Chapter 485 — Voicing Her Grievances

Had it been Wei Zhao, he certainly would not have been so courteous about it! Wei Zhao would never have asked her for some written undertaking — he would have beaten the man until his hands and feet were crippled and he could never write one again.

Zou Tiandi not only drew up a written undertaking declaring that from now on he would never cause Xiaowei, Diao, or Dan any trouble whatsoever, but also handed back to Xiao Dan, exactly as it was, the contract she had signed with him earlier — in other words, from that moment on Xiao Dan and he would have nothing more to do with each other.

Only once she had the written undertaking and the contract in hand did Tang Yun breathe a sigh of relief. She had no wish to stay a moment longer in Zou Tiandi's house; she nodded and said to her mother, "Let's go, then."

"Wait a moment!" Zou Tiandi called after Tang Yun and her family.

Tang Yun's heart gave a sudden lurch. Could Zou Tiandi have seen through something? Did he know that she was all bluster on the outside and rotten with fear within?

"Mr. Zou? You are going back on your word?" Even so, Tang Yun turned around, forcing her voice to sound as composed as she could manage. Mother Tang, Xiaowei, and Xiao Dan, meanwhile, had gone white with fright — though they had not yet recovered themselves, and Zou Tiandi could not see it anyway.

"No, Sister Tang, you have misunderstood me!" Zou Tiandi jumped, and hurriedly explained, "I meant that I will have a car take you home... It is late, and you are carrying money. It isn't safe!"

One could hardly blame Zou Tiandi for meddling — he had no choice but to meddle! With all that money on them, plus the two hundred thousand still to come, the family was carrying seven hundred thousand in all, and going out at night was undeniably risky. If something should happen and they were robbed, and Wei Zhao assumed he had sent men to do it — that would be a bloody disaster!

So, in order to prove his own innocence, Zou Tiandi had no choice but to send a car and personally escort them home. Once they were safely at their own door, his mind would be at ease.

"Is that so? In that case, very well." Mother Tang thought it over and agreed — at such an hour, with that much money on them, it really wasn't safe.

Seeing Mother Tang agree, Zou Tiandi hurriedly called his driver and told him to bring the company's business car back around; then he pulled on his coat, ready to see Tang Yun and her family off together.

"Mr. Zou, you rest — we have no need of you." Tang Yun did not want Zou Tiandi tagging along; it would be disastrous if he spotted too much. "What if Wei Zhao saw you and flew into a rage again?"

"Eh?" At Tang Yun's words, Zou Tiandi started in alarm. She was right, he thought — if Wei Zhao never laid eyes on him, the whole business would blow over in a few days; but if Wei Zhao did see him, and beat him up for good measure, what then? So Zou Tiandi said gratefully, "Thank you, Sister Tang! I wasn't thinking straight! In that case, I won't see you out — it isn't that I am being remiss in my manners, I simply don't dare!"

Mother Tang, Xiaowei, and Xiao Dan all breathed a sigh of relief at that; and Mother Tang, turning back, drawled with great swagger, "No need — just look at the spine you've got! I'll say a word to my son-in-law later and tell him not to frighten you any more!"

"Ah! Then thank you ever so much, Auntie!" Zou Tiandi was overjoyed on the spot — this was precisely the sentence he had been waiting for Mother Tang to utter.

Zou Tiandi's driver arrived shortly. Zou Tiandi gave him a few instructions, telling him that he must treat Tang Yun's family with even more respect than he showed Zou Tiandi himself, and only then did he let the driver start the car and pull away.

Zou Tiandi's driver was a conscientious man: he would sooner scrape the car's undercarriage along a dirt road than fail to deliver Tang Yun's family right to their own gate, and only when he had did he head back to report.

Once they were home, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The little act had gone off well enough. No one was happier than Mother Tang — not only did she not have to hand over any money, but she had even brought two hundred thousand back with her. It was pure joy dropped out of the blue!

"Mom, how could you talk such nonsense? Wei Zhao and I have nothing to do with each other any more, and you still call him your son-in-law — aren't you making me look a fool?" Back home, Tang Yun felt deeply ashamed, and more than a little embarrassed.

That small shred of pride of hers made her unwilling to trade on Wei Zhao's name. He had cast her aside, and she was still going to borrow his name — didn't that count as brazen shamelessness? Tang Yun felt more mortified than she could bear.

"What's wrong with that!" Mother Tang was quite unperturbed. "Anyway, that Boss Zou doesn't know any better. Tell me, daughter — is there still any chance for you and Wei Zhao? Why did he drop you?"

"Well..." Tang Yun felt mortified. It was not easy to speak of Wei Zhao's business, least of all with Xiaowei and Xiao Dan both present — some things simply could not be said.

"Xiaowei, Xiao Dan, it's getting late — you two ought to head home early too, and don't have any more dealings with Boss Zou!" Mother Tang had seen through her daughter's thoughts, and so she turned to Xiaowei and Xiao Dan.

Xiaowei, too, was curious about why Wei Zhao and Tang Yun had broken up, and privately hoped they would get back together, so he would have liked to stay and listen. But seeing his sister's face, she clearly had something she could not bring herself to say, and he had no way of lingering on. He stood up, took Xiao Dan by the hand, and said, "Auntie, we'll head back first..."

"Watch yourselves on the road! Call me when you get home!" Mother Tang saw Xiaowei and Xiao Dan off, then went back inside and took her daughter's hand. "Yun'er, tell Mom this time — how exactly did you two break up? I thought Wei Zhao treated you well? Nothing seemed off this morning — how did you come to break up?"

"Mom... he... he had a girlfriend all along... His girlfriend transferred to our school, and she sits at the same desk as him..." Tang Yun found the words hard to get out, but with her mother pressing her, she finally set her jaw and forced them out, her face burning — and it filled her with a deep sense of wrong. "Tell me, he had a girlfriend already — so why did he have to come and lead me on?"

Mother and daughter share one heart. Before her mother, Tang Yun let go of all the toughness she had been putting on, buried herself in her arms, and burst into tears of grievance.

"Yun'er, don't cry." Mother Tang sighed, thinking to herself that so this was how it was — much as she had guessed. It wasn't that Wei Zhao had stopped loving her daughter; it was that the woman herself had come charging in and forced Wei Zhao to break up with her!

"Mom, how could he be so wicked? He had a girlfriend, and still he came to lead me on? I've lost face so completely — how will I ever hold my head up again?" The more Tang Yun spoke, the more wronged she felt.

"Yun'er, sigh..." Mother Tang sighed. "It's all my fault — all because our family is poor. If we had money too, Wei Zhao could never have broken up with you! This girlfriend of his — her family must be rich, I dare say? I shouldn't wonder if his own family found her for him."

"She drives a sports car to school..." Tang Yun nodded; on that point, at least, she was not lying.

"There now, I knew it! Otherwise, if Wei Zhao was perfectly fine, how could he have broken up with you?" Mother Tang stroked her daughter's fine hair and shook her head. "Did his girlfriend come looking for you?"