"That goes without saying." Chen Yutian would in fact have liked nothing better than to run this mission alongside Qiu Lingshan; it was only that phone call she had made earlier that left him tangled up inside.

"Since there's nothing else, perhaps Major Chen can be on his way?" Qiu Lingshan asked, looking at Chen Yutian.

"Well... now that business is settled, may I ask you something personal?" Chen Yutian was still unwilling to let it go.

"What personal matter?" Qiu Lingshan knew perfectly well what he wanted to ask, but she said, "You may ask. I may also choose not to answer."

"Ha... it's like this. The person you called earlier — is he your boyfriend?" Chen Yutian had decided that if he was to give up, he would give up knowing the truth.

"Not yet. But I'm pursuing him." Qiu Lingshan thought for a moment, then said.

"You... pursuing him?" Chen Yutian's eyes went wide.

"What, is that not allowed?" Qiu Lingshan laughed to herself. Surely now you'll give up?

"It's not that it's not allowed, it's just a bit strange..." Chen Yutian shook his head. "The way you spoke on the phone — it didn't sound like you. He's a doctor?"

"Something like that..." Qiu Lingshan told the truth. Wei Zhao could hardly be counted a professional doctor, after all. Half of one, at most.

"Something like that?" Chen Yutian was slightly taken aback, not quite grasping what "something like that" was supposed to mean. "Didn't you swear before that you'd find yourself a man stronger than you? He's a doctor — how could he be stronger than you?"

Chen Yutian was rather aggrieved. Qiu Lingshan hadn't been stringing him along all this time, had she? She had talked about finding a man more powerful than herself, and now she had taken up with a doctor?

"Stronger than me, yes. Who told you a doctor can't be stronger than me?" Qiu Lingshan frowned. "Your logic was flawed to begin with. Besides, he isn't really a doctor — he only plays one now and then."

"Plays one..." Chen Yutian smiled bitterly. "Then I suppose I never had a chance at all?"

"You never did." Qiu Lingshan said it without the least courtesy. "First, you're not my type of man. Second, I've already broken through to the late Yellow Rank. Do you think you could surpass me?"

"Late Yellow Rank!" Chen Yutian drew in a sharp breath of cold air. How many days had it been? Only days ago Qiu Lingshan had just brushed against the barrier of the late Yellow Rank, and now she had already attained it? Such a terrifying rate of advancement was rare even among the great families!

"You don't believe me?" Qiu Lingshan asked.

With that, the true qi within Qiu Lingshan's body instantly gathered into one. The aura of that moment secretly startled Chen Yutian. So it truly was the late Yellow Rank...

"I believe you!" Chen Yutian sighed. "But this friend of yours — he's even stronger than you?"

"He helped me break through..." As she said this, Qiu Lingshan could not help flushing slightly. Thinking of that day in the basement, she felt a scorching heat over her whole body — that she could actually break through under such humiliating circumstances! Still, to say Wei Zhao had helped her break through was fair enough; after all, he had been the one she was fantasizing about at the time...

"Looks like I really can't compare..." Chen Yutian had been crushed by Qiu Lingshan into giving up almost entirely. "By the way, he's not some old man, is he? There's no one of the younger generation stronger than you, is there? Grandpa Song wouldn't agree to you marrying a man so much older, would he?"

That was Chen Yutian's only remaining hope.

"No." Qiu Lingshan answered lightly. "If you want to know, you'll see him at the hospital tomorrow."

Qiu Lingshan left him in suspense, not saying Wei Zhao's name outright. This matter was better kept a little mysterious.

"All right..." Chen Yutian sighed in disappointment.

...

Mother Tang held the bank card and the account statement, beaming so wide she could not close her mouth.

She had never in her life seen so much money. Three million! A full three million! Add the five hundred thousand from before, and it came to three and a half million! Was she now one of those legendary millionaires?

"Old Tang, look at this statement — are those four zeros? And thirty-five in front, seven digits in all?" Mother Tang held the statement, fondling it as she questioned Tang Jucheng.

"It's three and a half million. You've shown it to me more than ten times now." Tang Jucheng was quite calm about it. Too much had happened in this household lately, but ever since Wei Zhao appeared, things at home had plainly been getting better and better.

"That broken leg of yours was well worth it!" Mother Tang joked.

"Oh, give it a rest." Tang Jucheng laughed at himself. "My leg? In their eyes it probably wasn't worth a single cent. It's been broken before, hasn't it? I lay in that bed for all those years — did we get one cent out of it? If not for Wei Zhao this time, never mind three million — I doubt they'd have given us thirty thousand!"

"I was only joking!" Mother Tang knew as well that there was no telling how Wei Zhao had gotten the money, but Wei Zhao had the means all the same — he had broken the leg of the chairman of someone's Qibing Real Estate, and the man still had to pay him compensation!

As Mother Tang and Tang Jucheng were talking, Tang Yun pushed the door open and walked in. Seeing both her parents' faces wreathed in smiles, she could not help but find it strange. "Dad, Mom, what are you two talking about that's got you so happy?"

"We're talking about this three million! Xiao Yi really is something, getting three million out of them just like that?" Mother Tang happily waved the bank card and the statement in her hand. "Tell your mother how you got it out of them."

"Nothing much. Wei Zhao just gave Zhao Qibing's underling Li Cihua's little brother Li Dilei a beating, then Li Cihua came to beg for mercy, and Wei Zhao demanded three million from him for Dad's medical expenses..." Tang Yun sketched the general course of events. For fear her mother would worry, she left out the particulars.

"Ah?" Mother Tang and Tang Jucheng both stared wide-eyed at once. That worked too? You beat up someone's little brother, and they still have to pay you three million? That was too much, too domineering! But the more domineering Wei Zhao was, the happier she was — only this way would their family never be bullied again! So she said, "I was actually thinking of buying a cheaper place tomorrow, in a bad location, something we could just make do with. Now it's fine — with this much money, we can afford any kind of house at all!"

"Then let's buy a nicer one..." Tang Yun knew this money was in fact much the same as what Wei Zhao had given their family. Wei Zhao could have demanded three million from Li Cihua outright; her father's medical expenses were merely an excuse for Wei Zhao to hand them money.

But it was also because of that excuse that Tang Yun could not refuse it. It was only right that Li Cihua compensate her father! Even though, without Wei Zhao in the middle of it, their family might not have gotten a single cent.

Fastest updates; for pop-up-free reading, please.