Chapter 225: Gu Jingjing Figured It Out
Sheng Wanyan looked down and noticed Gu Jingjing biting her lip, a deeply sorrowful look clouding her small face.
“Jingjing, how about Third Aunt teaches you how to paint?”
Gu Jingjing’s eyes lit up instantly. “Okay!”
Sheng Wanyan smiled and led her into the living room to set up. Gu Jingjing carefully pulled out the set of paintbrushes Wanyan had gifted her the previous evening.
Watching from the adjacent armchairs, Old Master Gu and Grandma Gu looked at the pair with immense affection. Meanwhile, Gu Tingxiao stepped into the kitchen to store the provisions they had brought back from the base.
He had his own circle of friends within the compound, and seeing his wife comfortably settled with her art project, he decided to step out to catch up with his old childhood companions.
“Wanyan, I’m going to step out for a bit to meet up with some of the guys from the compound,” he said, leaning down beside her. “We’ll be over at the Liang house next door. Would you like to come along?”
“I’m going to focus on teaching Jingjing how to draw. You go ahead,” Wanyan replied. She harbored zero interest in a boisterous gathering, and given the heavy snow falling outside, she had no desire to leave the warm house.
Gu Tingxiao nodded understandingly. He went upstairs to fetch a plush, small blanket to wrap securely around her shoulders, poured her a fresh glass of hot water, and then quietly took his leave.
Sheng Wanyan began sketching out a few simple outlines of little animals, instructing Gu Jingjing to fill them in with color. The little girl threw herself into the task with absolute, solemn focus. Wanyan quickly realized that the child possessed a genuine, innate instinct for art; she was remarkably deliberate in selecting her own palette. She chose soft beige and pristine white tones to shade a little rabbit, and carefully blended several distinct hues for the subsequent animals.
While the color combinations were a bit chaotic on her initial attempts, the girl’s choices grew progressively more cohesive and unified as the morning wore on.
Sheng Wanyan raised an eyebrow in pleasant surprise. Recognizing the raw potential, she began demonstrating how to draft proper straight lines and symmetrical circles. Gu Jingjing’s initial strokes were predictably crooked and shaky, but under Wanyan’s patient guidance, her control improved dramatically. Wanyan then broke down the structural patterns required to illustrate a few simple animal characters. Gu Jingjing possessed an exceptional talent for imitation, managing to render a sketch that was seventy percent identical to Wanyan’s template on her very first try.
“Does Jingjing enjoy painting?” Wanyan asked softly.
Hearing the question, Gu Jingjing’s cheeks flushed a bright pink. She offered a shy, embarrassed nod. “I love it.”
Wanyan’s mind began to turn. While Gu Jingjing’s immediate domestic environment was toxic, she was still a daughter of the prominent Gu line. Yet, being burdened with such reckless, negligent parents made it alarmingly easy for the child to develop deep-seated psychological scars or behavioral issues as she grew older. She desperately needed a personal sanctuary—a passionate creative outlet to anchor her thoughts and ensure her mind remained entirely insulated from her parents’ volatile behavior.
“Auntie possesses a few illustrated picture books. Would Jingjing like to have them?”
The little girl’s eyes blazed with excitement for a fraction of a second, before a dark memory seemed to strike her, and the light vanished from her expression just as quickly.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Wanyan asked gently.
“Third Aunt… if Jingjing carries them back to our quarters, Mommy will just rip them to shreds,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “She says girls have no business learning these things.”
As she spoke, the child’s eyes filled with large, unshed tears. Listening from her chair, Grandma Gu felt her heart break for the little girl.
“Your mother is entirely wrong,” the old matriarch intervened firmly, stepping over to the table. “Girls have every right to pursue what their hearts desire and study whatever brings them joy.”
She turned her gaze to Wanyan. “Wanyan, leave the sketchbooks here under my protection for safekeeping. Jingjing, how about you make it a rule to come over to Grandma’s house whenever you want to paint in the future?”
Hearing the solution, a brilliant, radiant smile erupted across Gu Jingjing’s face. If her treasures were kept securely inside her grandmother’s estate, her mother wouldn’t possess the power to touch them, let alone destroy them. “Okay!”
Noticing the child’s profound attachment to the art project, Old Master Gu began formulating his own long-term blueprints, though he recognized the timing wasn’t quite ripe yet; they would have to navigate the transition carefully.
“Ensure you procure an abundance of premium art paper and quality brushes to store right here in our cupboards,” the old general instructed his wife. “Tell the fourth boy that he is required to bring Jingjing over to stay with us every weekend for a couple of days.”
He then looked toward the hallway, his expression grave. “Jingjing reaches school age this coming September. Demand to know whether the fourth boy has formally secured her enrollment in a proper academy yet.”
Old Master Gu’s booming words made Gu Jingjing’s eyes widen in absolute awe. School? Was she truly being permitted to attend an academy?
Her mother had continuously drilled it into her head that daughters were nothing more than financial liabilities—useless entities who possessed zero right to an education, asserting that every resource within their household belonged exclusively to her future younger brother. But Jingjing desperately wanted to go to school. She had watched her older cousin, Jinfang, return home every afternoon talking about the wonderful companions he had made, looking incredibly happy day after day. She wanted to experience that joy, too.
She intensely disliked living inside her parents’ suffocating quarters, but because her great-grandparents and grandparents resided permanently within the eldest uncle’s wing, they hadn’t been able to uproot her completely. But now, she was being granted two entire days a week to escape to the main villa to paint. She was filled with pure ecstasy at the realization that she wouldn’t be forced to endure her mother’s domestic labor demands during the weekend.
And every single bit of this fortune had been catalyzed by her third aunt. With a few casual, definitive sentences, Wanyan had completely restructured her reality.
If only Third Aunt were my real mother, Jingjing thought wistfully.
The child couldn’t help but recall the manipulative lecture her mother had delivered to her a few weeks prior. Wang Chunmei had explicitly told her that she was going to arrange a far more compliant, gentle mother for her, plotting to have her formally adopted into the third branch under the guise that her uncle and aunt were childless and would naturally pamper her.
Recalling her third aunt’s ethereal, gentle demeanor, little Jingjing’s chest had previously swelled with intense anticipation. The prospect of severed ties with her biological parents hadn’t caused her a single drop of sorrow; she had been entirely consumed by hope for a brighter future.
But today, the illusion had shattered. She understood now that her third aunt could never step in to fill the role of her mother, because Wanyan was currently carrying a child of her own.
An intense wave of envy washed through her toward the unborn baby resting inside her aunt’s stomach. That child was inheriting the exact mother she had spent her entire life praying for.
Yet, while she had initially felt a crushing wave of grief over the realization, the absolute protection extended to her by her great-grandfather and great-grandmother today had shifted something inside her. Even though her third aunt wasn’t going to become her legal mother, Wanyan was still actively deploying her influence to shield her from harm.
The little girl possessed a remarkably sharp mind, and she suddenly understood: even if Wanyan remained strictly her aunt, the protection and affection she offered were entirely real. It was wonderful just having Third Aunt be Third Aunt.
Her third aunt was magnificent, her eldest aunt was incredibly kind, her great-grandparents and grandparents were wonderfully loving, her cousins were sweet, and her father truly tried his best to love her. The singular source of toxicity in her life was her mother. Therefore, it didn’t matter at all that her third aunt couldn’t be her mother. She would simply anchor her aunt’s profound kindness deep within her heart, vows flowing through her mind to properly repay the debt the exact moment she reached adulthood.
Sheng Wanyan reached out, gently smoothing down Gu Jingjing’s hair. Looking up, the little girl offered a smile far more vibrant and unburdened than any expression she had worn since their arrival.
Witnessing the heavy cloud finally lift from her granddaughter’s small frame, Grandma Gu’s eyes turned a misty red. No matter how delicately she and Mother Gu had tried to nurture the child in the past, Jingjing had always maintained a thoroughly crushed, hyper-vigilant posture. She had rarely smiled, her eyes constantly darting around in absolute terror, completely stripped of the carefree, playful energy that belonged to a four-year-old child. Now that her internal mindset had cleared, her future development would naturally stabilize.
Gu Tingxiao returned to the estate just before the evening meal, hauling two kilograms of fresh meat and twenty kilograms of premium, fine grains. It was evident he had put his afternoon excursion with his compound connections to highly productive use. Sheng Wanyan didn’t interrogate him regarding the sources; after all, Gu Tingxiao had been raised within these elite the Capital circles and naturally maintained a formidable, independent network.
Later that evening, Gu Tinghao returned to the main villa alone, his expression thoroughly haggard and defeated. The moment Mother Gu caught sight of his broken posture, she knew the absolute worst had manifested.
“Speak,” she commanded coldly, settling onto the sofa. “Where is the family capital?”
Gu Tinghao massaged his aching temples, his knees buckling as he prepared to drop to the floor in a formal gesture of contrition.
“Do not bother kneeling,” Mother Gu snapped, her voice cutting through the room like steel. “This is the spouse you fiercely fought your entire clan to secure. Just tell me the exact reality of the accounts.”
Mother Gu had washed her hands of her fourth son’s domestic affairs. By aligning himself with such a treacherous, manipulative woman, the boy had effectively dismantled his own professional trajectory. Since the adult was beyond saving, her singular priority shifted entirely toward securing Jingjing’s future.
“She smuggled the vast majority of our division funds back to the Wang estate,” Gu Tinghao choked out, his voice thick with shame. “There is a mere two thousand yuan remaining in our account.”
Mother Gu let out a cold, mocking sneer. The reality aligned perfectly with her predictions. “And exactly what parameters do you intend to execute to resolve this betrayal?”
“She is currently carrying… I ordered her to return to her maiden home immediately, commanding her not to cross my threshold again until she extracts the entirety of our capital from her parents.”
Hearing his response, Mother Gu closed her eyes, having fully measured her son’s capacity. The fourth boy simply lacked the ruthless, unyielding steel required to handle a viper. Because Wang Chunmei was pregnant with a Gu descendant, a clean, immediate divorce was an absolute impossibility.
“And if the Wang family refuses to surrender the funds? What then?”
“I… I honestly don’t know, Mom,” Gu Tinghao rasped, his spirit completely broken. “I was entirely blind when I chose to marry her. I have failed my family.”
“You have already been formally separated into your own independent branch,” Mother Gu noted, her tone devoid of warmth. “The ultimate resolution belongs entirely to you. As long as your conscience remains perfectly clear when you account for your choices against the blood, sacrifices, and life-threatening hardships your two brothers and your father endured to earn that wealth, that will suffice.”
