“Who’s your father?” Li Qianxue looked at him frostily and asked with an unfriendly tone. Su Qinghui referred to Old Master Li as ‘father’, and that disgusted Li Qianxue.
What was he doing? Was he trying to reconnect with her family again?
Sensing Li Qianxue’s aggressive tone, Su Chenghui felt bitter in his heart.
“Qianxue, I’ve been calling him father for over twenty years. I honestly think of your father like my own. Do you have to be like this?”
“Haha.” Li Qianxue snorted coldly and said with a sarcastic look on her face, “you see my father as your father? Is that why you tortured my father’s daughter and switched his granddaughter with another girl? Su Chenghui, is that what you’d do to your father?”
Su Yuxin and Su Qingsang both stood behind Li Qianxue quietly. Old Master Li was sitting on the sofa, looking at the gift in front of him, as if he didn’t hear Li Qianxue’s words. The gift was presented to him by Su Chenghui.
No one talked for Su Chenghui. No one helped him. He just stood there, realizing that he truly seemed to have nothing to do with the family anymore.
He couldn’t think of a single word to respond to Li Qianxue. He had foreseen this difficult situation before he came, but he still had to come.
If he missed this opportunity, he wouldn’t be able to think of another excuse to come and see Li Qianxue.
“Get out, I don’t want to see you.”
Su Qinghui was aware that he should probably leave as soon as possible if he still had some sense of shame. However, looking at Li Qianxue’s face which was as beautiful as ever, he could not move his feet.
He just stood there, staring straight at Li Qianxue with gleaming eyes, full of passion.
That look in his eyes disgusted Li Qianxue. She sounded even colder than before.
“I said get out. Can you hear me?”
Li Qianxue honestly disliked that man. He made her sick, so much so that she even wanted to bite him to vent her anger once she thought about what he had done.
Su Qinghui stood motionless, fixing his eyes on Li Qianxue.
The way he looked at her gave Li Qianxue goosebumps. It wasn’t because she was touched, but because she felt disgusted by him.
Before she could call someone to throw Su Chenghui out of the house, Su Yuxin took a step forward, stood before Su Chenghui, and called him, “dad.”
Li Qianxue didn’t want to see Su Chenghui, but Su Yuxin had a different attitude towards him.
The boy had noticed the look on his father’s face when he walked in earlier. The man didn’t look good.
Su Chenghui had dressed up for Old Master Li’s birthday. If not, he would probably be looked even worse.
He was the boy’s father after all. Su Yuxin hated to see Su Chenghui like this. It made him feel bad.
“Dad, how have you been lately? You look like you didn’t rest well.”
The man’s eyes were red. He dressed neat and clean, but still, he looked tired.
Su Chenghui looked at Su Yuxin with gratitude. “I’ve been a little busy lately. I’ll have more time to rest when I have finished all the work.”
“You need to take care of yourself, dad.”
By saying that, Su Yuxin was trying to ease Su Chenghui’s situation. After saying that, he turned to Li Qianxue, and begged her with his eyes.
Li Qianxue turned her eyes away from Su Yuxin. She still looked angry. She wished that Su Chenghui would leave because she didn’t want to see him.
Su Yuxin turned to Su Qingsang helplessly. Receiving her little brother’s eye signal, Su Qingsang gave a long sigh in her head.
“Dad, have you had breakfast yet?”
Su Qingsang winked at Su Chenghui when she said that.
“Not yet.” Su Chenghui did not think that at that moment, the daughter who was never close to him would be willing to help him.
He looked at Su Qingsang and felt his eye sockets turning warm.
“I just saw some untouched leftovers from the breakfast in the kitchen. Dad, maybe you can have some if you want to.”
Su Qingsang looked at Su Chenghui, and continued with extra sincerity, “skipping breakfast isn’t good for your stomach. Dad, you should definitely have some food.”
Su Chenghui didn’t move but turned back to Li Qianxue. How could Li Qianxue not notice the look in her daughter’s eyes?
She never thought that both Su Qingsang and Su Yuxin would choose to be on Su Chenghui’s side. She couldn’t describe the way she felt at the moment. Detecting the begging look in her daughter’s eyes, she turned her face away with her teeth gritted.
If Su Yuxin was the only one who had spoken for Su Chenghui, she could have ignored it. However, she didn’t have the heart to turn down any of Su Qingsang’s requests.
“Dad, just go and have some food.”
Su Qingsang glanced at Su Yuxin while speaking. “Yuxin, I noticed that you didn’t eat much just now. Maybe you can have some more together with dad.”
“Alright.” Su Yuxin immediately got what Su Qingsang meant. He dragged Su Chenghui towards the dining room, even though the man was still standing there in a daze.
Su Chenghui hesitated slightly, but eventually, he followed his son into the dining room.
As Su Chenghui and Su Yuxin disappeared around the corner, Li Qianxue looked at Su Qingsang in a complicated way.
“Mom.” Su Qingsang knew that she was unhappy. She put an arm around her arm and said, “you see, we can afford to treat him with some breakfast, can’t we?”
Li Qianxue stayed silent. She was planning on kicking Su Chenghui out of the house once he finished his breakfast.
She was not a cruel or heartless person. She honestly just did not want to see Su Chenghui. Seeing the man always reminded her of what he had done.
Li Qianxue had a good plan about casting Su Chenghui out once he finished his breakfast. However, before he could finish eating, the guests had already started to arrive.
Old Master Li’s cousins, their children, and grandchildren were all coming in. Those people were relatives after all. Li Qianxue didn’t want to embarrass herself in front of them.
As a result, Su Chenghui stayed after finishing breakfast.
Li Qianxue wanted to ask him to leave, but she couldn’t do that in front of all the relatives present. She couldn’t throw Su Chenghui out of the house right under the watch of so many people, could she?
The family feast was considered warm and joyful. The older Old Master Li got, the more he liked being surrounded by his children and grandchildren.
It was a nice lunch. Apart from Su Qingsang and her little brother, Su Chenghui had also been standing by Old Master Li’s side the whole time.
He really did look like Old Master Li’s son-in-law again. Su Qingsang and Su Yuxin made eye-contact with from time to time. No matter how things between Li Qianxue and Su Chenghui were, the two of them both still saw Su Chenghui as a member of the family.
Some relatives who didn’t know about what had really happened yet thought Li Qianxue and Su Chenghui were still together. Earlier, their divorce had made big news, but now they still looked like a couple. They had been a couple for so many years, after all.
It looked like they had made peace and gotten back together.
One of Li Qianxue’s cousin-in-law even looked at the two in a very meaningful way, as if she definitely knew what was going on between them.
That made Li Qianxue so angry that she started to suffer a headache. If there weren’t guests, she would have ripped that ‘perky’ smile off Su Chenghui’s face.
Su Chenghui wasn’t perky at all, actually. He was keeping Old Master Li company, but he could tell that neither he or Li Qianxue wanted to see him.
They tolerated him only because there were guests at their place. They didn’t want to make things ugly in front of everyone.
Even after all the guests had left, Su Chenghui was still following Old Master Li around.
Su Qingsang and Su Yuxin could tolerate him and still treat him like a family member, but unlike them, Li Qianxue couldn’t even endure his presence.
She stepped up and him to ask him to leave.
However, just then, Old Master Li, who had stayed silent the whole day, finally started talking.
“Chenghui, come with me.”
Since Old Master Li had said that, Li Qianxue couldn’t ask the man to leave immediately, even though she wanted to so badly. All she could do was to clench her teeth and watch Su Chenghui go upstairs together with her father.
In the study room, Old Master Li set the chessboard, then looked at Su Chenghui and said with a bland voice, “I haven’t played chess with you in quite a while. Let’s play.”
Su Chenghui looked at Old Master Li. He didn’t think that Old Master Li still had the mood to play chess with him, but still, he sat down in front of him.
Old Master Li picked up a white piece and made his first move. Then, he looked at Su Chenghui and signaled for him to make his.
Both of them made every move very carefully. In the middle of the game, Old Master Li suddenly paused.
“You have a plan in your heart, and you have a strategy for the game. Chenghui, you are so much better at chess than you were before.”
Su Chenghu stayed silent. He had no time for chess in the past two months at all. Old Master Li’s words sounded almost like sarcasm.
“What? Don’t you believe me?” Old Master Li sighed, put down the chess piece in his hand, and said, “Chenghui, you were good at chess before too, but you always hesitated.”
“I always knew that before, you had no idea what you really wanted and what was most important to you. But now, judging by the way you play chess, I assume you have already that figured out, am I right?”
Su Chenghui’s eye sockets turned slightly warm. He looked at Old Master Li and said, “father, I was wrong.” His voice was sounded very dry.
Old Master Li raised a hand to signal for Su Chenghui to stop talking. He didn’t want to hear that. “Chenghui, I don’t want to make any judgment about whether you were right or wrong. I don’t want to know if you regret it either. I just want to tell you that life is like a chess game. For every move you make, there’s no way back. You’ve done something, and you have to bear the consequences of it.”
“Father…”
“Maybe you regret it, and you might have realized that you were wrong. But it has nothing to do with Qianxue anymore.”
“Father?” Su Qinghui raised his head to look at Old Master Li. There was an indescribable pain in his eyes. “I really do regret it.”
“Chenghui, regretting can’t always earn you a second chance.”
Old Master Li said painfully and remorsefully, “I used to pay all my attention to Li Group. All I ever wanted was to turn Li Group into a large, powerful company. I did it, exactly how I wished. However, the person who was supposed to be sharing the success with me is gone.”
“I regret what I did all the time, and I often question myself. I’ve been wondering… if I hadn’t dedicated myself whole-heartedly to my work when I was younger, and if I had spent more time with Qianxue’s mother, would she have lived a few years more?”
“There will never be an answer to that question. She is dead, she’s gone. No matter how strongly I regret it, she can’t come back to life.”
Su Chenghui stayed silent. He had his view of what was important overshadowed by the trivial. Without removing the trivial, how could he possibly discover what he really wanted?
“I’m glad that you still remember my birthday. Thank you. But as for the things between you and Qianxue, just leave them the way they are.”
Old Master Li didn’t make it very clear, but Su Chenghui understood what he was trying to say. The look on Su Chenghui’s face changed immediately.
“Father?”
