Chapter 4: Qingtan = Money Tree, Su Qingtan’s Growth Experience

Before the age of seven, Su Qingtan lived at her grandmother’s house in the countryside.

Her grandmother was old and had to take care of her uncle’s son and her aunt’s children, so she didn’t pay much attention to her.

But at that time, Su Qingtan, who only had the nickname “Lu Lu”, was happy.

Surrounded by mountains and rivers, Su Qingtan dug bamboo shoots in spring, fished and caught shrimp in summer, and in autumn, she would search for crabs in the rice fields and pick wild chestnuts in the mountains. In winter, she would roast sweet potatoes by the fire.

Her little life was beautiful, without a single worry.

When she turned seven, Su Chun and Liu Lan, considering that she needed to go to school, took her back to Jincheng.

When they took her back to Jincheng, the neighbor’s grandfather bought a few money trees and was about to plant them. The delivery man shouted, “Old man, I’ve put these Qingtan trees here for you.” Su Chun happened to be getting out of the car with Su Qingtan and heard it.

When he went back to register her household registration, he gave the little girl who had been called Lu Lu for seven years the name Su Qingtan.

Qingtan = Money Tree, how good, auspicious.

Back in Jincheng, she met her sister, Su Wanying, whom she had never interacted with before. Su Qingtan, who had been nurtured by the countryside and had a free spirit, initially intended to get along well with her.

But Su Wanying didn’t give her a chance.

Su Chun and Liu Lan, her parents, didn’t give her a chance either.

Su Wanying had enjoyed the love of Su Chun and Liu Lan for seven or eight years, and her personality had been spoiled.

She was very resistant to Su Qingtan’s arrival.

She wouldn’t give Su Qingtan any of her old clothes or leftover things. If Liu Lan bought Su Qingtan new clothes and supplies, she would make a fuss and demand to buy more and more expensive things than Su Qingtan’s.

If Su Chun gave Su Qingtan some pocket money, she would also make a fuss and demand more… There were too many examples like this.

Whenever Su Chun and Liu Lan showed some affection or financial support to Su Qingtan, it would make Su Wanying unhappy and she would cry.

She was weak, and every time she cried, she would get a fever or have seizures.

At first, Su Chun and Liu Lan would reason with her, but as the number of times she had seizures and fevers increased, the couple dared not do so anymore.

They just coaxed Su Qingtan to be patient and tolerant.

Su Qingtan was kind-hearted and thought that it was okay to let her sister have her way. At first, she endured it.

But she was still young, and after a long time, she also felt that her parents were too biased. She started to cry and make a fuss, arguing and fighting with Su Wanying.

Su Wanying was weak, and she was always pinned down and rubbed against the ground by Su Qingtan.

The consequence was that Su Chun and Liu Lan thought that Su Qingtan was not sensible and became even more protective of their weak eldest daughter.

Then it became a vicious cycle.

The couple became even more protective of Su Wanying, and Su Qingtan hated her so much that she would always pin her down and rub her against the ground. The couple hated Su Qingtan even more for being not sensible and fierce.

The two sisters didn’t get along, and Su Chun and Liu Lan were also annoyed.

At that time, a subordinate’s son at Su Chun’s factory was sent to a martial arts school. It was said that it was a fully enclosed education, the teachers were all martial arts practitioners, and it was very strict. The child had become much more disciplined after being trained.

Su Chun thought, martial arts school, fully enclosed, strict, disciplined… Every word was suitable for his younger daughter.

Martial arts is good, Lu Lu loves to move, let her move enough.

Fully enclosed is good, so the two children won’t always be making a fuss.

Strict is good, disciplined is good, all suitable for Lu Lu.

So, Su Chun transferred Su Qingtan, who had already been in a regular school for a month in first grade, to a fully enclosed martial arts school.

Su Qingtan was also talented, she was very good at boxing, and she was favored by the teachers and coaches. She was also selected to practice Tai Chi.

At the age of fifteen, Su Qingtan began to represent the school and the local area in Tai Chi competitions, winning awards repeatedly. At the age of seventeen, she was admitted to Jincheng Sports University.

Because she had to practice martial arts and compete, Su Qingtan had limited holidays. But even during her limited holidays, every time she went home, Su Wanying would find fault with her and argue with her.

And her parents, as usual, sided with Su Wanying and blamed her.

Neighbors and relatives also thought that this family, which was usually harmonious, would start arguing as soon as Su Qingtan came back. It must be Su Qingtan’s fault.

At first, Su Qingtan wanted to explain, but she had been in a closed school all the time and didn’t have the opportunity to show her gentle and obedient side to the outside world like Su Wanying.

Su Chun and Liu Lan also poured all their love onto their beloved eldest daughter because Su Qingtan was rarely around, and they never explained anything for her.

Plus, people have a natural impression of martial arts practitioners as “tough and strong.”

She became the strong one who bullied the weak in everyone’s eyes, and Su Wanying was the weak one.

But even though she was the strong one, she didn’t even have a proper room in their 210-square-meter house.

Su Wanying had her own room, walk-in closet, study, and because she learned to play the pipa and piano, she also had a separate room for practicing music.

And Su Qingtan only had a room that was converted from a storage room.

The room only had a bed and a desk, there was no room for anything else.

Every time Su Qingtan objected to this, Su Chun and Liu Lan would use the fact that she didn’t go home often as an excuse and refuse her request for a bigger room.

They only promised to buy her a house in the future when she made a big fuss.

Su Qingtan was depressed by her parents’ bottomless bias.

At the most depressing and sensitive age of eighteen, Su Qingtan met Li Su.

At that time, she had just had a fight with Su Wanying. Because she pinned Su Wanying against the wall and bumped her forehead, she was beaten with a feather duster and a clothes hanger by Su Chun and Liu Lan. Her exposed arms were full of scars.

She was still running a fever at the time, and because she was so uncomfortable, she went to the convenience store to buy some ice water to cool her forehead.

Li Su bumped into her at the entrance of the convenience store. She spilled water, and because she was weak, she couldn’t get up for a long time.

Li Su helped her up.

At that time, he looked at the scars on her arms, his eyes full of surprise, “Little sister, what happened to these scars?”

Su Qingtan shook her head and walked past Li Su to the square in front of the community.

Li Su followed her, and he also brought some wound medicine and fever medicine.

When he handed her the bag, he smiled and said, “I won’t ask you how you got hurt, but I feel bad for bumping into you and not seeing it. Treat your wounds and take some fever medicine.”

A child who had been deprived of love for more than ten years, facing sudden concern, especially from a tall and handsome older brother, couldn’t help but be moved.

Especially, this older brother, seeing that Su Qingtan was stunned and didn’t move, directly reached out to treat her wounds, tore open the fever medicine and handed it to her.

Su Qingtan looked at the fever medicine, for the first time in her life, she wanted to cry because of the feeling of being touched.

Later, Su Qingtan discovered that Li Su’s grandparents also lived in Xianghe Garden.

Li Su would visit them every week.

From then on, no matter how busy her training was, Su Qingtan would go home every week, just to have a little interaction with Li Su.

But it was the accumulation of these little interactions that gave her the idea of making Li Su her own.

And because of this idea, she eventually made a mistake with Li Su.

If her parents had given her a little love, even just a little, she wouldn’t have been so easily moved by Li Su’s actions, would she?

Forget it, there’s no need to dwell on past mistakes.

Family ties are shallow, there’s nothing you can do about it, but in the matter of Li Su, she was the only one who did wrong.

What she needs to do now is to change her terrible first half of life.

Su Qingtan pulled herself back from her thoughts and focused her attention on the TV. After watching for ten minutes, the door opened, and Liu Lan and Su Wanying came in with bags and bags of things.

Liu Lan saw Su Qingtan, was stunned for a moment, then smiled nervously, “Lu Lu is back?”