Chapter 343 — The Trouble with Happiness

For all the sweet words that had once poured so easily from his lips, in the end Xiaofen had come to this.

Looking back, Wei Zhao had never offered her much sweet talk—beyond a certain domineering streak of his—yet at the critical moments, when she was most helpless and most in need of help, he always appeared at precisely the right time.

But on the other hand, Tang Yun felt she owed Wei Zhao far, far too much, so much that she had passed beyond any hope of repaying it... She did not believe she could repay Wei Zhao's one hundred and fifty thousand within the next several years, nor did she believe Xiaowei and the others could manage it either...

Was it really as her brother said—that since she would be his woman one day, she would not have to repay it? Easy enough to say; hard, very hard, to do...

"Borrowed it already, that fast?" Mother Tang had assumed her daughter would have to speak to Wei Zhao herself, or pay some price for it... Mother Tang was no fool; she had seen the harshness of the world all too clearly. True, there was something of pushing her daughter into the fire pit about it, but on reflection it was not quite that either—Wei Zhao was not that Kang Zhaoming Xiaofen had known; surely he would not toy with her daughter and then cast her off?

Besides, her own natal family had only Xiaowei as its male heir. If she, the elder aunt, did not stop him from selling his kidney, even her father would never forgive her; back in the countryside home, the preference for sons over daughters ran deep.

What Mother Tang had not expected was that a single phone call from her daughter would bring the money! Astonished and overjoyed at once, she also began to feel a touch of regret: "Had I known, I would have borrowed fifty thousand more—enough to pay for your father's surgery..."

"Mother!" Tang Yun frowned, displeased. Did she take Wei Zhao for a money tree, to be shaken for as much as she liked?

"Are you soft in the head, girl? It's all one loan anyway—why not borrow a little more?" Mother Tang's reasoning was that this money surely would not come free; better to borrow more of it, then.

"Mother, what are you saying!" Tang Yun grew anxious. "If you keep this up, I won't borrow it at all—not a single cent!"

"All right, all right, I'll say no more!" Mother Tang shot her daughter a look of exasperation at such a disappointing child, thinking: why can't the girl see sense? While the man is fond of you, get a little more money out of him—then even if he tires of you later and throws you over, you'll still have the money...

One could hardly blame Mother Tang for such mercenary thoughts; anyone who had single-handedly held a family like this together would think the same. Mother Tang had been poor for so long, and she truly feared it; she wanted no more of it!

Love was important, to be sure, but love without any foundation of money—what was left of it? If she did not still love Old Tang, she would long ago have divorced him. Would she have suffered all these years otherwise?

And yet, what did love amount to? Old Tang was not the only one injured in that factory; how many families had already divorced over it?

That was why Mother Tang kept goading Tang Yun to ask Wei Zhao for money. In her mind, only money in hand was real...

Watching her mother's somewhat disappointed back, Tang Yun sighed softly. Did she not know what her mother was thinking? And yet the Tang Yun of this moment could not accept her mother's way of thinking; the hardships of life had not yet worn away the sharp edges of her self-reliance and independence.

"Tang Yun, what's wrong? Is one hundred and fifty thousand not enough?" Wei Zhao had heard Mother Tang's grumbling over the phone as well, and asked with a laugh.

"N-no... don't listen to my mother's nonsense..." Only then did Tang Yun remember that she was still holding the phone; every word of the conversation with her mother had landed in Wei Zhao's ear. She was at once ashamed and indignant, and felt deeply humiliated by her mother's greed for money...

Mother Tang found a bank card—the household had a little over twenty thousand in savings, and only this one bank card, which she had carefully hidden beneath the mattress.

"Yun'er, give me the phone..." Mother Tang said, reaching to snatch the cell phone from Tang Yun's hand.

How could Tang Yun be willing to hand the phone to her mother? Given to her, heaven knew what she would say. She stretched out a hand. "Give it here—I'll read him the card number!"

Mother Tang had no choice but to give her the bank card. Tang Yun was about to read the number to Wei Zhao, but he said, "Send it to me by text instead—if the transfer goes wrong, the money's gone..."

"Ah, then I'll send it to you!" Startled, Tang Yun said hurriedly. Little did she know that Wei Zhao was only teasing her—when the card number and the account name do not match, the transfer simply will not go through.

After receiving the card number Tang Yun sent, Wei Zhao dialed Guan Xuemin's number.

"Xiaoyi? Where have you been these past two days? I called you and your phone was off the whole time!" Before Wei Zhao could speak, Guan Xuemin's voice came through from the other end.

"Oh? Grandpa Guan, you were looking for me?" Wei Zhao had not expected Guan Xuemin to have been trying to reach him these two days.

"Yesterday Liu Tianyi brought Old Liu over. Old Liu wanted to thank you in person—after he went back, he found his health markedly improved. Not only has his appetite grown, but he walks as briskly as if he were flying; it's as though he has grown ten years younger!" Guan Xuemin sighed. "Xiaoyi, that medical skill of yours—even I am green with envy at the sight of it!"

"They came to thank me?" Wei Zhao smiled. More likely the Liu family had recognized his worth and wanted to get on good terms with him in advance. There had been some unpleasantness before, but the Lius were no fools; they knew to mend the fold after the sheep were lost.

"Yes, they're returning to Yanjing, and the villa they bought here is of no use to them, so they want to give it to you in thanks," Guan Xuemin said. "Just give me your ID number, and I can handle the transfer of title for you."

"Ha, generous all of a sudden, aren't they?" Wei Zhao shrugged. "But right now what I lack is money—I'd rather they simply gave me some cash."

"They did. Liu Tianyi also sealed a red envelope of ten million for you," Guan Xuemin said with a chuckle. "I never imagined a hundred million in start-up capital would come your way so easily. I had been worrying that we wouldn't have enough to get the pharmaceutical factory going, and now you've treated a single patient and brought in the whole lot!"

"Well, there's no help for it. I hadn't intended to take the money, but who told his family to behave the way they did." Wei Zhao laughed. "Still, Old Liu isn't bad—no airs about him..."

"It isn't that he has no airs, but that he understands how important it is to his family to be on terms with a divine physician like you!" Guan Xuemin said. "Otherwise they wouldn't have given you another red envelope."

"Mm, Grandpa Guan, speak to them on my behalf. I'll accept the red envelope and the villa, but the next treatment will still come with a fee—though I might consider giving them priority!" Wei Zhao said with great swagger. Still, the Lius would surely be delighted to hear such a promise.

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