Chapter 29: Parents' Little Schemes

"Beep, beep, beep."

"Hello, this is Tan Qingwu."

"Hello, Uncle Tan, this is Yang Tianxing. I'd like to speak with Tan Zhizhi."

"Ah, Tianxing, Little Zhizhi is resting. Call back tomorrow."

……………

"Beep, beep, beep."

"Hello, who is this?"

"Good morning, Uncle Tan. This is Yang Tianxing. Could you please let Tan Zhizhi take the call?"

"Little Zhizhi has gone out. Sorry about that."

……………

"Beep, beep, beep."

"Uncle Tan, this is Yang Tianxing. I'd like to speak with Tan Zhizhi."

"Little Zhizhi isn't back yet. Call back this evening."

"That's fine. Could you please pass on a message for me? Just tell her I'm heading back to school today."

Upon hearing this, the other end of the line went quiet, as if someone had covered the receiver. Yang Tianxing had good hearing and could vaguely make out Tan Qingwu's muffled voice: "He said he's heading back to school today..."

Yang Tianxing couldn't hear who was answering. After a long while, Tan Qingwu picked up the receiver and said, "Tianxing, I will pass the message along. Take care of yourself, and call your parents to let them know you've arrived safely once you're at school."

After hanging up, Tan Qingwu looked at Tan Zhizhi with deep concern and asked heart-achingly, "What on earth did you two fight about? Tell Dad."

Tan Zhizhi was wearing a cream-colored camisole nightgown, her hair disheveled, sitting on the sofa with her knees hugged to her chest. She looked haggard, her eyes still red and swollen, and her delicate, pointed face appeared even thinner.

She didn't say a word, just sat blankly on the sofa.

After Tan Zhizhi returned last night, she had locked her bedroom door from the inside, and not long after, Yang Tianxing's call had come in.

Not to mention Tan Qingwu's professional sensitivity, even from a father's perspective, Tan Qingwu understood that this matter was inevitably related to Yang Tianxing.

"Your mother will be off work and home soon. She's definitely going to press you for answers when she sees you in this state."

Tan Qingwu sighed and said.

This sentence finally had an effect. It seemed Tan Zhizhi didn't want her mother to discover anything, so she finally stood up from the sofa to wash up.

"Little Zhizhi."

Tan Qingwu suddenly called out to stop her and asked, "Are you and Yang Tianxing dating?"

Tan Zhizhi turned around abruptly and said firmly, "No! Not before, not now, and there absolutely never will be!"

Tan Qingwu shook his head helplessly. He was an experienced man and an expert in criminal investigation; he could tell at a glance whether his own daughter was lying.

At noon, Tan Zhizhi's mother, Ye Yulan, returned home from work. Seeing her husband washing vegetables in the kitchen, she took off her coat and went in to help.

"Where is Little Zhizhi?" Ye Yulan asked.

"She just woke up and is washing up."

Tan Qingwu took the initiative to smooth things over for his daughter.

Ye Yulan found it a bit strange: "She rarely sleeps in this late when she's on break."

"It's normal to sleep a few extra hours when on break."

Tan Qingwu pretended to be slightly impatient, so Ye Yulan didn't continue to press the issue.

After a while, Tan Qingwu pretended to chat casually and mentioned, "I remember you're quite close with Yang Jianjun's wife, right?"

"Gao Meilan?"

Ye Yulan said, "We were quite close before, but we've been in touch less lately."

"Then you should find time to invite her out for a meal. Friends should keep in touch more often," Tan Qingwu said while trimming vegetables.

"What's wrong? Is Yang Jianjun getting a promotion?"

Ye Yulan, who also worked within the system, immediately thought of this possibility.

Tan Qingwu laughed in spite of himself: "We're at this age, what promotion would we be thinking about? It's just to invite them out for a sit-down."

Seeing that her husband wasn't telling the truth, Ye Yulan didn't ask further. Tan Qingwu's work often involved confidentiality principles, and family members were not supposed to ask too much.

"Alright then. I'm going to help Little Zhizhi braid her hair, and I'll arrange it when I have time."

After Ye Yulan left the kitchen, Tan Qingwu wiped the water from his hands and sighed, "At our age, we've pretty much reached our peak. Now we need to plan more for our children."

……………

A similar scene was playing out in Yang Tianxing's home, though the atmosphere was completely different.

"Why is my life so bitter? I haven't had a single good day since marrying into the Yang family. I finally waited for my son to grow up, only to find he's a heartless dog."

Yang Tianxing was heading back to school before his break was even over, and Gao Meilan was nagging him from the side because she couldn't talk him out of it.

"Oh, Mom, I'm the class monitor now. My time doesn't just belong to me; it belongs to all the students in Public Management Class 2. When you're out in the world, you can't always do as you please."

Yang Tianxing spouted nonsense while packing his luggage.

"Pah! I really don't know what your head teacher was thinking, choosing you to be class monitor."

Gao Meilan knew her son; when he didn't want to tell the truth, spouting nonsense was the least of it.

Yang Tianxing had always packed his own luggage, and Yang Jianjun and Gao Meilan never interfered; this was a habit formed over many years. However, seeing two boxes of well-packaged Shiquan specialty cured meat in his bag, Gao Meilan asked, "Are these for your classmates?"

"No, these are for the head teacher," Yang Tianxing said.

This time, he had specifically brought local specialties for Xie Yu'an, firstly to thank him for settling the matter of Liu Lei hitting someone last time, and secondly to continue maintaining their personal relationship.

Yang Tianxing couldn't give even a dime of a red envelope to Xie Yu'an. Not to mention whether he would accept it, once it involved money so nakedly, this relative teacher-student relationship would immediately turn sour.

Before he left, Gao Meilan took out another 1,000 yuan for Yang Tianxing to take with him, but Yang Tianxing didn't want it at all: "I'm not short on money right now."

"How much is left of the 2,000 yuan in living expenses you took when school started?"

Gao Meilan was worried and insisted on getting a clear answer.

"I've used up about half of it."

Yang Tianxing said truthfully.

Gao Meilan was stunned for a moment: "It's only been a month, how did you spend it?"

In the past, when Yang Tianxing was in high school, the monthly living expenses for their family of three were only about 1,500 yuan; now that Yang Tianxing had gone away to college, the daily expenses for Gao Meilan and Yang Jianjun only came to a few hundred yuan.

"Eating, drinking, buying miscellaneous items; a man has to socialize, after all," Yang Tianxing said nonchalantly.

"You don't even have a girlfriend, yet you're learning to socialize like others."

Gao Meilan was almost amused to the point of anger, but she was also very curious: "Then if you've used half, why don't you want this 1,000 yuan?"

"I earned another 2,500 yuan elsewhere; the point is, I'm not short on money."

Yang Tianxing did not want to explain too much; he pushed the door open and said: "Old Yang, I'm leaving now. You two take care of yourselves at home; it's fine to bicker, just don't fight."

Watching Yang Tianxing's departing back, Gao Meilan suddenly felt a bit lonely: "Old Yang, do you think we're both getting old?"

"Why do you say that?" Yang Jianjun raised his head and looked at his wife.

"I feel like Tianxing doesn't need us anymore; he doesn't want money, he doesn't tell us things, he has his own world now."

Yang Jianjun smiled and gently put his arm around his wife's shoulder: "Isn't that a good thing? We can worry less from now on."

"That won't do!"

Gao Meilan arched her brows: "I still have to look after the children for this little brat; do you have any colleagues or friends with a suitable daughter? Let them get married as soon as they graduate from college."

"Maybe... possibly... I do?"

Yang Jianjun did not yet know that Yang Tianxing and Tan Zhizhi had already "broken up," and the image of that pretty girl could not help but surface in his mind.