Chapter 343 — The Bittersweet Burden
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
For all the fine words and honeyed promises, in the end Xiaofen had come to this.
Looking back, Wei Zhao had offered her nothing but a certain overbearingness — no sweet talk at all, and yet at the critical moments, when she was at her most helpless and in need of help, Wei Zhao always appeared at precisely the right time.
On the other hand, Tang Zhi felt that she owed Wei Zhao far, far too much — so much that she was already past the point of ever repaying it... She did not believe that within the next few years she would have the means to repay Wei Zhao's one hundred and fifty thousand, nor did she believe Xiaowei and the others could repay it either...
Could it really be as her brother said — that since she would one day belong to him, she need not repay it? Easy enough to say; doing it was another matter, very, very hard...
"Borrowed it already, just like that?" Mother Tang had assumed her daughter would have to speak with Wei Zhao herself, or pay some sort of price... Mother Tang was no fool; she had seen too much of the world's coldness. True, it looked a little like pushing her daughter into a fire pit, but on closer thought it was not entirely so — Wei Zhao was different from that Kang Jingming Xiaofen had known, and surely would not cast her daughter aside once he had had his fun?
Besides, in her own family there was only Xiaowei as the male heir; if she, his aunt, did not stop him from selling a kidney, her own father would never forgive her. In their village home, the preference for sons ran deep.
What Mother Tang had not expected was that a single phone call from her daughter would bring the money! Shocked and delighted at once, she then began to feel a touch of regret: "If I'd known, I would have borrowed fifty thousand more, and then we could have paid for your father's surgery..."
"Mother!" Tang Zhi frowned, displeased. Did she think Wei Zhao was a money tree, yielding however much one shook from it?
"Are you out of your mind, girl? You're borrowing once anyway — why not borrow a little more?" Mother Tang's thinking was that this money surely would not come free, so they might as well borrow more of it!
"Mother, what are you saying!" Tang Zhi grew agitated. "If you keep on like this, I won't borrow it — not a single cent!"
"All right, all right, Mother will stop!" Mother Tang shot her daughter a glance of exasperation at her failure to measure up, thinking to herself: why can't the girl see sense? While the man likes you, get a little more money out of him — then even if he tires of you later and casts you off, at least you'll have the money...
Mother Tang could hardly be blamed for such mercenary thoughts. Anyone who had single-handedly held a family like this together would think the same. Mother Tang had truly been frightened by poverty, and did not want to be poor any longer!
Love was all very well, but what was left of love without a foundation of money? If she did not still love Old Tang, she would have divorced him long ago — would she have had to suffer like this?
And yet, what good was love? Old Tang was not the only one injured at the factory — how many families there had already divorced?
That was why Mother Tang urged Tang Zhi to ask Wei Zhao for money. In her mind, only money in hand was real...
Watching her mother's somewhat disappointed back, Tang Zhi gave a faint sigh. Did she not know what her mother was thinking? But at this moment Tang Zhi still could not understand her mother's cursed notions; the hardships of life had not yet worn away the sharp edges of Tang Zhi's self-reliance.
"Tang Zhi, what's wrong? Is a hundred and fifty thousand not enough?" Wei Zhao had heard Mother Tang's grumbling over the phone too, and asked with a laugh.