Chapter 23 Wife in Humble Life (23)

The Chen Family overlooked one issue; living so close to the Su Family, they hadn't even seen Doudou's face in months, let alone the frequently in-and-out elderly couple from the Su Family.

Sure enough, when Mrs. Chen, filled with frustration, banged on the Su Family's door, there wasn't a peep inside.

Instead, it drew the attention of someone from upstairs. "From Old Chen's family, huh... Are you looking for Old Su and his wife?"

"Yes, that's right..." Seeing a neighbor from the same building, Mrs. Chen unconsciously turned to hide the still-swollen side of her face in the shadows.

The neighbor suddenly became very interested, leaning in close to Mrs. Chen with raised eyebrows and a look of surprise, exclaimed loudly, "You don't know?..."

Mrs. Chen disliked the neighbor's tone but still suppressed her anger to ask, "Know what?"

"The Su couple moved out to the countryside... said it was because their elders were in poor health and they went back to take care of them."

"You two families have always been close, how come they didn't even say goodbye to you?"

Mrs. Chen's mouth stiffened awkwardly, barely managing to force a smile, "Well, that's..."

"Look at me, I forgot -- your son, Chen Jin, and Su Li from the Su family are already divorced..."

Then, the excessively curious neighbor leaned even closer to Mrs. Chen, whispering loudly enough for several floors to hear, "I heard that it was your Chen Jin who cheated?"

"Nonsense... Who said that, I'll tear their mouth apart," Mrs. Chen snapped back fiercely, pushing the neighbor away, her face flushed with anger.

After all, one's dirty laundry shouldn't be aired in public. They had kept Chen Jin's divorce tightly under wraps – had Old Su's family across the door spilled the beans?

The neighbor didn't take offense to Mrs. Chen's attitude and cheerily said, "Don't bother hiding it anymore, everyone in the entire building knows..."

"And you can stop wondering; it wasn't Old Su and his wife who said anything. It was actually the girl from the Xia Family upstairs who went to work for the same company Chen Jin used to, and she told her family."

"She said Chen Jin lost his job because of that 'Xiao San'..."

Heat flushed Mrs. Chen's face; she wished she could vanish into a crack in the ground and seethed with hatred for the girl from the Xia Family upstairs.

"I should go now..." Mrs. Chen couldn't stay another moment and turned to dash home.

"Hey, what happened to your face?" the neighbor called out to Mrs. Chen from Old Chen's family as she left.

Mrs. Chen got home, disregarding the pain in her face and the panic in her heart, and rushed up to Chen Jin, anxiously asking, "You lost your job?"

At that, Chen Jin slammed his ashtray to the ground.

Mrs. Chen's heart nearly stopped in fear, and with many questions in her mind that she now dared not ask, she quickly soothed, "Don't be angry, mom won't ask anymore."

"My son is outstanding. If that company doesn't see it, we'll just find another one where you can do just as well..."

"Doudou?"

With a guilty glance at the two people across from her, Mrs. Chen said, "There's nobody at Old Su's house; I heard they moved to the countryside."

"Don't worry, I will find them. We can't let the Su family lay claim to our Chen family's grandson."

But things didn't go as the Chen Family wished; they didn't even know where the Su Family's old house was, let alone tackle the matter at hand.

Chen Jin had been in a slump for quite some time, but before his parents could convince him, he managed to pull himself together and started sending resumes out again in Su City.

But all of these resumes sank without a trace, without a single piece of news in return.

Father Chen had called in many favors but couldn't help Chen Jin a bit.

When he got home, he unleashed a fresh torrent of anger. These colleagues, living in the same building, all had no sense of past camaraderie.

When he asked them for a small favor, they all made excuses.

Other neighbors in the building were also gossiping about the Chen Family.

"Old Chen still thinks he's something special, asking for help with such a superior attitude, who owes him?"

"But that's just it, isn't it? We all backed off for Old Su's sake before, but that didn't give him reason to become more demanding."

"Alright, since Old Su has had a falling out with his family now, we'll all just keep our distance from them in the future."

"If you ask me, it's a real shame about the girl from Old Su's family... Who knows what Old Su was thinking back then, so set on marrying into the Chen Family..."

The neighborhood gossip, more or less, still reached Chen Jin's ears, and he was finding it harder to stay in this neighborhood.

In the end, he brewed a lot of resentment, which eroded his heart every day, and he decided he still had to find Su Li.

If he could just find Su Li, and they could start over, everything might return to how it was.

But the Su Li of now, was not someone Chen Jin could just see whenever he wanted.

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Su Li was very busy, extremely busy...

Doudou and Yaya had been taken over by Xi Muqian's parents.

Her novel "Mystery of the Wealthy" unexpectedly exploded onto the scene as this year's dark horse in the bestseller charts.

After several additional print runs, bookstores were still unable to keep up with the demand, making Su Li's name echo throughout the industry.

Her excellent writing style, fully realized characters, plots full of suspense and thrills, and her astute emotional control sent the book skyrocketing.

Riding this momentum, Su Li wrote a second part, even more engrossing than the first.

These two books turned Su Li into a legend, with various film, publication, and game adaptation opportunities following one after another.

There were many advantages to becoming famous, but the inconveniences were also quite clear.

Su Li no longer lived in the same place; she had moved to a neighborhood with better security, not far from Xi Muqian's parents' villa.

This was a blatant favoritism from Xi Muqian, but since the house was indeed nice and she could now afford it, she let Xi Muqian have his way.

When Chen Jin came to Shanghai looking for Su Li, he came up empty-handed. With a heart full of jealousy and resentment, he turned to seek out Xi Muqian, only to be turned away from the door, without even a glimpse of the other person.

Until, on the big screen at the center of the square, he saw an enlarged image of Su Li.

Well-known suspense thriller author and beauty - Su Li, book signing event.

Chen Jin could no longer overlap the staggeringly beautiful woman on the big screen with the image of his ex-wife.

He couldn't help but admit that after leaving him, she had reborn from the flames like a phoenix, finally bursting with her own unique charm.

She was doing better and better...

While he, on the other hand, had fallen into extreme wretchedness.

This forced him to acknowledge that all these years, he had been consciously or unconsciously suppressing Su Li.

From a young age, Su Li had always been better than him...

And so he was anxious and discontented.

He still remembered when Su Li's essay had once again placed first, and how he had pretended to catch a cold on purpose, making her give up her chance to compete in the finals.

Faced with such a brilliant girl, his choice was to pull her down from her pedestal so he could stand on it himself.

Back then, Chen Jin always wondered why Su Li had to be so outstanding, why couldn't she be ordinary like the other girls.

Yet when Su Li had returned to being ordinary, he then found her spirit uninteresting.

Such is the baseness of men...

Chen Jin looked up self-mockingly at Su Li's large image, laughed out loud a few times, and then turned and walked away.