. As long as I’m not using it, you can tell Xiao Wang directly wherever you need to go."
Qin Mei’s head snapped up, her face breaking into a wide smile. "Thank you, Dad!"
’Having the right to use the car is pretty good, too!’ she thought ecstatically.
Jie Jingchen and Mrs. Xie exchanged a look but said nothing more.
"Director," Xiao Wang said, running in with two aluminum lunch boxes.
Qin Mei stared at the aluminum lunch boxes in Xiao Wang’s hands. They looked heavy, definitely not empty. ’What’s going on here?’ she wondered. ’Everyone in the Jie Family comes home from work carrying a lunch box.’
"That’s all, Xiao Wang. You can head home now. Remember to come pick me up half an hour early tomorrow morning," Mr. Xie said, taking the lunch boxes from him.
"Understood, Director." Xiao Wang said his goodbyes to the others and rode his bicycle home.
Seeing Qin Mei staring at the lunch boxes with a puzzled expression, Mrs. Xie smiled gently and explained, "Sister Zhang went back to her hometown, so there’s no one to cook for a few days."
Qin Mei understood. The implication was that she was on her own for meals. ’No wonder everyone brings a lunch box home from work. It’s their dinner!’
Mrs. Xie and Mr. Xie first went to Jie Jingshan’s room, then returned to their own room with their lunch boxes.
Qin Mei was on the verge of tears. She turned to Jie Jingchen and said, "Jie Jingchen, I want to go back to Dazhuang Village! I want to go back to the Sun Family! I want my sister!"
’At the Sun Family, I was served three meals a day. Here in the Jie Family, I have to fend for myself for every meal.’
Xu Chunyan was hiding under the window, eavesdropping. Jie Jingwei opened his aluminum lunch box and pushed it in front of Jie You. Seeing his wife still crouching by the window, he reminded her, "Chunyan, the food’s getting cold."
"Eat, eat, eat! Is that all you know how to do? Were you a starving ghost in your past life?" Xu Chunyan tried to stand, but her legs had gone numb from crouching. She plopped right back down on the floor, her face twisting from the painful pins and needles. "Jing Er, quick, come help me up! My legs are asleep!"
"Serves you right," Jie Jingwei muttered, glaring at her. Still, he put down his chopsticks, walked over to Xu Chunyan, and lifted her onto a stool before opening her lunch box and pushing it toward her.
Xu Chunyan sat stiffly on the stool, not daring to move even a toe. She glared at Jie Jingwei, who was already eating. "How can you have any appetite? Your dad just gave the car to Jing Si’s wife!"
Jie Jingwei had no desire to engage with her. "Do I need to repeat what Dad said?"
Xu Chunyan glared at Jie Jingwei with utter exasperation. "Is this about the car? No! It’s about your father’s blatant favoritism for Jing Si! He loves him so much that his affection even extends to his wife! Jing Er, I’ve never even ridden in your father’s car. How is any of this fair to me?"
"If you want to ride in Dad’s car, it’s simple. Get up early tomorrow, and we can take his car to work together," Jie Jingwei said.
Xu Chunyan gritted her teeth. "The machinery factory and the school are in opposite directions! How am I supposed to take Dad’s car to work?"
"So you *do* know they’re in opposite directions," Jie Jingwei said sarcastically, then buried his head in his food.