"So what? Didn't he still get angry at you last time? Even though he's helped us for so many years, all he's given us is some insignificant assistance. The Lu family's core technology has never been handed over to us!" Mr. Xu said with dissatisfaction.
Lu Yanting did warn Xu Jingyan last time, and Xu Jingyan used three conditions to restore peace to the Xu family. She lowered her head somewhat guiltily.
"Alright! You can't let go of your white moonlight, and I won't force you. I promise you, I won't make a move on him now, but you still need to go see Lu Haifeng, okay?"
Xu's mother glanced at Xu's father, knowing that there was no escaping this matter no matter what, so she nudged Xu Jingyan's shoulder.
Xu Jingyan pursed her lips, and after a long while, nodded, "Okay, I'll go."
Qiu Mang didn't go to work today. She went out to the supermarket and was about to pay when her phone rang.
Looking at the caller ID, Qiu Mang hesitated for a long time before answering the call, which was about to hang up automatically.
"Ms. Zhang, is there anything I can help you with?" Qiu Mang asked in a flat and distant tone.
There was a pause on the other end of the phone, then she said, "Ah Mang, why are you calling me Ms. Zhang? That's too formal. I'm your mother..."
Qiu Mang took a deep breath. "Zhang Guihua, we agreed long ago that after I return the 500,000 yuan dowry to Zhao Gang, we will sever our mother-daughter relationship."
Zhang Guihua chuckled lightly, "Sever ties? You make it sound so easy! You crawled out of my belly! Don't you realize that without me, you wouldn't exist? This blood relationship can never be severed! In this lifetime, you'll never get rid of me!"
Qiu Mang had long been familiar with Zhang Guihua's shameless side, so he was no longer surprised.
But she hadn't contacted me for several months, so why was she suddenly calling me now?
"What do you want by calling?" Qiu Mang asked calmly.
Zhang Guihua smiled and said, "I heard you're doing very well in Guangcheng now! You're working as a mistress for a rich man, right? You must be making a lot of money. Perfect timing, your brother is getting married and is short of dowry money. How about you give him 300,000 yuan?"
Qiu Mang's pupils shrank. "Who told you all this!"
Even Ji Lun, who was very close to her, didn't know about her affair with Lu Yanting. How come Zhang Guihua, who was so far away, had such powerful connections?
"Never mind that, I'm just asking you whether you're going to give it to me or not?"
Qiu Mang bit her lip, "No!"
"You brat, have I wasted all these years raising you? I fed you, fed you, and sent you to school, and now you've forgotten your roots! You ungrateful, disloyal, and unfilial son, all those years of schooling have gone to waste!" Zhang Guihua roared angrily on the other end of the phone.
Qiu Mang let out a long breath before saying, "You need to handle your brother's matter yourself. I'm already doing more than enough by taking care of Qiu Li for you!"
Zhang Guihua scoffed, "Qiu Li? Do you expect me to raise her? If you won't raise that girl, just throw her into an orphanage. But now that you've made a lot of money, you have to take care of your brother's affairs! You have to give me the 300,000 yuan dowry, or who knows what I might do!"
Qiu Mang's eyes widened. She had always known that Zhang Guihua favored boys over girls, but she never expected it to have reached this point.
She suppressed her anger and said, "Zhang Guihua, Qiu Li is your own daughter. Don't you think it's going too far to say that?"
"So what if she's my own daughter? Daughters will all get married and leave the family eventually. They'll belong to someone else's family then, so why should I care about her? Besides, it wasn't easy for me to raise you and your sister. Now that I'm getting old, I'm hoping your brother will get married and have children soon so I can help take care of his grandchildren. I don't care about anything else!"
Qiu Mang's heart sank to the bottom. Zhang Guihua always managed to shatter her worldview time and time again.
She gritted her teeth and said, "Ms. Zhang, that's enough. If there's nothing else, I'll hang up now."
Zhang Guihua's angry voice came from the other end of the phone, "You slut, I didn't say anything to you when you were out fooling around with men, and now you want to lecture me? What are you pretending to be so high and mighty for? Just send the money, why all the nonsense? Anyway, the money you earn isn't clean. If you keep holding onto all this dirty money, you'll be in big trouble sooner or later!"
As Qiu Mang listened to the constant accusations and insults coming from the phone, he was about to hang up when he heard the woman on the other end say something.
"Qiu Mang, don't forget, you still owe me a son! If you hadn't lost my youngest son, I wouldn't have had another child at such an old age. It's just a pity that the child I gave birth to is just as worthless as you!"
Your brother, Qiu Ze, got lost while you were out playing! If you don't help me find Ze, you'll owe me a debt forever! I can never forgive you!
Qiu Mang felt that Zhang Guihua had gone mad. Suddenly, Han Feng's unruly and dissolute face appeared in her mind, and she gave a bitter smile.
“Ms. Zhang, perhaps it’s not such a bad thing that Aze left this family. It’s very possible that he now has loving parents and family and is living a carefree life. I wish him that you will never find him and that he will never know that he had such terrible parents!”
Qiu Mang's words struck Zhang Guihua's weak spot. Her hand holding the phone trembled slightly, her eyes filled with malice, and she was about to hurl a few angry words when she heard the busy tone from the receiver.
"That bitch dared to hang up on me! She's really gone too far!" Zhang Guihua cursed as she looked at the phone that had been disconnected.
"How are you?" came Qiu's father's concerned voice from beside him.
Zhang Guihua gritted her teeth and threw her phone heavily onto the table.
"Damn it, that brat thinks she's all grown up now and won't listen to anything I say! Not only will she not give me the money, but she also cursed me so I won't find my son. This is the worst I've ever been treated like this in my life!"
Mr. Qiu looked at Zhang Guihua and asked cautiously, "So, do you think what happened to her in Guangcheng is true or false? Could she have really hooked up with some rich guy? Should we do what that person said?"
Zhang Guihua's eyes darted around. "Never mind if it's true or not, didn't that person transfer money to us? Since they're so generous, of course we should do as they say!"
After settling Zhang Peng and the other three people in, Ji Lun returned to the hotel, checked out of his own room, and squeezed into a rented room with the four of them.
They all had a habit of exercising and would go for a morning run early in the morning.
After finishing their run, Ji Lun bought several large steamed buns for the group and they sat on a roadside bench to eat them.
Ji Lun unscrewed the bottle cap and took a big gulp of water. As he looked up, he suddenly realized that there was a supermarket downstairs from his rented apartment.
Through the glass, you can see that the shelves inside have very few goods, the supermarket owner is dozing off in front of the counter, and the word "Sublet" is particularly prominent on a cardboard sign at the entrance.
"Old Ji, what are you looking at?" Li Wei followed Ji Lun's gaze and asked, somewhat puzzled.
Ji Lun put down his water bottle, his gaze still fixed on the direction of the supermarket. "Brothers, how about we start our own business?"
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