Chapter 813 - 280: Qin Mei Reports Xu Chunyan

When the middle-aged woman saw Jie Jingchen and Qin Mei, her eyes clouded over. She tried to sit up, but Mrs. Xie gently pressed her back down, leading the couple over to the newborn.

"Isn’t the baby adorable?" Mrs. Xie asked them.

"Adorable," Qin Mei agreed. Jie Jingchen remained silent. Both of them stared at Mrs. Xie with evident confusion.

"She’s a girl," Mrs. Xie said.

At the mention of the word *girl*, the middle-aged woman’s eyes filled with deep regret and sorrow.

Qin Mei and Jie Jingchen exchanged bewildered glances. Reaching out, Qin Mei gently poked the baby’s blanket and lied through her teeth, "She’s quite pretty."

Truth be told, a freshly born infant had absolutely nothing to do with the word *pretty*.

"Xiao Mei, do you like her?" Mrs. Xie smiled at her daughter-in-law, her eyes harboring an expectation that Qin Mei couldn’t quite fathom.

"Mom, whether I like her or not isn’t really the point, is it?" Qin Mei deflected.

Mrs. Xie’s gaze darkened as she looked at Qin Mei. With a heavy sigh, she murmured, "This child is very pitiful."

"Is she sick?" Qin Mei blurted out. If the baby was sick, maybe her mother-in-law wanted her to save the child. Yet, no matter how she looked at it, the infant didn’t appear ill in the slightest.

Mrs. Xie froze for a moment, clearly caught off guard by the question. "No, it’s just that this child..."

Suddenly, the middle-aged woman scrambled out of bed and dropped straight to her knees, kowtowing repeatedly to Mrs. Xie, Jie Jingchen, and Qin Mei.

The young couple was completely dumbfounded. Mrs. Xie immediately stepped forward to help her up. "Mr. Liu, what are you doing? Hurry up and get off the floor."

"Doctor Qiao, please don’t stop me." Mr. Liu refused to let Mrs. Xie help her up. She shuffled forward on her knees toward Jie Jingchen and Qin Mei. "Doctor Qiao is a good person, a true saint. Since you two are her son and daughter-in-law, you must be kind-hearted people as well."

Qin Mei frowned. This sounded dangerously like moral blackmail.

"I’m begging you, please take pity on my unfortunate daughter. I’m begging you!" Mr. Liu cried out, continuing to kowtow to them relentlessly.

Jie Jingchen and Qin Mei were completely overwhelmed by her frantic bowing. Could someone please explain what was going on?

They looked at Mrs. Xie in utter bewilderment.

Mrs. Xie finally managed to pull Mr. Liu up. "Mr. Liu, please get up first."

"Doctor Qiao..." Mr. Liu sobbed.

"Get up first, and then we can talk," Mrs. Xie insisted.

Listening to reason, Mr. Liu allowed Mrs. Xie to guide her back to the bed. Mrs. Xie thoughtfully tucked a pillow behind her back so she could sit comfortably.

"Thank you, Doctor Qiao," Mr. Liu said gratefully. She took a deep breath. With a tender, reluctant gaze, she glanced at the crib before locking eyes with Jie Jingchen and Qin Mei. "My in-laws heavily favor boys over girls. This is the sixth daughter I’ve given birth to. Everyone swore this pregnancy would be a boy, and my in-laws were thrilled. But in the end, it was another girl. My mother-in-law was beyond disappointed. She grabbed my husband and abandoned us here to head home. Before she left, she told me to just dispose of the daughter."

Hearing the word *dispose*, Qin Mei was instantly filled with righteous indignation. "Dispose? Dispose of her how? Strangle her, or sell her?"

Mrs. Xie facepalmed. Why jump straight to strangling or selling? They could just give the baby away to another family.

Jie Jingchen gave Qin Mei’s hand a gentle squeeze, silently urging her to calm down. He leaned in and whispered in her ear, "Preferring boys over girls is a toxic tradition, but for some of the older generation, the mindset is deeply ingrained."

Qin Mei took a deep breath and asked, "Mr. Liu, do you have a job?"

Mr. Liu was taken aback. Weren’t they talking about the baby? How did the topic suddenly shift to employment? Though confused, she answered honestly, "Yes."

"Does your salary cover the living expenses for your five daughters?" Qin Mei pressed.

"Yes, it does," Mr. Liu answered without a hint of hesitation.

"If you have a job and your salary is enough to support you and your five daughters, then why do you still care about what your in-laws think? Do they even treat you well?" Qin Mei’s relentless questioning left Mr. Liu completely bewildered.

Qin Mei’s logic was simple. Having a job meant having leverage. Since that was the case, why suffer in silence just to keep the peace? She thought, "You treat me well, I’ll treat you twice as well. You treat me poorly, I don’t care who you are—get as far away from me as possible."

"No, they don’t," Mr. Liu replied weakly after a long pause.

"If they treat you poorly, why still seek their approval? Are you just looking for ways to suffer?" Qin Mei paused before continuing, "When a woman fails to stand her ground with her in-laws, it’s her own fault. If she doesn’t have a job and has to rely on them to survive, then she has no choice. But if she has a job and doesn’t rely on them for money, then she’s bringing the misery upon herself."

Mrs. Xie and Jie Jingchen remained utterly silent. One was Qin Mei’s husband, and the other was her mother-in-law. At a moment like this, silence was definitely the wisest choice.

"If you have the means to be independent but still choose to live in misery, and you refuse to wake up and pull yourself out of the mud, then you deserve it," Qin Mei said, her harsh words completely snapping Mr. Liu out of her delusion.