Chapter 340 — Tang Zhi's Cousin
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"No, I don't think so. Seems pretty normal to me…" Shen Yushu touched her little head.
"Come upstairs with me. Put some clothes on before you come back down. No more being this shameless from now on!" Gu Mengyao could not be bothered to scold Shen Yushu any further; she took her by the hand and dragged her upstairs.
After a hot shower, Wei Zhao felt wonderful all over, every pore opened wide. Lying comfortably on the bed, he picked up his phone.
Once it powered on, a flood of text messages came in.
Wei Zhao saved the number, then scrolled through the rest of the messages. Several were from Kang **, reminding him not to forget to come back over the weekend for his second granduncle's birthday banquet.
The last one was from Tang Zhi. It was very brief, only six words: "When are you coming back to school?"
Wei Zhao quickly sent Tang Zhi a reply: "All done here. I'll be at school tomorrow."
The chime of an incoming text made Tang Zhi jump. She had not dared tell her mother about the phone, and now she had forgotten to set it to silent.
"Whose phone was that? Old Tang, was it yours? Mine doesn't make that sound!" Tang's mother was busy preparing dinner and called out when she heard the text alert.
"Not mine. Mine doesn't sound like that either! That sounds like a Nokia text tone, doesn't it?" Tang's father was sprawled on the living room sofa. He picked up his own phone, glanced at it, and said, "Old Zhang next door has a Nokia that sounds just like that!"
"Hm? Then whose is it? That's strange. Yun'er, did you hear it?" Tang's mother asked.
"…It's… it's mine…" There was no way out for Tang Zhi. She could only pull the phone from her pocket. Even if she wanted to lie now, she could not—and lying had never been her strong suit anyway.
"Yours?" Tang's mother looked at the phone in Tang Zhi's hand in surprise. "Yun'er, when did you buy a phone?"
"I didn't buy it… Wei Zhao gave it to me…" Tang Zhi lowered her head, face flushed red, like a child caught in a mistake.
"Wei Zhao bought you a phone?" Tang's mother did not scold her. Instead her face lit up with a smile. "Let me see it. It must have cost a thousand yuan, right?"
"Mom!" Tang Zhi was rather displeased. Her mother had not scolded her at all—in fact, she had reacted like this—and it made Tang Zhi feel her mother was being snobbish.
"This child, getting all embarrassed!" Tang's mother shot her daughter a glare. "Isn't it a good thing that he bought you a phone? Your father, to this day, has never bought me one. This knockoff I'm using now, I bought with my own hard-earned money!"
Tang Jucheng lowered his head. At moments like this, he secretly hated his own uselessness. Injured and bedridden, reduced to a cripple, he could not go out and earn money, and his medical bills dragged down Tang Zhi and her mother…
Sometimes Tang Jucheng thought of ending it all and being done with it, but when he thought of his wife and daughter, he could not bring himself to do it! His wife often called him useless, but deep down she still loved him—Tang Jucheng could feel that. He could see it in the way she rose early and came home late, working herself to the bone to hold this family together.
"Mom, Dad actually treats you very well…" Compared with the hazy unreality of being with Wei Zhao, Tang Zhi felt that the way her parents supported each other through hardship was true happiness.
"I know he treats me well. Otherwise I would have divorced him long ago!" Tang's mother had a sharp tongue but a soft heart. She gave a little huff and said, "But Yun'er, don't be like me. In this whole life of mine, I fell in love with your father, and I've accepted my fate. You mustn't live so bitterly!"
Tang Zhi knew her mother was talking about her and Wei Zhao, but were she and Wei Zhao really suited to each other? Tang Zhi always had an uneasy feeling, as if her life were a little unreal—as if one day Wei Zhao might simply stop liking her…
"Bang, bang, bang…"