Qiu Yingying is reborn and bound to a learning system.

The air after the meal was heavier than at the table. The bowls and chopsticks hadn't been cleared away, the cups and plates hadn't been removed, and even Grandma had been persuaded to go to the inner room to rest, but the tense atmosphere in the main room hadn't dissipated.

The eldest uncle, his face flushed from drinking, sat on the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed), still holding half a cup of wine in his hand, muttering to himself, "...I'm not saying this to be mean, but second brother, you've been a loser in this life."

Qiu Yingying's father was bending down to tidy up the scraps by the stove when he heard this. He paused for a moment and didn't respond.

"Look at you," the uncle resumed, his voice even harsher than before, "you weren't stupid when you were young, so why were you so stubborn, insisting on sending your daughter to school? What's the use of all that education? In the end, she still has to get married. Look at you now, no car, not much savings, and your daughter is drifting around, you only see her a few times a year. What will you do when you get old? Who will take care of you?"

His mother's face changed instantly. Just as she was about to speak, Qiu Yingying stood up first, holding a glass of warm water. Her tone was very calm: "Uncle, my parents are old. I have the ability and the filial piety to take care of them. I forgot about this before. I will buy the car when we get to Shanghai. My parents want to come to Shanghai with me, but you will only stay here for the rest of your life."

Her uncle glanced at her sideways and said, "You? You're a girl. Once you get married, you belong to someone else's family."

"Whether I get married or not has nothing to do with whether I'm filial or not. Besides, who told you that girls have to get married? Can't girls live without men? Do they have to get married? I can easily support seven or eight useless cousins ​​with my salary, unlike you, who used the excuse of not being able to earn money to beat up your former aunt. But we girls have our own money, why should we have to get married? Why should we live at someone else's mercy? Why? Because you're ugly? Because you're arrogant?" Qiu Yingying put down her cup, getting angrier the more she thought about it. She was angry because in her past life she had wasted so much of her precious time earning money for a not-so-good man.

"I have a stable job in Shanghai, a housing provident fund, a house, a car, savings, and good friends. You can't even imagine how great I am every day. Sorry, you can only be envious. I bought my parents a house and a new car—no, two cars! One to drive around, one to collect dust. I also hired a housekeeper so they can enjoy life. Our whole family is together. Uncle, with your mouth, no wonder Auntie is doing so well after leaving you. She married into your good friend's family in the same village. It'll make you furious!"

"Hire a nanny?" the uncle scoffed. "You think nannies are so easy to hire? You think money is so easy to earn? You're just a girl, how much can you earn working outside? You're just all talk. My son is different. He graduated from vocational school and now works in a government unit in the county, a secure job. When I get old, he can just say the word and I can move in with him, and I won't have to worry about food or clothing."

"How dare you talk about your aunt like that? If she weren't so unfaithful, I would have deserved to beat her. So what if she's out eating and drinking all the time and doesn't come home? All men are like that."

He became more and more smug as he spoke, his voice rising: "Look, this is the advantage of raising a son. Raising a daughter? It's a waste. Look at your cousin, that ungrateful wretch. She thinks she's a city person just because she's had a little education. She doesn't come home, doesn't give the family a penny, and won't even pay for her own brother's tuition. I told her to get married early so I could get some dowry for her brother's wedding, but she had a huge fight with me, ran away, and never contacted me again. It's like raising an enemy."

"Don't you know why she won't come home?" Qiu Yingying looked at him. "You treat her like an ATM, a tool, a stepping stone for your son. She's a person, not your asset. You force her to ask for money, force her to marry, force her to sacrifice her life for your son, of course she'll run away."

"I was doing it for her own good!" The uncle slapped his thigh. "What's wrong with a girl getting married early? But she's ungrateful and dares to talk back to me. Let me tell you, if I hadn't supported her education, would she be where she is today? Now that she's all grown up, she doesn't know who I am anymore."

"You paid for her education?" Qiu Yingying smiled, but her smile was cold. "She started working to pay for her tuition in high school, and took out student loans for college, which she paid off herself after graduation. What have you ever given her? Besides asking for money, you've only ever verbally abused her. You can't even remember her birthday. Do you even deserve to say the words 'paid for her education'?"

The uncle was speechless, his face turning red and white in turns. He then became furious and embarrassed: "You little brat, how dare you talk to your elders like that? I'm your uncle, how dare you talk back to me like that? You've only been to school for a few years, and you think you're so great? Let me tell you, in my eyes, you and your cousin are the same, both heartless ingrates."

"I'm different from her, but I'm still more useful than your cousin who's all about eating and bringing honor to the family." Qiu Yingying looked at him. "She was forced to leave, I left on my own. She did it to escape you, I did it to protect my parents."

She paused, then asked, "Uncle, you were born to Grandma, weren't you?"

The uncle was taken aback: "What did you say?"

"You were born of your grandmother, weren't you?" Qiu Yingying said, enunciating each word clearly. "Your grandmother is a woman, and your mother is a woman too. You're sitting here now, eating my mother's cooking, living in the house my parents built, and then you tell me women are useless? Weren't you born of a woman? Whose milk did you drink as a baby? When you were sick as a child, who got up in the middle of the night to take care of you? When you went to school, who washed your schoolbag and sewed your clothes? It was your mother, a woman. Now you say women are useless, that raising a daughter is a waste of time, then shouldn't you first cut yourself, because you were also born of a woman?"

The uncle's face flushed red to the roots of his neck, his fingers trembling with anger: "You...you're being incredibly disrespectful! How dare you speak to your elders like that!"

"I'm just stating the facts." Qiu Yingying looked at him. "If you look down on women, you're looking down on your own mother and your own grandmother. You keep saying that others have no descendants and no sons, but what about yourself? You have a son. What if your son marries and doesn't respect you? Do you expect him to support you in your old age? If he listens to his wife and doesn't give you money or food, will you also call him an ingrate?"

"My son would never do that!" the uncle retorted, "My son is the most filial!"

"Really?" Qiu Yingying chuckled softly. "Then, do you dare to call your son now, put it on speakerphone, and ask him how he plans to take care of you when you're old? Ask him if he'd be willing to bring you to live in the county town? Ask him if he could put aside his work and take care of you every day if you get sick?"

The uncle was speechless when asked the question, his face turning pale and then red.

Qiu Yingying's father finally raised his head, looked at his eldest brother, and said in a slightly hoarse voice, "Brother, stop talking. The child is right, we are all born of a mother, stop looking down on women."

"Shut up!" The eldest uncle slammed his hand on the table. "You're a spineless coward! You've never amounted to anything, all you know is to let your daughter stand up for you! Look at you, you think you're so great just because you had a daughter? Let me tell you, you're destined to have no male heir! You'll never enjoy the blessings of having a son! You'll see what's what when you're old and can't move anymore!"

"No descendants?" Qiu Yingying repeated the two words, as if her bottom line had finally been crossed.

She slowly stood up, the chair scraping against the floor with a harsh sound.

"Uncle," she looked at him, her eyes as cold as ice, "you're saying my father has no descendants?"

"Did I say something wrong?" the uncle retorted stubbornly. "Your father only has you as his daughter. Once you get married, what will he be without an heir? When he gets old, who will take care of him? Who will see him off in his final days? Can you, a young girl, handle that?"

"Whether I can handle it or not is not up to you," Qiu Yingying said steadily. "My dad is old, and I will take care of him. If he gets sick, I will take him to the hospital. If he can't walk anymore, I will carry him on my back. If he wants to live in Shanghai, I will buy him a house there. If he wants to go back to the village, I will renovate this old house. I will not abandon him."

She paused, looked at her uncle, and said, word by word, "But you, you always say others have no descendants, what about yourself? If your son is unfilial in the future, your daughter won't want you anymore!! You'll be the one truly all alone."

"You're talking nonsense!" The uncle completely lost his temper, jumped up, and pointed at Qiu Yingying's nose. "You little brat, how dare you curse me? I'll teach you a lesson for your parents today!"

As he spoke, he raised his hand to strike.

"You dare!" Qiu Yingying's father also stood up abruptly, blocking his daughter's path, his face ashen. "Brother, if you dare lay a finger on my daughter, I'll fight you to the death!"

"Look at you! Look at you!" The uncle jumped up and down in anger. "You're a complete coward! You've been dominated by women your whole life! You believe everything your daughter says; you're completely bewitched by women!"

"I've been bewitched by women?" Qiu Yingying's father finally couldn't hold back any longer, his voice rising, "I've been bewitched by my mother, bewitched by my wife, bewitched by my daughter! I'm willing! With them, my life is worthwhile! And you? Besides cursing and beating your wife and children, what else can you do?"

"You...you..." The uncle was choked and could only gasp for breath.

As Qiu Yingying watched all this, the anger that had been suppressed in her heart for many years finally erupted completely.

She walked step by step to the table, looking at the dishes and chopsticks that hadn't been cleared away, at the bowl containing leftover soup, and at the table that held countless childhood traumas for her.

Over the years, the grievances her parents suffered here, the things she heard here, and the scenes of her cousin being scolded, beaten, and forced to give money here flashed through her mind.

enough.

Really enough.

She suddenly reached out, grabbed the edge of the table, and forcefully flipped it over—

"Bang!"

The table was overturned, and bowls, chopsticks, plates, leftover soup, and leftover food were spilled all over the floor.

The sound of the plate shattering was particularly jarring in the quiet of New Year's Eve.

Everyone was stunned.

The uncle stared at her with his mouth agape, pointing at her, unable to utter a single word for a long time.

Startled by the commotion outside, Grandma peeked out from the inner room, her face pale with fright, her lips trembling as she asked, "Yingying, what...what are you doing?"

Qiu Yingying said: Grandma, you've always favored my uncle's son more since we were little, giving him a hundred yuan in New Year's money and only giving me and my cousin five yuan. You're a woman too, so why do you still favor boys over girls?

Qiu Yingying stood amidst the chaos, her chest heaving, but her eyes remained unusually calm.

She looked at her uncle and said, word by word:

"Uncle, I've wanted to flip this table for a long time."

"If you dare to say another bad word about my parents, another bad word about my cousin, or another bad word about women, I won't just flip the table."

"This is the last time I'll speak to you so politely. If I hear it again, you'd better think about your precious son's job."

From now on, you go your way, and I'll go mine.

"You and I are no longer family."

After saying that, she turned around, helped her parents who were still stunned to their feet, and softened her voice: "Dad, Mom, let's go."

Her father looked at his daughter, his eyes red-rimmed, and nodded heavily. "Okay, let's go home."

Her mother wiped away her tears and gripped Qiu Yingying's hand tightly, as if she had grasped a lifeline.

The family of three walked out of the grandmother's old house without looking back, under the watchful eyes of everyone in the room.

Outside the door, it was pitch black night, with the occasional sound of firecrackers in the distance.

Inside the door, there was a mess and the uncle's furious roar.

Qiu Yingying felt that she had never felt so relaxed before.

From this moment on, forget about "filial piety" and "carrying on the family line".