Chapter 1641 — Wei Zhao's Analysis

That was why Wei Zhao had decided to make the trip with Tang Yun. If it were only an ordinary birthday banquet, then he and Tang Yun and the rest could simply go as ordinary people and join the celebration—no harm in that, just a bit of fun.

But if the Hidden Tang family had an ulterior motive this time, then all the more reason for Wei Zhao to go and see what was really going on. If they truly meant something by it, then whether Tang Yun's family went or not, they would have a follow-up move prepared; better, then, for Wei Zhao to go and see for himself.

These past few days Tang Yun's mother had been ready to burst with rage, grumbling at home: after all this time, a chance at last to return home in glory, and what does she get for bearing a daughter? A disobedient girl who moves into someone else's house and won't come back! Phone calls got her nothing but vague brush-offs, and there was not a thing she could do about it.

She harped on it to Tang Jucheng all day long, and he could only smile bitterly. He knew that his wife had not been like this when they first married—but time is a carving knife, and it had remorselessly reshaped her character.

Earlier, when they married and when Tang Yun was born, they had gone to the Hidden Tang family to be entered in the rolls and been given the cold shoulder—but so be it; back then she had not thought much of it. As for a great house like the Hidden Tang family, she had assumed they could never expect any care from it.

But after Tang Jucheng's leg went bad, her character turned mercenary, petty, out for every advantage. Still, there was no help for it—she was one woman holding a whole household up, and Tang Jucheng understood that well.

Especially when she had begged help from the Hidden Tang family—her own kin on one side, her own younger sister on the other—and the letter had sunk like a stone in the sea. That she bore the Hidden Tang family a grudge was only natural.

Of course, that was because she did not know how hard her sister's own life was. Had she known that her sister was shut away in the "cold palace" day after day, she might not have thought that way at all; nothing would have been left but pity.

In the end, it came down to the pressure of life. Had she lived in silks and dined on delicacies, she would never have become what she was now.

So Wei Zhao mostly just laughed off her temper, and never took offense.

Tang Yun might not yet understand how hard it had been for her mother to raise her alone, but one day, when she became a mother herself, she would understand what her mother had endured.

The two of them went together to the Tang family's new apartment. When Tang Yun's mother saw that her daughter had finally brought Wei Zhao back, she was overjoyed, her eyes narrowing to slits. "Yun'er, Xiaoyi, you're here? What would you like to eat? I'll make it—barbecue?"

"No need, Auntie, we've just eaten." Wei Zhao smiled wryly. "I came this time mainly to look into this business of going to that Hidden Tang family of yours."

"Ah, good, good!" The moment she heard this, Tang Yun's mother knew he had agreed, and she gave her daughter a thumbs-up. She thought Tang Yun had put in a good word for her—when in fact Wei Zhao had wanted to come all along.

Tang Yun's mother rambled on, telling Wei Zhao everything about the Hidden Tang family, including the cold looks she had been given and how little the rich cared for their own blood.

Wei Zhao listened quietly, never showing impatience. Some offhand remark of hers might well conceal a piece of information that mattered.

Tang Yun felt rather helpless. Over this time she had matured a good deal, and had come to understand the tangle of feelings and resentment in her mother's heart. Whatever else, her mother might be greedy for gain, but she still loved her daughter; even that scheme to "give" her to Wei Zhao in exchange for money had rested on her mother's high opinion of Wei Zhao.

If it had been anyone else—when Zou Ruoming came to harass her, why had her mother not traded her away then? In time Tang Yun had worked these things out for herself, and she no longer misunderstood her mother as much as before. What remained now was only a touch of helplessness.

"Auntie, I do know a thing or two about the hidden clans." Another main purpose of Wei Zhao's visit was to talk her out of the notion of going to the Hidden Tang family to return home in glory and put on airs. So he gave her a brief account of what the hidden clans were like, then said, "With the little strength we have, they wouldn't even look at us..."

Tang Yun had in fact explained all this before, but her mother put far more faith in Wei Zhao's words. Their happy life today, and the healing of Tang Jucheng's leg—all of it was thanks to Wei Zhao, and she knew that this son-in-law of hers could do whatever he set out to do, and would surely set her mind at ease.

Take the lucky draw when they bought the apartment, for instance—small things like that Wei Zhao did not mind doing to satisfy her vanity. But the Hidden Tang family, from what he said, was truly a monstrous thing, and her idea of going back to show off had largely dissolved.

"Is that so... then never mind, we may as well not go! Hidden Tang family or not, what has it to do with us?" Tang Yun's mother said. "It's only that I wonder how my little sister is doing... All these years, not a word. And after I doted on her so when she was small!"

Other things she did not much care about; she expected no benefit from the Hidden Tang family. What she wanted was to see her little sister. Tang Yun's mother had one younger sister and one younger brother. The brother's family had also benefited lately—his boy Xiaowei had run up a debt and was about to sell a kidney, and it was Wei Zhao who had helped settle the matter.

And toward this sister, deep down, she still felt a great guilt. True, the letter she had written begging for help had gone unanswered, but she knew her sister must hate her. If she had not wanted to take her out for a bit of fun that day, if they had not gone to the Hidden Tang family, her sister would never have been noticed by the head of that house and kept there by force as a concubine.

So whatever the rights and wrongs of it, she missed this sister dearly. For all her talk, there was worry in her heart.

Faced with the tangled affairs of Tang Yun's family, Wei Zhao could only smile bitterly. "Auntie, your sister... may not have had an easy life in the Tang family either..."

He could tell as much from the way Zhao Guangyin, head of the Zhao family, treated Zhao Qibing. These hidden clans had little use for concubines or the children born of them. He did not know how Zhao Qibing had lately risen again, but before this he had certainly been given short shrift.

"Yes... Xiaoming must have her own difficulties. Otherwise, with the two of you so close, how could she not help us?" Tang Jucheng took it philosophically. "Wei Zhao is right, the Hidden Tang family is a complicated place, and Xiaoming may not hold any high position there. Otherwise, when we took Yun'er to the Tang family to be entered in the genealogy, why did the servants still treat us so coldly? Why were we refused even a single meeting with Xiaoming? That alone shows her word counts for nothing there."

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