Chapter 2576 — Chen Xi's Gratitude

"There shouldn't be any danger. You know my skills, and your brother's are no less than mine. Besides, he has plenty of teammates fighting alongside him—nothing will go wrong," Wei Zhao said.

"R-really?" Doubt suddenly swarmed Ying Ziyu's heart. She remembered someone telling her before that once the mission was done, her brother had stayed behind on his own to carry out a long-term surveillance assignment. So how could there be teammates? And even if it was surveillance, surely he couldn't go without contacting his family?

"Of course it's true. You know how it is—during a mission you have to follow discipline strictly, no contact with family. So give it a few more years and your brother will be back. By then the mission will be successfully completed, and he can spend the rest of his life living it up on his pension!" Wei Zhao naturally had no idea that Ying Ziyu had already received a reply. He was still going by his own assumptions: Yang Huaijun and the Pangolin were on a mission together, so there must be plenty of teammates—how could he know he'd put his foot in his mouth?

"Oh…" Ying Ziyu was suspicious, but she didn't ask again. Her brother's work had always been dangerous; what will be will be, and what must come cannot be avoided. Chen Xi would be out any moment, and it wasn't the time for questions that would sour the mood and spoil the atmosphere.

"Don't worry, Ziyu. Your brother should contact our people in a while, and I'll tell you the latest news then." Wei Zhao's heart ached. He was fairly certain now that the Pangolin had been turned into a cyborg, but this was truly hard to bring himself to say—he didn't know how to tell Ying Ziyu.

"Mm…" Ying Ziyu nodded.

Chen Xi finished changing and pushed the door open. She was wearing a loose, baggy loungewear set that swallowed up her dainty little figure entirely, leaving Ying Ziyu speechless! If you're changing clothes, couldn't you pick something young and a little sexy? What's with the giant sack?

"Xiaoxi, if studying is too tiring, you should stop scavenging. I just had a talk with your Grandpa Zhu—I found him a proper, respectable job with good pay, so he won't need to scavenge anymore. The money he earns can help cover some of your expenses." By saying this, Wei Zhao not only explained why he'd been talking with Foreman Zhu downstairs, but also solved the problem of Chen Xi scavenging every day on top of studying and not getting enough sleep.

"Ah…" Chen Xi's face flushed pink with shyness. She hadn't expected Wei Zhao to care about her so much—to go out of his way to arrange a job for Grandpa Zhu just so she could study properly and not lose sleep! As far as Chen Xi was concerned, Grandpa Zhu was just an old scavenger. What respectable job could possibly suit him? What could he even do? If Wei Zhao had arranged a job for him, and a well-paid one at that, then it must surely be for the sake of subsidizing her.

(Foreman Zhu: I'm crying here—I'm a Earth-rank expert, you know! I'd make good money just guarding some rich family's house!)

Thinking of all this, Chen Xi felt deeply grateful, though a little worried too: "Arranging a job for Grandpa Zhu—won't that be a lot of trouble?"

"Heh, no trouble at all." Wei Zhao smiled. "Actually, Grandpa Zhu is quite good at running errands and the like."

Ying Ziyu was covering her mouth to hide her giggles. Clearly Chen Xi had no idea how formidable Foreman Zhu was. Ying Ziyu had been astonished when she first saw Foreman Zhu step in to teach Tyrant Chen a lesson, but after she learned his identity—that he too was an expert and one of Wei Zhao's men—she wasn't so surprised anymore.

"Then… I'll thank Wei Zhao-gege on Grandpa Zhu's behalf." Chen Xi knew Wei Zhao had already made the arrangements; all she could do was say thank you.

"All right, I'll be going. You two rest up at home, and get to bed early. If you run into any trouble in the future, just look for Grandpa Zhu, or Zou Ruoming." Wei Zhao rose to take his leave.

"Wei Zhao-gege, you're leaving already?" Ying Ziyu was reluctant to see him go. It had been so long since Wei Zhao last came by.

"It's getting late today. Another day I'll come earlier and treat you both to dinner! Final exams are coming up soon, aren't they? Get good grades and I'll reward you properly!" Wei Zhao said.

"How good is good? Xiaoxi is already first in her year—I doubt the finals will change that. I'm a bit behind, but I should still make the top ten of the year…" Ying Ziyu could hardly imagine that there'd come a day when she actually studied hard, and that she could even rank in the top ten of the whole year at a school like Songshan No. 1 Senior High, where talent was thick on the ground.

"Mm, just keep it up at that level," Wei Zhao said with a nod.

With Ying Ziyu and Chen Xi seeing him off, Wei Zhao left their home. What he hadn't expected was that downstairs from Chen Xi's building, his car had been completely blocked in by a BMW. Wei Zhao was a little annoyed at first, but when he saw who got out of the BMW, he was immediately amused!

The visitors were none other than Zou Tiandi and Zou Ruoming!

"Great God Lin!" Zou Tiandi came charging out of the car the moment he saw Wei Zhao come downstairs. He had already received an unambiguous signal from the hidden Zhuang family: they were prepared to back him to take over some of Li Cihua's business in Songshan City and officially become the hidden Zhuang family's spokesman!

At first Zou Tiandi had been rather dazed, unable to believe that such a top-grade windfall had actually landed on his head! The hidden Zhuang family was a force to be reckoned with—and didn't they already have Tyrant Chen as their spokesman in the neighboring city? Why would they suddenly want to move into Songshan City?

Besides, wasn't Songshan City the territory of Li Cihua, spokesman for the hidden Zhao family? Once they moved in, what would become of Li Cihua? But the hidden Zhuang family's very next words set Zou Tiandi's mind at ease: Zhuang Niaoqiang told him plainly that the hidden Zhuang family was now working under Wei Zhao as well. Zou Tiandi was instantly like a man injected with chicken blood—he got the contact number for Foreman Zhu, learned where Wei Zhao was at that moment, and hurriedly brought Zou Ruoming along to drive over and thank Wei Zhao.

"What are you two doing here?" Wei Zhao was rather surprised. How had these two ended up here? It was normal enough that they knew Chen Xi's address—after all, they often protected Chen Xi and Ying Ziyu in secret—but how did they know he was here?

"Great God Lin, the hidden Zhuang family has already notified me—they're making me their spokesman. I got word of you from Mr. Zhu, so I rushed over the very first moment to thank you!" Zou Tiandi said, ardent and excited.

"Oh, so you already know. Good, then. Work hard from now on—but do legitimate business, don't get mixed up in crooked, underhanded things. You should have a clear idea of how Tyrant Chen and his son died!" Wei Zhao warned him mildly. He didn't want Zou Tiandi and his son to become men who bullied others and lorded it over women. The Zou family had some gray-market interests too, but they weren't as utterly unbridled as Tyrant Chen.

For the fastest updates, please read without pop-ups.