Chapter 142 Him... he'll agree.
Tan Zhaojing stepped on the gas and drove the car to the backyard of the old house. Even from a distance, Butler Zhao could feel the hostility emanating from the young man.
He stepped forward and stopped him from barging in, saying, "The old man is asleep. Come another day."
Tan Zhaojing sneered, "Then I'll trouble you to drag him out of bed."
Butler Zhao: "..."
The door behind him opened from the inside, and the old man said with a cold face, "Let him in. I want to see what he wants!"
Tan Zhaojing stepped into the room clutching the documents. Without any preamble, he tossed the documents in front of the old man and said, "We've completed our Series B funding. Use it to exchange for my freedom to marry. You won't lose out."
The old man didn't open it, or even look at it. "You think I don't know? Do you really think I didn't know what you were doing during that month-long business trip?"
Tan Zhaojing's eyes darkened. "So, you're still insisting?"
The old man made his stance clear: "There is no room for negotiation on this matter."
The thought of his grandson being seduced by love made him furious. He pointed at Tan Zhaojing and shouted, "Tan Zhaojing, don't forget who you grew up with!"
Tan Zhaojing listened without any emotion. "Yes, I will take care of you, but there are prerequisites. If you hadn't seen my potential, you wouldn't have kept me by your side. For you, profit comes first. So from now on, I will give you whatever you want with both hands, and don't stop me from getting what I want."
The old man narrowed his eyes. "I'm afraid that's difficult."
As soon as the words were spoken, the study fell silent. A faint aroma of tea lingered in the air, but as the fragrance dissipated, the distance between them grew even stronger.
After a long pause, Tan Zhaojing finally spoke, his voice deep and cold, "Does it have to be this way?"
“It’s not that I want to do this, but you forced me to,” the old man said, his thick eyebrows furrowed as he stared at his grandson. He hated him for his lack of ambition and his single-minded pursuit of pleasure.
"I've already tolerated your father marrying Mingxian enough, and now you want to tell me you're going to marry your girl? What will outsiders think! It's one thing for the father to be infatuated, but now the son is also bewitched? Where will we put our faces?"
After saying that, he turned his back and said, "Come on, the choice is yours, father and son. Choose whichever you choose!"
******
The night was deep, and the study was dark. The only light was a touch of scarlet on a fingertip.
Amidst the deathly silence, the phone rang. Tan Zhaojing's eyelids twitched slightly as he looked at the screen and answered it.
"dad."
With just that one word, Tan's father could already sense the dejection in his son's tone. This was probably the first time he had ever seen Zhaojing in such a state.
It's time for him, as a father, to do something for his child.
She chuckled. "You don't need to worry about me, and don't feel guilty. Your Aunt Ming and I will continue to be family."
Tan Zhaojing knew very well that he was not faced with a difficult choice; from the moment the girl learned the truth, there was only one option.
He slowly exhaled a puff of white smoke. "Zaoyi isn't crying anymore, is she?"
Mr. Tan was unaware, "He went to the second-floor room with your Aunt Ming."
Lin Zaoyi had indeed stopped crying, but she would still sob occasionally. Mingxian sat to the side, not saying a word, just patting her daughter's back.
Once she had calmed down somewhat, she spoke softly, "Could you listen to me just this once?"
Lin Zaoyi's tears, which she had finally managed to stop, were about to spill over again because of her mother's words. She struggled to hold them back, "I can't listen to that."
He propped himself up on his mother's legs, wiped the remaining moisture from his face with his clothes, and said, "Mom, I can't agree to that."
She swallowed hard. "How could I... how could I..."
She choked back a few words uncontrollably, "How could I let you divorce Uncle Tan?"
"So what?" Mingxian smiled nonchalantly. "You know your mother is career-oriented, and it just so happens that Haicheng is a good place for her—"
"Mom!" Lin Zaoyi's heart ached to the extreme. She tried her best not to blink, but tears still fell from her eyes. "What you're doing will only make me feel guilty for the rest of my life!"
As the girl cried, Mingxian's eyes also reddened. "But I can't let you follow in my footsteps. Back then, I had no choice, but it's different now. You have a choice."
She brushed the strand of hair that had gotten on her daughter's lips aside. "Zaoyi, will you listen to Mommy just this once?"
"No!" Lin Zaoyi shook her head frantically. "Mom, I can't do it..."
That night, no one in the Tan family slept properly, including Tan Jiani. She was both angry and crying, and almost cursed her grandfather's ancestors, but then she remembered that they were her ancestors and swallowed her words.
After hastily finishing her breakfast, she stopped Lin Zaoyi in the courtyard and asked, "Will you break up with my brother?"
As she asked the question, tears streamed down her face.
She knew that the answer was unselectable.
Either Dad and Aunt Ming separate, or Brother and Lin Zaoyi separate.
Unable to resist, she hugged Lin Zaoyi, "Don't cry, sob sob sob, I want to cry whenever you cry."
Half a minute later, one stared blankly into a certain place, while the other sobbed uncontrollably. Finally, the father pulled his daughter away, wiping away her tears with his slightly rough fingertips, and said, "Go to work."
Immediately, he patted another girl on the shoulder and said, "Zaoyi, don't feel guilty. We're just doing what parents should do. It's nothing."
Lin Zaoyi nodded silently and turned to walk into her mother's car.
Tan Jiani wasn't in the mood for work. She sobbed, "Dad, is there any other way...? How about we just be stubborn this once and break off our relationship with you and Grandpa? That stubborn old man, no—"
“Jiani,” Tan’s father gently interrupted his daughter, “You can be willful, but I can’t.”
Tan Jiani's large tears fell in a steady stream, "Then you and Aunt Ming..."
Mr. Tan said gently, "You can still call her Aunt Ming from now on."
Tan Jiani doesn't think so. How could Lin Zaoyi let Aunt Ming and her father separate?
******
Lin Zaoyi concealed her emotions very well; from the moment she stepped into the office, she showed no signs of anything amiss.
The morning was generally busy, with only the task of reviewing manuscripts. After finishing, she took the application form and went straight to her mother's floor. Inadvertently, she overheard her colleagues talking about her mother's upcoming transfer.
She had to chime in on this topic, saying, "It's all rumors; President Ming won't leave."
Sister Shan came over, looking surprised. As President Ming's assistant, how could she not know her boss's plans?
Lin Zaoyi didn't say much, but calmly said, "Sister Shan, President Ming really won't leave."
He pointed towards the office and asked, "Is President Ming here?"
Sister Shan nodded, "Yes, I am."
Hearing the door open, Mingxian looked away from the documents. The first thing she noticed was the A4 sheet in her daughter's hand, but she couldn't see it clearly from the distance.
"What is that?"
"You'll know once you take a look."
Lin Zaoyi walked around to her mother and leaned against the edge of the desk, her posture a feigned relaxation, "I need you to open a back door for me."
Mingxian glanced at it, and the next second, her brows furrowed. "I disagree."
You must agree.
There was a moment of silence in the office. When she spoke again, Mingxian's voice was a little hoarse, "Didn't we agree that I would stay by your side? Now that you're gone, how can I stay by your side?"
Lin Zaoyi's eyes welled up with tears, and she pinched herself to distract herself, saying, "But I also need to improve."
I swiped my phone screen to show my mom the screenshot of my grades. "It wasn't entirely through back channels. One of the application requirements is that those with a CFA charter are given priority, and I happen to have one."
Mingxian had always known that this girl was excellent, and it was within her expectations that she would pass, but she could not agree to her application to be stationed abroad.
As a mother, she was selfish, "I couldn't rest easy."
“I’m 22, and I don’t weigh 22 pounds.”
Lin Zaoyi went around to the back of the chair and hugged her mother. Perfectly, from this angle, her mother couldn't see her crying. She gently parted her lips and said, "Mom, staying in Jingbei will only make me worse. I don't want to see myself like that..."
Mingxian's eyes welled up with tears in an instant, her fingertips gently stroking the back of her daughter's hand, "Over in Zhaojing..."
"Him..." Lin Zaoyi's eyes were brimming with tears, "He will agree."
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