CH 22

Despite Mr Zhen giving Yue Gu Zai the boot, Yue Gu Zai walked to the car in a dignified fashion.

Inside the car, Yue Gu Zai acted his usual calm self except he wore a sour expression and emitted a dissatisfied vibe.

Of course the Bai fox could hear Yue Gu Zai’s dismal meeting with Mr and Mrs Zhen, he was eavesdropping at the door. The Bai fox didn’t feel an ounce of guilt, it was his duty to understand his boss’ moods and know what advice to give when necessary.

‘Boss, if you want Mr Zhen to accept you as a son-in-law, you need the support of three people,’ Bai Yu Tian said. ‘The first person is Miss Zhen Zhen. As long as she supports you, Mr Zhen can’t overlook his daughter’s happiness and overtime he’ll accept you. But Miss Zhen Zhen isn’t aware of her own heart so she’s not a feasible solution.’

Yue Gu Zai rubbed his eyelids, Bai Yu Tian holding back laughter was detected by his sharp eyes. Even if the heavens and earth were in chaos, Bai Yu Tian wouldn’t disappoint his years of training Bai Yu Tian.

‘The second person is young master Zhen Wu,’ Bai Yu Tian said. ‘Mr Zhen definitely loves his grandson. If young master Zhen Wu sulks and put in a good word for boss, there’ll be two possible outcomes. One, it’ll soften Mr Zhen’s heart or two, Mr Zhen will be more guarded toward boss because he’ll think you want to take his grandson away from him. Two is the most likely outcome. It’s hard for Mr Zhen to understand why an irresponsible man who abandoned his daughter would suddenly have a change of heart and want to get back in his good books. Mr Zhen can only reason boss wants to steal his beloved grandson.’

Yue Gu Zai hated to hear himself being accused as an irresponsible man abandoning a pregnant Zhen Zhen. His eyes darkened while the eavesdropper Bai Yu Tian was caught and knew Bai Yu Tian’s next mission would be somewhere remote.

‘The third person and the most vital is boss,’ Bai Yu Tian said.

Yue Gu Zai creased his eyebrows, he was curious about Bai Yu Tian’s reasoning.

‘Boss, there’s a book called striking the psychological heart,’ Bai Yu Tian said. ‘And a saying called sincerity can overcome tribulations. Mr Zhen is someone raised from the old school era. If boss makes the effort to show Mr Zhen your sincerity and other good traits then you’ll achieve your goal. Overtime, Mr Zhen will naturally accept you.’

‘What good traits am I supposed to show?’ Yue Gu Zai asked.

‘Hmmm… boss is a responsible man…’ Bai Yu Tian said.

Bai Yu Tian’s eyes gleamed brightly. ‘A good man… is someone who’ll sacrifice his body for the woman he loves and makes her a ring by hand even if it looks ugly.’

Yue Gu Zai didn’t understand the meaning of sacrificing body and making a ring.

‘Boss, if you want to be a good man, you need to show sincerity,’ Bai Yu Tian said. ‘A good man is also a man who would fight with a group of crooks to protect the woman he loves even if he can’t defeat the crooks on his own.’

Yue Gu Zai was skeptical about losing a fight. For years, he hadn’t lost a fight with another person. Why wouldn’t he be able to defeat a group of crooks on his own? It wasn’t possible. Was he supposed to pretend to lose to another person? That would be a hard task, his muscles were too trained and would automatically counteract another person’s strikes.

‘Boss, honestly a good man is just someone who always protects the woman he loves,’ Bai Yu Tian said.

Yue Gu Zai looked skeptically at Bai Yu Tian.

‘On a rainy night, a good man would stand in the rain below the bedroom window of the woman he loves,’ Bai Yu Tian said. ‘He’ll ring her phone and tell her that he forgot his keys. After she throws the keys out the window, she’ll find out he’s standing in the rain, holding a bouquet of roses and she’ll call out his name.’

Yue Gu Zai didn’t think it was a practical plan. He and his wife lived in a home that used security codes instead of keys. How was Zhen Zhen supposed to throw him keys?

‘Boss, this is called a good man is a romantic man,’ Bai Yu Tian said. ‘A good man will slip a gold card under his lover’s pillow while she’s sleeping. He can’t give the gold card to her directly otherwise it’ll look like he’s calling her a gold digger.’

Yue Gu Zai didn’t know what gold card to give to Zhen Zhen. Whenever he was out he never needed to use a gold card. It was Bai Yu Tian who managed his bills. Where was he supposed to find a gold card?

‘Boss, a good man is someone who takes care of his woman,’ Bai Yu Tian said. ‘He knows how to cook, do housework and doesn’t have a cold face like boss’ face right now.’

Yue Gu Zai leaned back on his seat and acted like he didn’t hear Bai Yu Tian’s advice. But he silently thought about how he could show he was a good man.

Later that night, Yue Gu Zai naively stayed awake thinking about when it would rain at night. He looked out the window for a minute, it was raining. He grabbed the car keys and sped to Zhen Zhen’s parents’ house.

At Zhen Zhen’s parents’ house, Zhen Zhen was lying in bed thinking about what happened after her dad found out Yue Gu Zai was Zhen Wu’s dad. Her dad looked like he wanted to pick up a blade and behead her. She admitted she was a chicken and didn’t dare to tell her dad the truth. If her dad knew she lied to him for years, he would beat her to death. Then she thought about her dad kicking a triad boss like Yue Gu Zai out the door, she was worried Yue Gu Zai’s pride was hurt. Yue Gu Zai was a prideful man who would hate to be accused of being an irresponsible man. She felt like she wasn’t human, but a pig head.

Zhen Zhen hugged a bed pillow and continued to berate herself. Suddenly she heard someone softly knocking on the back door beneath her bedroom. She didn’t know who would knock on a door in the middle of night while it was raining. A gust of wind collided with the window and produced a scary noise. It reminded her of a scary movie she watched, a murderer crept through the victim’s bedroom window on a stormy night. She was too scared to look at the bedroom window.

Zhen Zhen pretended she didn’t hear anything and played dead on the bed. But the soft knocking on the door continued and made her heart beat in a panicked rhythm. A bright lightning forced her to look out the window and she saw an outline of a person below the window. She wished she had fainted. If she was unconscious then she wouldn’t see anything, because she was too scared to face that person.

After Yue Gu Zai broke through Zhen Zhen’s window, she panicked.

‘Oh, good timing,’ Zhen Zhen lied.

Zhen Zhen wanted to bite off her tongue. What good timing? Why would a full belly person have nothing better to do than running to her parents’ house to climb through a bedroom window?

Yue Gu Zai’s body was drenched in rain water. He wanted to strangle the Bai fox to death. What good was standing in the rain below his wife’s bedroom window?

‘You’re wet,’ Zhen Zhen said. ‘Do you want to shower and change into dry clothes?’

Zhen Zhen regretted her chicken words. What shower? What change clothes? She should have been brave enough to ask Yue Gu Zai what was wrong with him to make him run to her parents’ house and stand in the rain. But she was a chicken and didn’t have the guts to demand an explanation and kick him outside.

Yue Gu Zai nodded and Zhen Zhen smiled sweetly at him.

‘Let me help you find dry clothes to wear,’ Zhen Zhen said.

Zhen Zhen found one of her dad’s nightclothes in the dryer and snuck back to her bedroom the same time Yue Gu Zai came out of the bathroom. His body was wet and he wrapped a bath towel around his waist. Her face and ears turned red. She put her dad’s nightclothes on a table, grabbed another towel to help dry his wet hair.

‘Later change into the dry clothes I put on the table,’ Zhen Zhen said.

‘Um,’ Yue Gu Zai said.

Zhen Zhen’s throat turned dry at the sound of Yue Gu Zai’s husky voice. She really wanted to ask him why he was standing in the rain, but she didn’t dare.

During an awkward silence, Yue Gu Zai was thinking about when was the right time and enjoying the sensation of Zhen Zhen’s fingers drying his hair.

After a while, Yue Gu Zai gave Zhen Zhen a gold card.

‘What is this?’ Zhen Zhen asked suspiciously.

‘All my savings are linked to this gold card and there’s no spending limit,’ Yue Gu Zai said.

‘Are you giving this gold card to me?’ Zhen Zhen asked hesitantly.

Yue Gu Zai stared intensely at Zhen Zhen’s eyes for a while.

‘If you don’t like me then you can return your copy of our marriage certificate,’ Yue Gu Zai said. ‘Besides, it’s just a piece of paper.’

Zhen Zhen swallowed her saliva and she didn’t know why Yue Gu Zai’s eyes were so mesmerizing.

‘That’s not my intention,’ Zhen Zhen said. ‘I just want to know why you’re giving your gold card to me.’

Zhen Zhen wasn’t a pauper. Why did she need to accept Yue Gu Zai’s gold card?

‘If I’m giving it to you, just take it,’ Yue Gu Zai said. ‘You don’t need to ask so many questions.’

Yue Gu Zai put the gold card on Zhen Zhen’s hand.

Zhen Zhen thought Yue Gu Zai masked his shyness under anger. What was good about an ordinary gold card? It was easier for her to accept the gold card. She let Nan Ma manage her bank account so it wasn’t a big deal that his savings were linked to the gold card. She thought he gave her access to a couple of millions.

‘Is this gold card linked to a lot of money?’ Zhen Zhen asked.

‘Um, a couple of billions,’ Yue Gu Zai said.

Yue Gu Zai didn’t know the exact amount, but he knew his savings weren’t a small balance.

‘What… a couple of billions?’ Zhen Zhen asked and stopped drying Yue Gu Zai’s hair. ‘What if I’m not careful and lose it?’

‘If it’s lost then it’s lost,’ Yue Gu Zai said. ‘I want to sleep.’

Yue Gu Zai immediately laid on Zhen Zhen’s small bed.

Zhen Zhen laid next to Yue Gu Zai. She was carefully holding the gold card in her hand and mumbling what would happen if she lost it.

Yue Gu Zai hugged Zhen Zhen on the small bed. He was happy they had to stick close to each other so they wouldn’t fall off the bed, and thought about swapping their big bed in their home for a small bed.

Zhen Zhen had no choice but to sleep on the cramped bed. Luckily she didn’t know the gold card she was holding was linked to hundreds of billions otherwise she would have stayed up all night.

***

End of Chapter Twenty-Two