Chapter 52#

“I heard Mr. Zhao has recently gotten in touch with the Zhou family?”

Ruan Cheng unhurriedly cut the steak in front of him. Although his head was lowered, he seemed to glance at Zhao Rong from time to time, as if trying to observe his expression.

The Zhou family was also a prestigious family in the Zhuxi area, not much different from Ruan Cheng’s family, and they were even somewhat at odds. In these past few days, the marriage contract between Zhao Rong and Lu Xingping had been finalized. Once the two obtained a legal relationship, a sum of money would enter his account, giving him naturally greater confidence and capital.

So Zhao Rong had gotten in touch with the Zhou family and similarly discussed investment issues.

Ruan Cheng found out about this, which led to today’s private meeting.

Zhao Rong sat on the other side, a faint smile on his face, revealing nothing of his thoughts.

Compared to the abundance in front of Ruan Cheng, there was only a bowl of hot soup in front of him, steaming and looking very light inside.

He took a few sips and said, “Calling it ‘getting in touch’ isn’t quite right; we just chatted a bit.”

Ruan Cheng paused his movements and asked him, “Oh? But I also heard that Miss Zhou had a very good impression of Mr. Zhao and contacted people to interface with Mr. Zhao after returning.”

“That’s because the conversation was very pleasant.”

“Does Mr. Zhao not know that some projects under the Zhou family’s control are in competition with us?”

“I’m just an investor.” Zhao Rong’s expression remained unchanged as he said calmly, “Miss Zhou has several entertainment companies over there that I’m very interested in. As for the rest, I have no other thoughts.”

Ruan Cheng narrowed his eyes and then spoke directly: “The capital needed on our side isn’t low. When we talked before, the confidence Mr. Zhao gave me was just enough. The Zhou family’s side also needs quite a bit. Mr. Zhao… how do you suddenly have so much liquid capital? If this fails to materialize, the Zhou family doesn’t have a good temper either.”

Zhao Rong didn’t speak, simply raising his hand to signal the waiter to bring the bill.

He maintained a smiling appearance from beginning to end. Perhaps because there had been no exhaustion or damage during this period and his mood was good, his complexion was much better than before.

Sitting there in a pure black shirt, every gesture was even more elegant than before.

Ruan Cheng knew he didn’t want to answer and shrugged: “Having not seen you for a few days, I always feel Mr. Zhao has changed a bit.”

He vaguely remembered that when Zhao Rong last attended the gala, he was still somewhat restrained, even saying his “ideas were simple.” But today, even when discussing such a sensitive topic, he didn’t show the slightest bit of cowardice, and even vaguely bypassed it.

Ruan Cheng thought of the rumors he heard about Zhao Rong after coming to Yang City, and the word “profligate” that anyone would mention whenever his name came up.

Is it that Zhao Rong changed, or was Zhao Rong like this before and is only showing it now?

“Maybe I haven’t changed,” Zhao Rong settled the bill and slowly rose, his tone unreadable. “It’s just that Mr. Ruan knows me better now. As for my cooperation with Miss Zhou, I didn’t inform Mr. Ruan beforehand; consider today’s meal my apology.”

The implication was that he was only apologizing for not notifying Ruan Cheng.

He left after saying that.

Ruan Cheng watched Zhao Rong’s retreating back, his fingertips tapping the edge of the table one by one, lost in thought.

After the waiter cleared everything on the table and left, he took out his phone and made a call.

“Qiao,” he said to the person on the other end, “I seem to have been played by Zhao Rong.”

Zhao Rong walked out of the restaurant, and the cold wind instantly brushed against his cheeks. After the first snow, Yang City had completely entered winter. Everywhere were desolate withered branches and fallen leaves, like visible cold.

Knowing Zhao Rong was afraid of the cold, Xu Xin had already parked the car by the roadside and opened the back door, waiting for him.

Once he got into the car, Xu Xin slowly stepped on the gas before asking him, “Xiao Zhao, you ate so fast? It’s only been less than an hour since I dropped you off.”

Xu Xin was the driver and assistant Zhao Rong had newly found a few days ago. He was in his thirties, slightly plump, and had a very peaceful appearance.

He was previously a manager in the Chen family’s company, but he didn’t have much to do with Chen Zehe and the others, nor was he involved in those dirty dealings; he was just an ordinary employee. After the Chen family fell, Xu Xin was stuck in a rut and couldn’t find a suitable job. It happened that Zhao Rong felt he couldn’t handle everything alone lately and met him while looking for an assistant, so he directly hired him with a high salary.

With his help, Zhao Rong was also more relaxed, and even his health had been well-maintained.

At this moment, Zhao Rong sat in the back seat, checking unread messages on his phone, and replied, “There wasn’t much to talk about. Ruan Cheng wanted me to give up cooperating with Miss Zhou.”

“That’s normal,” Xu Xin turned the steering wheel, driving towards the nursing home. “In that area, these two families seem to be the most prominent, and their relationship isn’t very good. When you asked me to interface with Miss Zhou’s people about the details before, I still felt it was strange. Won’t this make Mr. Ruan unhappy?”

The car drove steadily through the wide but crowded streets, bringing a rustling sound of wind that faintly circled outside the car, making Zhao Rong feel a bit sleepy.

He yawned and said, “It will. Actually, I could also invest the remaining liquid capital in Ruan Cheng, but…”

But the reason he reached out to others was first because he felt eggs shouldn’t be put in one basket, and second…

He vaguely felt Ruan Cheng was a bit off.

Since he and Ruan Cheng reached an agreement, besides what they had pre-arranged, Ruan Cheng often introduced him to various people. Sometimes he would suddenly send him messages, asking if he needed internal materials for certain project directions to look over and learn.

If they were very good friends, such planning for him would be understandable.

But they were just in a profit-related cooperative relationship, so why Ruan Cheng…?

So Zhao Rong did some research and deliberately contacted people from the Zhou family.

Today seemed like Ruan Cheng testing him, but it was actually him testing Ruan Cheng.

When he contacted the Zhou family, who were at odds with Ruan Cheng, behind his back, Ruan Cheng actually only asked him where the funds came from, without any pressure, threats, or even requests for him to give up the cooperation…

Seeing Ruan Cheng’s reaction at that time, Zhao Rong knew his guess was correct—Ruan Cheng must have some confidence he didn’t know about.

Zhao Rong said to Xu Xin, “Brother Xu, can you help me find someone with some connections to the Ruan and Zhou families to dig into Ruan Cheng’s network?”

“Sure!”

He stopped speaking, lowered his head, and idly handled the messages on his phone.

Liu Shun had sent him a long string, more than twenty unread messages, all of which were repetitive nonsense when opened.

Broadly, it said that Yu Xian had been unable to contact Zhao Rong and had found Liu Shun through roundabout ways, begging him like a grandfather to take him to see Zhao Rong, hoping Zhao Rong could plead with Qiao Nanqi for him and let him off.

The last message from Liu Shun said: “How about you meet him? He wants to apologize to you in person. Wouldn’t it be more satisfying to see this idiot beg for mercy?”

Zhao Rong replied to him: “The one he wronged is Miss Lu, what does it have to do with me? Qiao Nanqi might be venting anger for Senior; looking for me is useless. If you’re annoyed, black-list him.”

After a while, Liu Shun sent him a screenshot of the black-listing, his swift action making Zhao Rong laugh.

Then, he looked at other people’s updates on social media.

After scrolling for a bit, he first saw photos of Lu Xiaoyue traveling—Lu Xingping had taken her out to relax. Then scrolling further down, he saw an update with several photos of cats.

Those photos were all of cats, several squatting together, some lying down asleep. Each one was familiar to Zhao Rong—they were the litter of stray cats from Changxi Road. Before leaving Qiao Nanqi, he had entrusted them to a nearby pet shop.

The one who posted the update was a pet shop employee he had just added two days ago. The avatar was a large orange cat, precisely the largest one among those cats.

A few days ago, when Zhao Rong received the friend request, he thought something had happened to these cats.

But after he passed the friend request, the other party said they were a pet shop employee who had recently taken on an extra task of occasionally sending photos and following up on the status of cats boarded in the shop or about to be adopted, which was why they added Zhao Rong.

Zhao Rong vaguely remembered that the employee seemed to be a young girl.

In the past, when he encountered such things, he usually didn’t pay much attention. After all, he was deep in a quagmire himself with too many things to take care of, and he really had no heart to touch these trivial lives. But now, he was much more casual and no longer had any thoughts that needed hiding.

He didn’t think much of it and said “thank you” to the person, keeping them in his list. Although he wouldn’t bring these cats home because they represented the past he wanted to let go of, it was also good to occasionally see photos of them; they were, after all, little things he had looked after for ten years.

And this girl seemed to like those cats very much. She only posted photos of other cats once or twice in her updates, while the rest were all of the ones he boarded.

Even her avatar was.

Refreshing every day, he could always see some new photos. Every morning there would also be a few photos sent to him. He didn’t know if the lighting in the pet shop was bad, but there was clearly no daylight in the photos; they all looked like they were taken late at night.

For some reason, this girl didn’t talk much, sometimes not saying a word, sometimes only having a “Morning.”

Later, Zhao Rong found that she actually only sent him a small portion of photos; there were far more photos in her updates than in private messages.

When Zhao Rong woke up in the morning, he asked her: “I see you post a lot in your updates, why don’t you send them in private messages?”

The other side actually replied quickly: “Afraid of disturbing you, thinking you’d find it annoying.”

Hearing this, if Zhao Rong hadn’t clearly remembered that he had tactfully cut off any ideas this girl might have had on the day he boarded the cats, he would have thought the girl had other intentions.

Zhao Rong didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

He clicked on the cat photos in this new update one by one, saved two he thought were cute, gave her a “like,” and then scrolled past.

Before long, the car slowly stopped, but Xu Xin didn’t get out to open the door for him. Instead, he turned back and asked awkwardly, “Xiao Zhao, look…?”

Zhao Rong was stunned.

He turned his head and, through the car window, saw a man wearing an ink-black long trench coat sitting on a bench by the small path outside the small courtyard where Zhao Ming was. He was holding his phone, doing something unknown.

He withdrew his gaze, opened the back door himself, and said, “Brother Xu, you drive home directly. I’ll stay here with my mother today.”

He got out of the car and walked straight to Qiao Nanqi.

As he approached, the man heard his footsteps. Unknown what he was looking at on the phone, his first reaction upon seeing him was to somewhat flustedly turn off the screen, toss it into his pocket, and stand up to look at him.

His complexion wasn’t very good, and his earlobes were slightly red, perhaps from being outside too long in the cold.

In this state, Qiao Nanqi actually looked a bit like how Zhao Rong used to be when chasing after him.

Truly…

At this moment, Zhao Rong was actually a bit curious: if Lu Xingping didn’t have someone else in his heart and wasn’t uninterested in Qiao Nanqi, would Qiao Nanqi still be lingering here?

If Qiao Nanqi knew he and Lu Xingping were about to marry, would he stop hanging around in front of him and go stay with Lu Xingping instead?

Turning another thought, he felt this curiosity was truly boring, because it was already a question that had no meaning even if he knew the answer.

He lowered his eyes, his gaze falling on the long-withered branches in the distance. He stood still in front of Qiao Nanqi and said, “Is there something?”

Qiao Nanqi looked at him, his gaze deep.

The man took out a business card and handed it to him: “I asked someone to find a neurology specialist who is an expert in the direction of your mother’s illness. I’ve contacted him and said I have a… friend, a friend who will go to him. You can just call him directly.”

Zhao Rong glanced at the business card. The hand holding the card had distinct knuckles and slender fingers, and a very familiar-styled ring was still worn on the ring finger of his left hand.

He looked at the name of the doctor on the card. Under Qiao Nanqi’s expectant gaze, he raised his hand and pushed the card back.

“Thank you,” he said. “No need.”

Qiao Nanqi’s face stiffened slightly, still holding the card. For a moment, he seemed a bit dazed and at a loss: “Zhao Rong… I know you’re still angry with me, but this might improve your mother’s condition. At least give it a try, okay? You can act as if it has nothing to do with me and you don’t need to thank me…”

Zhao Rong shook his head.

He wasn’t a sharp person, and his deliberate outburst last time was already his limit. At this moment, he couldn’t bring himself to be angry, but rather felt somewhat helpless.

Only these helpless words carried a faint chill, piercing Qiao Nanqi’s heart even more with sudden cold.

“At the beginning of this year…” Zhao Rong spoke calmly, “My mother’s condition suddenly worsened. I took care of her for half a month straight and didn’t go home. Later, the attending physician told me her condition was deteriorating. I was truly worried and wanted to find a more specialized doctor.”

“But at that time, I only had myself. I went back…” He paused, “After that, at your place…”

He hadn’t found Qiao Nanqi, and there was no trace of him in the company either.

At that time, he still couldn’t resist making a call to Qiao Nanqi.

He had thought of relying on Qiao Nanqi.

The one who answered the phone at that time was Lu Xingping.

Hearing Lu Xingping’s voice, Zhao Rong was stunned for a moment. He only heard Lu Xingping say to him: “Nanqi might be a bit inconvenienced right now. I’ll tell him in a bit.”

Zhao Rong was silent.

He actually wanted to hang up the phone, but thinking of Zhao Ming, he suppressed the urge. After a moment, he said, “I’ll trouble Senior then.”

With Lu Xingping’s character, it was impossible for him not to have told Qiao Nanqi. But after that, Qiao Nanqi still didn’t have any response.

Later, he went through several layers of connections, begging people everywhere, even the fair-weather friends he usually drank with.

Memories returned.

Zhao Rong said slowly: “This doctor, I already found him myself half a year ago.”

“But I should still say thank you to you,” he said. “On behalf of the me from half a year ago who might have burst into tears of gratitude because of this business card.”