Chapter 56 Resolute Attitude

I said, "This is bad, really bad, bad, bad! Given this girl's personality, there is a hundred and twenty percent chance she's going to do something foolish. No, I have to go and stop her right now. If anything happens to her, how on earth am I supposed to compensate you two?"

Xu Jing asked, "She won't do anything to herself, will she?"

I replied, "She might not do anything to herself, but you two are the ones in trouble! She made it crystal clear at the hospital that she's going to sue you for abandonment. You heard her just as well as I did."

Han Leiluo said, "What? I thought she was just joking around."

I said, "Judging by her expression, she means business. You'd better start thinking about which good lawyer to retain right now!"

Xu Jing asked, "Isn't there any room for reconciliation? I know we were in the wrong, and we are willing to make amends for the pain and losses she has suffered all these years."

I said, "The problem is that you're in the wrong and you abandoned her in the first place. If she were willing to settle, why would she take it to court?"

Xu Jing said, "We really had no other choice back then. There was an earthquake, and we genuinely couldn't afford to raise her anymore. You wouldn't understand unless you'd witnessed it yourself. To survive, people back then even resorted to exchanging their children to eat them! Exchanging children for food isn't just a metaphor from a book; we experienced it firsthand. Do you have any idea how agonizing it was for us, knowing we had to make sure our child wouldn't be eaten by someone else? That was the only reason we abandoned her."

Hearing this sent a shock through my heart. I could vividly picture the scene: driven by the desperate will to survive, people were capable of anything, even waging wars over a scrap of food. They had only one single goal, and that was to stay alive.

Yet, out loud, I simply said, "Alright, alright, save those speeches for the courtroom!" With that, I took the paternity test report and headed back to my brother's place.

As soon as I walked in, I saw An Mingshan sitting on the sofa in a daze, completely unaware that I had returned.

I called out, "Hey! Hello!" Giving her a gentle tap on the head finally brought her back to her senses, and she looked up at me. I continued, "What are you daydreaming about?"

An Mingshan said, "I already told you, I am going to sue them. If you support me, then be my lawyer; if you don't support me, stay out of it and watch from the sidelines, but don't get in my way."

I said, "You've changed. You've changed into someone I don't even recognize. Where is the kind-hearted An Mingshan I used to know?"

An Mingshan snapped, "You called me An Mingshan! You actually called me An Mingshan! Who was it that promised to always call me An'an and nothing else? To think I trusted you so much, yet you went and sided with them to bully me!"

I retorted, "What's wrong with using your full name? Isn't that what names are for? If you keep insisting on suing them, I'm going to call you by your full name every single day! An Mingshan! An Mingshan! I'll drive you crazy!"

An Mingshan said, "First of all, you have never spoken to me like this before, and I never expected you to be such a coward today. Second, I already said it! I am definitely going to sue them, and nothing you say today is going to change my mind!"

I said, "Do you have any idea how serious the consequences of this will be? A daughter suing her own flesh and blood—that's front-page news! Do you want to turn this into a national spectacle where everyone in the country knows your business?"

An Mingshan replied, "What is there to be afraid of? My conscience is clear regarding everything I've done, unlike certain people who worry about the sky falling!"

I said, "I'm doing this for your own good! In short, you cannot go through with this lawsuit!"

An Mingshan asked, "Do you really have to be so ruthless?"

I answered, "Yes."

An Mingshan declared, "I mean what I say!"

I said, "If I could pull you back from the gates of hell once, I have the confidence to do it a second time!"

An Mingshan retorted, "Don't count on it! Don't forget, these hands and legs belong to me, and you have no right to restrict my personal freedom!" With that, she snatched a fruit knife off the table and made to leave.

I said, "That's true, but don't forget, you have no right to restrict my personal freedom either!" Seeing that she was heading out, I immediately followed her.

An Mingshan turned back to look at me and said, "Would you stop following me everywhere?"

I replied, "What kind of logic is that? You didn't build this road. Besides, like you said, my legs belong to me—where I go is none of your business! Don't tell me you're just going out to help me sharpen my knife." An Mingshan completely ignored me and kept walking. Wherever she went, I followed, all the way to Han Leiluo's shop.

I never expected her to storm straight through the door with the knife in hand. Knowing full well what she was likely planning to do, I hurried forward to stop her, but she had already broken into the shop...

Reader Q&A.

Question: Dear Author, what are your thoughts on Chinese children ranking first in calculation skills, but dead last in imagination and creativity?

Answer: The current education system in China is formulaic, bureaucratic, and rigid. It neglects children's personal interests and hobbies, placing excessive focus on problems like "the square of the sum of a and b equals a squared plus b squared plus 2ab," which turns children's thinking mechanical. Another factor is the overbearing control of parents. Everything is forbidden—they are only allowed to do homework and attend cram schools. Any creative impulse a child has is dismissed by parents as nonsense, or outright prohibited. In such an environment, the system merely manufactures production lines of human cogs, while those who truly understand how to create are vanishingly rare.