Chapter 486 — Feng Xiaoxiao and Her Father

"?" Tang Zhi was briefly taken aback, but then she seemed to grasp her mother's meaning, and her brow furrowed at once. "Mom, you aren't thinking of having me go be somebody's mistress, are you? If that's it, then say no more. I couldn't bring myself to do something so shameful!"

Seeing her daughter's resolve, Mother Tang found she had nothing more to say; she could only pat the girl on the shoulder. "There, there, Yun, don't cry. Who knows — maybe one day Wei Zhao will come around?"

"Who wants him to come around? I'm through with him!" Tang Zhi stamped her foot and spoke with finality. "I'm going to study. I was too foolish before, trusting him. Never again!"

With that, Tang Zhi ran into her room. Having poured out her heart to her mother, she felt considerably better, no longer so pent-up and wronged as before.

Mother Tang watched her daughter's retreating figure and shook her head with a sigh, thinking to herself: Yun, you still don't know how hard life can be. When you're as old as your mother, you'll understand what agony it is to have no money.

She thought of her old classmates — many of them had not been half so pretty as she in their youth, yet now they had money, and every one of them kept herself so fresh and dewy. She herself had been the belle of the school in her day, and now her face was etched with the weariness of the years!

It was rare to find a man her daughter liked who liked her daughter in return — even as a mistress, what was so shameful about it? At a class reunion once, a divorced woman had become the kept woman of some big boss and would not stop boasting and bragging to everyone. Far from despising her, they had all been thoroughly envious, and when they left they had made a point of sitting in her BMW for a taste of the good life!

Laugh at poverty, never at vice — the saying was ugly, but it reflected, obliquely, the helplessness of reality.

Feng Xiaoxiao submitted numbly to the blood draw, then was sent off for fluoroscopy and every manner of examination besides. It was the same every time, and the results always came to nothing.

Feng Xiaoxiao yawned and lay listlessly on the hospital bed. Feng Tianlong came in and looked at his daughter with concern. "Xiaoxiao, what would you like to eat tonight? I'll take you out. I've taken a few days off work — I want to spend some proper time with you!"

"No need. Go do what you have to do..." Feng Xiaoxiao shook her head, gazing emptily at the traffic coming and going in the street below the window. "Are the results out yet? When can I go home?" she asked faintly.

The fact that Feng Xiaoxiao asked only whether the results were out and when she could go home made it plain that she held no hope whatsoever for a cure — she wanted only to leave the moment the examinations were done!

Otherwise, if there were any chance of treatment, she would surely have stayed on in the hospital.

"Not yet. But Dr. Zheng is an expert in hereditary diseases — he should have some way," Feng Tianlong said consolingly.

"Don't try to comfort me. Mother's disease — even Lin Dongfang, the great physician of his generation, could do nothing about it. How could anyone else?" Feng Xiaoxiao curled her lip. She had essentially given up hope; she wanted only, in the final stage of her life, to do a few things just as she pleased, and so leave without regret.

"Even the divine physician Lin said at the time that it wasn't that he couldn't cure it, but that certain conditions were lacking—" Feng Tianlong broke off with a helpless note in his voice. "Physician Lin said that if he were given five years, he might find a solution. But your mother couldn't wait five years..."

"Isn't that just making excuses for his own incompetence?" Feng Xiaoxiao snorted. "Who knows whether he could actually cure it, or whether he was just afraid of ruining his reputation?"

"No, that's not it. Afterward, Physician Lin devoted himself to studying certain peculiar components in your mother's blood— but after that last meeting, he went into seclusion—" Feng Tianlong said, somewhat at a loss.

"He surely couldn't cure it, so he went and hid himself away!" Feng Xiaoxiao was unimpressed. "Those so-called divine physicians are all the same. And that ridiculous 'Divine Physician Kang' — what can he do besides concoct a wound salve? And people call him a divine physician! It's laughable!"

"You were young then, you don't know what sort of man Physician Lin is. He is a man of dedication! For your mother's sake, he risked going to Miao territory to study the Gu cult." Feng Tianlong could not bear to scold his daughter, but he still had to correct her. "You must not be disrespectful of him!"

"Fine, fine..." Feng Xiaoxiao waved a hand. "But if he was so dedicated, why did he go into seclusion?"

"Your mother's disease — how could it be so easily studied?" Feng Tianlong smiled bitterly. "For a while now I've been trying to get in touch with him, but I haven't been able to reach— Squad Leader Yang, who led me on missions back then, was on close terms with Physician Lin, but he too has gone into seclusion."

"You know yourself it isn't easily studied, so why bring me here for examinations?" Feng Xiaoxiao frowned.

"The results will take a few more days. Let me show you around Yanjing these next couple of days — it'll do you good to clear your mind." Feng Tianlong did not answer his daughter's question directly. Well he knew that these examinations would likely leave even Dr. Zheng at his wit's end — but hope, however faint, was better than none.

"Oh..." Feng Xiaoxiao answered faintly. She neither agreed to go nor refused, plainly without much interest.

"Hasn't someone given Dad a few auction invitations? Want to go take a look?" Feng Tianlong suddenly remembered that these were the days of the Yu family's auction — he had received invitations himself.

The organization Feng Tianlong belonged to was called the Bureau of Mystery Investigation, a highly unusual intelligence agency. It maintained close ties with the Yu family, the auction's organizers, so the Yu family sent a great many complimentary invitations to its members every time they held an auction. Yet most people at the Bureau had no time to attend — the invitations were little more than a courtesy.

"An auction? Then let's go!" Feng Xiaoxiao had never been to an auction in all her years. The moment her father mentioned it, she wanted to go see one for herself — otherwise, she might die without ever having been to an auction, and what a waste that would be!

"But if you fancy something, Dad won't have the money to buy it for you." Feng Tianlong laughed with a trace of regret: "My salary is quite high, all told, but it still can't stretch to auction lots that routinely fetch millions or tens of millions."

"Hehe..." Feng Xiaoxiao finally broke into a smile. What she wanted was this feeling of novelty — the feeling of her father taking her out to have fun together. As for whether they bought anything, that hardly mattered.

Her father had promised before to take her out for a stroll, and Feng Xiaoxiao had heard that line many times. Each time a sudden mission came up, and he broke his promise — more than once. But this time he said they would go to the auction, and even produced the invitation, so she reckoned he would not go back on his word: "You must not break your promise!"

Seeing the smile on Feng Xiaoxiao's face, Feng Tianlong was delighted too: "I won't. There are three sessions in all — I can at least accompany you to one of them!"

"Mm." Being able to attend one session was more than enough to satisfy Feng Xiaoxiao; for her, that would do very well indeed.