Chapter 81: The Qin Family
That evening, Qin Min was gathered with his project group classmates for discussion when he received a message from his mother, which caught him a little off guard.
Qin Min and Qin Yue’s mother is named Qin Yanxia. She is the only daughter of the Qin family. Her name is gentle and elegant, but her personality is fiery, direct, and efficient.
Their father, Lu Danggui, was born into a family of doctors. From a young age, he was obsessed with medical research, appearing detached from worldly affairs. Compared to romance, he preferred to spend an entire day in the operating room.
But he was handsome! Back when Qin Yanxia heroically intervened to stop a man from committing domestic violence on the street, she got hit on the head and was rushed to the emergency room—where she happened to meet Lu Danggui. Love at first sight struck immediately, and she pursued him relentlessly.
Lu Danggui refused several times, but it had little effect. Qin Yanxia pursued him with perfect balance, causing no trouble. Just as he was troubled about how to handle it, the Lu family faced a crisis: the Chinese herbal medicine factory under their name encountered major problems.
Suddenly facing disaster, Lu Danggui’s father suffered a severe attack, and he was rushed to the hospital in a coma. Meanwhile, the Lu family descended into chaos.
Lu Danggui, not being business-minded, ran around trying to find help, eventually turning to Qin Yanxia.
Qin Yanxia remained calm. She did not use the opportunity to demand Lu Danggui become her boyfriend; instead, she analyzed the situation for him in detail, arranged for specialists to handle contracts, and proposed that the Qin family could assist, provided the Lu family offered proper compensation.
Ultimately, the Lu family overcame the crisis, and Lu Danggui gained a new respect for Qin Yanxia. This became the starting point for their friendly interactions, and six months later, they officially started dating.
On their second anniversary, Qin Yanxia decisively proposed. Lu Danggui was stunned when she presented the engagement ring. The next month was supposed to be May, and he had planned to propose during “5·20” (May 20th, a romantic day in China), but she beat him to it.
The year after their marriage, Qin Yanxia became pregnant with their first child, coinciding with Zhu Qinglan’s pregnancy. They were friends, joking about whose baby would arrive first, calling the firstborn “older brother/sister.”
In the end, Jiang Yuxuan was born first, though he wasn’t as steady as Qin Min from a young age—Qin Min actually felt more like the older brother.
Later, Qin Yanxia became pregnant with their second child, and Zhu Qinglan’s second baby arrived about half a month later. Qin Yanxia thought her child would be born first this time.
But Zhu Qinglan was provoked by her elder sister, and Jiang Chuchu was born prematurely, arriving before Qin Yue.
Zhu Qinglan, weak after childbirth and obsessing over blame, thought it was all her fault that Jiang Chuchu was premature. Worried and afraid to face the child, she pushed herself into postpartum depression.
Once Qin Yanxia could move freely after giving birth, Zhu Qinglan was still in the hospital. Qin Yanxia consulted a psychologist, discussed with Jiang Youwei, and then went to see Zhu Qinglan.
Sitting by her hospital bed, she complained: “Look at you—having one older brother and one older sister, and now both my kids are ‘younger brothers.’”
“So I’ll have to get revenge! You’ll help me take care of the kids—four little ones are counting on you, Mom!”
After nearly a month of nagging, she successfully pulled Zhu Qinglan out of her negative mindset, cementing a close bond between the Qin and Jiang families.
Qin Min saw the message from his mother: [Got a moment? Video call?]
Coincidentally, the discussion had hit a bottleneck, so Qin Min excused himself and replied: [I’m free.]
Qin Yanxia’s video call connected immediately.
The camera wasn’t pointed at her face but at a desk.
Spread across the desk were several test papers. Qin Min recognized them—they were Qin Yue’s midterm exam papers.
Of course, Qin Min knew exactly how his younger brother was performing academically. He remembered Qin Yue’s last monthly exam score, and at first glance, the scores didn’t seem much improved.
However, he also recalled Qin Yue posting on social media a few days ago that the midterm was much harder than previous exams.
Gu Qinghuan, being a mutual friend of Qin Min and Qin Yue, had liked that post and commented: [These questions made my eyes go dark.]
Given that, maintaining similar scores indicated that Qin Yue must have made significant progress.
Qin Min asked: “Did he do well?”
Qin Yanxia beamed: “Not just well—he’s improved a lot! He’s now in the top 100 of his grade, currently 92nd!”
Last month, Qin Yue ranked 153rd in the grade, so moving up to 92nd is indeed a big improvement.
Qin Min smiled: “That’s not easy. Did you reward him?”
“Of course. The sneakers he’d been nagging about for over half a month have been ordered. He’s jumping around with joy in the living room,” Qin Yanxia said, her words tinged with a smile she couldn’t hide.
“By the way, he mentioned attending the top-ranked tutoring class in the school. Are you aware of this?” Qin Yanxia pondered. After all, someone helped her son improve to this level—she wanted to express gratitude.
Qin Min quickly explained to her the situation: Yu Xin had donated to Su Lin, who then tutored Qin Yue and others, also highlighting Yu Xin’s position in the Yu family.
Qin Yanxia, now using the front-facing camera, stroked her chin: “This situation is indeed a bit complicated.”
As chairwoman of the Shengjing Group under the Qin family, she immediately judged that this matter was not suitable for her intervention.
She had heard about the Yu family’s “real vs. fake daughter” situation before but hadn’t delved deeply. She only thought it unfortunate that the child was separated from her family and was happy when the Yu family found their daughter.
But she never expected the Yu family to treat their own child this way.
Now, the young girl was independent, got along with Jiang Chuchu, and had sought tutoring from the top-ranked student. Qin Yanxia admired her perseverance.
Given Yu Wenli’s personality, he might care more about Yu Xin and Jiang Chuchu’s relationship than about Su Lin.
On this premise, if Qin Yanxia wanted to show gratitude to Su Lin, she also had to acknowledge the “tutoring program” initiated by Yu Xin.
The Qin family’s business scale was not comparable to the Jiang family’s. If Yu Wenli found out, he might use it as a chance to ingratiate himself.
Qin Yanxia did not want any entanglement with Yu Wenli, but ignoring it completely was not in her nature.
After a moment of thought, she decisively said: “You should go, on behalf of your brother, and prepare some thank-you gifts for those girls.”
Since Qin Min was still in university and had no formal position in Shengjing Group, thanking them in his brother’s name was sufficient. If the Yu family wanted to leverage it, she could feign ignorance and resolve it with a few polite words.
“Okay,” Qin Min agreed readily. Qin Yue’s improvement made him feel proud, and it was only natural to acknowledge it.
Besides, Gu Qinghuan had also played a significant role; it would be impossible to leave her out when delivering thanks.
Qin Min ended the video call with Qin Yanxia and decided to handle Qin Yue’s reward directly.
Qin Yue was still celebrating the sneakers when he suddenly heard a transfer notification. He opened his phone:
[¥50,000 Transferred by Min to you]
Qin Min: [Well done on the exams, congratulations!]
Qin Yue: “Big brother!!!”
