My Super Beautiful Lady Boss
Chapter 173 - 173 173 Father Bai's Story

173: Chapter 173: Father Bai’s Story 173: Chapter 173: Father Bai’s Story Bai Xue and her mother, seeing the determination in Su Xuan’s eyes, felt it no longer appropriate to say anything else.

However, Bai Xue’s father slammed the table and walked out.

On the first day, Su Xuan accompanied Bai Xue around the town, breathing in the fresh air.

The green rice fields and open vistas instantly uplifted their spirits.

As Su Xuan walked and chatted with Bai Xue, when they came to the topic of Bai Xue’s father, she suddenly became very reflective.

Su Xuan asked Bai Xue what was wrong, and Bai Xue told him a great deal about her father’s story.

The Bai Family, Bai Xue’s ancestral home, was once very famous in the town due to its many years of history and had accumulated a lot of property, making them arguably the wealthiest family in town.

However, fortune turns like a wheel, and by the time of Bai Xue’s grandfather, a black sheep emerged, who was none other than Bai Xue’s grandfather Bai Ye.

Bai Ye was a gambler and an opium addict.

As a young man with family wealth, he pursued a life of idleness and extravagance, spending his days in brothels, gambling houses, or the opium den, which led to his frail health even at a young age.

Despite that, given the Bai Family’s substantial wealth and their indulgence of Bai Xue’s grandfather, they still arranged for Bai Ye to marry a beautiful girl, but the two families were not well-matched, as Bai Xue’s grandmother came from a poor family.

Therefore, even after marriage, Bai Xue’s grandmother often dared not manage Bai Ye, Bai Xue’s great-grandfather passed away before Bai Xue’s father was born, and even on the day of the funeral, Bai Ye couldn’t resist visiting the gambling house and opium den.

So, it goes without saying that gambling, drugs, and prostitution can be deadly traps.

Bai Ye was caught in all three, lacking none.

After the death of Bai Xue’s great-grandfather, there was no one who could control Bai Ye, who then frequented the opium dens, gambling houses, and brothels even less.

Gradually, even a substantial family fortune could not support the outflow, and the Bai Family began to decline.

By that time, his father had begun to understand the world around him.

Bai Xue’s father was named Bai Zhantang, and he deeply resented his grandfather Bai Ye, for it was Bai Ye who ultimately brought the Bai Family to ruin.

Bai Ye gambled away all his possessions in the gambling houses, including the Bai Family’s ancestral home and the family’s longstanding store.

Originally, the Bai Family’s store was the most renowned in the town, with a reputation built over decades, but all was destroyed by Bai Ye’s hand.

Bai Ye never involved himself with the store, and as the business declined, it eventually had to close down.

Bai Ye gambled away all his fortune, ending up with nothing, leaving his wife and children with nowhere to live.

At last, unable to bear the pressure, Bai Ye took his last silver coin, smoked a pipe of opium, and died inside the den.

From then on, Bai Zhantang and his mother lived together, and later, unable to cope, Bai Xue’s grandmother ran off with a stranger who didn’t want children, leaving Bai Zhantang behind.

From that time, Bai Zhantang was a lonely orphan who relied on the pity of others for a meal or, when left without help, would catch frogs from the fields to eat.

His living conditions were humble, a makeshift space built by those who pitied him.

Nevertheless, Bai Zhantang was quite intelligent; he knew to earn his food by helping others and would also attend school to learn, and although he couldn’t enter the classroom, he had a sharp mind and often learned better than the students inside.

Eventually, a teacher, recognizing his potential, took him in, allowing him into the classroom.

Bai Zhantang was bright and diligent, consistently coming first in his class.

Bai Zhantang harbored a dream, which was to redeem the old family store and mansion.

As he grew up, Bai Zhantang gradually demonstrated his business acumen, starting small and progressively growing his business closer to his dream.

However, just as he was about to recover his family’s old mansion and store, he encountered a critical error in his business, which led directly to bankruptcy.

Bai Xue also experienced her family’s fall from grace.

Facing dead ends, Bai Zhantang, after striving for over a decade, saw his efforts vanish overnight and felt utterly dejected, no longer willing to start from scratch in business and ended up as a schoolteacher.

Bai Xue’s father often mentioned his aspirations to Bai Xue, which she always kept in mind, even when she moved to Qingshan City as an adult to fulfill her father’s dream.

After hearing all this, Su Xuan couldn’t help but sigh, realizing that Bai Xue’s father had such a story, and at the same time, he already had an idea of how to help Bai Xue’s father achieve his dream.

However, just at that moment, Su Xuan suddenly noticed that it seemed like some people were arguing in a rice paddy, so he pulled Bai Xue to go over.

But Bai Xue had originally thought that Su Xuan had come out to find something to satisfy his father, and was now even running off to watch a commotion.

The couple of days they had were already flying by.

Thus Bai Xue immediately felt a rush of annoyance and said to Su Xuan, “Hey, can you take this matter seriously?

You haven’t even resolved your own trouble, and yet you’re running off to watch other people’s drama.”

Turning his head, Su Xuan smiled at Bai Xue and said to her, “I have a plan!”

Upon hearing that Su Xuan had a plan, Bai Xue immediately asked curiously.

However, Su Xuan didn’t plan to tell her and insisted on dragging her to the scene of the argument to watch the excitement.

They saw that one side of the argument featured a man with a fat head and big ears, while the other was thin as a stick, creating a stark contrast standing together.

In reality, what was called an argument didn’t quite fit the bill, as it seemed to be the fat man continuously cursing at the skinny one, while the thin man kept pleading with his tormentor.

Many people were surrounding them, just standing by and watching the spectacle, none trying to break it up.

It was only after asking Bai Xue that Su Xuan learned that the fat man’s name was Wang Sheng, who somehow had connections with the town’s mayor.

Therefore, he had always been a bully in the village, to the extent that even the dogs had to make way for him.

Wang Sheng frequently harassed the respectable women of the town, which made others extremely angry.

Yet, they didn’t dare to speak out because it was clear that the town’s mayor was no good guy himself, always defending the fat man and exploiting the townspeople alongside him.

After listening for a while, Su Xuan understood the situation.

The skinny man had been deprived of some land by Wang Sheng and had come to argue his case.

However, rich and powerful, Wang Sheng shamelessly felt it was his family’s honor to take someone else’s land, and anyone who came to argue would only be beaten into agreement.

The skinny man was poor, and his family’s fields amounted to only 1.3 acres.

Now that Wang Sheng had taken an acre and two-thirds of that, the man faced the risk of getting beaten but still approached Wang Sheng to argue.

“You fucking understand or not, I’ve taken your land, just a little bit, so stop bitching about this small patch in front of us.

Get lost, you hear me?

Otherwise, I’ll beat you to death,” Wang Sheng pointed at the skinny villager and said.

The skinny man, named Li Gousheng, looked at Wang Sheng’s fierce appearance, but didn’t show any sign of backing down.

After all, it was either dying from a beating or starving to death, so why not fight for that slim chance of survival?

“Brother Wang Sheng, please leave us a way to live.

My family of three depends on that little bit of land to survive.

If you take so much more, how are we supposed to live?” Gousheng said, with tears streaming down his face.

But Gousheng had not been well educated and used the wrong words clearly.

As soon as Wang Sheng heard Gousheng describe his actions as plundering, he became enraged, swung a fist, and punched Gousheng right in the nose, causing blood to flow immediately.

Afterward, Wang Sheng pointed at Gousheng and continued cursing, “You fucking dare to say I’m plundering.

Looks like you really don’t want to live, huh?

I’ll tell you, I could not care less if you live or die.

If you’ve got nothing to eat, go chew on tree bark.

It’s not like nobody has ever done that.”

As Gousheng, with blood running from his nose, realized he couldn’t reclaim his own land, he went mad and lunged at Wang Sheng.

But Wang Sheng was fat and strong, and before Gousheng could even get close, Wang Sheng pushed him away, sending him tumbling across the ground several times before stopping.

Seeing that Gousheng had no intention of giving up, the fat Wang Sheng swung his fist toward him.

But, before his punch could land, he suddenly found he couldn’t move his arm.

Turning his head, he saw that a young man had grabbed his arm.

Furious, he said to the youth, “Who the fuck’s brat are you?

What business is this of yours, huh?

Are you asking for a beating?”

Wang Sheng hadn’t been challenged in this town for a long time; sometimes he even thought he was invincible and even considered entering some sumo competition.

But today, for the first time, someone had grabbed his fist mid-fight and rendered him immobile, shaking his worldview.

The young man blocking him was Su Xuan.

When he heard Wang Sheng’s insolence, his grip suddenly tightened, causing sweat to bead on Wang Sheng’s face as his fist crunched under Su Xuan’s hold.

Some people in the crowd who were close to Wang Sheng, seeing him being bullied, rushed forward.

One person tried to sneak up on Su Xuan from behind but did not expect that Su Xuan, while holding Wang Sheng’s fist, turned around and with a kick sent the attacker flying.

Immediately thereafter, about seven or eight people with sticks they had picked up from who knows where converged on Su Xuan, saying, “Let him go right away, or we’ll kill you today.”

Hearing that, Su Xuan couldn’t help but laugh, for the number of people who had wanted to kill him was simply too many to count, and these few were far from the first in line.