Chapter 1735 — The Scheme Begins
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"Mm... all right, then. I'll keep an eye out for you," Wei Zhao said. "Though whether anything turns up, I can't promise."
"Great, thank you so much! Get in touch the moment you hear anything!" Qiu Lingshan said.
Wei Zhao shook his head and hung up. Sure enough, no sooner had the call ended than Tang Zhi's came ringing through.
"Yunyun, where are you two? I've finished up here — shall I come find you?" Wei Zhao asked.
"Wei Zhao, we're at that supermarket we always go to..." Tang Zhi said. "I wanted to buy... buy Grandpa Lin a little gift, but I don't know what to get. Tell me, what should I buy?"
"How could I do that? Mom says when you meet your elders for the first time, you have to bring something!" Tang Zhi thought to herself that if even her mother — stingy as she was — said so, then it must be a very important courtesy indeed.
"Then just buy a few bottles of Erguotou," Wei Zhao said after a moment's thought.
Old Man Wei loved his drink, but he begrudged the money and always brewed his own; only when his own stock ran dry and the new batch wasn't ready would he go to Widow Wang's grocery for a bottle of Erguotou to tide him over. To be honest, though Old Man Wei's skill in medicine was formidable, his skill at brewing left much to be desired — the liquor he made was weak, which was why he much preferred Erguotou.
In the old days he'd often press Wei Zhao into drinking contests, but once he discovered that Wei Zhao could drain a thousand cups without falling over, Old Man Wei declared: "Erguotou is wasted on you — you can keep me company on water."
"Erguotou?" Tang Zhi was taken aback. She knew that kind of liquor seemed to be very cheap. When her father's legs had gone bad, he would often pour himself a drink whenever something weighed on his mind, and Erguotou was what he drank — so it certainly wasn't expensive. But to give it to an elder... wasn't that a little inappropriate?
"Yes. Buy him a whole case to take home — his favorite thing is Erguotou with fennel beans," Wei Zhao said. "If you buy him foreign liquor instead, he won't be used to it."
"Wait for me, you two. I'll come find you." Wei Zhao went downstairs, got in his car, and headed for the supermarket...
Meanwhile, inside the buffet restaurant, An Liwen was eating doggedly with a face full of misery, and An Mingyue was at his side helping him!
An Mingyue simply couldn't bear to let his son eat all that alone, so he ate alongside him.
Had An Liwen not feared being caught on camera and losing face, he would have smashed a plate and stormed out long ago! But if he really were put up on display, the name of the Fourth Young Master of Songshan would be thoroughly disgraced!
"Dad, how did it go? Everything go smoothly?" An Liwen asked, making conversation between bites to help his food go down.
"Very smoothly!" An Mingyue said. "That hypnotist is truly formidable — whatever I said, Gu Pengzhan believed. Without him, we could never have coaxed Gu Pengzhan out so easily! To think he could work his hypnotic arts over the phone!"
"Haha, of course. He's a formidable man sent by the Vice Hierarch to help me rake in the money — he and Dr. Yin are both formidable, both core figures of the Fire Wolf Gang!" An Liwen said smugly. "He could hypnotize even an idiot, let alone an ordinary man like Gu Pengzhan!"
"Jianwen, your standing in the Fire Wolf Gang has already surpassed mine. Well done! Who knows, one day you might even enter the Gang's inner circle — and then our An family's meteoric rise will be only a matter of time!" An Mingyue said approvingly.
As for this son of his, An Mingyue truly didn't know how to appraise him. He was far bolder than An Jiande; his deeds looked rash and half-witted, yet each time he managed to rake in great sums for the Fire Wolf Gang, leaving An Mingyue with nothing to say.
"Still — having the hypnotist and Dr. Yin run private errands for our family, won't they take issue with that?" An Mingyue asked, lowering his voice.