Chapter 646 - 225: You Arranged a Child Betrothal for Me

"Look how heartbroken Jing Qi is. Jie Jingsi, it seems your grandpa didn’t dote on her for nothing when he was alive," Qin Mei remarked with a sigh.

The corner of Jie Jingchen’s mouth twitched as he chimed in, "No, he certainly didn’t."

Grandma was dumbfounded, staring at Qin Mei in utter shock. Qin Mei’s outrageous words had completely shattered her worldview.

"Ahem." Grandpa let out a weak cough. He couldn’t keep up the act. If he didn’t "wake up" soon, they were really going to bury him.

Hearing her husband make a sound, Grandma immediately snapped out of it, but her words were clearly influenced by Qin Mei. "He’s alive! He’s alive! ...Pah! ...I mean, he’s breathing..."

"Grandma, you’re just overcome with grief. You’re hearing things." After saying this, Qin Mei turned to Jie Jingchen and Mrs. Xie. "Mom, Jie Jingsi, did you two hear anything?"

"No." Mrs. Xie shook her head.

"Nothing," Jie Jingchen said.

The mother and son replied in unison.

Grandma was getting agitated. She pointed at her husband on the bed and said, "What do you mean, hearing things? Your grandpa just coughed! Didn’t you hear him?"

The three of them exchanged a look, suppressing their laughter as they all shook their heads. Grandma grew frantic. ’Are they really dead set on burying him alive?’

"COUGH COUGH COUGH." To prove he was awake, Grandpa coughed three times.

"He coughed again! You must have heard him this time, right?" Grandma demanded, pointing at her husband on the bed.

Jie Jingchen was silent. Mrs. Xie didn’t say a word. Qin Mei glanced at the grandpa on the bed and came to a conclusion. "Terminal lucidity."

She was going to teach the two elders a profound lesson. There was no way she would let them off this easily.

Grandma was beside herself with anxiety, but she didn’t want to admit that her husband had faked his illness to trick them into coming home.

"Even terminal lucidity can be treated," Qin Mei said.

Grandma breathed a sigh of relief. As long as they weren’t insistent on burying him, anything was fine. She urged Qin Mei, "Dear, please, check his pulse quickly."

Qin Mei perfunctorily felt his pulse for a moment before speaking. "He can be saved. All it takes is one ingredient, and I guarantee it’ll cure him on the spot."

Grandma asked, still shaken, "What medicine?"

Qin Mei said in a soft, gentle voice, "Feed him ’zihuang’."

"What’s ’zihuang’?" Grandma asked, confused.

"’Zihuang’ is... you know what, I’ll just be blunt. It’s shit." Qin Mei had originally thought about giving them a lesson on the *Shennong Ben Cao Jing*, but then thought better of it. Mrs. Xie was a practitioner of Western medicine, she had no idea what Grandma specialized in, and Jie Jingchen was completely clueless about medicine. Explaining the *Shennong Ben Cao Jing* to them would be like casting pearls before swine.

Jie Jingchen couldn’t hold back any longer and silently turned his head away. The expression on Grandma’s face was priceless.

Grandpa dropped the act. He sat up with surprising agility, glared daggers at Jie Jingchen, and boomed in a vigorous, resonant voice, spitting out each syllable, "Jie. Jing. Chen."

He missed his daughter and grandchildren, and he especially wanted to meet Qin Mei, the woman who had cured his granddaughter’s legs. But when he called them to come back, both his daughter and his eldest grandson made excuses about being too busy with work. Other than faking an illness, he had no other way to get them to visit.

Was it easy for him, going through all the trouble of faking an illness just to get them to come home? And what was his reward? They either wanted to bury him directly or make him eat shit.

Let them bury him, fine! But to think they’d want to... what, dig him up again? What sins had he committed in his past life to deserve this kind of punishment?

Jie Jingchen looked at his grandfather, who was now furious with embarrassment. A complex emotion flickered in his eyes, and his low voice held a trace of resigned amusement. "Done with the act?"

Both Grandpa and Grandma froze. They exchanged a look. A hint of murky world-weariness appeared in Grandpa’s eyes as he asked guiltily, "You knew I was faking it?"

’Didn’t Xiao Zhang say that even a celestial immortal wouldn’t be able to tell from my pulse?’

"My wife’s medical skills have reached the pinnacle of perfection," Jie Jingchen said, without a hint of exaggeration. "Whether you’re really sick or just pretending, she’ll know the truth the moment she takes your pulse."

’The pinnacle of perfection? Isn’t that laying it on a bit thick?’ Qin Mei glanced at Jie Jingchen, but she swallowed the words that were on the tip of her tongue.

"Quack! Xiao Zhang is a total quack!" Grandpa cursed angrily.

"Grandpa, don’t do this again." Now that the scare was over, Jie Jingchen gently reminded his grandfather that it was wrong to fake an illness.

Grandpa glared at Jie Jingchen. "If I didn’t pretend to be sick, would any of you have come back?"

"If we can’t come back, you and Grandma can always visit us in Shijiu City," Jie Jingchen said.

"No! We’re not going! Not even if it’s the last thing I do! Not unless your mother divorces your father," Grandpa said stubbornly.

"Grandpa, Mom and Dad have been married for ages. Getting a divorce at this point would be embarrassing," Jie Jingchen reasoned.

"If their love is gone, getting a divorce is perfectly normal. What’s so embarrassing about it?" Grandpa glanced at his daughter and felt a fresh wave of frustration. ’Such a wonderful daughter, and she just had to marry a man on his second marriage.’

’There are so many ways to repay a debt of gratitude, but she just had to insist on repaying it by marrying him. It drives me mad!’

"My parents are deeply in love. You’re always trying to force Mom to divorce Dad. You know what they say, ’It’s better to tear down a temple than to ruin a marriage,’" Jie Jingchen said, feeling a bit numb to the whole conversation. Whenever his mother came to visit, his grandparents would hound her relentlessly—’Divorce, divorce, divorce!’—he’d heard it so many times his ears were about to fall off.