“Hey, hey, hey, why are you leaving already?”
Through the huge floor-to-ceiling glass windows, the liveliness and noise of the banquet were still visible. Golden light spilled onto the road outside, making people feel warm.
But this couldn’t make Xiao Ming feel warm. Because Zhou Haoting had directly taken Tian Tian and left the venue.
Watching the two hurriedly departing backs, Xiao Ming thought to himself: This is bad. Looks like his godfather was in trouble.
As for the departing Zhou Haoting and Tian Tian, they actually weren’t that angry at this moment.
The two got in the car. Tian Tian looked at Zhou Haoting’s silent profile. Mm, high nose bridge, deep eye sockets, lips pressed tight. The profile outline was quite captivating. She shook her head to sober herself up. Then she extended a finger and secretly poked Zhou Haoting’s stiff shoulder. “Angry?”
Zhou Haoting let go of the hand resting on the car keys and directly caught Tian Tian’s poking hand. He sighed. “Can’t say I’m angry or not angry.”
Tian Tian recalled Zhou Haoting’s expression at the banquet earlier. It hadn’t looked that magnanimous.
Zhou Haoting saw what Tian Tian was thinking and sighed again. “I’m really not angry. It’s just… at first I was shocked, then I felt lost. After all, he’s always been a photo person. For so many years I never saw him alive. Suddenly appearing before my eyes, shock and confusion are normal, right! There’s really no anger. Just a bit of feeling it’s unfair to my mom. This person came back, yet he didn’t go find my mom.”
Tian Tian didn’t say anything more. She just kept nodding, showing she was still there.
Zhou Haoting sighed for a while, then lowered his head and kissed Tian Tian’s forehead. Only then did he let her go. “Let’s go home first. I’ll tell my mom about this first.”
Tian Tian said, “Will Auntie…”
Zhou Haoting said, “No. My mom’s the most open-minded person. Besides, I don’t think my mom will be heartbroken.”
Sure enough, a son knows his mother.
When they told her they’d seen Zhou Haoting’s biological father, Mother Zhou, Cai Xiaomei, reacted first with: “Huh, he’s actually still alive!”
Then her face showed some curiosity. “Hey, son. What does your dad look like now? Old? Ugly?”
Zhou Haoting looked at Tian Tian: See!
Tian Tian gave him a shocked face in return!
Although she’d long known that Zhou Haoting’s mother had back then taken a fancy to Zhou Haoting’s father’s looks and directly proposed a co-parenting arrangement with him. But after twenty years, learning news of him, her first concern was still his looks. Such a magical woman—Tian Tian silently gave her a thumbs-up.
Truly a role model for our generation.
But then again, thinking about Auntie Cai’s life—she had a house, land, money, a filial son, and her brothers and sisters-in-law around her. Her life was wonderful. She really had no need for a man.
Simply the life women dreamed of.
Meanwhile, Xiao Ming was reporting Zhou Haoting’s reaction to Zhou’s father, Zhou Wentang.
“Godfather, looks like Zhou Haoting has a lot of grievances against you. Godmother probably won’t give you a good face either.”
But Zhou Wentang shook his head. “Haoting’s mother is no simple woman.”
If she were a simple woman, he wouldn’t have agreed to her co-parenting idea back then. Given his situation at the time, ordinary people really wouldn’t dare get involved. Yet this extraordinary woman Cai Xiaomei dared to propose it to him. At the time, Zhou Wentang considered many things and ultimately agreed to her idea.
Looking back now, he still had to sigh at how simply he’d thought when young.
But thinking of having such an outstanding son, Zhou Wentang felt he’d made a huge gain.
It was all that damned He Cheng.
Back then, if not for their pursuit, he wouldn’t have fled to the mainland to hide. After he and Cai Xiaomei had a child, they came after him again. Only then was he forced to stay away from the mother and son.
Now that He Cheng had been eliminated by him, they could never threaten his family’s safety again. Only then did he muster the courage to return.
He just didn’t know if Cai Xiaomei and his son would hate him.
But no matter what, he would definitely use the rest of his life to make it up to the mother and son.
So, early the next morning, Zhou Wentang brought Xiao Ming directly to the home appliance factory.
Zhou Haoting looked at the familiar yet strange man before him and really didn’t know what to say. Familiar, of course, because he’d grown up looking at photo-dad. Strange, of course, because photo-person had become real-person—that gap was hard to accept.
And Tian Tian, sitting beside Zhou Haoting, also didn’t know what to say.
This was honestly a bit awkward.
After a long while, it was Xiao Ming, the scheming one, who spoke up.
“Hey, today’s a good day. Zhou Haoting, this is Zhou Wentang. You should recognize him, right!”
Zhou Haoting ignored him. Instead, he looked directly at Zhou Wentang. “Mr. Zhou, may I ask if you coming directly to our door means something? If it’s business cooperation, please contact our business department directly.”
Zhou Wentang suddenly smiled. “Alright, let’s talk cooperation first.”
Tian Tian sat on the side with a completely dumbfounded expression.
This… this family reunion scene had taken a 360-degree turn. It had directly become business cooperation.
And Zhou Wentang really did place a big order directly. It guaranteed that Zhou Haoting’s home appliance factory would run at full capacity for the next year.
As for Tian Tian, she wasn’t left out either. Zhou Wentang directly threw in an order for ten containers of bikinis.
She pointed at herself in surprise. “Really that many orders!”
Xiao Ming spoke up at the right moment. “Of course. In business, we talk business. We can’t just mess around. If we were going to mess around, we might as well just give money directly.”
Seeing this, Tian Tian didn’t stand on ceremony. “Alright then, I won’t be polite with you.”
Receiving a big order out of nowhere, she also found Zhou Wentang and Xiao Ming a bit ridiculous.
With this opening, Zhou Wentang ignored Zhou Haoting’s desire to see him off. He began recounting his experiences over the years and his grudge with He Cheng.
It turned out that in his youth, Zhou Wentang had been a financial analyst at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. He’d helped quite a few wealthy Hong Kong people manage their portfolios and made them a lot of money. However, once, while investing for He Cheng’s boss, there was a major loss. The market environment was bad that time—it wasn’t a trading error on his part. But the other party insisted he pay back double.
As a trader, of course he wouldn’t pay. If he really paid, how could he work in this field anymore? Investment has risks; it’s impossible to guarantee a hundred percent profit.
Because of this, the other party put a hit out on him.
“Luckily, I was an orphan, so I didn’t have to worry about implicating family. I got wind of it in advance and fled to the mainland with everything I had. Then I met your mother, and we had you. I originally didn’t want to leave again. Wherever you live is still living! But He Cheng’s people found their way to the door. If I didn’t leave, I’d implicate your mother.”
Speaking of those years, Zhou Wentang still felt aggrieved. Although he’d counter-killed the people who chased him to the mainland, he still had to keep running.
“Xiao Ming’s father, on his way to work back then, happened to run into He Cheng’s people coming to kill me. At that time, I’d already held a wedding banquet with your mother. Naturally, he stepped in to help me. In that situation, once he helped and showed his face, he could only run with me.”
Zhou Wentang felt Xiao Ming’s father had indirectly died because of him. So all these years he’d been very self-reproachful. He treated Xiao Ming like his own son.
After hearing his story, Tian Tian felt like she’d watched a thrilling Hong Kong movie. She knew about Hong Kong’s chaos in those years. So many villagers had relatives there—naturally they’d heard plenty about people being hacked in the streets.
So she wasn’t surprised by Zhou Haoting’s father’s choices.
But none of this had much to do with her. In this regard, she followed Zhou Haoting’s lead entirely.
And Zhou Haoting looked directly at Zhou Wentang. “I understand. I think you need to tell my mother this face to face. And also my several uncles and aunts. All these years, thanks to their care, my mother and I have lived so easily.”
Zhou Wentang nodded repeatedly. “Of course. They’re all my benefactors. Can I go back to the village tomorrow?”
Zhou Haoting nodded.
Today wasn’t possible. Judging by the man’s appearance, he’d probably made a lot of preparations. He himself also needed to tell his mother and uncles in advance so they could be mentally prepared.
And a day passed quickly.
Around eight in the morning, several high-end sedans drove into Tianfu Village. It immediately attracted a lot of attention.
Mainly because cars weren’t rare, but several luxury cars were a bit rare.
When Zhou Wentang got out, all the villagers who’d followed the cars to watch were even more shocked.
Any middle-aged or elderly person in the village recognized Zhou Wentang. After all, the young man had come and gone like a gust of wind in their village. And he had such a handsome face. Almost no one had forgotten him.
Village head Uncle Cai could only direct a few of his brothers to help, and only then was Zhou Wentang pulled from the crowd into his sister’s house.
Once the courtyard gate was closed, Zhou Wentang discovered the whole courtyard was full of people.
But he wasn’t afraid at all. Dragging his body missing a leg, he shuffled step by step to Cai Xiaomei.
“Xiaomei, I’m back.”
Cai Xiaomei nodded calmly. “It’s good that you came back safe.”
Zhou Wentang touched the missing part of his leg and nodded. Yes, although he’d lost half a leg and aged so much, he’d come back. He’d come back after taking revenge.
Then Zhou Wentang once again recounted his experiences over the years in full.
After he finished, no one in the Cai family courtyard spoke. After a long while, Uncle Cai finally said, “So now that you’re back, do you want to rekindle things with Xiaomei?”
Hearing this, Cai Xiaomei quickly waved her hand. “No, no, no, brother. My dear brother! My life is so carefree now! Besides, Zhou Wentang is old.”
The implication was: old and no longer handsome.
Zhou Wentang naturally understood Cai Xiaomei’s personality well and said with a bitter smile, “Brother Cai, like I said, all these years I was busy with revenge. I never found anyone else. Now that revenge is done, I’m not saying I want to get back with Xiaomei or anything. I just want to quietly accompany Xiaomei and Haoting, and live some normal days.”
Uncle Cai nodded. Zhou Wentang’s experiences over the years made it hard to blame him even if you wanted to. Besides, back then, his so-called cooperation with his sister—the whole family knew about it clearly.
It was cooperation back then, as agreed. So they wouldn’t blame this person for it.
“Then how do you want to arrange things?”
Zhou Wentang said, “I want to buy a plot of land in the village and build a house to settle down.”
“Alright, that can be discussed.”
Zhou Wentang quickly said, “Brother, no need to trouble you with this. I’ve already made contact with the government.”
Hm?
Everyone was puzzled. Buying a plot of land to build a house—how did that involve contacting the government directly?
And a week later, everyone knew why.
Tian Tian looked at the planning map Xiao Ming personally brought over, her face shocked again.
For no other reason than that Zhou’s father’s so-called “buying a plot of land to build a house”—the land he bought was really too big. And the area was exactly the commercial district around the village that she’d known about in her past life.
On the planning map, this plot had a commercial district and some commercial housing, exactly matching the planning from her past life.
So, in her past life, this place had been developed by Zhou Haoting’s father.
This result was completely unexpected to Tian Tian.
This was really… how to put it—fate? Or destiny? Anyway, Tian Tian didn’t understand it either.
And Xiao Ming was now asking them which areas they wanted.
Tian Tian and Zhou Haoting exchanged a glance. Neither held back. They directly asked for two plots near the shopping mall. They planned to build their own brand direct-sale stores there.
Time flew by, and soon a year passed.
The empty land from back then had become a complex of buildings.
Tall, towering office buildings, neat and uniform. Stylishly decorated shopping streets. In short, everything was pretty much the same as in her past life.
As for the factory and rental building Tian Tian and Zhou Haoting had been building, they were long since finished. And because construction had started earlier, they were already in use.
Zhou Haoting’s factory, for example, had started operation a month ago. And Tian Tian’s rental building was rented directly to Zhou Haoting’s factory workers. The rent wasn’t much, but the steady stream of rent in the future would be a hen that laid golden eggs.
As for business, Tian Tian was absolutely proud.
After all, with Zhou Wentang, the big boss of a trading company, Tian Tian’s clothing brand had directly made a name for itself abroad. Although it wasn’t a high-end brand yet, it could already count as a mid-range brand.
And Zhou Haoting, needless to say, had ridden all kinds of fast tracks. His home appliances spread widely across the country. He exported some exquisite small appliances. He was very famous in the industry.
Of course, none of this was the main point. The main point was that today, Zhou Haoting had actually proposed to her.
Two years after they met, today, Tian Tian was proposed to.
The two were in the factory director’s office of the new home appliance factory. Tian Tian had come to drop by. After all, she’d handed off most of her work. Usually she mainly handled securing orders.
So as usual, she came to drop by, but when she opened the door, the entire factory director’s office had turned into a sea of pink.
And Zhou Haoting was standing amid pink balloons and a sea of red roses, kneeling on one knee before her.
“This…” Tian Tian nervously touched her hair. Her outfit today was very casual. Looking at Zhou Haoting in his suit and leather shoes, she felt it didn’t quite match.
As if reading her mind, Zhou Haoting chuckled softly. Then he directly took off his suit jacket and tossed it aside. Then he loosened his tie and tossed that out too. Then he undid the top two buttons of his collar.
Good. A proper, buttoned-up handsome man instantly became a handsome man with a touch of unruly charm.
Tian Tian grinned and rushed over, jumping straight onto him.
“Why propose today all of a sudden?”
She looked at the big diamond ring on her finger and tilted her head at Zhou Haoting.
Zhou Haoting lowered his head and kissed her, then smiled. “Did you forget? Two years ago today, we just met. The first time I saw you, I knew I was done for.”
Hearing this, Tian Tian immediately pinched him. “Done for, what do you mean done for…”
Zhou Haoting held her tighter. “Yes, yes, yes, not done for. It’s that I fell in love with you.”
Tian Tian looked up and kissed his Adam’s apple, then said softly, “I love you too!”
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