Marriage of a Sickly Villain and a Fortune Hunter - Chap 39
Xia Xingchi was taken aback by the question, and looked around to find that there were no dilapidated factories or warehouses, let alone the biting wind and rain.
Dawn had just arrived, and the villa’s temperature system maintained a comfortable level of warmth and humidity. The soft blanket was light and warm, and exuded a faint fragrance of washing detergent.
Li Chengyuan sat up after him and saw that Xia Xingchi’s expression was dazed and fearful, as if he had been about to grab something and failed.
He had no choice but to put aside the urgency in his heart for the time being, and lightly patted Xia Xingchi’s head as he said: “Don’t be afraid, tell me what sort of nightmare you had.”
“I don’t know.” Xia Xingchi opened his eyes wide, and suddenly grabbed Li Chengyuan’s hand to touch it. “Do you have any discomfort? I dreamed that you were dead.”
Although that hand was cold to the touch, the palm was a little warm, devoid of cold sweat.
Xia Xingchi heaved a sigh of relief and finally awoke from his panic. He thought to himself that this dream was too scary. A person who was just fine could instantly vomit blood without any signs at all. It was frightening to death.
“Did you remember something?”
Li Chengyuan was helpless, and was in no mood to correct him again that he really hadn’t died at the time.
Back then, a certain child failed to feel his weak heartbeat and breath in his panic, and while crying, he wanted to go out and bury him when the rain stopped…..but the money could not be buried with him, as he would not be able to spend it.
Perhaps due to his uneasy conscience, the little money-grubber felt that it was not good to take other people’s money, so he sat next to Li Chengyuan’s “corpse” and tried to discuss it with him, whispering that he would buy him paper money to burn later.
After some thought, of course a dead person couldn’t answer. Xia Xingchi wiped his tears and pretended that he had agreed, and was stretching out his little hand to wipe the blood from the corner of the other’s mouth when he saw his eyes open.
In the middle of a stormy night, the corpse suddenly opened its eyes. This scene was as horrifying as it could be. Little Xia Xingchi was so frightened that he sat down on the ground, thinking that the other had disagreed with the distribution of the “inheritance.”
Xia Xingchi quickly changed his words: “I’m sorry! I’ll buy paper money for you! I’ll give it all to you, I don’t want it!”
Li Chengyuan couldn’t care about his stomachache. Seeing his wrinkled little sad face, scared and full of tears, he was finally amused by this little fool’s comedy act.
It was the first time he smiled since his mother died.
Xia Xingchi blinked and stopped sobbing.
He had been overwhelmed by the terrifying atmosphere created when Li Chengyuan suddenly vomited blood and died, and then in shock when the corpse suddenly moved.
But obviously a ghost couldn’t smile so nicely. Xia Xingchi wanted to take a bite of this porcelain doll’s cheek to see if it tasted like ice cream.
“You vomited blood,” Xia Xingchi said hesitantly. “You have to go to the hospital if you’re sick, or you’ll die.”
Li Chengyuan’s vision darkened from the pain. He didn’t want to move or speak, but couldn’t do anything about those big eyes blinking at him, so he calmly said: “Then I’ll die, ba.”
“No way! I told you that you can’t die, you —”
Seeing that he was about to cry again, Li Chengyuan could only frown and say: “Don’t cry…..I won’t die, it’s okay.”
Unexpectedly, after so many years, Xia Xingchi’s vision of his “death” was still so deeply rooted.
At that time, Li Chengyuan had explained to him that he had only fainted from the pain, and told him to watch less messy TV.
It wasn’t that he would die because of vomiting blood. He just had stomach bleeding again, and hadn’t ever died from it before.
Xia Xingchi looked around the room again, but found that the memory of the dream quickly faded after he woke up, the details becoming blurry.
“I dreamed that you turned into a child. You looked really good, like a porcelain doll, very expensive and high-end.”
Li Chengyuan was even more helpless. He had said the same thing back then.
“Anything else?”
Xia Xingchi shook his head blankly.
He himself also felt that something was wrong. The memory erasure speed of this dream was a little too fast. Usually it would take at least until he got up and washed for him to forget what he dreamed about, but now he couldn’t remember the specific content in the blink of an eye.
Watching him thinking hard for a long time without being able to remember, the sudden ups and downs of his emotions caused Li Chengyuan’s heart to beat tfast.
He lay down slowly, and said as if nothing had happened: “Sleep, ba.”
Xia Xingchi tilted his head, thinking that he was not interested in this boring dream. He also got under the covers and decided to go back to sleep.
It was still early, and this migrant worker happened to be on vacation, making it perfectly suitable for a thoughtless sleep.
– – –
When he woke up again, the sun was already shining on his ass. Xia Xingchi turned over and found that he was holding a pillow in his arms. Li Chengyuan had already gotten up from beside him and gone to work —
To fight for his money-grubber White Moonlight’s money again.
Xia Xingchi stretched out his head to peer into the study, where Li Chengyuan was staring at the computer expressionlessly.
The moment the two looked at each other, he suddenly felt that Li Chengyuan seemed to be in a bad mood. There were some strange negative emotions mixed in the gloominess, but this person had always been moody and irritable, so he couldn’t tell what had happened.
Xia Xingchi withdrew his head from the crack in the door. It would probably be useless to ask why he was unhappy. The answer he received would just be silence or denial.
When he went downstairs to have breakfast, he caught sight of Aunt Li coming in from the back door of the villa with a medicine bowl —
The smell of traditional Chinese medicine was too strong, and decocting it in the house would fill the whole place with its smell. If a big cat with a sensitive nose breathed it in, he would probably feel uncomfortable the whole time.
Aunt Li saw that Xia Xingchi had woken up to eat, and immediately went to the kitchen with a smile to serve up hot beef noodles. The chef was naturally quite happy to see the diner’s enthusiasm for the food.
“Aunt Li, put the medicine aside to cool down first, and I’ll serve it to Li Chengyuan after I finish eating,” Xia Xingchi said.
“Okay.” Aunt Li put the lid on the medicine bowl and set it aside: “Speaking of which, when will you and your husband have the wedding, ah? It looks like the house needs to be refurbished, and I saw that Lao Ding started to write a shopping list yesterday.”
As a competent and responsible housekeeper, Uncle Ding had begun to draw up various plans and ideas for the villa after seeing Xia Xingchi and Li Chengyuan sharing the same bed.
This momentum immediately stirred up all the servants, as if the wedding could be held tomorrow.
Xia Xingchi was picking up a piece of beef and froze for a moment, saying dryly after a while: “We, we’re not in a hurry.”
According to the original plan, it was naturally better to get married as soon as possible. After all, taking into consideration that the villain’s life may not be long, he should marry early to happily obtain the inheritance.
But judging by the current situation……it seemed that Li Chengyuan had been saved by him?
It didn’t matter if he married a dead person, but if the other party was still living, then the situation was completely different.
Xia Xingchi wasn’t quite certain if he had successfully changed the villain’s inevitable ending, but if he really had, this would be a “lifetime event” that would bind them together forever.
Not to mention how complicated it was to marry someone of such worth, but assuming that Li Chengyuan was willing, who did he think Xia Xingchi was?
At this thought, Xia Xingchi suddenly felt that the noodles in his mouth were no longer tasty.
Li Chengyuan had mistook him, a transmigrating outsider, for his White Moonlight. If they really got the certificate in this way, wouldn’t he be no different from Xia Yu, who occupied the magpie’s nest?
Aunt Li saw that he was stupefied, as if he was a bit disappointed, and thought it was Li Chengyuan who was unwilling. She quickly made amends: “I was just speaking casually. Anway, the relationship between you and your husband doesn’t need to be proven by wearing a little red! In fact, there’s no rush!”
Xia Xingchi lowered his head and took a sip of the beef soup, comforting himself that it was meaningless to think about it now, and his bad mood would also affect his enjoyment of the meal.
Looking on the bright side, maybe everything would work out. For example, if his White Moonlight suddenly came back or something —
Okay, this idea was even worse. On that three-person battlefield, maybe Li Chengyuan would slaughter him himself and feed him to the sharks in a rage, and then fall in love with the despicable White Moonlight who wanted to kill him.
Just as he was thinking about this, the phone on the table began to vibrate incessantly, as if something big had happened.
While Xia Xingchi lowered his head to look at the screen, Xia Yu, who was huddled in his room, listened in horror to the message notification tones from his phone, as if they were signaling his death.
Since the reality show, Xia Yu had been unable to sleep for five or six consecutive days.
Whenever he dozed off, he would be awoken by all kinds of nightmares about his reputation being ruined. All the sinful things he had done over the years were like vengeful ghosts hungry for his life, whispering his evil deeds into his ear in the middle of the night.
The guillotine hanging over his head never fell, and the process of waiting for death seemed to constantly grind down his spirit.
He couldn’t distinguish between fantasy and reality. He always took the horror of being exposed and thrown in prison in his nightmares as real, and then screamed and howled, shutting himself in his room without coming out.
At this moment, Xia Yu opened his bloodshot eyes wide, not daring to look where the guillotine had fallen. He just neurotically covered his ears and refused to listen to the phone’s notifications.
But the mechanical, repeating tone still pierced his ears and hit his brain directly, making him tremble even more, and he finally jumped up with a scream and slammed the phone against the wall!
But although the screen was smashed to pieces, the phone continued to make that life-threatening sound.
Xia Yu took a deep breath, and finally opened the phone tremblingly, clicking several times on the broken, distorted screen before succeeding in opening Weibo.
His name immediately appeared on the screen:
#Xia Yu’s real identity exposed#
#Xia Yu’s character design collapses, proven to be the adopted son of the Xia family#
#Xia Xingchi, the long-neglected real young master#
#Xia Yu has no bottom line, showing off his wealth#
. . . . . .
The evidence and timeline were sufficiently clear, and various marketing accounts were scrambling to release the news at the same time, almost violently tearing off the last of Xia Yu’s disguise so that everyone could see his face clearly.
[I’m so disgusted. Xia Yu has robbed someone of their life for so many years. The fucking only son of a wealthy family?]
[His fans ridicule everyone’s background all day, especially Xia Xingchi. In fact, in terms of background, he is the vegetable seller from the valley!]
[Xia Yu is a thief, stealing the life of others so arrogantly. Don’t call him Xia Yu, call him Xia Thief, hahaha. Idiot.][1]
[Are you not listening to reason? You think Xia Yu wanted to steal someone else’s life? He is so innocent and kind, he definitely wouldn’t want to do that!]
[Ah, this? He’s “innocent and kind?” This is the joke of the year, I couldn’t tell if you were being sarcastic for a while. Have you fans gone crazy?]
[Even if Xia Yu didn’t choose to be an illegitimate child, how did he compensate Xia Xingchi for occupying his life for so many years? Hiding in the snow, splashing dirty water, and wanting to snatch someone’s fiance?]
[I’m really going to vomit. Xia Yu overwhelmingly marketed himself as a wealthy young master and ridiculed Xia Xingchi’s background, but the title belongs to Xia Xingchi. How does he have the face to show it off in front of him!]
[Get lost, green tea! You shameless thing, why haven’t you died yet, ah?]
[Fuck, the house has collapsed, what the hell did I like about him before? @Xia Yu, you ugly-hearted person, make amends for my feelings, ah!]
. . . . . . .
Xia Yu flicked the screen like crazy, and immediately screamed.
He had made Xia Xingchi bear all this overwhelming malice, never thinking that one day, the knife would stab him deeply.
He paid the most attention to how people looked at him, and every comment made him tremble, but he continued to read them one by one as if in a daze.
Xia Yu didn’t understand how this “proven truth” had come out. After all, he had been working hard to destroy all evidence that could be made public, and even the paternity test had been completely destroyed by him.
The shattered screen failed to operate, and when he swiped, he inadvertently clicked on a video.
He never expected that Xia Pingjian’s voice would sound from it:
“It is me who apologizes to Xingchi for all these years. He is my only son, but I have missed more than twenty years of his life and mistook Xia Yu for my son…..”
“……It was my negligence. I never knew that Xia Yu did so many despicable and shameless things to Xingchi. My careful teaching did not change Xia Yu’s bad genes at all.”
Xia Yu’s mind went blank for a moment.
How could that old man Xia Pingjian do this?!
Obviously everything had happened with his acquiescence, obviously he was the mastermind behind treating Xia Xingchi harshly, and obviously Xia Xingchi was just a waste in his eyes!
But Xia Pingjian just now mercilessly betrayed his worthless self, and turned to that bastard Xia Xingchi as a treasure.
Xia Yu began to madly howl, as if he had been completely abandoned by the whole world.
He desperately smashed the phone in his hand until it was finally smashed to pieces.
As if in this way, he could deceive his ears and ignore the truth, pretending nothing had happened.
– – –
At the table, Xia Xingchi drank the last sip of beef soup, ate a large bowl of noodles, and finished watching the video sent by Xia Pingjian.
It was really inexplicable. Was the original owner’s cheap father under a spell?
It must be mentioned that during the original plot, Xia Pingjian had been watching the original owner struggling with the identity of “illegitimate child” and “adopted son” in the vortex of public opinion.
Even later, the original owner completely collapsed and disregarded the attempts of his cheap parents to keep him silent, directly revealing his life experience.
It was a pity that Xia Pingjian categorically denied it, because baby Xia Yu’s stardom was the most valuable and important thing.
The small bit of evidence and the paternity test report that the original owner had kept so desperately became evidence of his lying, and he was insulted overwhelmingly.
“How can you lie so straightforwardly? It’s disgusting!”
“Shameless Xia Yu copycat, have you been slapped in the face?”
“Is the pheasant so crazy about wanting to be a phoenix?”
After Xia Xingchi thought about it, Xia Pingjian’s behavior was unexpected, but quite reasonable.
From this person’s point of view, there was no morality and no blood relationship. Xia Yu was a hundred times better than the original owner, so the original owner was just a rubbish stepping stone in his eyes.
But now that everything was reversed, it was not surprising that he could directly tread on Xia Yu, who was no longer worth anything, in order to please Xia Xingchi.
Just as he was thinking, a call came in from an unknown person. Xia Xingchi picked it up casually, and found that it was that lowlife Xia Pingjian on the other end of the line.
Knowing how disgusting this cheap scumbag was, Xia Xingchi had blocked all contact from him since the engagement banquet.
But this didn’t stop him from giving gifts like a dog begging for favor, and now that he had changed his number to give him a polite call, he was completely different from the scum who had wanted to trample “Xia Xingchi” to death.
“Xingchi, do you like the gifts Dad prepared for you?” The Xia Pingjian on the other end of the phone was very loving.
“I really like them,” Xia Xingchi said nonchalantly.
This was the truth. A little money-grubber liked all expensive things, and he wasn’t foolish enough to pass up money.
“Dad wants to hold the biggest birthday party for you this year. I owe you so much these years, I —”
“No.” Xia Xingchi said categorically and politely in his customer service voice, “Hello, I suggest that you stick with Xia Yu, don’t bother me.”
However, Xia Pingjian was not angry at all. He had changed from the way he used to slap Xia Xingchi every now and then.
He said emotionally: “Xingchi, your birthday last year was my negligence, I will never forget it again……because you are my son, ah!”
Xia Xingchi couldn’t be bothered to speak with him, and directly hung up the phone.
This reminded him, it seemed that his birthday was really approaching.
The original owner had the same birthday as him, but unfortunately, neither he nor the poor original owner had ever had a good birthday.
The poor little money-grubber would be happy if he could eat a small dish of braised pork on his birthday. He’d never had a birthday cake.
The Chinese medicine set aside had cooled to a moderate temperature. Xia Xingchi picked it up and delivered it to the study.
As he gradually became acquainted with a certain big cat who was afraid of bitterness, he had upgraded to pushing the door open and entering without knocking.
Because as long as Li Chengyuan knew that he was delivering medicine, he would pretend not to hear him and wouldn’t let him in, thinking of various ways to secretly avoid drinking it.
If he wasn’t watched, the innocent potted plants in the study may wilt the next day —
Ruined after someone watered them with medicine.
Li Chengyuan looked ill today and was in a bad mood. Seeing him come in with the medicine, he didn’t resist the difficult task of drinking it.
Instead, he picked up the bowl casually and drank it all in one gulp, as if he were drowning his sorrows in wine.
“What’s the matter?” Xia Xingchi handed over a candy. “Is there something wrong?”
Li Chengyuan was silent, and he said calmly after a moment: “I’m fine.”
He knew he would be like this. No matter how much he asked him, he wouldn’t answer if he didn’t want to. Xia Xingchi had no choice but to say: “The more troublesome things there are in your heart, the more uncomfortable you will be. I’m willing to lend an ear to the beauty once for free!”
Li Chengyuan smiled lightly then, but his smile was more to coax Xia Xingchi, rather than a smile from the heart.
– – –
Although the big villain was often fierce and terrible, Xia Xingchi still felt that he was particularly passive and gloomy today.
Li Chengyuan was doing his best to pretend, trying to act the same and leave no clues.
But this was his own big cat, after all, and Xia Xingchi would immediately notice if he was in a bad mood.
So in the dead of night, he took the rare initiative to roll to Li Chengyuan’s side and cling to him, using the winning formula of “sticking together can make you feel better.”
Li Chengyuan was lying on his side with his back facing Xia Xingchi when he felt a warm object hug him from behind.
“Boss, are you unhappy? You haven’t eaten much today.”
As Xia Xingchi spoke, he reached out and touched the reticent cat’s paw.
It stood to reason that money could buy happiness. If not, then there was just not enough money. He was so rich, but there was still something that could make him unhappy all day long?
He thought that Li Chengyuan would keep silent or pretend nothing had happened like he usually did, but this time he suddenly spoke in a calm voice: “Xia Xingchi, you will also get tired of me being sick all the time.”
“Huh……?”
Xia Xingchi’s voice dragged out. He couldn’t figure out who the “also” was referring to, let alone how this negative thought came so suddenly.
But regardless, he answered him firmly first: “Of course I won’t! And I’ll help you take care of your body. It’s getting better every day now, ah, and it will get even better in the future.”
This was the truth. In this matter, Li Chengyuan was very much like a cat, very good at enduring and never making a sound.
He would always bear the pain silently by himself, and never bother anyone around him until he couldn’t hold on any longer.
But Xia Xingchi didn’t want him to suffer in silence like this, and was willing to take care of him and share some of the burden for him.
Li Chengyuan didn’t speak for a long time, as if he was deep in thought.
He touched Xia Xingchi’s wrist, which he had taken the initiative to wrap around him, and felt the slightly raised crescent-shaped scar there. At last, he smiled warmly.
“Li Chengyuan, why did you suddenly—”
“Just speaking casually, go to sleep, ba.”
– – –
Early the next morning, Xia Xingchi was awakened by Lin Meng’s phone call.
There was an ad that needed to be shot quickly, and because it was very urgent, the salary was extremely high. The contract would be signed on the spot, and the money would be paid immediately after the shooting.
The little money-grubber immediately pricked up his ears. Of course he couldn’t miss this kind of thing.
Li Chengyuan was no longer beside him, and he didn’t know where he had gone. Thinking that he might be having breakfast downstairs or working in the study, he searched around but didn’t find him.
Xia Xingchi was in a hurry and quickly called driver Xiao Wu to take him to the ad shooting.
He casually picked up the meat pie that Aunt Li had just baked and shoved it in his mouth, then rushed out.
After getting in the car, he freed his hands to wipe off the oil on his fingertips with a wet towel, and wanted to report to his dear boss.
Unexpectedly, Li Chengyuan’s cell phone was turned off.
Xia Xingchi was puzzled. Mr. Li, who had a lot of things to do every day, was on the phone all the time. Did he go somewhere without charging his phone?
When he went out, he glanced at the decorative tree where the car keys hung. It seemed that a key for a supercar was missing. It was clear that Li Chengyuan had driven out by himself.
If he couldn’t get through, he had to give up. Xia Xingchi instructed Xiao Wu to let him know when he could get in touch with him.
Lest he go mad again after losing sight of a certain person for a while.
– – –
This commercial was a short one, and Xia Xingchi who had been thrown in halfway to save it, was actually asked to play the main character.
While the others were filming first, he took the opportunity to frantically memorize the script lest he get stuck at some point.
Fortunately, it was just an advertisement and not a big test of acting skills, so Xia Xingchi could handle it with ease. This sort of crafty male character was also suitable for him and easier to act. After memorizing the lines, it was very easy to act while displaying his true colors.
He didn’t finish work until dinner time, and the salary was hundreds of times higher than the previous “huge sum” of 20,000 yuan. This time it was truly a huge sum.
Xia Xingchi became excited just thinking about it, and after gleefully counting the zeroes, he found that the crew was still in charge of dinner.
But this time, the little money-grubber didn’t take a free box lunch rich with fish and meat. Instead, he said with a wave of his hand that he would go home first.
Everyone immediately jeered in a friendly and teasing way:
“Mr. Xia is really so reluctant to part with President Li for a while?”
“This is really throwing dog food everywhere and slapping us in the face with it!”
Xia Xingchi gave a “Hehe” with a playful smile. In fact, it was indeed because of Li Chengyuan.
This person’s cell phone hadn’t been connected all day. Combined with his weird mood yesterday, Xia Xingchi was very worried about what he was doing, to be acting so abnormal.
As soon as the car stopped at the entrance of the villa, Xia Xingchi jogged all the way back.
After hastily changing his shoes, he quickly looked around the first floor, where Li Chengyuan usually was. It was empty.
Aunt Li came out of the kitchen, seeming to have something to say.
But before she had time to speak, Xia Xingchi rushed up to the second floor like a bolt of lightning.
The second floor was even more silent. Xia Xingchi stretched out his head and glanced into the bedroom. There was no sign that anyone had come in during the day after he left.
The sun set early in early winter, and night had dyed most of the sky at this moment.
Xia Xingchi entered the study, turned on the light, and saw that there was nobody there.
Only then did he realize how foolish he was. He had completely forgotten to check if there was an extra car key at the door.
This person couldn’t walk back, so if the car wasn’t there, it meant he was not at home.
Xia Xingchi shook his stupid head, wanting to leave the room and go downstairs to ask Aunt Li if she knew anything.
But suddenly, he glimpsed a familiar red rope on Li Chengyuan’s desk.
It stood to reason that flipping through the boss’s things and prying into his privacy was not proper conduct.
But that rope was really familiar, and it was placed on the desk surface, so there was no need to search for it.
Xia Xingchi paused for a moment and was about to retreat, but decided in the end to step forward and sate his curiosity.
This red rope was hand-woven. Xia Xingchi frowned the more he looked at it – this was his original weaving method from when he was a child.
When he was young and naive, he always thought he could get rich by inventing something unique, so he thought hard and came up with this very beautiful weaving method.
It was a pity that nobody cared about his street stall, and he was chased off by urban management.
But how could Li Chengyuan have such a red string bracelet here?
Did someone else coincidentally come up with the same method, or was it really made by him?
Xia Xingchi frowned, and a tenuous feeling crept into his heart.
It was familiar and unfamiliar, as if there was some memory that wanted to break free from the shackles that had been holding it back!
Suddenly, like a pot of hot water soaking him from head to toe, the dream he had forgotten became crystal clear without warning!
— This is the same one I gave him when I was a child!
T/N: It’s getting closer to the end of this story, so I’m going to pose this question: Does anyone have an untranslated story that they want to see translated? I can’t promise anything, since I’m super picky about what I read, but it’s nice to have options! I’m also open to novels that have been dropped by previous translators.
[1] This makes more sense when you see that the characters for “Yu” (喻) and “Thief” (偷) are so similar. ⮐
