Chapter 183 — Zhong Yongliang's Scheme

In all of vast Songshan No. 1 High School, there were only three such girls. Two of them he simply could not touch — girls whom any man approached at his peril. Zou Ruoming was no fool.

Gu Mengyao's father chaired the Gu Group, a man whose stamp of the foot set all Songshan trembling. Only someone with family backing like Zhong Yongliang dared court her — and even Zhong Yongliang did not dare press his luck by force.

And Shen Yushu... that little beauty was someone even Zhong Yongliang would not touch. The bitter lesson of Wu Xiaocan was still fresh in everyone's memory.

But Tang Zhi was a different matter entirely. Zou Ruoming had pried into the Tang family's background and knew it down to the last detail: both parents were laid-off workers, her father bedridden year-round from a workplace injury, her mother peddling a stall in the snack street behind the school.

What could a family that could not even wring out compensation for the father's medical bills possibly do to him? So in Zou Ruoming's eyes, Tang Zhi was his for the taking — a certainty. Even if he simply forced himself on her, a family like that could only swallow its grievance in silence.

That was why Zou Ruoming had been so utterly brazen from the very start of his pursuit, hounding her until she nearly cracked, nearly lost her mind. In Zou Ruoming's view, if Wei Zhao had not barged in from nowhere, Tang Zhi would already be his woman.

Now, of all things, Tang Zhi had accepted Wei Zhao's confession. A hero saving a damsel was a hackneyed old routine, but it worked all the same. It must have been he himself playing the villain that day that handed Wei Zhao his opening.

Zou Ruoming rather regretted it. Had he known, he would have been better off getting a few of his lackeys to play the villains, then stepping in to display his own prowess.

Sitting under the basketball hoop, Zou Ruoming stewed in silence. Even his toadies could tell their boss was in a foul mood, and they kept as still as cicadas in winter, not daring to utter a word.

"Ming, what's got into you? Looking all gloom and doom?" Zhong Yongliang had spotted Zou Ruoming from a distance, sitting under the hoop with a face full of misery, his expression shifting from rage to regret. He could guess well enough why — and in that moment Zhong Yongliang keenly recognized a fine opportunity to teach Wei Zhao a lesson.

"Oh, it's Liang." Zou Ruoming lifted his eyelids, saw it was Zhong Yongliang, and felt no particular embarrassment. Zhong Yongliang was no better off than himself; he too had come out the loser against Wei Zhao, his father's right-hand men hauled off to the lockup. The two of them were a case of the pot calling the kettle black. "Come to laugh at me, have you..."

"Ming, what kind of talk is that! I've always held you in the highest respect..." Zhong Yongliang clapped one of Zou Ruoming's lackeys on the shoulder, and the boy hastily made room, letting Zhong Yongliang sit down beside Zou Ruoming.

"Liang, our brother here has had his face slapped this time..." Zou Ruoming sighed and spoke with venom. "Everyone who's anyone at school knows I've been courting Tang Zhi, and that little whelp Wei Zhao beat me to her. I can't swallow this, I tell you..."

"Ming, the way I see it, you've been far too cautious about this..." Zhong Yongliang wore a look of deepest grief. "The pathetic backing Tang Zhi's family has couldn't stir up any real waves! There's a saying — strike first to gain the upper hand. Ming, if you just force yourself on her, won't Tang Zhi be your woman then and there?"

"Little brother here wouldn't dare force myself on anyone now even if I wanted to! You know as well as I do that Gu Mengyao's family is even more formidable than mine..."

"Ah, Liang, you're right! Don't even mention how much I regret it now!" Zou Ruoming's face darkened. "Had I known, I'd have forced myself on her outright. This is my specialty, you know — I've done it before!" "Exactly!" said Zhong Yongliang. "How could we let that mongrel Wei Zhao snatch her first..."

"But now it's too late. What regrets!" Zou Ruoming had been bottling it up all this while, and now at last here was a campus bully of his own station, one who shared his misery, one with the same enemy in Wei Zhao — so Zou Ruoming naturally poured out his grievances to him.

"Ming, that's where I beg to differ!" Zhong Yongliang suddenly changed tack. "As the saying goes, good food is worth waiting for — it's not too late for you to make your move now! However fast Wei Zhao acted, he can't have won Tang Zhi over in a mere day or two. If you take her now, she'll have no choice but to follow you..."

Zhong Yongliang had little education to speak of and had no idea whether his choice of words was apt. Fortunately Zou Ruoming was just as much a halfwit and had no notion what "good food is worth waiting for" actually meant — he simply felt that what Zhong Yongliang said made excellent sense.

Slapping his thigh, Zou Ruoming cried out in delight, "That's it! Why didn't I think of that? It's not too late for me to act now! Once Tang Zhi is mine, what's that Wei Zhao going to do then, eh? Liang, you've woken the man in the dream with a single word..."

To show off his own cultivation, Zou Ruoming, matching Zhong Yongliang's earlier flourish of literary phrasing, cobbled together a fine saying of his own.

"Ah, Ming, your road to love has hope in sight at last, while mine still needs effort!" Seeing his suggestion adopted, Zhong Yongliang was secretly overjoyed. With Tang Zhi taken by Zou Ruoming, that Wei Zhao fellow would be absolutely sick about it, wouldn't he? Hahaha... Yet on the surface, Zhong Yongliang put on a show of great sorrow and helplessness.

"Liang, if this comes off, I'll reward you handsomely..." Zou Ruoming clenched his fist as though hope itself were in his grasp. "But when the time comes, I'll want my brother here to advise me — don't you refuse!" "Don't worry, no problem at all..." Zhong Yongliang accepted with delight. Asking him for dirty tricks? Excellent — that was his strong suit!

Humming a little tune, Zhong Yongliang headed for the classroom, while Zou Ruoming, his worries resolved, happily took up a game of basketball with his underlings...

Before he had even reached the classroom door, Zhong Yongliang saw his lackey Zhang Naipao come tearing toward him like a madman, as though he had clapped eyes on his savior.

"Paozi, what are you doing? Running that fast—training for a marathon, getting ready for the games?" Zhong Yongliang was in a genuinely fine mood today, so he cracked a joke at Zhang Nai Pao's expense.

"Brother Liang, I'm begging you, save my dad, save my little brother!" As he spoke, Zhang Nai Pao went "thump" and dropped to his knees before Zhong Yongliang.

Zhang Nai Pao's sudden, inexplicable move left Zhong Yongliang utterly stunned.

"Paozi, what on earth is wrong with you? What's happened to your dad and your brother? How am I supposed to save them? Can you explain it clearly...?" Zhong Yongliang frowned, lost in a fog, unable to make heads or tails of it.

"Brother Liang, I beg you, say yes!" Zhang Nai Pao stayed on his knees, pleading.