Chapter 726 — Qiu Lingshan's Boyfriend?

"Naturally." Chen Yuxuan did want to work this mission alongside Qiu Lingshan; it was only that phone call of hers earlier that left him tied up in knots.

"Well, since there's nothing else, might Major Chen be on his way?" Qiu Lingshan asked, looking at him.

"That... now that business is settled, may I ask about something personal?" Chen Yuxuan was still unwilling to let it go.

"What personal matter?" Qiu Lingshan knew perfectly well what he meant to ask, but she said, "You may ask, though I'm also free not to answer."

"Ha... it's like this. The person you called earlier — is he your boyfriend?" Chen Yuxuan had decided that if he was to give up, he would at least give up knowing the truth.

"Not quite. But I'm courting him." Qiu Lingshan thought it over before answering.

"You... courting him?" Chen Yuxuan's eyes went wide.

"What, is that not allowed?" Qiu Lingshan laughed to herself. Now you ought to give up for good.

"It's not that it's not allowed, it's just a little strange..." Chen Yuxuan shook his head. "The tone you used on the phone earlier — it didn't sound like you... He's a doctor?"

"More or less..." Qiu Lingshan told it straight. Wei Zhao could hardly be called a professional doctor — half of one, at best.

"More or less?" Chen Yuxuan was briefly taken aback, unable to grasp what that was supposed to mean. "Didn't you swear once that you'd find a man stronger than yourself? He's a doctor — how could he be stronger than you?"

Chen Yuxuan was rather unconvinced. Qiu Lingshan couldn't have been stringing him along before, could she? Saying she wanted a man with more force of will than her, and now she had gone and found a doctor for a boyfriend?

"Stronger than me, yes. Who told you a doctor can't be stronger than me?" Qiu Lingshan frowned. "Your logic was flawed to begin with. Besides, he isn't entirely a doctor — he only fills in now and then."

"Fills in..." Chen Yuxuan smiled bitterly. "Then I suppose... I have no chance at all?"

"You never did." Qiu Lingshan spoke without the least courtesy. "First, you're not the type of man I like. Second, I've already broken through to the late Yellow Rank. Do you think you could ever surpass me?"

"Late Yellow Rank!" Chen Yuxuan drew a sharp breath. How many days had it been? Only days ago Qiu Lingshan had just brushed against the barrier of the late Yellow Rank, and now she had already reached it? Even among the great clans, such a terrifying rate of advancement was rarely seen!

"You don't believe me?" Qiu Lingshan asked.

With that, the true qi within Qiu Lingshan's body gathered in an instant. In that moment her aura made Chen Yuxuan's heart sink in secret. So it really was the late Yellow Rank...

"I believe it!" Chen Yuxuan sighed. "But your friend — is he even stronger than you?"

"He helped me break through..." Qiu Lingshan's cheeks flushed faintly at this point. Thinking of that day in the basement, she felt a scorching heat spread through her whole body. To think that she could break through in such an embarrassing situation! Still, if one said Wei Zhao had helped her break through, that was fair enough — after all, he had been the one she'd been fantasizing about at the time...

"It seems I truly can't compare..." Chen Yuxuan had been beaten down by Qiu Lingshan into abandoning all hope. "By the way, he isn't some old man, is he? There's no one of the younger generation stronger than you, is there? Grandfather Song wouldn't agree to you marrying a husband so far apart in age, would he?"

This was Chen Yuxuan's last hope.

"No." Qiu Lingshan answered lightly. "If you want to know, you'll see him at the hospital tomorrow."

Qiu Lingshan left him dangling, without saying Wei Zhao's name outright. This matter was better kept a little mysterious.

"All right..." Chen Yuxuan let out a disappointed sigh.

...

Mother Tang held the bank card and its transaction record, beaming so wide her mouth would not close.

Never in her life had she seen so much money. Three million, a full three million! Add the five hundred thousand from before, and it came to three and a half million! Had she herself become one of those legendary millionaires?

"Old Tang, look at this statement. Are those four zeros? Thirty-five in front, seven digits in all?" Mother Tang held the record as though it were a treasure, unable to put it down, and asked Tang Jucheng.

"It's three and a half million. You've shown it to me more than ten times." Tang Jucheng was calm enough by now. So much had happened at home lately, but ever since Wei Zhao appeared, things had plainly been getting better and better.

"Breaking that leg of yours was worth it after all!" Mother Tang joked.

"Give it a rest." Tang Jucheng laughed at himself. "My leg? In their eyes it probably isn't worth a single cent. I've broken it before, haven't I? Lay in bed all those years, and did a single cent ever come of it? If not for Wei Zhao this time, forget three million, they'd have been hard pressed to hand over thirty thousand!"

"I was only joking!" Mother Tang knew there was no telling how Wei Zhao had managed it, but he had the skill all right: he had broken the leg of the chairman of that Qibing Real Estate Company, and the man still had to pay him compensation!

As Mother Tang and Tang Jucheng were talking, Tang Zhi pushed the door open and walked in. Seeing both her parents' faces wreathed in smiles, she could not help but find it odd. "Dad, Mom, what are you talking about that's made you so happy?"

"We're talking about this three million! Xiaoyi really is something—he just went and got it, three million?" Mother Tang gleefully waved the bank card and the statement in the air. "Tell your mother how you got it out of them."

"It was nothing much. Wei Zhao gave Li Cihua's younger brother, Li Dilei, a sound thrashing, and then Li Cihua came to plead for leniency, so Wei Zhao demanded three million from him for Dad's medical expenses..." Tang Zhi gave a brief account of the gist, deliberately leaving out the details for fear her mother would worry.

"What?" Mother Tang and Tang Jucheng both stared wide-eyed at once. That worked too? You beat up the man's younger brother, and he still has to give you three million? That was a bit too formidable, too overbearing! But the more overbearing Wei Zhao was, the happier she felt; only thus would their family no longer be bullied by others in the future. So she said, "I was thinking of buying a place tomorrow in a poor location, a cheap one, and just making do if we could live in it. Now this is better—with this much money, we can afford any kind of house we want!"

"Then let's buy a nicer one..." Tang Zhi knew this money was really much the same as what Wei Zhao had given their family. Wei Zhao could have demanded the three million from Li Cihua straight out; her father's medical expenses were merely a pretext for Wei Zhao to give their family money.

But it was also thanks to that pretext that Tang Zhi could not refuse. It was only right that Li Cihua compensate her father! Although without Wei Zhao, their family might not have gotten a single cent.