Chapter 183 — Zhong Yongliang's Scheme
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
In all of vast Songshan No. 1 High School, there were only three such girls. Two of them he simply could not touch — girls whom any man approached at his peril. Zou Ruoming was no fool.
Gu Mengyao's father chaired the Gu Group, a man whose stamp of the foot set all Songshan trembling. Only someone with family backing like Zhong Yongliang dared court her — and even Zhong Yongliang did not dare press his luck by force.
And Shen Yushu... that little beauty was someone even Zhong Yongliang would not touch. The bitter lesson of Wu Xiaocan was still fresh in everyone's memory.
But Tang Zhi was a different matter entirely. Zou Ruoming had pried into the Tang family's background and knew it down to the last detail: both parents were laid-off workers, her father bedridden year-round from a workplace injury, her mother peddling a stall in the snack street behind the school.
What could a family that could not even wring out compensation for the father's medical bills possibly do to him? So in Zou Ruoming's eyes, Tang Zhi was his for the taking — a certainty. Even if he simply forced himself on her, a family like that could only swallow its grievance in silence.
That was why Zou Ruoming had been so utterly brazen from the very start of his pursuit, hounding her until she nearly cracked, nearly lost her mind. In Zou Ruoming's view, if Wei Zhao had not barged in from nowhere, Tang Zhi would already be his woman.
Now, of all things, Tang Zhi had accepted Wei Zhao's confession. A hero saving a damsel was a hackneyed old routine, but it worked all the same. It must have been he himself playing the villain that day that handed Wei Zhao his opening.
Zou Ruoming rather regretted it. Had he known, he would have been better off getting a few of his lackeys to play the villains, then stepping in to display his own prowess.
Sitting under the basketball hoop, Zou Ruoming stewed in silence. Even his toadies could tell their boss was in a foul mood, and they kept as still as cicadas in winter, not daring to utter a word.
"Ming, what's got into you? Looking all gloom and doom?" Zhong Yongliang had spotted Zou Ruoming from a distance, sitting under the hoop with a face full of misery, his expression shifting from rage to regret. He could guess well enough why — and in that moment Zhong Yongliang keenly recognized a fine opportunity to teach Wei Zhao a lesson.
"Oh, it's Liang." Zou Ruoming lifted his eyelids, saw it was Zhong Yongliang, and felt no particular embarrassment. Zhong Yongliang was no better off than himself; he too had come out the loser against Wei Zhao, his father's right-hand men hauled off to the lockup. The two of them were a case of the pot calling the kettle black. "Come to laugh at me, have you..."
"Ming, what kind of talk is that! I've always held you in the highest respect..." Zhong Yongliang clapped one of Zou Ruoming's lackeys on the shoulder, and the boy hastily made room, letting Zhong Yongliang sit down beside Zou Ruoming.
"Liang, our brother here has had his face slapped this time..." Zou Ruoming sighed and spoke with venom. "Everyone who's anyone at school knows I've been courting Tang Zhi, and that little whelp Wei Zhao beat me to her. I can't swallow this, I tell you..."
"Ming, the way I see it, you've been far too cautious about this..." Zhong Yongliang wore a look of deepest grief. "The pathetic backing Tang Zhi's family has couldn't stir up any real waves! There's a saying — strike first to gain the upper hand. Ming, if you just force yourself on her, won't Tang Zhi be your woman then and there?"
"Little brother here wouldn't dare force myself on anyone now even if I wanted to! You know as well as I do that Gu Mengyao's family is even more formidable than mine..."