Chapter 265 — A Change of Impression

"Be that as it may, I still have to thank you! I, An Liwen, am not one to leave a debt of gratitude unpaid. I will repay this favor someday!" An Liwen paid no mind to Wei Zhao's words.

The two of them had been at each other's throats before; Wei Zhao's willingness to step in and save him now was entirely out of consideration for Gu Mengyao, and An Liwen knew that perfectly well.

He cast Gu Mengyao a grateful look. "Yaoyao, little sister, Jianwen-ge wasn't wrong to treat you well back then!"

As for Shen Yushu, An Liwen had nothing to say. The girl was simply like that — whoever rubbed her the wrong way got crushed without mercy. An Liwen had no idea how he had offended this little hellcat; she had always turned her nose up at him.

"It's nothing. As long as you're all right." Seeing that An Liwen's life was no longer in danger, Gu Mengyao breathed a sigh of relief. "But you should still do as Wei Zhao said and get your stomach pumped. That way there won't be any problems."

Without realizing it, Gu Mengyao had come to treat Wei Zhao as her encyclopedia. She did not know when it had begun, but his words had taken deep root in her.

"Of course..." An Liwen smiled. He said so aloud, yet his heart ached. Once upon a time, Gu Mengyao had obeyed him just like that, holding her big brother's every word as gospel, flying into a rage at anyone who dared argue with him. But the years had passed, and another man had appeared in her life...

An Liwen was not ready to accept it. He had thought that once he returned from his studies abroad, he could formally propose a relationship to Gu Mengyao. She was only just about to enter university, and by the Gu family's rules, there was no way she would be allowed to date so early. So An Liwen had returned to Songshan City brimming with confidence — he had not even bothered to ask around about Gu Mengyao's situation beforehand, nor had he rushed to visit her. Instead, he had first sought out Su Taizao, who had then been one of the Four Young Masters of Songshan, to catch up.

He had never expected that in the restaurant at the amusement park he would happen upon Gu Mengyao — only to find that her heart already belonged to another... and her man looked utterly ordinary. Just as An Liwen was beginning to wonder whether Gu Mengyao's taste had gone bad, whether she had deliberately picked a poor boy out of rebellion, the skill Wei Zhao displayed completely overturned An Liwen's judgment!

One glance at the soup he had drunk was enough to determine the cause of his illness; a few presses of massage on his back and he had been made to vomit out everything he had eaten. Was that the kind of thing an ordinary person could do?

And when he heard the exchange between Gu Mengyao and Wei Zhao, An Liwen became all the more certain that he had misjudged him — Wei Zhao was not nearly as simple as he appeared on the surface!

"Wei Zhao, could you save Jianwen-ge?" "Oh, I could. But I don't want to."

A few simple words had made it clear that Wei Zhao's abilities might extend even further — perhaps much further! For saving a life seemed to him no more than a lift of the hand!

An Liwen had no choice but to reassess the level of his rival. For the first time, this love rival made An Liwen feel that he must be taken seriously. Before, there had been only mockery, contempt, and confidence.

The sound of an ambulance siren rose. Even in an amusement park, an ambulance had a clear road, but the distance from the hospital to the park on the city's outskirts was no short stretch, so the ambulance only arrived after Wei Zhao had already brought An Liwen back to life.

Several paramedics hurried in. "Where's the patient?"

"Over here!" Su Taizao quickly waved them over. "Food allergy — he's already vomited it all up. He needs his stomach pumped!"

"All right. Are you a family member of the patient?" The paramedics moved to lift An Liwen onto the stretcher, but An Liwen waved his hand to show he could walk on his own.

In front of Gu Mengyao and his rival, no matter how much pain he was in, he was unwilling to lose face.

"I'm his friend," Su Taizao told the paramedics. "No need for the stretcher. I'll support him."

With Su Taizao's help, An Liwen made his way out of the restaurant, while the owner ordered the waiters to quickly clean up the pile of filth An Liwen had thrown up.

Even so, many of the diners in the restaurant chose to leave. After all, the scene just now had been truly disgusting.

Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu had lost their appetites too. Just as they were about to call Wei Zhao to leave, they looked up to find him sitting at the table, eating and drinking with gusto. Gu Mengyao was momentarily speechless. Hadn't that scene just now disgusted him?

In fact, to Wei Zhao it was nothing disgusting at all. He had seen far worse. When it was time to eat, one still had to eat.

It was the restaurant owner who felt a little embarrassed instead. He refunded all the money Wei Zhao had paid for his meal. Wei Zhao had rid him of a huge headache, and besides, Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu could not bring themselves to eat any more, which made the owner feel rather bad.

Seeing how heartily Wei Zhao ate, Gu Mengyao, to her own surprise, did not scold him, but simply sat quietly to one side and waited for him to finish. This man was growing harder and harder for her to read — there seemed to be nothing he could do, and yet there seemed to be nothing he could not do.

He seemed a rogue and a lecher, and yet at the same time a man of unyielding principle.

Gu Mengyao was not actually foolish; otherwise she could never have held her place among the top ten of her year at the First High School, where talent crowded thick as trees in a forest. When Daddy had first assigned Wei Zhao to her side, she had resisted it, fumed over it, and even found it somewhat baffling — what on earth had Daddy been thinking, bringing in a migrant laborer?

But after these weeks of contact, Gu Mengyao had come to understand that Wei Zhao truly was a man of ability. She was reluctant to admit it, yet little by little she had accepted the fact.

"You two aren't eating anymore? If you're not, I'll finish them all?" Wei Zhao asked, eyeing the two other fast-food boxes on the table.

"Go ahead and eat them all," Gu Mengyao said with a nod.

Wei Zhao demolished the other two boxes like a whirlwind sweeping away the clouds.

"Wow, Brother Shield, you're amazing!" Shen Yushu stared in astonishment at the three boxes, scraped clean.

"Let's go bungee jumping once you're done," Gu Mengyao said. Clearly the earlier incident had not dampened her mood — it had merely dulled her appetite. An Liwen had struck her as utterly unfamiliar this time, and especially after he had shown such hostility toward Wei Zhao, a vague distaste had risen in her heart for no reason at all. The image of the boy next door had come crashing down.

"Ha... all right." Wei Zhao walked toward the restaurant entrance with Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu, but just before they reached the door, he cast a meaningful glance at a young man whose face was swollen up like a steamed bun, gave a faint smile, and turned away.

"Brother Cosmos, they're going bungee jumping!" Little Ma said, his cheeks puffed out from the swelling where Shen Yushu had pinched him, so that even his speech came out a little slurred...