Surprise Resignation of Female Substitute Secretary

Chapter 12

Su Tao and Xie Jin's departure left the whole family in silence, as if the air had solidified.

They didn't care that Su Tao was angry, but offending Xie Jin was too detrimental to the company's development.

What worried them even more was whether Su Tao would hate them and deliberately make things difficult for their company by whispering in Xie Jin's ear.

"Mom, what you just said was too much. Mr. Xie had just walked in the door and must have heard it." Su HaoYang frowned at Li Pei, and irritably scolded her.

Li Pei's temper flared up at once. She slapped the table and screamed, "How would I know Xie Jin was here? I thought they had broken up long ago! Now it's all my fault? She hasn't been home for a year and that's got nothing to do with me!"

"Just shut up, will you die if you say less?" This time it was Su Sheng who spoke.

He knitted his brows and got up angrily from the dinner table.

As he passed through the living room, he saw the birthday cake Su Tao had brought was still sitting lonely on the coffee table.

Suddenly a scene flashed through his mind.

On the day of Ling Yuan's funeral, the then nine-year-old Su Tao held her mother's urn in the rain, standing alone with an umbrella, silent, neither crying nor making a fuss.

Somehow, his heart ached sharply.

Old age inevitably brings back memories. Su Sheng's back hunched a little as he slowly climbed the stairs.

-

The sky exploded with thunder, and the rustling of leaves blowing in the wind mixed with the thunder, adding an aura of horror to the deserted little path.

Su Tao walked quietly along the wall. Once she got through this path, it would be the highway. This little path had no parking.

The street lamps on both sides of the path were triangular lamps in a pseudo-European style, not very bright, but able to reveal silhouettes.

The silhouette on the ground had slender legs and an inverted triangular, exquisite figure, silently following all the way.

Without looking back, she knew it was Xie Jin.

As she approached the end of the path, Su Tao stopped and calmly looked back at Xie Jin. "Don't follow me. I'm fine."

Xie Jin's deep eyes reflected Su Tao's tranquil face. Raindrops pattered down gently. He took her hand and tucked her into his car parked at the roadside.

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After wiping the raindrops off Su Tao's face with a tissue, Xie Jin began to dry himself.

He broke the quiet in the car with a displeased tone, "Why didn't you tell me your family treats you so badly?"

Su Tao looked out at the passing cars and pedestrians in silence.

Xie Jin took out the business card Su HaoYang had given him and coldly laughed as he tore it in two and threw it in the trash.

"Star, Yang, Entertainment," he enunciated mockingly. "Your brother is called Su HaoYang, your brother Su Yang Xing. The company ownership has already been divided up."

Although he lived in an environment surrounded by wolves, when his father was alive, he had cherished him.

His father had said the TianJin Group was a gift given by his father on the day he was born.

Because it contained his name, his father had managed it with great care and paternal love.

In contrast, what position had Star Yang Entertainment relegated his little peach to?

"A year ago when you told me you never wanted to go home again, did it have to do with the company renaming?"

Xie Jin's eyes reddened slightly. He knew Su Tao must be very upset inside, and he didn't want her to bear these painful memories alone.

She thought he didn't remember this.

She lowered her head even more, her long hair falling to cover both cheeks, and whispered reluctantly.

Su Tao: "I don't want to talk about it."

Xie Jin: "What can't I know about you? Little peach, you never tell me about things with your family."

Su Tao: "That's because you don't want to hear it."

It was already hard to talk about, and he didn't want to hear it, so she was even less willing to say it.

Xie Jin: "I want to hear it now."

After half a beat of silence, Su Tao still didn't raise her head, but her calm voice somehow came out. "A year ago, on my dad's birthday, he changed the company name. The original name was ShengYuan, my dad and mom's names combined.

"ShengYuan Entertainment was the company they built up together from nothing. Those superstar actors and actresses, kings and queens of pop, were all personally nurtured by my mom. It was only after my mom died 15 years ago that we realized my dad had long ago had a child with his secretary Li Pei. I was 9 then, and Su YangXing was 7. I know Su YangXing is also pitiful, but I still hated him." Her voice was slightly hoarse with a hint of nasal tone.

"I had thought my dad was just biased against daughters, which was why he treated me badly. It wasn't until my mom's death anniversary four years ago, the day I met you, that I realized he hated me." She gave a mocking chuckle, and tears flowed down with her laughter, wetting Xie Jin's shirt.

"He married my mom just to make her work herself to death for him all her life. He never loved her at all. After giving birth to me her health deteriorated, and eventually she was unable to work. He blamed it all on me. In his eyes my mom was no different from an ox that could plow the fields, and I was the culprit who caused the only ox capable of plowing the fields to fall ill."

A bead of tears as large as a bean fell onto the tightly clasped hands in Su Tao's lap.

The moment the teardrop landed on her fair hand, it splashed onto Xie Jin's fingers just as he reached over to take her hand.

Xie Jin quickly cupped her face, brushed her hair behind her ears, and looked at her doe eyes that were always full of smiles now brimming with tears, so fragile it suffocated him.

"The reason I ran away from home a year ago wasn't just because he changed the company name, it was also because..."

Su Tao didn't finish her muffled words before Xie Jin interrupted in a trembling voice, "Don't say anymore, little peach, don't say anymore."

"It was also because I knew he had made a will." Su Tao still spoke calmly despite the slight nasal tone. "His will didn't leave me a cent. He didn't need to be so guarded against me, or make a will so prematurely, and on his own birthday too, how ominous."

As she spoke the last words, Su Tao sneered. Tears flowed down with her mocking laughter, wetting Xie Jin's shirt.

"He thought I was upset with him because I wouldn't get any of his assets. I just kept thinking of my mom. She had once been so proud saying ShengYuan Entertainment would become the best entertainment company nationwide. But there is no more ShengYuan Entertainment."

The quiet in the car was disrupted by a thunderclap. The looming heavy rain poured down, beating against the car windows erratically.

"Let's start a new entertainment company called ShengYuan Entertainment, okay?" Xie Jin murmured soothingly, his fingers clumsily wiping away her tears, but the more he wiped the more that fell.

She rarely cried. In four years he had basically never seen her tears.

Yet today had made her cry twice already.

Only now did he realize her tears were the most magical thing in the world, capable of making him compromise everything for her and deliver whatever she wanted right to her.

Su Tao's breakdown lasted barely a minute before she wiped her face dry with tissues, not letting another tear fall.

As always, her calm tone contained traces of sarcasm. "How amusing, Xie Jin. Now that we've broken up, you're suddenly willing to listen to me and respect my ideals."

Xie Jin was taken aback. Had he?

Had he not listened to her before? Not respected her?

And why was she talking about breaking up again?

"Please take me back to the ocean theme hotel I stayed at before." Su Tao said lightly with a nasal tone, turning her head to look out the window.

Through the reflective car window, Xie Jin saw her seemingly calm yet dejected expression. The words to force her back to the villa died on his lips, and he didn't say them.

The car stopped in the hotel parking lot. Su Tao softly thanked him and got out.

Because she didn't come back last night, the popular Maldives themed room had been booked by someone else. She could only choose between Antarctica and the seabed again, and picked the seabed suite.

She used the key card to open the door with Xie Jin following behind into the room.

Once inside, he immediately took off his rain-drenched clothes and called Jin ChuiWen to bring him a clean set.

Then he went to run a bath, brazenly taking off his pants and draping a robe over himself.

Su Tao was stunned speechless by his practiced, habitual motions. For a moment she didn't know whether she should leave or kick him out.

"I booked this room." Su Tao decided to kick him out after all.

"Oh, what's wrong?" Xie Jin sat by the tub waiting for the water to heat up, looking up at her puzzledly.

"So please leave."

Xie Jin's brows furrowed slightly as he lingered without withdrawing his gaze. His already gaunt face seemed to have thinned another circle recently, and his angle of lowered chin and raised eyes made his jaw as sharp as a bamboo shoot. His eyelids were more sunken too.

Seeing him still looking confused, Su Tao wondered which part of her words hadn't been clear enough? Just as she was about to rephrase even more clearly, her phone vibrated in her pocket.

She took it out first and casually glanced at it. It was a friend request from an unknown number.

The note said: About Xie Jin and Qin Xuexi's secret.

The person's words made her expression darken, and she tapped Accept out of curiosity.

Soon after verifying the friend request, the person sent a photo that Su Tao opened.

The photo was a bit blurry, clearly taken stealthily, but the main subjects were unmistakable.

Xie Jin and Qin Xuexi.

In the night's neon lights, they had just come out of a club door, intimately leaning together. Xie Jin's eyes were closed, while Qin Xuexi looked at him attentively.

Their lips were pressed together.

Su Tao swiftly raised her eyes to look at Xie Jin, still adjusting the water temperature. Her gaze returned to WeChat, where she tapped the sender's default black profile picture but could glean no information.

She sent the person a message but the display showed they had already deleted her as a friend.

Su Tao hesitated briefly before saving the photo and forwarding it to Zhang QiGuang to help verify if it was photoshopped.

After putting her phone away, Su Tao looked up again to see Xie Jin had readied the bath and was satisfied with the temperature, preparing to bathe.

Her gaze suddenly turned sharp, with disappointment and disgust in her eyes.

If this photo was real, then she'd been a huge joke these past four years!

Su Tao walked over to Xie Jin's side and roughly grabbed his robe collar with all her might, dragging him to the door.

Caught off guard while about to take off the robe, Xie Jin stumbled. By the time he reacted, Su Tao had already opened the door and pushed him out, adding a kick for good measure.

Dazed, he was about to demand what she was doing when the door slammed heavily shut. Xie Jin cradled his nose standing stupefied outside the door for a long time.