Rebirth: He Decides to Lie Flat
Chapter 161 - 161 158 Mu Jiawen (Second Update)

Chapter 161: Chapter 158 Mu Jiawen (Second Update) Chapter 161: Chapter 158 Mu Jiawen (Second Update) From the outside, it looked like an ordinary farmhouse courtyard with green brick walls and a red iron gate.

The yard was tidy and paved with limewash. The main house consisted of four large rooms. It was somewhat old, but the doors, windows, and interior had all been refurbished. The furniture and appliances also seemed outdated.

After entering, Mu Chenyan’s gaze swept over everything here. She had heard that when she was first brought back at the age of three, Xiaosi had been kept in this yard and seldom went out.

Was this the courtyard?

“My eldest son is thirty this year, and the second son is twenty-seven. This one is the third, twenty-five, Xiaosi, who is also my little daughter that you picked up, the one I looked forward to for many years and finally welcomed with difficulty.”

Mu Chenyan stood in the yard, declining Song Laosan’s invitation to sit inside. She merely looked into the room where Xiaosi had lived, which was already filled with clutter and showed no trace of Xiaosi.

Mu Chenyan closed the door expressionlessly, then stood at the entrance of the hall, her eyes heavy as she looked at Xie Jingying and her husband.

Both of them kept their heads down, not daring to meet her eyes.

She had guessed that the girl’s family wasn’t simple, yet she did not expect her biological mother to have such an imposing presence.

Both were scared!

“When Xiaosi was taken by traffickers, she was young but smart. She managed to escape while passing through Yunzhou and, after a series of stumbles, was eventually met by your elder daughter. I should be thankful to you, considering you saved her, but …”

At the “but” from Mu Chenyan, Xie Jingying and Song Laosan shuddered.

“Do you know why only my son and I came here today and not the police? It’s because my daughter asked us to consider your mother’s sake and not settle scores with you. Although I’m not willing to let you off so easily—you two really got off lightly—I can’t do otherwise since that elderly lady has passed away only recently… Xie Jingying, remember this, from today onwards, Song Jiawen has nothing to do with you anymore. Even if you meet her, act as if you don’t know her, got it?”

Mu Chenyan didn’t linger there and quickly left with Yu Ci in the car.

“Mom, are you sure we are going to change Xiaosi’s official name to this?”

They had planned to change it back to her original childhood name, Yu Luo, but Song Jiawen had grown accustomed to her current name, and… if she didn’t use that name, it felt like that little girl who had vanished at the age of three would disappear from this world altogether.

She had replaced her for fourteen years, living fourteen years for her. Why couldn’t she carry on living with the hopes of that younger self for the rest of her life?

After all, no one wishes to die including her at that time, stricken with encephalitis, surely wanted to keep living.

In the end, after repeated discussions, mother and daughter decided to change her name to Mu Jiawen.

The name Yu Luo was still listed in the Yu family genealogy, but the household registration and ID card would all use the name “Mu Jiawen.”

“Let’s go with that. After I transfer her registration back, I’m going to divorce your father. But your little sister is still two months shy of eighteen, and if your father contests the custody, it won’t be troublesome, but it will be disgusting!”

Yu Ci thought it made sense.

The car left Jianglin Village, and soon arrived in Jianghai Town, stopping by the roadside not far from Xie Yanhai’s front gate.

“Take the things we brought.”

Mu Chenyan walked ahead, followed by Yu Ci laden with bags big and small.

The front door of Xie Yanhai’s house was ajar; Li Yun was cooking in the kitchen, incessantly gossiping about her school colleagues, while Xie Yanhai sat at the kitchen door picking vegetables, responding intermittently.

Hearing the front door being knocked surprised Xie Yanhai. Who could it be? So polite?

In this area, who knocks when visiting, rather than just pushing the door open?

“Hello, is this the home of Teacher Xie Yanhai?”

Called “Teacher Xie,” could it be the parent of a student from school?

But Xie Yanhai, looking at the pair that had come in, who seemed to be mother and son, felt something was off.

He asked with confusion, “You are?”

“My name is Mu Chenyan. I come from Beijing.”

Upon hearing that she was from Beijing, Xie Yanhai immediately gaped in shock, he glanced at Mu Chenyan and then at Yu Ci… In a flash, he seemed to understand something.

Li Yun, hearing the noise, also came out from the kitchen, and eventually, the four of them sat down in the main room.

Mu Chenyan treated Xie Yanhai and Li Yun with great respect, “We should have come to pay our respects when the old lady passed away, but Xiaosi… that is, Jiajia, she wanted to send her grandmother off peacefully, so we didn’t dare to disturb.”

Li Yun couldn’t help but ask, “Are you Jiajia’s biological mother?”

Mu Chenyan nodded, “Yes!”

“Yes, what yes? Don’t be in a hurry to recognize her, first tell us how you lost Jiajia all those years ago?”

Li Yun remembered her mother-in-law’s dying words, “The child is not with her parents now, but with us, so we have to be responsible for her. First tell us how you lost her back then, and if you’ve been looking for her all these years.”

Although the woman in front of them did not seem like an ordinary person judging by her dress and demeanor, sometimes it’s exactly such people who are capable of the unthinkable.

Like those who, for the sake of their own future, gave up their child, and then years later when successful, wanted to acknowledge them again… Isn’t this type of thing often depicted on television?

Or say, keeping the son and giving away the daughter, favoring boys over girls is even more common.

In the few seconds it took to say these words, Li Yun had come up with several versions of a sad story for Jiajia. What she didn’t notice was that in each version, Jiajia was abandoned by the other party.

So this child was truly pitiable, only able to be with them.

However, when they heard the real reason from Mu Chenyan’s mouth, the couple’s jaws dropped in shock and they couldn’t close their mouths for a long time.

“You… you mean, Jia… no, my little niece, she, she passed away at three years old?”

Before Song Jiawen first came to his house at four and a half, he had only seen her once at “little Jiajia’s” birth, when she was all wrinkled and looked like an ugly little baby.

“Mhm, a prolonged high fever induced encephalitis, and she didn’t make it through resuscitation.”

Xie Yanhai’s face turned pale; he truly hadn’t expected this to be the truth. Initially, they thought that the child was lost, and then Xie Jingying picked up Jiajia…

No, actually they hadn’t speculated too much, after all, they hadn’t known about this for long and couldn’t verify with Xie Jingying.

Of course, the most important thing was that they already had feelings for Jiajia, which made them subconsciously shy away from that child, treating Jiajia as their own.

But…

It took quite a while for Xie Yanhai and Li Yun to come back to their senses after Mu Chenyan and Yu Ci left.

“Your sister and her husband really have some nerve!”

Li Yun exclaimed in disbelief and then suddenly widened her eyes, looking at Xie Yanhai, “That that that…. that woman, Jiajia’s real mom, what did she say her name was just now?”

“Mu Chenyan, what about it?”

“Mu Chenyan? Do you know what those three characters mean?”

“Isn’t it just…”

Xie Yanhai was shocked!