Chapter 43: Record of Moving to the City in the 90s 43

Su Huandan wanted to say a few more words of persuasion, but her eldest sister stopped her.

“Don’t get involved. Mom and Dad fight every day, and they’re fine within five minutes of finishing. The more we interfere, the messier it gets, and we’ll just end up getting scolded ourselves.” Just as the eldest sister finished speaking, their mother turned her attention toward her.

“Your Xiaozhu isn’t any better. All day long he eggs his uncle on to go to the internet cafe. He doesn’t study hard himself and drags his uncle down with him. Can’t Xiaozhu learn from the second sister’s Jiabao? That child is truly well-behaved, sensible, and obedient. He’s no trouble at all. He goes straight home after school to do his homework, and once he’s finished, he even knows to accompany his Great-Grandfather for a walk. How is he anything like your Xiaozhu? He’s a total nuisance.” Jiang Chunhua’s words did not sit well with the eldest sister.

You feel bad for your son, so you just pick on my son to scold?

“Mom, you only see my Xiaozhu taking Little Brother to the internet cafe, but I haven’t asked you yet why Little Brother wants to take my Xiaozhu to skip class. Do you know what the teachers said when I went to the school back then? They said this pair of uncle and nephew are the top hoodlums in the school. Was that only directed at my Xiaozhu? Every time they skip class, isn’t it Little Brother who starts it? Besides, every time parents are called in, why don’t you go to the school?” Every single time, it was the two sisters, the eldest and the second, who took the heat for you, the biological mother.

Do you know how those teachers at school talk to parents?

It’s like they’re scolding their own grandsons!

At times like that, why don’t you, the mother, go?

You also know it’s embarrassing and shameful.

Back then, you just said that the second sister and I were the older sisters and we had to go.

We sisters bore the brunt of the scolding for you, and now you turn around and drag my Xiaozhu out to whip his corpse.

All the bad things were done by my son, and it has nothing to do with your precious youngest son?

Jiang Chunhua was suddenly speechless. Holding a feather duster¹, she began banging things around the room. She refused to speak, her lips pressed tightly together, her face a mask of huffing indignation.

This was clearly a case of knowing she was in the wrong. After being rebutted by her daughter, she couldn’t talk back, so she could only take her frustration out on the furniture.

Su Huandan watched this scene in a daze. She had indeed returned home less frequently over the years because she was often busy with company matters.

The environment at her in-laws’ was just like that; everyone was busy. It was common to be so busy that they wouldn’t return home for days and nights on end.

So even if Su Huandan wanted to stay home, she couldn’t sit still.

Now, the family company truly didn’t need her to keep lending a hand.

Everything had moved onto a normal track, and Yu Zexiu could manage it all on his own. Su Huandan thought about how her parents were getting older and wanted to come back more often to see them.

Her parents-in-law also approved.

She hadn’t expected that after being away for so long, she would feel a bit unable to blend into the family atmosphere.

After a long while, Jiang Chunhua finally threw down the feather duster and sat on the sofa, looking at Su Huandan. “What’s going on with you? I haven’t seen you run home this frequently before. We knew you were busy, so we didn’t disturb you, but lately, you’ve been coming back every few days, and sometimes you even stay for a day or two before going back. Are you ignoring the company? Ignoring your in-laws? Ignoring your child? My granddaughter is only three years old, and you dare to just leave her?”

The Su family had been genuinely worried seeing Su Huandan return so often recently.

What exactly had happened?

It couldn’t be that the son-in-law was having an affair, could it?

Nowadays, it was a common trend for men with a bit of money to keep a mistress. Although it was a terrible habit, men just loved doing it.

Even an old man like Su Dakui had young and beautiful women throwing themselves at him.

If it weren’t for the fact that Su Dakui’s heart was entirely with his family, Jiang Chunhua might have ended up divorced like those old sisters in the neighborhood.

Jiang Chunhua wasn’t exaggerating. In Yuanyi Village, a third of the old couples had divorced.

The old men would rather raise a son for a young widow than look at their old wives for another second.

Fortunately, the old wives each had a share of the real estate. They split everything down the middle, half the family property for each, so the divorces were handled quickly.

With such examples right in front of them, could it be that the third son-in-law, the owner of such a large company, didn’t have women clinging to him?

There were, and quite a lot of them.

Many of the children from the Military Compound hadn’t actually done very well for themselves later on. These people often tried to scheme against Yu Zexiu during gatherings.

Yu Zexiu could only avoid this group of people for now; it wasn’t easy to use harsh methods to deal with them because although the parents of these women were incompetent, the grandfather generation was still alive.

He had to show some respect to those old heroes of the war of resistance and couldn’t take things too far. Regarding the dinners at the Military Compound, Yu Zexiu avoided them whenever possible. When he couldn’t hide, he would take Su Huandan with him.

Besides those, the female celebrities from Hong Kong were truly open-minded to a degree that made one look down on them, whether they were married or not.

How bold were these people?

They dared to publicly provoke Su Huandan, calling her a tigress who controlled everything inside and outside the home, making it so Yu Zexiu didn’t live like a real man.

Su Huandan just laughed. Being able to keep my own man is my own skill. Since you can’t get any benefits, you start playing these divisive tricks?

Whether my man is like a real man at night, at home, and in bed, I know it myself. Would I tell you?

None of them bothered to look at what they looked like after taking off their makeup. Yu Zexiu had very high standards. With makeup, you aren’t as pretty as me, and without makeup, you’re even less fresh than me. Do you think Yu Zexiu likes eating trash?

Would he even look at you?

It wasn’t that the female celebrities in the mainland didn’t have ideas, but Yu Zexiu now managed more of Dingsheng Media. He was the big boss. If things went wrong and they were blacklisted, what would they do?

So, while there were many women who dared to harbor designs on him, there wasn’t a single brainless one who dared to make a move.

Su Huandan had seen too much of this, but Yu Zexiu really wasn’t that kind of person. What she never expected was that her own family would think in this direction just because she had been coming back frequently lately.

That was truly a grave injustice to Yu Zexiu.

“Mom, he’s not that kind of person. Don’t be nervous. I’m back because I’ve let go of the company’s affairs recently. After being busy for so many years, I want to take a break. Originally, it took two people to control the company together, but now it’s not necessary. Am I not allowed to rest?” As soon as these words were spoken, Jiang Chunhua’s temper flared up again.

It was happening again, just like always. Never mind that the third sister had eventually finished university and earned her doctorate; she truly was someone with absolutely no ambition.

“Is it really appropriate for you to just wash your hands of the family company like this?”

“Didn’t you see that even your mother-in-law is still busy managing the company’s affairs?”

The mother-in-law was still working, yet the daughter-in-law had actually quit to go enjoy a life of leisure.

“Tell us, what are we supposed to say to you?”

The eldest sister also disapproved of Su Huandan’s current decision. “You’re getting older every year. Even if you can’t tell now, what about the future? If you don’t hold onto the power in the company, what will you do if Yu Zexiu actually decides to find a mistress? If it comes to a divorce and dividing the assets, you might not even know the company’s actual situation. You’re a person with a PhD, after all. How can you be so lacking in foresight?”

Su Huandan was speechless.

Weren’t they overthinking things a bit too much?

The human heart was the most unpredictable thing of all. How did they know that in the future, she wouldn’t be the one to find a younger man first?

Translator’s Notes