Su Ye kept her head lowered. She understood that she was in the wrong, so she took the scolding quietly.
At first, Su Jiuguo was quite spirited, since it had been a long time since his daughter so obediently allowed him to scold her. But as he went on and saw his daughter looking so upset and remorseful, the words just died on his tongue.
In the end, she was still his flesh and blood. While he got angry when she acted spoiled, his heart ached to see her being so docile. Hence, he turned away unhappily whilst keeping his hands on his hips, his rage seemingly quelled. "It is a little expensive to buy a gigolo with a hundred thousand golden leaves, but it's not like we can't afford it."
With those words, he slid a glance at his daughter, and held a fist before his mouth as he cleared his throat. "Since you like him so much, it doesn't matter now that you've bought him. I'm not that unreasonable, after all."
Su Ye did a double take at those words. Was that it? He was not pursuing the matter of a hundred thousand golden leaves after that tiny bit of scolding?
Su Ye looked up at Su Jiuguo hesitantly. "You're not angry?"
Su Jiuguo was pacing back and forth as if he had something else to say. Nonetheless, when he saw his own daughter looking so timid, he just sighed and said sadly, "Just remember that our family is not rich enough for you to squander like this again." He stared at her for a while, before asking quietly, "How much more do you need?"
Su Ye blinked rapidly before answering quietly, "Thirty thousand golden leaves."
Su Jiuguo snorted and whipped out a bunch of jingling keys from his pocket, picking out a rusted one and handing it to Su Ye. "Here—take the dowry from when I married your mother."
Su Jiuguo's eyes turned red briefly when he said that, but he just impatiently stuffed the key into Su Ye's hands. "I'm just doing this so your mother won't scold me for not cherishing you when I see her in the afterlife."
Holding the rusted key as she stared at her pudgy father, Su Ye felt her heart clench. After a long while, she slowly said, "I'll do my best so you can live longer."
Su Jiuguo stomped his feet at those words. "Don't anger me so much, and I'll definitely live longer!" He snapped, wiping his sweat away in exhaustion. Finally, he huffed, "Now where's the one you bought with a hundred thousand golden leaves? Let me see how captivating the face of that gigolo is, that you are willing to sell off our family estate for it!"
Su Ye's emotional expression froze right then, and she averted her gaze as she muttered, "I'm still busy here, Father."
Being a man who had seen the vicissitudes of life, Su Jiuguo immediately narrowed his eyes when he saw Su Ye's guilty look. He promptly grabbed her by the arm with a glare. "Were you conned? You didn't even get the man after paying a hundred thousand golden leaves?! Did you even get anything out of this?"
"Father, I'm your daughter," Su Ye tried to reason. "I actually hate buying gigolos to indulge myself…"
Su Jiuguo stared at her strangely. "Oh, is that so? Then did those roots of evils in our back garden come knocking on your door, forcing themselves upon you?"
Su Ye turned silent, and slowly reached out to calm her father. "Things are chaste between us… I just brought him home to ogle him for a few days, and will send him back after that."