Chapter 1735 — The Scheme Begins

"Mm... all right, then. I'll keep an eye out for you," Wei Zhao said. "Though whether anything turns up, I can't promise."

"Great, thank you so much! Get in touch the moment you hear anything!" Qiu Lingshan said.

Wei Zhao shook his head and hung up. Sure enough, no sooner had the call ended than Tang Yun's came ringing through.

"Yunyun, where are you two? I've finished up here — shall I come find you?" Wei Zhao asked.

"Wei Zhao, we're at that supermarket we always go to..." Tang Yun said. "I wanted to buy... buy Grandpa Lin a little gift, but I don't know what to get. Tell me, what should I buy?"

"How could I do that? Mom says when you meet your elders for the first time, you have to bring something!" Tang Yun thought to herself that if even her mother — stingy as she was — said so, then it must be a very important courtesy indeed.

"Then just buy a few bottles of Erguotou," Wei Zhao said after a moment's thought.

Old Man Wei loved his drink, but he begrudged the money and always brewed his own; only when his own stock ran dry and the new batch wasn't ready would he go to Widow Wang's grocery for a bottle of Erguotou to tide him over. To be honest, though Old Man Wei's skill in medicine was formidable, his skill at brewing left much to be desired — the liquor he made was weak, which was why he much preferred Erguotou.

In the old days he'd often press Wei Zhao into drinking contests, but once he discovered that Wei Zhao could drain a thousand cups without falling over, Old Man Wei declared: "Erguotou is wasted on you — you can keep me company on water."

"Erguotou?" Tang Yun was taken aback. She knew that kind of liquor seemed to be very cheap. When her father's legs had gone bad, he would often pour himself a drink whenever something weighed on his mind, and Erguotou was what he drank — so it certainly wasn't expensive. But to give it to an elder... wasn't that a little inappropriate?

"Yes. Buy him a whole case to take home — his favorite thing is Erguotou with fennel beans," Wei Zhao said. "If you buy him foreign liquor instead, he won't be used to it."

"Wait for me, you two. I'll come find you." Wei Zhao went downstairs, got in his car, and headed for the supermarket...

Meanwhile, inside the buffet restaurant, An Jianwen was eating doggedly with a face full of misery, and An Mingyue was at his side helping him!

An Mingyue simply couldn't bear to let his son eat all that alone, so he ate alongside him.

Had An Jianwen not feared being caught on camera and losing face, he would have smashed a plate and stormed out long ago! But if he really were put up on display, the name of the Fourth Young Master of Songshan would be thoroughly disgraced!

"Dad, how did it go? Everything go smoothly?" An Jianwen asked, making conversation between bites to help his food go down.

"Very smoothly!" An Mingyue said. "That hypnotist is truly formidable — whatever I said, Gu Pengzhan believed. Without him, we could never have coaxed Gu Pengzhan out so easily! To think he could work his hypnotic arts over the phone!"

"Haha, of course. He's a formidable man sent by the Vice Hierarch to help me rake in the money — he and Dr. Yin are both formidable, both core figures of the Fire Wolf Gang!" An Jianwen said smugly. "He could hypnotize even an idiot, let alone an ordinary man like Gu Pengzhan!"

"Jianwen, your standing in the Fire Wolf Gang has already surpassed mine. Well done! Who knows, one day you might even enter the Gang's inner circle — and then our An family's meteoric rise will be only a matter of time!" An Mingyue said approvingly.

As for this son of his, An Mingyue truly didn't know how to appraise him. He was far bolder than An Jiande; his deeds looked rash and half-witted, yet each time he managed to rake in great sums for the Fire Wolf Gang, leaving An Mingyue with nothing to say.

"Still — having the hypnotist and Dr. Yin run private errands for our family, won't they take issue with that?" An Mingyue asked, lowering his voice.

"Them? Right now, my word carries absolute weight in front of them! While working for the Fire Wolf Gang, one must also secure some benefits for one's own family," An Jianwen said, shaking his head with an air of pride. "It happens to be a rest period now, so they'd only be idle anyway. Doing a little something for me — even if the Fire Wolf Gang found out, they wouldn't say a word! My contributions to the Gang exceed others' by hundreds of times!"

"That's true enough!" An Mingyue sighed. His son now had the capital to be proud — the Fire Wolf Gang's core resources could now be mobilized at his command, which showed how highly they valued him. He was right: in the spare time between raking in money for the Gang, earning a little for one's own family was no crime.

"This time we must leave no way out — drive Gu Pengzhan into a corner, so that I can make Gu Mengyao marry me!" At the thought, a flame of longing kindled in An Jianwen's eyes.

"Jianwen, with your present wealth and ability, what kind of woman couldn't you find? Why are you so fixated on Gu Mengyao alone?" An Mingyue couldn't quite fathom his son's thinking. Though the Gu family had Wei Zhao for a backer and seemed formidable, in truth An Mingyue didn't take them seriously at all!

They were merely a family of the mundane tier — even the hidden families An Mingyue considered of little use! So in his view, once Gu Pengzhan's business was swallowed up, Gu Mengyao would be nothing but a fallen heiress. Was she really worth An Jianwen's trouble?

"Father, you don't understand — this is a fixation from childhood!" An Jianwen said. "If I never have Gu Mengyao, I shall regret it all my life. Perhaps once I have her, I'll find it's nothing special — but so long as I don't, I'll never be reconciled!"

"Very well. Since you want to do it, then do it! You're grown now, and you know what you're about." An Mingyue stopped trying to dissuade him.

"One more thing — keep the swallowing of the Gu Group clean. Don't let the Gu family catch on. I don't want to play the villain and earn Gu Mengyao's resentment!" An Jianwen said. "I mean to have her body — and her heart as well!"

"Rest easy. I'm a veteran of the business world, if nothing else — I can handle a trifle like this. Besides, with the hypnotist's help, there's certainly no problem!" An Mingyue said.

"Good." An Jianwen nodded in relief. "By the way, I hear my dear elder brother wasn't too happy about things, and has come back to work again?"