Chapter 1211: Chapter 1211: Why are you stealing my daughter!! (5)

“Xiaojiao is a language teacher; she should know the meaning behind ‘Five Sons Winning the Championship,’ right?” While touching the fabric on her body, Old Mrs. Yuan’s expression and actions were gentle, as if she was caressing her own child.

Shu Jiao naturally knew what it meant, but she didn’t want to engage in this pointless exchange with Old Mrs. Yuan.

And Old Mrs. Yuan probably didn’t expect her to respond either; she smiled slightly and answered her own question, “In our times, when giving gifts, we loved to choose those with auspicious meanings. Just like this ‘Five Sons Winning the Championship,’ it borrows the habit of placing five famous figures together historically, painting five children vying for a helmet, indicating that every descendant is virtuous and striving for progress.”

“What do women seek in a lifetime? Isn’t it just the hope that their descendants will be well-ordered, ascend high, and bring glory to their ancestors?”

At this point, her voice gradually became unstable and grew emotional, “I only wish for my children to have better lives; is that wrong?”

“You haven’t lived in those times, not knowing what it feels like to be bombarded, so you wouldn’t understand how tough it is for a woman, carrying five children.”

“As for Manman, when she was born, her father was already gone. When her father was alive, he hoped for another daughter to be doted upon in his lap, but just as the child was born, he left without ever laying eyes on her.”

Tears welled up in Old Mrs. Yuan’s eyes, filled with nostalgia, seemingly transporting her back to that era.

Yuan Manman was a posthumous child, born during an epidemic. At that time, I was busy overseeing the hospital, barely touching the ground each day, and for the first few years, it was largely her brothers who raised Yuan Manman.

Her brothers, being much older, doted on this little sister endlessly.

All were her own children; how could Old Mrs. Yuan not love them deeply? She loved this child to her utmost, but later, when war broke out, they fled, taking the young Yuan Manman with them.

Yuan Manman was born amid the epidemic, and with Old Mrs. Yuan overworked while carrying her, she was weak physically.

She was born more fragile than other children. Later, with the outbreak of the epidemic, there was no time to care for her; it was Liu Ma and the other children who looked after her. Without breast milk, Yuan Manman’s health worsened.

The frail Yuan Manman, fleeing with them, could not bear the hardship and developed a high fever. At that time, they were on a large ship heading for Amerika, caught in relentless night rain, with the ship about to sink; they were placed in a small boat.

But the small boat could not support the weight of six people, and water kept flooding in over the sides. At that time, Yuan Manman had already fainted with a high fever and hadn’t woken for a long time…

“If I could have saved all five children, how could I possibly have been unwilling? But Heaven did not grant me this chance; Heaven did not!” Old Mrs. Yuan pounded her chest, overwhelmed by pain.

She gazed at Shu Jiao, questioning in earnest, “If it were you, tell me, how would you choose, how would you choose?!”

Five children, every one of them cherished, four healthy, and one with an unyielding fever, seemingly at death’s door—should she have sacrificed a different child?

As Old Mrs. Yuan recounted this past, the depth of her suffering only seemed more ironic to Shu Jiao.

She looked at Old Mrs. Yuan and retorted, “Did you never consider yourself?”