After Rebirth, Minor Character Only Wants to Level Up

Seeing her son suddenly return, Old Mrs. Ye was also taken aback. A look of joy flashed across her face, but it soon turned cold again. She didn’t say a word, just turned her body on the kang, and Ye Ling called out "Dad" before lowering her head to tidy the table and then lay down in the outer room.

Having hit a wall with both his mother and daughter, Ye He Ping had anticipated this, but when actually facing it, he couldn’t help but feel awkward. He lifted a hand to touch his nose, and as he sat down on the edge of the kang, he took off his hat and placed it beside him.

"Mom, if I’ve done something wrong, tell me, beat me, scold me, it doesn’t matter, as long as you don’t get angry. Look at you, you traveled so far to come to me without even having a meal before coming back. How could I feel at ease with that?" Ye He Ping’s voice was exhausted, and his expression was helpless. "Mom, I’ve been able to endure any hardship since I was a child. When there was no food at home, we ground chaff and elm bark into powder to cook and eat. I still remember the chaff scraping my throat as I swallowed, it burned like a fire. I only knew I didn’t have a dad, just a mom raising me, so I couldn’t cause her more trouble. So I forced it down and secretly vowed that when I grew up, I’d make sure we lived a good life, eating steamed buns made from fine flour every day. When I became a teacher, during outdoor training, my feet froze in the snow until they were numb, and then soaking them in cold water felt like needles piercing to the bone. I didn’t make a sound, still remembering the vow I made as a child. Even after starting a family and having kids, seeing them suffer with me, I couldn’t help but feel distressed, worried they’d endure the same hardships I did."

"When this incident happened, I didn’t think deeply and made the decision. It was my mistake as a father." In the outer room, Ye Ling glanced through the door crack and retreated again, eavesdropping. Ye He Ping’s eyes were red, "Mom, I also feel for my children. With Ye Qian having this illness, in our family’s situation, I was anxious, wishing I were the one who was sick."

The room was silent, but Ye Ling felt uneasy. Yet she envied Ye Qian, who, after two lives, could still receive her parents’ love. As for herself, she truly felt abandoned.

At this moment, Ye Ling suddenly didn’t want to keep listening. The mother-son relationship between her grandmother and father would never change, and her grandmother always cared for her father. No matter how much wrong he did, now that he brought up childhood matters, wouldn’t her grandmother just forgive him?

Ye Ling didn’t know why she felt this way, but thinking about it, she couldn’t help feeling upset.

Inside the room, after a long silence, Old Mrs. Ye’s voice finally came, "He Ping, I know you’re tired, but life is tiring. The poor have their hardships, the rich have their worries, and it’s only when the struggles are completely over that life ends. Life is just one problem piling on another. As a father now, even if the sky falls, you have to brace yourself. Both the palm and back of the hand are flesh; you can’t be partial."

"Mom, I know I was wrong." Ye He Ping’s guilty voice immediately followed.

In the outer room, as Ye Ling heard her grandmother’s last words, she was already walking out. There was no need to hear what happened next; she knew. It was just her father admitting fault and getting her grandmother’s forgiveness, as if nothing had happened.

Leaving the courtyard, walking to the village entrance, looking at the rolling hills in the distance, Ye Ling took a deep breath and patted her cheeks. She really was going crazy; there’s no such thing as a mother and son truly severing ties. The oppressive feeling in her chest seemed to dissipate, too. With her grandmother and father’s relationship restored, did it mean they no longer had to struggle to earn money for school?