Chapter 802 — Tang Zhi's Disquiet

For a moment Tang Zhi was at her wit's end. She glanced at her mother's smugly beaming face, stamped her foot again, and felt her heart race with anxiety. Her own family had already troubled Wei Zhao enough — how could her mother go on troubling him over someone else's affairs?

Tang Zhi was racking her brain for a way out when she suddenly felt her small hand taken in someone else's grasp. The familiar, warm grip filled her with a strange sense of security. She looked up to find Wei Zhao smiling down at her.

"Ah!" Tang Zhi jumped. "When did you get here?"

Just moments before, Wei Zhao had been with Tang's mother and Xiaofen's family, seeing to the interior decorating arrangements. Tang Zhi herself had lingered at the entrance without going inside. Her thoughts were entirely off the decorating by then, replaying what her mother had done earlier, and she hadn't even noticed Wei Zhao walking over.

"What are you thinking about?" Wei Zhao had noticed earlier that Tang Zhi looked uneasy, as if troubled and embarrassed by something.

"Nothing..." How could Tang Zhi bring herself to tell Wei Zhao what was really on her mind?

"The reason I'm helping Xiaofen's family is really because of Kang Xiaofeng. Xiaofen isn't just your good friend — she's Xiaobo's girlfriend." Wei Zhao had more or less guessed what was weighing on her. Selling Xiaofen's family a unit at a discount had already put Lai the Fatso in the red, and now asking him to do their decorating as well was almost a bit much.

But to Wei Zhao, none of this mattered in the slightest. Lai the Fatso wouldn't care about such a trivial sum.

"Thank you..." Hearing Wei Zhao say this, Tang Zhi felt a weight lift from her heart. She gazed up at him, her eyes brimming with tenderness. Looking back on the road that had brought the two of them together — rocky at times, yet all things considered fairly smooth — Tang Zhi found herself all the more careful, as though treading on thin ice. From her initial misunderstanding of Wei Zhao to the depth of feeling she held for him now, she had no wish to lose this love lightly, and so she guarded it with extraordinary caution.

"Honestly, you don't need to worry about it so much. Your mother has had a hard life of it." Wei Zhao had a keen read on people. "Uncle Tang broke his leg and has been bedridden ever since, and Auntie Wang has held the family together all on her own. When she's wronged, she can only bury it inside herself — she can't confide in you or Uncle Tang. She's borne it silently all these years, and now she finally has a chance to show off — ah, I mean to feel proud — and naturally she's not going to let it pass."

Tang Zhi didn't know whether to laugh or be angry. She glared at Wei Zhao. "You make it sound so awful. My mother can be a little snobbish, but she's a good person deep down."

"I know," said Wei Zhao. "That's why I played along with her, didn't I?" He shrugged.

"When I get home I'll have a proper talk with her — she shouldn't always put you in such an awkward position." Now that she and Wei Zhao had put everything out in the open, Tang Zhi let out a breath of relief. It seemed Wei Zhao wasn't all that troubled by the matter.

"It's not really awkward." Wei Zhao shook his head. "Though I do worry — what if your mother runs into some billionaire even richer than me and sells you off to him?"

"How could she?" Tang Zhi shook her head. "She'd have to kill me first."

"Heh..." Wei Zhao tightened his grip on her hand. "Come on, let's look at your family's decorating style. This is your home, after all — shouldn't you have some input?"

"Mm..." The knot in Tang Zhi's heart had come undone, and her spirits lifted. She followed Wei Zhao through the new apartment.

This apartment really was enormous. Tang Zhi had never imagined that one day her family would be able to afford a home this large. Once she stepped inside, she never wanted to leave.

That evening, at the hospital, Tang Zhi resolved to have a proper talk with her mother.

"Mom, how could you ask Boss Lai — Mr. Lai — to do Xiaofen's family's decorating today?" Tang Zhi pouted. "Do you have any idea how expensive decorating materials are? There's no way they'd just have spares lying around. And even if they did have some left over, they'd use them for other owners who'd won the grand prize — why would there be anything left for Xiaofen's family?"

"Look at you, child. Xiaofen's family is in such difficult straits, and she's your good friend besides. If we can lend a hand, we should." Tang's mother waved the concern away dismissively.

"But you're putting an obligation on someone else! When it comes down to it, isn't it Wei Zhao who ends up owing them a favor?" Tang Zhi was exasperated by her mother's words. Good friends were good friends, and helping out was fine within one's means — but going beyond that was just slapping one's own face to look fat.

"Owe a favor to whom?" Tang's mother shot her daughter a sharp look. "Don't think I can't see it — that Xiao Lai is one of Wei Zhao's underlings!"

"What?" Tang Zhi hadn't expected her mother to have figured even this out. She was momentarily stunned.

"I hit the nail on the head, didn't I?" Tang's mother couldn't help looking a little pleased with herself. "Watch how he answers every question I throw at him — his eyes dart straight to Wei Zhao, as if he needs to ask permission first. And so deferential! He treats you the same way, don't think I don't notice. What were you about to call him just now? Fat Lai, wasn't it? You've grown up and you're even trying to fool your own mother? You're quite close with him, aren't you? Putting on an act for my benefit, were you?"

"Mom... I..." Tang Zhi's face flushed red. She had never been much good at lying, and now that her mother had seen through her, she felt a sudden urge to crawl into a hole.

"Hmph, did you see the way that little Lai acted? He even called me Auntie. A company president like him — how could he possibly show that much respect to a housewife like me? We're the ones asking him for a favor, not the other way around! Do you think your mother is blind? And that grand prize I won — grand prize, my foot. It was obviously just an electric kettle, but he insisted on calling it a grand prize!" Tang's mother rattled on without pause: "You think I don't know? Little Lai is trying to curry favor with Wei Zhao and you! Child, you've got connections like that and you don't know how to use them — why not just have him give us an apartment for free?"

"I... I... I..." Tang Zhi was furious at her mother's outrageous words. She had meant to bring up her mother's own outrageous behavior, and now the tables had turned and she was the one being lectured. Struck speechless, she blurted out in exasperation, "But wouldn't that just be trouble for Wei Zhao? Even if he's Wei Zhao's underling, isn't he still Wei Zhao's?"

"What's Wei Zhao's is yours, isn't it? Child, have you gone silly? You're his girlfriend — that makes you Little Lai's sister-in-law!" Tang's mother said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

"How is that the same? With all the things you've stirred up, I owe Wei Zhao more and more — I feel like I can't even hold my head up in front of him!" Tang Zhi lifted her head, agitated, and looked at her mother stubbornly: "Do you have any idea how many girls like Wei Zhao? I haven't helped him with anything, and I trouble him every single day — how am I supposed to compete with the others when the time comes?"

"Compete? Aren't you Wei Zhao's girlfriend right now?" Tang's mother shot back. "Besides, what does a girl need to help with? Once you've slept with him, that settles everything!"