Chapter 434 — Fifty Thousand Is Too Little

"Wei Zhao, he's here for you—you deal with him." The moment Gu Mengyao saw Wei Zhao arrive, she breathed a sigh of relief, seized her chance to escape, and rose to head upstairs.

An Liwen gave a bitter smile. He had come for Wei Zhao, true, but he had also hoped to get a little closer to Gu Mengyao; now it was as though he had come solely to see Wei Zhao, and she had shown him not the slightest warmth.

An Liwen could not tell where he had gone wrong. He felt his relationship with Gu Mengyao growing worse and worse.

"Brother Lin, come, sit down!" An Liwen waved him over warmly. "A few days without seeing you, and I truly missed you!"

Wei Zhao was instantly overcome with disgust. Had An Liwen's tastes shifted after those pills last time? He walked over and sat on the sofa opposite, keeping a full meter of distance from the man. "Young Master An, what business do you have? Was the doll enjoyable last time?"

"This—" An Liwen's expression shifted at once. He had not expected Wei Zhao to be so brazenly ready to tear off all pretense today. But An Liwen had not come to break with him; he had come to curry favor! So he suppressed his anger and said, "Heh, Brother Wei Zhao jests. Last time was merely a joke. That inflatable doll was rather good, though—no different from the real thing. Would Brother Lin care to try it?"

"I'll pass. You enjoy it yourself." Wei Zhao shook his head, inwardly turning over what new trick the fellow was planning. If An Liwen truly did not care about what had happened before, Wei Zhao would not believe it; the man could not possibly be so magnanimous. Trouble out of the ordinary meant devils afoot—there had to be some scheme waiting behind this. Wei Zhao quietly raised his guard.

"Heh, fair enough. Brother Lin has a beautiful girlfriend and has no need of such things, haha! I hear she's the school beauty of No. 1 High School? As famous as little sister Yaoyao?" An Liwen said with a smile.

"What are you planning?" Wei Zhao's face darkened, his manner turning cold and grim at once. This creature wanted to move against Tang Zhi? Then let him wait for death. Should anyone set his sights on Tang Zhi, Wei Zhao would not let him off lightly. "I'm a poor man. I don't care to give things away, but I wouldn't mind giving you a coffin."

Hearing the threat, An Liwen felt a stir of anger, but at the thought of those two Yellow Rank experts under Li Cihua who had died so miserably, he was at once mollified. Compared to those two, he was less than nothing—dare to threaten Wei Zhao? That was the same as waiting for death.

"Brother Lin misunderstands me. I only meant to congratulate you on winning your fair lady—nothing more!" An Liwen hastened to explain, secretly counting himself lucky that he had gone to Li Cihua first instead of moving directly against Tang Zhi; otherwise he might well be finished himself by now.

"Oh." Wei Zhao nodded faintly, waiting for whatever An Liwen would say next, unsure what the man was really after.

"It's like this: you, brother, have already won your fair lady, but your elder brother here is still all alone!" An Liwen said. "You see, by Yaoyao's side, you're always the first to get news of her, aren't you?"

"And then?" Wei Zhao asked.

"I feel little sister Yaoyao has grown much colder toward me. Does she have a boyfriend, or a man she likes? Do you know?" An Liwen asked.

"How would I know?" Wei Zhao shook his head. "Why would I study such a thing for no reason?"

"True enough. Brother Wei Zhao, with a girlfriend of your own, has no worries of that sort, but your elder brother still has none. I've pursued Gu Mengyao for years without success—you're a well-fed man who doesn't know the hunger of the starving!" An Liwen lamented with great vehemence. "I wronged you before, but that was only because I thought you were Gu Mengyao's boyfriend. Now that it's been investigated and cleared up, there's no grudge between us at all—so we can very well be friends."

"Oh. If I hadn't been wary before, I'd probably be in trouble now." Wei Zhao felt not a shred of sympathy for him. Whether he won Gu Mengyao or not was no damn business of his. And a dangerous character like this—Wei Zhao could not, in his heart, allow him anywhere near Gu Mengyao.

"Heh heh…" An Liwen looked a little awkward. "You could say we've come to know each other through our scrap. Besides, Brother Lin, you didn't come off the worse for it."

"Oh, so what do you want me to do?" Wei Zhao had no patience to argue the point with him and decided to hear out his real purpose first.

"Brother Lin, at school and at home, you can see Gu Mengyao anytime, anywhere. Could you keep an eye out for me—whether any male student is especially close to her, or any news at all—and tip me off at the first opportunity?" An Liwen said.

"You want me to be a mole?" Wei Zhao understood his meaning.

"Exactly, more or less." An Liwen nodded.

"That's a difficult job. You know I'm employed by Mr. Gu Pengzhan now—how could I turn around and act as a mole for someone else?" Wei Zhao glanced at An Liwen.

"Of course, you won't do it for nothing—there are benefits!" Hearing that Wei Zhao had not slammed the door shut, An Liwen judged there was room to maneuver, and hurried on: "I'll pay you a fee…"

"Oh, that works too. Fifty thousand a month, I suppose—that might just about help you out." Wei Zhao spoke up directly.

"Fifty thousand..." An Liwen was taken aback. He had figured that giving Wei Zhao eighty or a hundred thousand would be the end of it; he never expected Wei Zhao to open his mouth so wide—fifty thousand at once, and every month at that!

"If you think it's too much, then forget it. I'm not all that keen on doing it anyway. This sort of thing is very dangerous—it's not worth losing my current job over a bit of pocket change." Wei Zhao said this flatly.

Fifty thousand was still pocket change? An Liwen felt a little dizzy. But then he thought of Wei Zhao's likely identity as a late-stage Yellow Rank expert, and it no longer seemed strange. Hiring a late-stage Yellow Rank expert as a bodyguard would certainly not come cheap; that early-stage Yellow Rank expert who had been at his elder brother's side before had cost five million a year in compensation—let alone someone like Wei Zhao, who was late-stage!

And so, thinking it through this way, An Liwen felt much more at ease. Fifty thousand was no more than the price of selling a single kidney; seen in that light, it wasn't much at all.

"Good, fifty thousand it is. Then I'll leave everything in your hands, Brother Lin!" An Liwen said. "Give me your bank card number, and I'll transfer it to you directly."

Wei Zhao gave An Liwen his bank card number and sent him on his way. But Shen Yushu poked her head out from the bathroom: "Arrow Brand Bro, why did you only ask for fifty thousand? That's a bit too little, isn't it..."

"Heh... I don't intend to help him anyway, so his fifty thousand will just go down the drain." Wei Zhao smiled. He had known all along that Shen Yushu was hiding in the bathroom, eavesdropping.