Chapter 427 — The Phone Snatching Incident

"Could you please cut down on the ridiculous stunts?" Gu Mengyao said, exasperated.

"All right... Sister Yao, then what kind of tree should we buy?" Shen Yushu shrank back a little and asked timidly.

"Let's get something nice-looking, nothing too fancy," said Gu Mengyao, though she knew little about such things either. "Or maybe a fruit tree—ah! Why did you bump into me?"

A young man coming the other way had knocked Gu Mengyao off balance, nearly sending her to the ground. He hurried to apologize. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—I'm in a rush to move some goods..."

"Oh, it's nothing..." Gu Mengyao frowned. Since he had said it was unintentional, she had no wish to make an issue of it.

"Wait!" The young man was about to leave when Wei Zhao caught hold of him.

"You—what do you want?" A flicker of wariness crossed the young man's eyes. Gu Mengyao looked at Wei Zhao, puzzled as well. She had already let the matter drop, so why was Wei Zhao making a fuss over it?

"Take out your phone," Wei Zhao said mildly.

"Phone? What phone..." The young man looked flustered, but then suddenly shouted at the top of his voice, "Robbery! Someone's robbing me of my phone! Help, somebody!"

At his cry, the attention of the bystanders was immediately drawn, and a crowd gathered to watch the spectacle.

"What's going on here?" At that moment several men in security uniforms came over and questioned the young man.

"He's trying to rob me—he demanded my phone..." the young man said to the head guard, all innocence.

"That's right, I can testify to it! This fellow, without so much as asking who's right or wrong, demanded his phone!" A voice from the crowd suddenly chimed in.

"Oh? Since that's the case, you can all come with me to the security office!" The head guard glanced at Wei Zhao, but his gaze lingered instead on Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu behind him, and a lecherous gleam flashed in his eyes.

"Wei Zhao, what on earth is going on?" Gu Mengyao was getting angry. They had come out simply to buy saplings—why was Wei Zhao stirring up trouble for no reason? Stopping a total stranger and demanding his phone?

"Your phone was stolen by him." Wei Zhao shrugged and looked at the eldest miss.

"What? My phone?" Gu Mengyao felt her pocket, and her expression changed at once. The phone that had been in her pocket was nowhere to be found. "You mean he stole my phone?"

"Yes. Otherwise, why would I have stopped him?" Wei Zhao nodded.

"Hey, you'd better not sling mud at people—who took your phone?" The young man puffed out his chest and cried indignantly. "If you say I took your phone, then call it and see!"

"You turned it off long ago..." Wei Zhao gave him a glance and said mildly. That little trick of his was plain as day to Wei Zhao.

"Enough, all of you, say no more. Come with me to the security office; once we're there, who's right and who's wrong will naturally become clear." Clearly the head guard did not want Wei Zhao to say any more, and with that he made to push him away.

Wei Zhao narrowed his eyes slightly and more or less guessed what the trouble was. This head guard and the thieving young man were in it together?

"You two wait for me in the car..." On second thought—no, stay with me." Wei Zhao had meant to have Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu wait in the car, but at the memory of the head guard's lecherous gaze, he felt uneasy, and having them close by his side was safer.

Bu Ruoming did not return to school until it was nearly time for dismissal. He questioned several of his men and learned that Wei Zhao had not come looking for him, nor made any inquiries about him, and only then did he relax. It seemed Wei Zhao could not be bothered to hold a grudge against him!

At first Bu Ruoming had assumed that Wei Zhao's failure to wipe him out entirely meant Wei Zhao did not want to tear off all pretense and had his reservations. Only today did he truly understand that Wei Zhao simply did not regard him as worth noticing at all! If Wei Zhao had wanted to crush him, he would have done so long ago—just as with Yan Bo today. So what if he was a Yellow-Rank expert? Had he not had his face trampled by Wei Zhao all the same?

So once he had thought it through, Bu Ruoming was not so afraid anymore. So long as he did not offend Wei Zhao in the future, there should be no problem.

"Brother Ming, the school's planting trees tomorrow—are we taking part too?" It was Yun Lingxi, Bu Ruoming's number-one lackey, who spoke.

"Taking part? Of course we're taking part!" Bu Ruoming felt a surge of pride at the mention of tree planting. In the woods behind the school, at least three or four of the trees had been planted by him! One every year—and to think he had spent three or four years in high school already, counting his senior year and his repeat year.

Other people planted one tree; Bu Ruoming had several. Who could match that, who could compare? Every time the tree-planting came around, Bu Ruoming was especially proud!

Just as they were talking, Bu Ruoming's phone rang again. It was his father, Bu Tiandi. After returning to the company, Bu Tiandi had grown more and more frightened the more he thought about it. He had talked it over with Bu Ruoguang for a while and comforted himself for a while, but whenever he thought of it, he felt uneasy!

So he decided to question his younger son, Bu Ruoming, in detail about what had happened, to see what Wei Zhao really meant! It is easy to invite a god in but hard to send him away—having offended a mighty deity like Wei Zhao, it looked as though this really would not end well!

"Where are you?" Bu Tiandi asked.

"Dad, I'm at school. We just got out. Is something the matter?" Bu Ruoming asked.

"Come over to my company for a bit. I have something to ask you. I'll come pick you up at school now!" Bu Tiandi said. To cultivate a spirit of hard study in Jia Ruoming, he had previously not sent a car to pick him up and drop him off each day—never imagining that this only gave Bu Ruoming more freedom. With no one to see him do wrong, he grew even more reckless.

"I'm going to our family's flower-bird-fish market. Our school starts planting trees again tomorrow, so I'm going to find a sapling!" Bu Ruoming said.

"Then wait for me at school. I'll be right over," Zou Tiandi said.

About ten minutes later, Bu Tiandi drove up to the school in that BMW whose headlight Wei Zhao had smashed. The car's appearance put Bu Tiandi in a foul mood—but having provoked Wei Zhao put him in an even fouler one.

Once Bu Ruoming got in, Bu Tiandi asked, almost unable to wait: "You know Wei Zhao?"

"Know him? He's slapped me across the face several times at school—he's my mortal enemy!" Bu Ruoming nodded. "I had my eye on his woman before. Who knew he was that formidable?"

Bu Tiandi nearly rolled his eyes at that. So his whole family were Wei Zhao's enemies? Zou Tiandi felt an urge to cry.

"We're done for. What do we do now? How is that brat so formidable? Even Uncle Yan is no match for him?" In the past, Bu Tiandi had been full of confidence and domineering in Zaosongshan City, all because Uncle Yan backed him! Although there was only one chance left to call on him, no one could be sure whether Jia Tiandi would let Uncle Yan act, so everyone gave way to Bu Tiandi and did not dare offend him.