Chapter 372: Are the biological father and adoptive father distant relatives?

Qiao Xiaoyun led the people upstairs.

When they were halfway there, Qiao Xiaoyun noticed an old man walking beside Qiao Changdong staring intently at her, and she looked puzzled.

She guessed that this might be the relative Yan Liti had mentioned earlier that was coming. She was just wondering why Yan Liti was being so polite, even bringing her own guest to the hospital to see her mother.

Grandma Qiao's ward is on the third floor.

It's a single room with a bathroom, a small living room, and a small sofa.

When the group arrived at the ward door, the door was still half closed, and they could hear Grandma Qiao and Li Wenyan's voices coming from inside.

Li Wenyan works in the cultural troupe and has a regular job during the day.

Grandma Qiao is now trying to persuade her to go back and rest, saying that there's no need for two people to watch over her tonight.

"Mom, I'm not tired at all. It's still early, so I'll stay with you a little longer. Would you like some fruit? I'll peel some apples for you..."

Before Li Wenyan could finish speaking, there was a knock on the door.

She thought only Qiao Xiaoyun had returned, and without putting down the apple she was about to peel, she just tilted her head to look over, and then saw a group of people coming in from outside the door.

He quickly put down what he was holding and grabbed a towel from the side to wipe his hands.

After entering the ward, Wang Mingcheng stood at the door looking at Grandma Qiao on the hospital bed, whose head was still wrapped in gauze. His eyes reddened and tears streamed down his face.

"Little sister..." he called out, his voice choked with emotion.

Just two words.

Grandma Qiao, who was lying on the hospital bed with a furrowed brow and looking over in confusion, was stunned.

She stared wide-eyed at Wang Mingcheng, incredulous: "Big...Big Brother?"

Wang Mingcheng is nine years older than Grandma Qiao.

When he got separated from Grandma Qiao, he was about the same age Qiao Changdong is now.

Thirty or forty years have passed.

Wang Mingcheng is no longer recognizable as he did in his youth.

But as soon as he called out "little sister," Grandma Qiao recognized him, and tears immediately welled up in her eyes.

"Big brother, big brother." Grandma Qiao struggled to get off the hospital bed, but whether it was the injury on her head or her overwhelming emotions, she collapsed weakly as soon as her feet touched the ground.

Qiao Changdong was still supporting Wang Mingcheng and couldn't free his hands to help the other person.

Li Wenyan was also some distance away, and just as they were getting anxious, Xiao Yuan on Qiao Qiao's head stretched out its branches and caught Grandma Qiao. After Li Wenyan went to help her up, it quietly pulled back.

"Don't move, don't move." With Qiao Changdong's help, Wang Mingcheng ran to the bedside. He could barely walk on his own, but he still wanted to help others.

Finally, the two siblings were helped to sit down on the bedside.

Grandma Qiao sobbed, "Big brother, big brother, where have you been all these years? I can't find you... I just can't find you anywhere..."

Upon seeing Wang Mingcheng, Grandma Qiao seemed to find an outlet for all the emotions she had accumulated over the years. She grabbed Wang Mingcheng's arm and shook it, questioning him with a sense of grievance.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's my fault for not protecting you, little sister..." The old man was filled with remorse.

Both elderly people were crying.

They embraced and wept.

Qiao Xiaoyun and Li Wenyan, who were initially bewildered by the scene, finally understood the old man's identity from the few words they uttered.

It turned out to be their uncle whom they had never met before!

Even more incredibly, this maternal uncle is Yan Liti's sister's husband, and Shen Qingyan's aunt's husband.

Shen Qingyan is Qiao Qiao's biological father, and Qiao Changdong is her adoptive father.

After all this twists and turns, the two of them actually became distant relatives.

Nestled in Shen Qingyan's arms, Qiao Qiao shared an apple with Fu Yu. Watching the two elderly people, who had managed to control their emotions and were slowly reminiscing without shedding tears, she felt a little conflicted.

On the one hand, she was also happy for Grandma Qiao.

Being able to find one's family, especially at this age, is a great blessing amidst life's misfortunes.

But,

Well, how should I put it?

She increasingly felt that the social circle she lived in was like a huge spider web.

According to Shen Lu, if she were the protagonist in the middle...

Then all the other people around us are connected in countless ways.

It was as if to verify her conjecture.

The day after Grandma Qiao was reunited with her relatives, Shen Qingyan received a document.

That was the information Shen Qingyan had gathered after he accidentally learned from investigating Fu Xuejia's family that Fu Xuejia had a cousin named Fu Tianyou, who shared the same name as the person they had met in Nanzhou.

Fu Tianyou.

I am twenty years old this year.

Kyoto native.

She and Fu Xuejia are cousins.

His family members are simple; besides his parents, he has a younger brother.

However, my younger brother passed away three years ago.

It is worth mentioning that Fu Tianyou had been seriously ill for three months before his younger brother Fu Tianqi died. He was so ill that his parents even bought him a coffin.

Unexpectedly, he suddenly woke up again during the encoffining.

His parents were overjoyed.

However, in the second month after Fu Tianyou came back to life, his parents, who were perfectly healthy, suddenly died one after the other. The examination results showed that they died of sudden illness.

After the death of parents.

In the month that Fu Tianyou turned eighteen, his younger brother Fu Tianqi, who was not yet fourteen, drowned in the river while swimming with his classmates in the summer.

Because three people had died in three months, and Fu Tianyou had escaped death by a hair's breadth, many people in the village said that Fu Tianyou had cursed his family members to death.

Fu Tianyou seemed unable to bear the rumors and left the village after his family members died. No one knows where he went after that.

No one expected that he would now be a renowned expert in the jade gambling circle.

Looking at Fu Tianyou's information, Shen Qingyan and Qiao Changdong both had solemn expressions.

No matter how they looked at it, they felt that Fu Tianyou's escape from death and the deaths of his parents and brothers did not seem like a coincidence.

However, when Fu Tianyou's parents died, the village officials called the police because the deaths were suspicious.

The autopsy showed that he died from a sudden and severe illness, not from deliberate poisoning.

Shen Qingyan looked at the information without hiding anything, passing it between herself and Qiao Changdong. Qiao Qiao also buried her head and stared intently at it, not noticing that someone had walked over from behind and peeked at her.

Upon seeing the photo in the document, he exclaimed, "Hey, isn't that Comrade Xiao Fu?"

Qiao Changdong recognized Wang Mingcheng's voice and turned around to ask, "Uncle, do you know him?"

"Yes, I know him. He's your older cousin's son. He was close to this Xiao Fu's younger brother. They were junior high school classmates. They happened to be swimming together the day he passed away."