Ch 23: The Scumbag’s Daily Wife-Doting Life [QT]

After the sports festival ended, Xie Zhenchen won first place in the three-thousand-meter race and went onstage to receive his certificate.

The moment he spotted his family sitting below the stage, a brilliant smile spread across his face.

“Come on, let’s go wait for Donggua,” Xie Li said.

Li Tiantian immediately stood up and left her seat beside her husband. Xie Wan, who had already run over to the side of the field earlier to cheer for her brother, followed along to greet him together.

The young businessman still wanted to chase after them and continue talking, but when he saw the cold anger on Xie Li’s face, he shuddered and no longer dared to approach.

Just like that, the Xie family left the field together.

“Secretary Xie, your two children are so well educated…” Near the podium, the principal stood up and began chatting warmly with Xie Li.

Xie Li restrained his anger, calmed himself, and spoke with the principal smoothly and naturally.

Before leaving, he casually brought up Xie Wan’s situation.

“Wanwan mentioned a few days ago that she has a new deskmate now. Otherwise I wouldn’t even have known. No one informed me before that. I wonder where her previous deskmate got transferred to. That child seemed pretty decent. Wanwan misses him too and still talks about him.”

The principal froze briefly. As someone who had spent over a decade climbing within the system, he immediately understood the hidden meaning behind Xie Li’s words.

Smiling, he said:

“If Secretary Xie thinks the child is good, then he must be excellent indeed. I’ll speak with Wanwan’s homeroom teacher later and have that student transferred back.”

Xie Li nodded in satisfaction and took his leave.

Behind him, Xie Wan, who had overheard the conversation, immediately lit up and hurried after him.

Once they got into the car, Xie Li explained the matter regarding Zhou Dongyu while driving.

Both Xie Wan and Xie Zhenchen listened in shock. Xie Zhenchen looked especially confused.

“But we’re still students. There’s no point in approaching us.”

“So silly.” Li Tiantian rubbed his head. “You’re students, but your father isn’t. Through you two, they can get close to your dad and achieve their goal. And if it went even further, if he managed to pursue Wanwan successfully, their family would never need to seek connections again for the rest of their lives.”

Xie Wan curled her lips in disgust.

“Good thing I don’t like him.”

Li Tiantian burst into laughter.

“As expected of your father’s daughter. Your dad was thinking exactly the same thing earlier. Thank goodness you don’t like him, otherwise your father would’ve gone insane.”

Xie Wan grabbed a cushion resentfully, thinking to herself that her standards were extremely high. How could she possibly fall for some random person so easily?

…

Only a few days after that incident, Xie Li went out of town for a work conference.

One of the unit’s top leaders accompanied the trip. The man was nearly sixty and approaching retirement age. He was currently deciding between Xie Li and another person as his successor.

That was why both of them had been brought along.

On the evening of their arrival, the local leadership hosted a welcoming banquet and repeatedly urged everyone to drink.

Remembering that the leader’s health was poor, Xie Li helped block several drinks for him. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. Midway through the banquet, he excused himself to use the restroom, telling the other candidate to cover for a while before leaving.

But when he returned, the private room had erupted into chaos.

The senior leader had collapsed onto the floor, his upper body leaning against a chair leg. His mouth and eyes were twisted to one side, saliva continuously dripping out while a crowd surrounded him anxiously.

“What happened?”

Xie Li grabbed a colleague and demanded an explanation.

The colleague was panicked and incoherent.

“I… I don’t know. I only got distracted for a moment. It wasn’t my fault.”

Xie Li frowned, let him go, and pushed through the crowd.

“Move aside. Let me take a look.”

The local officials looked as though they had seen a living Bodhisattva the moment they saw him.

“Secretary Xie, please hurry and see what’s wrong. We already called an ambulance, but nobody here knows emergency treatment…”

“Quiet.”

Xie Li’s head was pounding from all the noise. The man instantly shut up in fear and hurriedly stepped aside.

Xie Li crouched silently to examine the leader and quickly concluded it was cerebral arterial blockage caused by hypertension and alcohol consumption, accompanied by a mild cerebral thrombosis.

He immediately adjusted the man’s position and gently massaged several acupuncture points.

Then, pretending to retrieve something from his coat, he secretly took out a box of silver needles from his spatial storage and inserted them into the appropriate points with practiced precision.

“Secretary Xie knows Chinese medicine too?”

Everyone stared in shock.

Xie Li ignored them entirely and focused on treatment.

The truth was that over the years, he had never abandoned Chinese medicine. On the contrary, because his status had risen, he now had better opportunities to interact with famous masters of traditional medicine and seek guidance from them. His skill had steadily improved all this time.

Half an hour later, the sound of emergency sirens echoed outside the hotel.

Xie Li removed the silver needles and woke the leader.

“Why am I lying on the floor?”

The senior leader looked completely bewildered.

Immediately, people rushed forward to explain what had happened.

“Leader, it was extremely dangerous just now. Thankfully Secretary Xie was here…”

Xie Li quietly stepped back and hid his achievements and merit, leaving the others to flatter the leader all they wanted.

A few months later, Xie Li officially inherited the leader’s position and became the youngest high-ranking executive in the entire unit.

When Li Tiantian heard the news, she pressed her lips together and could not help recalling the path of Xie Li’s promotions over the years.

Most of the leaders within the system had lived through the chaos twenty or thirty years earlier, and very few of them were truly healthy.

Xie Li, however, excelled at traditional Chinese medical care and rehabilitation. By taking the correct approach, he advanced steadily upward, almost never remaining in one position for long.

Years later, after Xie Li had become a major regional authority figure, the legend of his meteoric rise became famous far and wide.

Everyone said he was lucky, that he had encountered powerful patrons and mentors.

Yet no one knew what he had truly relied upon to climb this far.

Only Li Tiantian knew.

And every time she thought about it, she could not help smiling softly to herself.

…

“What are you smiling about?”

Xie Li had just returned from outside when he noticed Li Tiantian smiling to herself and asked curiously.

Li Tiantian shot him a sidelong glance.

“Oh, I was just thinking about when you were younger. Everyone used to wonder why you got promoted so quickly. And when you finally told them the reason, nobody believed you. It’s honestly hilarious.”

Xie Li secretly touched his abdominal muscles and protested:

“What do you mean ‘when I was younger’? I’m not old even now, okay?”

“You’ve already been retired for ten years. How are you not old?” Li Tiantian could not be bothered arguing with him. She put on her reading glasses and picked up a magazine to read carefully.

Time had passed quietly.

She was now sixty-eight years old, yet because she had lived a prosperous and carefree life, she looked barely fifty. Her hair had been dyed a soft silver-gray, and she wore an embroidered qipao with gold-rimmed glasses, lounging leisurely beside the floor-to-ceiling windows while enjoying the gentle morning sunlight.

Xie Li looked much the same. Original translation at HololoNovels dot com. The only difference was that the maturity and refinement forged by the years had given him a deeper charm. Compared to the handsome elegance of his youth, he now possessed an entirely different kind of allure.

“Yeah… I’m retired already.”

As Xie Li reflected on his life, he let out a sigh that sounded almost wistful.

Xie Zhenchen had inherited his father’s career path, while Xie Wan took over Li Tiantian’s fashion company. Both children married, had families of their own, and lived very happy lives.

After retiring, Xie Li and Li Tiantian moved away from the bustling city and bought a house in the suburbs to spend their old age together. Every day they grew vegetables, tended flowers, and whenever the children came back to visit during their free time, they would cook a grand meal for everyone.

Their days drifted by like the wind, aimless, peaceful, and content.

In the blink of an eye, he had grown old too.

“Enough about that.” Xie Li pulled himself together and smiled. “Today is our fiftieth wedding anniversary. Our golden anniversary. How about a candlelit dinner?”

Naturally, Li Tiantian had no reason to refuse.

Fifty years ago, most people had no concept of wedding anniversaries. Li Tiantian herself had not cared about such things either. But Xie Li celebrated it with her every single year, and eventually she began treasuring the day deeply as well.

Now she had gotten used to it. Sometimes she even wanted to create surprises herself.

Unfortunately, she had been pampered into laziness and could never quite motivate herself to do it.

Flipping through her magazine, Li Tiantian pressed her lips together in a soft smile.

It could be said that meeting Xie Li was the luckiest thing that had ever happened in her entire life.

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