January was coming to an end. Since it was located in the south, the weather in Lin City was still a bit chilly.
Despite the heater in her office being on, Li Qianxue’s voice sounded cold.
“Sign the divorce paper. Didn’t you say yourself that you’ll sign it when you see me? You are seeing me now, so you can sign it.”
Su Chenghui looked at Li Qianxue. He hadn’t seen her in over a week.
He had never thought that one day, he would dearly miss someone who almost became his ex-wife.
“I don’t want to sign it, Qianxue.”
Li Qianxue clenched her teeth. Despite being close to losing her temper, she managed to maintain her composure.
“Su Chenghui, I always considered you to be a decent man. But now, I have realized that you are nothing but a jerk. You’re getting better and better at going back on your word, aren’t you?”
“I’m not going back on my word.”
He just didn’t want to cut off all contact with her. If he got a divorce with her, he might never have a chance to see her again.
“I just don’t want to have to part with you forever.”
Upon hearing that, Li Qianxue sarcastically smiled as if she had heard the most hilarious joke in the world.
“Do you not want to part with me, or do you not want to part with my family’s wealth?”
Li Qianxue didn’t give Su Chenghui a chance to argue before she said, “Su Chenghui. If you have even a little bit of shame, you would know that you shouldn’t make me do something awful to get you to sign this paper. I know that you’ve been dedicating yourself to Li Group all this time. I’ve given you what you deserve. I want you to know that being greedy isn’t a good thing; it might end up costing you everything you have. You need to be careful.”
“Qianxue…” Su Chenghui understood that Li Quianxue no longer trusted him after being ignored and given the cold shoulder by him for more than twenty years, along with learning about what happened to Su Qingsang.
Even if she no longer trusted him, he still had so much left that he intended to tell her. “I can return all the money to you,” he said, “I can give you back the stocks and funds, even all the properties under my name. I can return all of it to you as long as you want me to. I just don’t want a divorce.”
Li Qianxue had run out of patience. They’d had conversations like this numerous times already. He might have not been tired of saying those words, but she was already tired of hearing them.
“Yeah. As long as we stayed married, you’ll still be my husband and a member of my family. You’ll still be able to do whatever you want. Su Chenghui, do you think that I’m still that silly little girl you met twenty years ago who would do whatever you said because she loved you?”
“That’s not what I think about you at all,” he said. If he could turn back time knowing that he would fall in love with Li Qianxue one day, he would’ve treated her well from the beginning.
He would never have gotten himself stuck in this hopeless situation.
“Alright, I’m done talking to you now. Just sign your name on this.” Li Qianxue pushed the divorce paper toward him.
He sat on the other side of the table. To make him sign the paper, Li Qianxue had called him a few times ever since her return to Lin City. However, Su Chenghui refused to sign it. He would only do so when he saw her in person.
She didn’t want to see him, but he went to the company to see her.
Li Qianxue felt so annoyed and disgusted. She hated her younger self for being so blind. How on earth did she fall in love with such a shameless man who didn’t even have a bottom line?
She couldn’t bear having her name bound together with his name. Not even for another hour.
“Qianxue…” Su Chenghui looked at the divorce paper, feeling his eyes growing misty. “Will you please give me another chance?”
She used to love him deeply enough to do anything she could to satisfy him. As time passed, however, their roles had switched.
“You want another chance? To do what? Hurt me? Lie to me? Thank you, but I don’t want that. Su Chenghui, I’m not as stupid as you think.”
She had done whatever she could for him. She tore apart a lovely young couple and earned herself a foul reputation for his sake. She did several things that someone like her would normally never do.
He had taken advantage of her love and used it to keep hurting her.
Li Qianxue blinked her eyes, trying to get rid of all of her negative feelings.
“I made a mistake, and I don’t intend to repeat it. Su Chenghui, I spent the past twenty years putting myself in a pathetically low position for you. Isn’t that already enough?”
“Qianxue, I didn’t…” Her words made Su Chenghui feel sad. He wanted to explain himself, but she didn’t give him the chance to do so.
“Because of Xiang Caiping, you’ve been giving me the cold shoulder for over twenty years. You even made me raise her daughter. To be honest, I do feel that I owed it to you. I was stupid enough to have blindly fallen for you and made you marry me. After all this time, haven’t I already paid back my debt to you?”
The more she talked, the worse Su Chenghui felt. “Qianxue, I’m begging you… please stop.”
He knew more about his actions than she did. With his heart consumed by guilt, he deeply regretted everything he had done.
“Alright, let’s get back to business. I’ve already gotten bored of arguing with you, and I don’t want to keep doing it.”
Li Qianxue didn’t want to discuss the past either. She remembered how naive she was back when she married him, believing that she could make Su Chenghui love her.
She stubbornly believed that one day, her efforts would ultimately make Su Chenghui fall for her.
Only now had she realized how naive and shameless she was back then.
Now she only wanted to be herself; she wanted to be the vice-president of Li Group and the daughter of the Li Family.
Su Chenghui sat there motionlessly. He looked at the pen before him, feeling his hand as heavy as a rock. He couldn’t lift it from the desk at all.
Before this, he used to be so proud and scornful in front of her. Now, he hated having to part with her. What could he do to change Li Qianxue’s mind about divorcing him?
The sight of him disgusted Li Qianxue so much that she had to hold back the urge to vomit.
She believed that the only reason why he was so reluctant to sign the divorce paper was that he didn’t want to lose all the benefits the Li Family had given him. Those who didn’t know the truth might’ve thought that he loved her deeply.
She’d had enough of it.
Li Qianxue tried her best to not lose her temper, but her last bit of patience ran out within five minutes.
“Su Chenghui, could you please just sign the paper and let us say goodbye to each other properly?”
“Before I returned, I talked with Qingsang. She wants me to say goodbye to you peacefully. Had it not been for that, I wouldn’t even be seeing you.”
“For the sake of our two children, please sign the paper. I don’t want things to get ugly between us. That’d be bad for the children.”
“Qingsang…” Su Chenghui raised his head to look at her.
“Yes, Su Qingsang is your daughter who you never cared about or loved for the past twenty years.”
Li Qianxue’s heartache grew deeper thinking about Su Qingsang. Her daughter was so perfect. Why on earth would Su Chenghui treat her as he had?
“You should know that even though you’ve been treating her so awfully, she still told me to be nice to you before I returned. She said things don’t have to get ugly. Su Chenghui, she sees you as her father. She respects you and doesn’t want you to lose face. And what about you? Ask yourself this: what have you ever done for her?”
Su Chenghui had barely done anything for Su Yuxin, let alone Su Qingsang.
Before this, Li Qianxue wondered why Su Chenghui insisted on sending Su Yuxin to a boarding school. Now she had her answer. It turned out that he didn’t see Su Yuxin and Su Qingsang as his children at all. He didn’t love them.
With that in mind, Li Qianxue grew even angrier. Su Chenghui had treated both her and her children so horribly for the past 20 years.
The contrast between Su Peizhen and the other two children made it even harder for Li Qianxue to forgive Su Chenghui.
Children always meant everything to their mothers. Su Chenghui had crossed Li Qianxue’s bottom line and hurt her children.
Su Chenghui fell silent again, guilty over his treatment of Su Qingsang. He once even intended to send Su Qingsang to the orphanage; the thought of that made him feel even worse.
He ultimately hadn’t sent Su Qingsang to the orphanage, but he couldn’t deny what Li Qianxue had said.
He slowly took his pen out of his pocket.
The pen was a birthday gift from Li Qianxue. At first, he threw it into a corner without ever thinking about using it. In the end, he kept it instead.
Previously, he had found the pen when he went back home to pack his things. He picked it up and started using it.
Of course, Li Qianxue remembered the pen as well. As she saw Su Chenghui take out the pen now, she felt even more disgusted by him.
She gave him the pen years ago as a birthday gift, but he never used it until he was asked to sign the divorce paper. Now that he was required to sign it, he took out that pen, pretending that he had been using it.
What was he doing? Was he trying to taunt her?
Li Qianxue wanted to say something sarcastic to him, but she ultimately changed her mind. After all, he was about to sign the paper. Once he did, she would no longer have anything to do with him.
Su Chenghui truly disgusted her. Once he signed that divorce paper, he would no longer be able to disgust her anymore.
After he signed the paper, she told her assistant to finish the rest of the procedure for her. Once the process was complete, she would no longer be his wife.
Su Chenghui picked up the divorce paper and started reading. He had read it so many times before that he memorized all of the terms written on it.
He just wanted to buy himself some more time.
Watching Su Chenghui’s pen land on the paper, Li Qianxue sighed with relief.
However, Su Chenghui abruptly paused.
“Wait.”
She expected this to happen. “What else do you want?” Li Qianxue said with a sullen face.
“Nothing.” Su Chenghui swallowed. He looked at Li Qianxue’s face and said, “But Yuxin’s custody…”
In Lin City, people counted children’s ages by reckoning. Li Qianxue had nearly forgotten about that.
Su Yuxin was born at the end of the year. He was considered eighteen years old and had already celebrated his eighteenth birthday. In reality, however, he was still about a year away from turning eighteen.
Li Qianxue clenched her fists and said, “There’s no need for us to discuss that. It’s not like you want him around, anyway.”
Su Chenghui’s face turned slightly pale. His hand trembled as he held the pen. “That’s not true,” he said.
