20 years of restarting life

Chapter 3751 Qiao Yan's Advice

Xiang Yong said somewhat unhappily, "Qiao Yan, don't be so extreme. There are good women and good men in this world, just as there are bad men and bad women. You can't condemn all men in one fell swoop; that's not fair."

"Are you going to ask me, if we follow this logic, is my dad a good person or a bad person? Does that mean what I'm saying is the same kind of wicked character?"

Qiao Yan watched Xiang Yong's retreating figure with a cold smile, a look of relief and disdain that came from seeing through everything, finding it all boring and indifferent.

"I didn't say that. Qiao Yan, you always presumptuously assume that others would say this or that, and then you say what others said in their voice, but actually, these are just your own assumptions about what others would say."

"Oh, you really know me. We're husband and wife, just like I know you."

Qiao Yan said with a smile.

This seemingly ordinary sentence, without any obvious sarcasm, sounded to Xiang Yong as a vicious mockery.

He was so angry that his face turned pale. He cursed himself for being such an idiot. He knew exactly what kind of person Qiao Yan was, yet he still tried to reason with her.

The best approach is to simply shut up and ignore her, just like you would normally do.

But his silence didn't mean Qiao Yan would shut up: "Did I touch a nerve? Are you too scared to continue?"

"Qiao Yan, stop being unreasonable, okay? Would you be satisfied if I acted like a shrew like you?"

Xiang Yong couldn't hold back any longer, and his words became increasingly harsh.

"Hehe, you've finally spoken your mind. In your eyes, I've become a shrewish, haggard woman. If I weren't this haggard woman, you wouldn't be able to afford a two-story house, a big color TV, and this car you drive now. Even if it's a used car, it cost thirty or forty thousand yuan. It's not something a teacher like you, who only makes 1,100 yuan a month, could afford!"

Zhao Chang'an realized that once these two started clashing, things wouldn't stop anytime soon.

This time he finally learned his lesson and didn't interrupt at all. Instead, he silently took out the English version of "Bel Ami" from his bag. It was a rare moment of free time to kill. Even though we were almost in Jiangcheng, it would still take at least an hour to get to Optics Valley. Zhao Chang'an could take a look.

After Zhao Chang'an and Su Ying had an in-depth discussion about this book that night, Su Ying quietly slipped back to her room before dawn the next morning.

They also took the book with them.

However, I returned it to him the next morning when he wasn't looking.

Zhao Chang'an only had time to continue reading now. Holding the book, he felt a little uncomfortable, so he flipped through it and found a crease on one of the pages.

The page that was folded was towards the end; Zhao Chang'an had only read a dozen pages of the book, so it was impossible for him to fold the later pages.

Then it can only be Su Yingzhe.

He glanced at it and discovered that it was the page depicting Duroy's first real conversation with Mrs. Walter, Susan's mother.

As Zhao Chang'an looked at the English text above, a deep smile crept onto his lips.

Some might wonder how Zhao Chang'an, a handsome, incredibly wealthy, and exceptionally talented young man in his mid-twenties, could be so intimately connected with so many women in their thirties and forties. This is because they are completely unaware of Zhao Chang'an's biggest secret: he is an older man who has traveled back in time from twenty years in the future.

Moreover, he's a pathetic man who has a stunningly beautiful wife but has never even slapped her once in a year of marital relations. Each time, he finishes in less than five minutes due to Li Shiya's impatient urging.

Although he is young, he has the mentality and aesthetic sense of a man in his forties. In his eyes, whether it is Shan Qiang or Su Ying, as long as they are beautiful, they are still attractive girls. That is why he behaves in ways that many people cannot understand.

Take Su Ying, for example. To be honest, this woman's character is really terrible. She is selfish, self-serving, and subservient to power. But among all her shortcomings, she has at least one advantage: at just over forty years old, her intellectual elegance and charm can easily make older men lose their minds.

Some women, even if they aren't stunning beauties, exude an amazing attraction to the opposite sex once they reach a certain age, like Su Ying.

However, her weakness is that her flowering period is too short; she will probably enter menopause in two or three years.

This is why Su Ying was willing to do it after learning that Zhao Chang'an said he could preserve her youth and beauty for a longer period of time.

Although she did feel ashamed and embarrassed at the time, that's just how women are; once she gets over that hurdle, she doesn't care about such things in front of this man anymore.

In her heart, she even felt that she had actually gotten a great deal, after all, he was a younger brother who was almost twenty years younger than her.

That's why Su Ying returned the book, and even deliberately folded that page in a suggestive way, making it provocative for Zhao Chang'an.

"Xiang Yong, it's not that I look down on you, nor is it that I, Qiao Yan, am trying to pat myself on the back, but tell me, what makes you worthy of my respect?"

"Qiao Yan, let's talk things out. Stop making unreasonable demands and rambling on. People should be reasonable. Every year in August, we harvest tea from the mountains for a month and a half. Do you know how tired I am? My hands are always blistered, and I get stung by bees and caterpillars all the time."

"You're tired because you're just putting in the hardship! I hire people to cut tea leaves on 600 acres of tea plantations for 50 yuan per acre, and people are scrambling to take the job. But you, you had 17 or 18 people cutting leaves for a month and a half, and I was feeding them good cigarettes, good wine, good food, and good drink like a father. Just the wages alone were over 40,000 yuan, plus cigarettes, alcohol, food, watermelon, fruit, and drinks—it all adds up to another 20,000 or 30,000 yuan—"

As they were talking, Qiao Yan's daughter woke up. She snatched the book from Zhao Chang'an's hand, handed the child to Zhao Chang'an to hold, and continued to argue angrily with Xiang Yong.

As a result, Zhao Chang'an could no longer read the book, so he had to put it back in his bag and go play with the child.

It made the child giggle, which was especially endearing.

“Zhao Chang’an, if you like, I’ll take it upon myself to be your daughter and call you Dad.”

Upon seeing this scene, Qiao Yan suddenly uttered this remark.

After saying that, he seemed to think it wasn't provoking Xiang Yong enough, so he added, "When you get old, she'll take care of you."

Qiao Yan's words left Zhao Chang'an speechless; he had already adopted three goddaughters.

He acknowledged Zhong Wei's daughter, partly because of Jing Ying, but more importantly, out of gratitude to Zhong Jianguo.

(End of this chapter)