Chapter 235 — Tang Zhi's Prank

Wei Zhao really could not stay any longer. The more Tang Zhi talked, the more tangled things became, and he was about to be cast by Tang's mother as the villain who had ruined her daughter. How could Wei Zhao not leave?

He climbed into Black Panther's beat-up van and drove toward Gu Mengyao's villa.

The old van was a bit of a wreck, but on the road it was nowhere near as flashy as Shen Yushu's Beetle — nicely low-key, in fact. Wei Zhao decided to simply keep it for himself, and then get Qiu Lingshan to sort out a license plate.

Asking Yang Huaijun to handle such a thing would have been a single word, but Wei Zhao wanted to go to Qiu Lingshan instead. No other reason — he had helped the girl so many times; if she still refused to do him a small favor, he would simply have nothing to do with her from then on.

Only after Wei Zhao had gone did Tang Zhi, somewhat shyly, take hold of her mother's arm. "Mom, what are you doing..."

"What do you mean, what am I doing? Yun'er, this is a serious matter! What if he refuses to take responsibility?" Tang's mother was frantic. "How can you be so foolish? Have you learned nothing from what happened to Xiaofen?"

Looking at her mother's anxious face, Tang Zhi suddenly felt a mischievous impulse and said to her, "Weren't you the one who told me to be friends with Wei Zhao? So why are you blaming me now?"

"That..." Tang's mother was momentarily speechless, somewhat taken aback. Yes — it was her own snobbery that had urged her daughter to take up with Wei Zhao... and now here she was, blaming her daughter?

At that thought, Tang's mother felt a pang of despondency. At the time she had only thought that Wei Zhao's family was well off and that her daughter would not suffer with him. But now that such a thing had actually happened, she found herself flustered.

Seeing her mother's expression, Tang Zhi lost the heart to keep teasing. "All right, Mom, it isn't really what you think."

"Hm?" Tang's mother started. "You two didn't..."

"No, Mom. Actually, today I was taken by some bad men, and Wei Zhao rescued me..." Tang Zhi held nothing back, telling her mother how she had been abducted by bad men and nearly ruined by Zou Ruoming... and then, just as plainly, how she had been drugged and rescued by Wei Zhao. When she got to the part about tearing her own clothes off, Tang Zhi lowered her head in embarrassment...

"Yun'er..." Hearing that Tang Zhi had nearly been ruined by Zou Ruoming, Tang's mother was both shocked and furious. She pulled her daughter into her arms. "It's all my fault — I couldn't protect you..."

"Mom, don't say that. You've already given me so much..." Tang Zhi was not an ungrateful child; children of poor families grow up fast, and she knew her mother toiled every day for this household.

"That Zou Ruoming is a real villain! And thank goodness for Wei Zhao — otherwise... ai!" Tang's mother spoke with lingering fear. "But tell me, in that situation, Wei Zhao really didn't do anything to you?"

"Mm." Tang Zhi nodded. This was the root of her change of heart toward Wei Zhao, and because of it she no longer resisted him from the bottom of her heart... He was fundamentally different from Zou Ruoming, Zhong Yongliang, and that lot.

"Then it was your mother who misjudged you both!" Tang's mother was puzzled. In that situation, with a girl throwing herself at him, how could Wei Zhao have refused? Yet refuse he had — what did that mean?

"Wei Zhao doesn't like you?" A possibility suddenly occurred to Tang's mother. Perhaps Wei Zhao simply did not like Tang Zhi at all! All of it had been her own wishful thinking.

"Ah?" Tang Zhi was taken aback. "Mom, why do you ask that?"

"If he liked you, why would he refuse? I was young once too, and I understand something of how young people think. In that situation, if he could still refuse, then this is the only explanation!" Tang's mother reasoned.

"Oh, Mom, stop asking so many questions..." Tang Zhi was embarrassed and shook her mother's arm shyly.

"Why shouldn't I ask? Of course I need to know what's going on with you!" Tang's mother only grew more anxious. If Wei Zhao did not like her daughter, would their family have to go on being poor forever?

"He said that only if I agreed to go out with him would he..." Here Tang Zhi grew so embarrassed she could not go on, and without another thought for her mother standing there, she ran off into the house...

"Oh?" Hearing this, Tang's mother was rather gratified, though she shook her head all the same. "That Wei Zhao is a fine boy, after all. In that case, he'll treat Yun'er well enough in the future..."

At that thought, Tang's mother brightened again...

In the outer room of an intensive care ward at Songshan City First People's Hospital, Qiu Lingshan sat at a desk with several subordinates.

Her brows were tightly knitted as she looked at her colleagues, at a complete loss. "Do any of you have any ideas?"

Black Panther had already woken up, but he kept his mouth shut about how his strength had suddenly increased, wearing the look of a man who did not care whether he was killed or cut to pieces. There was nothing Qiu Lingshan could do.

After all, whether Black Panther had abruptly boosted his strength had nothing to do with the case. If he would not talk, Qiu Lingshan could not force him to; she was simply curious.

"Chief Song, I say we just let it go," one subordinate suggested. "He has no strength left now anyway. If he won't talk, there's nothing we can do. It has nothing to do with the case. We can just send him back to the detention center and close the file."

What he said made sense, after all; Qiu Lingshan could not probe into matters unrelated to the case... Just as she was stewing over it, a subordinate on guard duty over Black Panther came running out of the ward. "Captain Song, he talked..."

"He talked? What did he say?" Qiu Lingshan asked.

"He said that in his early years he took some kind of pill that could unleash his strength to its peak at any time, but it wouldn't last long before he returned to normal..." the subordinate said. "Black Panther wanted to sleep, and I pestered him until he got annoyed, so he told me..."

"What?" Hearing her subordinate's report, Qiu Lingshan's face immediately clouded over. Telling it that way was as good as not telling it at all; there was no usable value in it. Still, Black Panther had not actually lied. In his early years he had indeed taken a similar pill, and with the sect's secret mental techniques and incantations he could activate it, causing his strength to surge in an instant.

Thinking of how weak Black Panther was now, Qiu Lingshan believed what he said. She had no choice but to believe it. Black Panther had indeed been crippled by Wei Zhao; if he had not dropped a level, Qiu Lingshan would not have believed Wei Zhao could be so formidable.

"All right, once Black Panther's injuries have healed, send him back to the detention center and wait for the court hearing." Qiu Lingshan waved her hand. Black Panther had truly given her a hard time; she had not slept well for days. Now that the man was caught, sending him back would count as completing the mission.