Rebirth Counterattack with Space
Chapter 200 - 192: Two Extremes

Chapter 200: Chapter 192: Two Extremes

Children without mothers are the most pitiable.

That day, Ding Luoluo was once again falsely accused by her younger sister of stealing and wearing her new dress. Her sister made a big fuss, and their father, who had just stepped into the house, scolded her without asking any questions, criticizing her for lacking the demeanor of an older sister and pointing at her nose, telling her to get out.

Ding Luoluo, feeling utterly wronged and without even getting to eat, impulsively ran out of the house. No one came after her, and she hid helplessly behind some low bushes in the courtyard, crying to herself, only to coincidentally be stumbled upon by Zhang Min.

The bond between people is really quite miraculous.

Normally, Ding Luoluo’s personality was exactly the kind that Zhang Min disliked the most, but that day, when Zhang Min caught sight of the girl hiding behind the bushes, crying with snot and tears all over her face, looking disheveled and frail, something inside her was touched. She felt a heart-piercing pain and approached the girl, using every bit of patience to coax and deceive her into being "picked up" and taken home.

From then on, for thirty days in a month, Ding Luoluo would spend twenty-eight or twenty-nine of those days living at the Pei family’s home, where she had her own independent bedroom, decorated far more exquisitely than her sister’s.

Her new clothes and dresses were not only more numerous than Ding Tiantian’s but also prettier, with many being specially sent from the Magic Capital by Zhang Min. The extent to which she was favored in the Pei family even surpassed that of the Pei family’s only male, Pei Kun—the little overlord who was always up to mischief with a group of kids around the neighborhood.

As for the Ding family, after Pei family’s patriarch personally visited Ding Junshan to discuss letting Ding Luoluo spend more time at their home to accompany his lonely wife, Ding Junshan was so flattered that he didn’t know what to do with himself and couldn’t say a word against it. In fact, he wished he could pack up his eldest daughter and send her off to the Pei family right away.

After that, Ding Luoluo’s stepmother Liu Mei and her sister Ding Tiantian’s attitudes toward Ding Luoluo underwent a major change. They began to visit the Pei family frequently, trying hard to present themselves as caring mothers. Even when they were coldly received, they persisted, and what was even more contemptible was that Ding Tiantian tried several times to act weak and kind in front of the Pei family and Pei Kun, hoping to replace Ding Luoluo’s place in the Pei family.

Unfortunately for them, their flirtatious glances were cast in the wrong direction, and their schemes were doomed to fail.

Zhang Min was not an ordinary woman; the people and events she had encountered alongside her husband were too numerous to count. The small tricks of Ding mother and daughter were nothing in her eyes.

And the men of the Pei family were not like those outside who would readily feel pity for a random little white flower by the roadside. Their pity and cherishing were reserved only for their own women, such as Ding Luoluo, whom Zhang Min had accepted.

They believed only in what they saw with their own eyes—the malnourished Ding Luoluo who was pale, skinny, with sparse hair and so frail she didn’t look eleven, but more like she was eight or nine.

Especially when they saw the change in the mother and daughter’s faces and the way Ding Luoluo would subconsciously shrink away.

The outer clothes were barely presentable, though a bit grey and patched in one or two places. The underwear, however, was patched over patches, and her feet were clad in obviously ill-fitting cloth shoes—this was Ding Luoluo. In stark contrast was Ding Tiantian, who at a glance was dressed in bright and shiny attire, with a white shirt, blue skirt, black leather shoes, a rosy complexion, and a fake smile like her mother’s on her face.

The Pei family did not consider themselves blind. Even the youngest, Pei Kun, after imagining what Ding Luoluo’s past life was like, no longer felt any jealousy towards her.

And so, as childhood friends growing up together, it was no surprise that Pei Kun and Ding Luoluo eventually developed feelings for each other. Influenced by Zhang Min, Ding Luoluo also began to grow more and more confident and strong. Faced with her stepmother and sister, she no longer felt inferior and started to shine brighter and brighter.

Ten years had passed, and the tides had turned. When Ding Luoluo finally got admitted to B University on her own merits, Ding Junshan couldn’t help but change his views on his eldest daughter, and he began to see her as the pride of the Ding Family...

Ding Luoluo was a person of gratitude who knew wrong from right. Her sense of belonging to the Pei Family, her feelings for Zhang Min, were far more intense than those for the Ding Family, for her biological father—more than tenfold.

In her heart, Zhang Min was not so much a grandmother as she was a mother. She provided Ding Luoluo with the selfless and purest form of maternal love that she had yearned for and lost at an early age.

"Yes, those two really have the thickest skins. I’ve told them so many times to stay away from me, but they just like to come over and cling to me from time to time."

With a frown, Ding Luoluo helplessly said, "I’m afraid if I go out alone, they’ll find an opportunity to show their ’concern’ again, insisting on accompanying me. To outsiders, it may even look like we have a good relationship. So, Grandma, I’m afraid you’ll have to bear the burden today."

"Alright, alright, I’ve agreed, haven’t I? Otherwise, my ears would have developed calluses from hearing it so much."

Zhang Min laughed and gave Ding Luoluo a playful glance, "With your tactics now, it’s odd if they could really cling to you. Do you think I don’t know your little schemes? You’re just sweet-talking me all day long."

How could she not understand the filial piety of her grandchildren? In fact, she quite enjoyed being spoiled like this—who says the older you get, the more childlike you become?

"Grandma, you truly are wise and mighty! How could our little tricks ever escape your discerning eyes? But still, I must say, you’re being unfair, just let me and Pei Kun have our secret joys from time to time, why must you expose us?" Ding Luoluo turned her head in dissatisfaction.

"There, there, as a punishment, Grandma will pay today. No matter how much you buy, I’ll foot the bill, alright?" Zhang Min treated Ding Luoluo very differently from Pei Kun—’sweeping through like an autumn breeze’ as opposed to the ’warmth of spring.’ These were two extreme attitudes.

The little devil in Pei Kun’s heart hid in a corner, biting his blanket corner, and with an enviously jealous gaze, he couldn’t help calling out, "Luoluo, you must remember today to buy back those clothes that we saw last time, the ones you liked but didn’t bring yourself to buy. Grandma has money, don’t save it on her behalf."

Ding Luoluo looked at Pei Kun with limitless sympathy. Why couldn’t this guy ever learn?

As expected, the next moment, Pei Kun felt a thump on his head, and Zhang Min looked at him with utmost disappointment, "You stingy boy, you can’t even bring yourself to buy clothes your wife likes, and you have the nerve to shout that loud?"

Zhang Min then looked at Ding Luoluo with sympathy, "Don’t worry, today Grandma will make the purchases. Whatever you like, we will buy. But let’s forget about this stinky boy’s clothes. He has too many already; buying more would be a sheer waste and it just takes up space."

Ding Luoluo pursed her lips and smiled, nodding obediently. She would still be reluctant to spend, even if it was not her own money but her grandmother’s. But she wouldn’t say it out loud.

All she could do was give Pei Kun a look of infinite sympathy.

The money isn’t even in my hands, it all goes to Luoluo as soon as I get my paycheck. I’m not the one reluctant to buy clothes, yet in the end, why am I the one to blame? — Pei Kun pouted and almost wanted to bash his head against the ground.