DLWAV CH109

The middle-aged man and his group finally snapped back to reality: “You beast! You actually dared to lay a hand on me?”

The people he brought along couldn’t even be bothered with smashing things anymore; they immediately swarmed forward.

Zhao Cheng was finally afraid. “You… if you dare lay a hand on me again, I’ll definitely sue you in court!”

But before he could finish his sentence, their fists rained down on him.

“Go! Go right ahead! If you dare sue us, I’ll dare to block your brother’s company and make a scene at your sister’s workplace!”

“Ah!”

Zhao Cheng immediately shrieked in pain.

But with the middle-aged man and his group having laid their cards on the table like that, how could Zhao Cheng dare to spit out any more tough words?

Then, as if he suddenly thought of something, he clutched his head and whipped around to look at Ao Ruize, screaming hysterically, “Zhang Ruize, you just wait! I won’t let you off!”

Clearly, he was displacing all his anger onto Ao Ruize’s head.

But Ao Ruize’s mood only improved.

Because the sight of Zhao Cheng spitting tough words while grimacing in pain was truly beyond hilarious.

However, when someone else heard about this incident, they immediately frowned.

That person was Zhang Ruize’s older sister, Zhang Qingyan.

As she stir-fried vegetables, she suppressed her anger and said, “I told you a long time ago: while we’re here, we need to endure whatever we can. Don’t casually offend people.”

“Do you know that Zhao Cheng is a local in this village? His youngest uncle is a village cadre, and his sister even passed the police academy exam last year. If they decide to trip us up in the future, it’ll be more than enough to make us suffer.”

She mistakenly thought Ao Ruize was targeting Zhao Cheng just to retaliate for the time Zhao Cheng had mocked him before.

Ao Ruize’s movements of peeling a peach paused for a moment.

His predecessor, Zhang Ruize, was currently twenty-five years old—an ordinary person among the six billion people in this world, born into an ordinary family that favored sons over daughters.

Two years ago, Zhang Ruize graduated from university.

It was in that same year that his mother was diagnosed with cancer. At the time, Zhang Qingyan was in the critical period of a promotion assessment, so he chose to give up a very good job offer he had already secured to stay home and take care of their mother.

Unexpectedly, half a year later, his mother passed away anyway.

—This was actually one of the main reasons why those old ladies and aunties in the village were so friendly toward him.

After all, in this day and age, it was already decent if children didn’t look down on their parents. The number of children willing to stay by a sickbed and serve the elderly every sip of water and bite of food could be counted on one hand.

Even though, due to various reasons since then, he hadn’t been able to find a stable job and had to stay at Zhang Qingyan’s house living off her.

Fortunately, a year later, he would be arranged a very well-paying job by Yan Qi, the wealthy second-generation heir who married Zhang Qingyan.

Even though Zhang Qingyan and Yan Qi divorced a few years later, relying on the experience he accumulated during those years, he successfully found another good job.

And Zhang Qingyan later found a husband who shared her ideals.

It was just a pity that this was only their original fate.

Because a wealthy young miss named Qian Shanjing was reborn.

She also liked Yan Qi.

In her previous life, she died in a car accident on the eve of Zhang Qingyan and Yan Qi’s wedding.

So she didn’t know that Zhang Qingyan and Yan Qi eventually divorced.

But Yan Qi didn’t like her.

Simply because the reason the Qian family strongly tried to matchmake her with Yan Qi was to latch onto the Yan family.

Yan Qi utterly despised their greedy appearance.

He wanted to find a wife who wasn’t after his family’s wealth, but simply loved him as a person.

By chance, he met Zhang Qingyan.

Zhang Qingyan’s independent and self-reliant character filled him with admiration, so he decided to pursue her.

However, to achieve his goal, he didn’t approach Zhang Qingyan using his true identity. Instead, he fabricated an identity as an ordinary corporate employee from an average background, just like her.

Yan Qi was handsome, and they had common topics to talk about. He could even understand her desire to focus on her career first, delay having children until after thirty, and refuse to be a full-time housewife. Therefore, Zhang Qingyan inevitably fell for him.

But while Yan Qi’s plans were sound, his parents vehemently opposed his relationship with Zhang Qingyan.

In their eyes, their ancestors hadn’t endured endless hardships to build such a massive family business just so their descendants could marry a mud-legged commoner.

Although Yan Qi’s persistence forced Father and Mother Yan to agree to the marriage.

The moment they got married, Father and Mother Yan started pressuring them to have children, directly setting a goal for Zhang Qingyan to have two kids in three years. Later, seeing that Zhang Qingyan still hadn’t gotten pregnant, they demanded she quit her flourishing career to stay home full-time and prepare for pregnancy.

And although Yan Qi was the only son of the Yan family, he was still just the only son—he wasn’t the head of the family. On top of that, Mother Yan later unexpectedly became pregnant with a second child… He was completely powerless to stop Father and Mother Yan’s actions.

Precisely because of this, Zhang Qingyan eventually divorced Yan Qi.

After Qian Shanjing was reborn, Zhang Qingyan’s life became even harder.

Qian Shanjing knew Yan Qi looked down on the Qian family, so the first thing she did after being reborn was save Zongzheng Ge, the richest man in the Southeast, who originally would have died bizarrely in an alley in Wu City’s old district.

With Zongzheng Ge’s support, in just a short year, the Qian family’s power surpassed that of the Yan family.

Naturally, Father and Mother Yan became even more satisfied with Qian Shanjing. So this time, no matter what, they refused to agree to Yan Qi and Zhang Qingyan’s marriage.

Unable to persuade Yan Qi, they resorted to every possible means to cause trouble for Zhang Qingyan.

Just like that, it wasn’t long before Zhang Qingyan and Yan Qi broke up.

But even so, Qian Shanjing still didn’t let Zhang Qingyan off.

Soon, Zhang Qingyan was set up and fired by her company, and even branded as a corporate spy.

Because of this, large-scale companies refused to hire her. Even when some smaller companies decided to hire her, they either reneged afterward or suddenly went bankrupt.

Until one rainy day, when the two siblings went home to sweep their parents’ graves, they tragically met with a car accident and both died.

Originally, when he saw this part, Ao Ruize’s first thought was that perhaps he could repeat his old trick—summon the middle-aged man and his group to this world to continue doing missions for him.

But he quickly dismissed the idea, because—

Qian Shanjing ultimately didn’t end up with Yan Qi either.

Since Yan Qi had humiliated her like that, how could she possibly continue to like him?

The main reason was that the Southeast’s richest man she saved, Zongzheng Ge, subsequently launched a fierce pursuit of her, and she quickly succumbed.

So breaking up Yan Qi and Zhang Qingyan was merely to take revenge on them.

The Yan family’s final outcome wasn’t any better either; they went bankrupt a few years later. They fled abroad, and within a few years, were beaten to death along with their whole family after getting involved in a political struggle.

But the truth was, that so-called richest man of the Southeast, Zongzheng Ge, was no good thing at all.

He was a half-blood vampire who had been lurking in China, and his goal was to find China’s national treasure—the Imperial Jade Seal—to resurrect his clan’s Prince.

If no accidents had occurred, he was supposed to have died while trying to steal the Imperial Jade Seal, hunted down by China’s Special Affairs Bureau and the four great cultivation families.

China would have discovered his true identity because of this and wiped out the vampires lurking within the country in one fell swoop.

But Qian Shanjing, who knew absolutely nothing about the truth of the matter, saved him…

By now, his clan’s Prince had already been resurrected.

And the first thing that Prince did after recovering his strength was to take revenge on China.

Simply because he felt that if China hadn’t kept the Imperial Jade Seal hidden and refused to offer it as tribute to them, he would have been resurrected decades ago…

So if he brought the middle-aged man and the others over now, wouldn’t that just be delivering food to the vampires?

Thinking of this, Ao Ruize pulled his thoughts back.

He merely said, “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.”

Zhang Qingyan also calmed down.

She knew she shouldn’t lose her temper, but… she also didn’t want to be someone who, after graduating from university and earning a salary of ten or twenty thousand a month, didn’t even dare to offend the nephew of a village cadre. She was just… used to it, and genuinely afraid of causing trouble.

She could only say, “Forget it, since things have already come to this, we can only take it one step at a time.”

“Let’s eat.”

Originally, Zhang Qingyan had almost pushed the matter to the back of her mind. But unexpectedly, the next day, her good friend Tang Hui brought it up again while they were chatting.

“Did you hear? Old Zhang from the next department is getting ready to marry his girlfriend.”

Tang Hui: “…By the way, how are things between you and your Yan Qi lately? Are you two getting close to discussing marriage too?”

Zhang Qingyan’s face flushed slightly as she set the sorted documents aside. “It’s not that fast.”

Tang Hui, however, scooted her chair closer. “Zhang Qingyan, Miss Zhang, Vice Director Zhang, how is that fast? Old Zhang from the next department has only been dating his girlfriend for a year and they’re almost getting married. You guys have been dating for over a year now; it’s time to take the next step.”

Then, as if thinking of something, she couldn’t help but say, “But does your Yan Qi know you have a younger brother?”

It wasn’t her being nosy, but in today’s marriage market, if the woman had a younger brother, she would instantly lose forty-one points in the man’s eyes.

Not to mention, Zhang Qingyan’s brother was unusually disappointing.

Hearing this, a touch of tenderness couldn’t help but rise in Zhang Qingyan’s eyes. “He knows, but he doesn’t seem to mind.”

Tang Hui instantly breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good then, that’s good.”

But then she couldn’t resist adding, “I heard your brother lives at your place, does absolutely nothing all day, and even waits for you to get off work to cook dinner for him?”

Zhang Qingyan fell silent for a moment. “He… is just a bit afraid of open flames and high temperatures, so he can’t cook.”

Tang Hui couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Just listen to him sprout nonsense with his eyes wide open.”

How could a child from a poor family have so many ailments?

Thinking back to when Zhang Qingyan’s mother was sick, even while taking care of her, Zhang Ruize waited for Zhang Qingyan to get off work at night to cook for them. She had every reason to suspect that Zhang Ruize just didn’t want to go out and work, was afraid of hardship, and simply wanted to leech off Zhang Qingyan.

Zhang Qingyan could only say, “It’s true. Before, whenever the weather got hot, he would run a low-grade fever.”

At that time, she was the one who took care of him.

Tang Hui hadn’t expected that to be true, but that didn’t mean her impression of Zhang Ruize improved.

“Even so, you can’t spoil him like this.”

“Honestly, I still don’t understand what you’re thinking.”

“Didn’t you say it yourself when you were drunk before? When Zhang Ruize was little, he was weak and sickly. Your family had no money, and your parents heard that eating ginseng could strengthen the body. They schemed more than once to sell you off to buy ginseng for Zhang Ruize…

“And the moment you graduated from middle school, they wouldn’t let you study anymore. If your homeroom teacher hadn’t seen how good your grades were and couldn’t bear to see your future ruined, donating three years of tuition for you—and on top of that, after you got into university, you woke up early and stayed up late doing work-study while studying—you never would have been able to jump out of the farming village.

“Yet your parents actually had the nerve to claim the credit for themselves! The moment you started working, they forced you to hand over your entire salary to them…

“If it were me, I would have cut ties with them a long time ago and run as far away as possible. But look at you! You actually took the initiative to become a brother-supporting demon.”

Hearing this, Zhang Qingyan actually smiled:

“If I truly practiced foolish filial piety and was a brother-supporting demon, I wouldn’t have given them a single cent all those years. And back when my mom was critically ill and forced me to quit my job to take care of her, I wouldn’t have rejected her without hesitation. Most importantly, the old, shabby apartment I live in now wouldn’t be under my name, but under Zhang Ruize’s.”

Tang Hui was even more confused. “Then what exactly are you thinking?”

Zhang Qingyan fell silent again. “When Zhang Ruize first graduated, the company that hired him was about to go public by the end of the year.”

“If he had gone back then, his monthly salary would have easily surpassed ten thousand by now.”

But back then, she was unwilling to lose a promotion opportunity just to take care of a so-called mother who didn’t love her at all.

In the end, Zhang Ruize stepped forward on his own and persuaded her. Otherwise, how could their mother have ever let her off?

She felt a little guilty.

Because in the end, she successfully got her promotion.

While Zhang Ruize lost a massive opportunity, and even now, still hadn’t managed to get back on his feet.

But it was only a little guilt.

After all, as the vested beneficiary of the Zhang family, it was only natural and expected that he care for his mother in her old age and see her off.

It was more so because she realized that Zhang Ruize actually wasn’t a bad person at all.

Among the patch of bad bamboo that was the old Zhang family, a good shoot had actually sprouted.

Zhang Qingyan said, “People… no matter how independent they are, always yearn to live in a community.”

“So I still wanted to repair my relationship with him.”

Support me on Ko-fi