Chapter 1642 — Let's Go Take a Look First
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"Uncle Tang was right. And so, when the Hidden Tang family suddenly sent out that invitation this time, I can't help feeling there may be something behind it..." As he spoke, Wei Zhao laid out his suspicions before Tang's mother.
"Ah! Then what are we to do? It looks as though we really shouldn't go after all!" Tang's mother was badly startled by his words. She would have counted herself lucky not to bathe in the Hidden Tang family's glory; the last thing she wanted was for them to have designs on her household!
"Go? Of course we must go!" Wei Zhao said. "If they have no designs on us, then all well and good. But if they do, we must be on our guard—so a visit there does us no harm either way!"
"So that's how it is..." Tang's mother was rather nervous now. Her earlier dream of returning home in glory had long since drained away; what filled her mind instead was how to keep disaster from being drawn down upon her own family...
The guest courtyard of the Hidden Tang family.
It was the most lavish of the Hidden Tang family's guest courtyards, kept for receiving honored visitors, and now Bingtang, Xiaoqing, and Feng Xiaoxiao were lodged there.
"Aunt Qing, I want to go and see my parents first... just a secret glance, to see how they are getting on..." Now that Bingtang had certain news of her birth parents, she could scarcely contain herself. To wait until Old Master Tang's birthday feast—she simply could not bear it!
Besides, would meeting at such an occasion not be terribly awkward? She did not know whether her parents would acknowledge her, nor whether that sister of hers—elder or younger—would bear her any hostility, thinking she had come to steal her mother's love.
So Bingtang's heart was all in a tangle. For the master of the vast Ice Palace, such fretting was rather laughable—but when all was said and done, she was nothing more than a girl not yet twenty.
"Of course. If you want to go, Palace Master, then Xiaoqing will take you," Xiaoqing said with a smile. "What's so difficult about that? At worst we just sneak a quick peek first!"
"Mmm... then, shall we bring Aunt along too?" Bingtang had been wavering, but at Xiaoqing's words she made up her mind at once.
"That works too, but I wonder whether Xiaoming would be willing?" Xiaoqing and Xiaoming were of the same generation, so she called her plainly by name.
"I'll go find Aunt right now!" Bingtang rose to her feet and made for the door.
"Senior Sister..." At that moment Feng Xiaoxiao called her back.
"Hm? What is it, Xiaoxiao?" Bingtang treasured Feng Xiaoxiao and spoiled her terribly, so when the girl called to her, Bingtang stopped at once and turned back to ask.
"Then... could you take me along when you go out, so I can drop in and see my hubby Wei Zhao on the way?" Feng Xiaoxiao ran over, caught Bingtang by the arm, and swung it coaxingly.
"This... all right, then we'll go together!" Bingtang shook her head in some helplessness. She had no idea where her birth parents were, or whether it would lie on Feng Xiaoxiao's road. She knew only that her father was called Tang Jucheng—Uncle Da had said so that day. As for that sister of hers, elder or younger, and the name of the mother she had never laid eyes on, she had not bothered to ask.
For there was no need to ask such things. What good were names? What Bingtang wanted to see was the person, not a name.
As for Feng Xiaoxiao, she naturally had no notion who Tang Jucheng was, nor that he was Tang Zhi's father. Only Wei Zhao knew that name—but Wei Zhao would never presume to call Tang Zhi's father so familiarly, nor would he bring up such matters with Feng Xiaoxiao for no reason, so of course Feng Xiaoxiao did not know that Tang Jucheng was Tang Zhi's father.
Otherwise she would not be pleading with Bingtang now.