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Fan Baozhen, now nine years old, had begun to retain her memories. This wasn’t her first encounter with her ’great aunt.’ Upon seeing Aunt Li, who always showed her affection, returning, she immediately threw herself into her arms and wept with delicate sobs.
"Aunt~" Li Xiaoxia, seeing her daughter crying like this, also broke down in tears, heartbroken. Mrs. Li was no less distressed, and for a moment, sorrow compounded among the four women—young and old—in the room.
"Xiaoxia, what are you planning to do?" Only Aunt Li, despite her compassion, wore a determined expression on her face.
"Aunt, I want to take Baozhen to Shenzhen to start over." After Fan Fengshou had been sent away, Li Xiaoxia had asked her daughter for her opinion.
After this incident, Li Xiaoxia truly didn’t dare to let her daughter attend school locally anymore, because the gossip about Fan Fengshou was just too unbearable to hear.
With only two schools in the area, if something like this happened again, Li Xiaoxia felt she might as well throw herself into the river and be done with it.
"..." Mrs. Li glanced at her granddaughter but eventually did not voice any opposition.
Aunt Li, observing her younger sister’s expression, immediately understood. In the locality, her son-in-law’s reputation must have gone thoroughly rotten.
Upon considering how a man dared treat her own child like that, she frowned, "Are you thinking of getting a divorce?"
"Don’t want... I don’t want that!" Before Li Xiaoxia could respond, Fan Baozhen voiced her opposition, "Mom, wherever you go, I will follow you, but you must not get a divorce! I refuse to become a child without a father!"
At that moment, when she had been pinned down and beaten, the only thing she remembered was that they were all mocking her as a dame raised ’without a father!’
So, she had no objections to leaving with her mother; she no longer wanted to stay here either. But she did not want to become a daughter without a father!
"Alright, alright, we won’t get a divorce, and definitely won’t let Baozhen be fatherless," Li Xiaoxia reassured her daughter upon hearing this. Seeing her calm down, she then said to Aunt Li:
"Aunt, I wasn’t thinking of divorcing Fan Fengshou either. If we really got a divorce, Baozhen would be without a father, and that woman would benefit from it?!"
Li Xiaoxia spoke angrily, then turned to her daughter and said a few words, seeing that she obediently returned to her room, everyone finally breathed a sigh of relief and were able to have a proper conversation.
"But you are still so young..." Aunt Li, however, felt that such a choice was not beneficial to her niece in any way.
If she divorced, she could still find a better man. A woman from the Li Family, afraid of not having good men come knocking?
"Aunt, even if I could find a good man, none of them would be Baozhen’s real father, so how could they truly and genuinely care for her?
If we encountered a thankless wretch, that would be even worse! Who can guarantee that finding another man would indeed land a good and genuine person?
Aunt, I’m not thinking of getting a divorce to rely on another good man. All I want is for Baozhen to grow up safe and sound, and I’ll be content!"
"Mom, I love you the most." Fan Baozhen, who had been eavesdropping from behind the door, burst into her mother’s embrace in tears after hearing her sincere words.
She was still too young to understand the enormity of her request for a woman in her twenties.
At that moment, all she knew was that after hearing her mother’s words, she felt much more settled. No longer did she have that uncomfortable feeling of insecurity, like water inconsistently sloshing in a half-filled bucket!
"So how do you plan to speak with Baozhen’s father about this?" Aunt Li looked at the mother and daughter hugging each other, sighed, and continued to ask.
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