Chapter 21

He was the best boss in the world!

Pei Xingze cleared his throat and immediately said, "This was my oversight. I didn't consider that you might miss your family when you were sick. I'll have Assistant Meng drive over and bring your mother here."

Weng Shao shook his head. Clearly, he did not agree with Pei Xingze's idea. "President Pei has already treated me very well. Not many bosses would take care of a sick employee during work hours, especially a busy CEO like you."

Seeing the grateful look in Weng Shao's eyes, Pei Xingze instantly felt as if every bone in his body had become three pounds lighter. "You can't think that way. You're not just my employee; you're also my friend. Friends don't need to be so calculating with each other."

Weng Yingjie looked miserably at Pei Xingze, who had been sent floating by a single sentence from Weng Shao. His stomach was full of words meant to drive a wedge between them, yet he could not say a single one.

Unable to reason with him or curse him into submission, Weng Yingjie and his wife could only leave in disgrace after being left speechless. Before they went, Weng Shao even extorted ten thousand yuan from them as compensation for his phone.

Just as the two angrily reached the hospital entrance, they ran into Assistant Meng and Yu Huixin, who had hurried over.

Old grievances and new hatred combined, and Zhou Shujing immediately exploded. "What kind of mother are you? Weng Shao is seriously ill, yet instead of taking care of him at the hospital, you're out here showing off? As expected, since he's not your biological child, you just don't care!"

Yu Huixin had just gotten off work and was still wearing Lakeside Garden's cleaning staff uniform. The sight of it grated even more on Weng Yingjie and his wife. "You mother and son really are cut from the same cloth—equally lowly! One of you gave up being the third young master of the Weng family to become Pei Xingze's lackey; the other abandoned her husband at home and went to work as a cleaner for the enemy's company. And you still dare to parade around in that uniform... How disgraceful!"

Yu Huixin's face flushed red. "How am I lowly? How am I disgraceful? I support myself through honest work. I rely on my own hands to provide for myself and my child, and I haven't asked anyone else for a single cent. You two are Weng Shao's biological parents, yet you brought reporters when visiting a patient at the hospital. You really care about him, don't you?"

Assistant Meng stood right beside Yu Huixin, so naturally he could not stand by and watch the couple bully an employee of his company. "I think Ms. Yu Huixin earning money and supporting her family through her own abilities is a very noble thing. If Chairman Weng and Madam Weng truly believe that Ms. Yu working at Lakeside Garden disgraces the Weng family, perhaps you should reflect on why you hold such absurdly arrogant views. Could it be that after being capitalists for so long, you've come to look down on hardworking ordinary people..."

Before Assistant Meng could finish, Weng Yingjie's expression changed drastically.

"Of course we don't think that!" Weng Yingjie quickly said, glaring at Assistant Meng with dark eyes. "There's no need for you to make such a big issue out of this. We simply think that Sister-in-law left her husband, who is paralyzed in bed, unattended and came out to work as a cleaner. She can't earn much money, and she can't take good care of the family either. She's neglecting one thing while trying to handle another."

The reporters the couple had secretly brought into the hospital were still following behind them. Zhou Shujing immediately caught on and tried to patch things up. "Exactly! How much can she earn in a month as a cleaner at Lakeside Garden? The caregiver we hired for Brother costs eight thousand yuan a month!"

At that, Zhou Shujing shot Yu Huixin a harsh look. "Why are you making such a fuss? If you're willing to go back and take care of Brother, we can give you that money instead."

Yu Huixin had been trembling with anger at Zhou Shujing's words, but upon hearing this, she suddenly calmed down. She looked at Zhou Shujing strangely. "You said you spent eight thousand yuan to hire a caregiver?"

Before Zhou Shujing could react, Yu Huixin sharply demanded, "You'd rather spend eight thousand yuan on a caregiver than sponsor your own son's college education!"

"I think the truly lowly ones are you two." Yu Huixin stared at Weng Yingjie and his wife with undisguised disgust. "Not only are you lowly, you're also stupid, vicious, and incapable of seeing anyone else doing well."

"You—"

"What about me?" Yu Huixin impatiently cut Zhou Shujing off. "I'm not going back. I want to stay with my son. Besides, taking care of Weng Yingxiong was your responsibility in the first place. If he hadn't tried to save you back then, how could Weng Yingxiong have become disabled?"

"Weng Yingjie, you can't live without a conscience!"

After saying that, Yu Huixin held her head high and strode toward the elevators. As she passed the group of reporters, she did not forget to twist the knife. "You weren't hired by Weng Yingjie and his wife again, were you? How much did they stuff into your red envelopes?"

Before the reporters could respond, Yu Huixin added, "For all we know, the money they gave you could have been enough to support Weng Shao through college."

So who was really the one making a pointless fuss?

Watching Yu Huixin and Assistant Meng walk away in long strides, Zhou Shujing was so furious that her face turned purple.

"Fine. Very good. Let's see how much longer they can stay arrogant!" A cold gleam flashed through Weng Yingjie's eyes. Didn't Weng Shao love playing the victim in the news media? He would grant him his wish.

After Weng Yingjie and his wife left the hospital room, Teacher Chen and the Class One seniors who had come to visit Weng Shao also departed. Yu Huixin sat across from Weng Shao and said anxiously, "I ran into your second uncle and second aunt downstairs. Just like you said, I gave them a thorough scolding. I said some really harsh things... Will they fall for it?"

Weng Shao smiled slightly as he drank his porridge. "That depends on just how much they hate me."

He had handed them a ready-made weakness, like placing a generous stack of chips before a gambler who had lost everything. Whether they would take those chips and return to the table was actually easy to guess.

Before leaving Little River Village with Yu Huixin, Weng Shao had used the excuse that the mother and son were too busy making a living to care for someone bedridden and paralyzed, and left Weng Yingxiong with Old Master Weng.

No matter how energetic Old Master Weng was, his age was there for all to see. He simply did not have the ability to care for a bedridden, paralyzed patient.

It just so happened that Weng Yingjie and Zhou Shujing wanted to restore their reputations. They were eager to keep Weng Yingxiong and take good care of him, proving that they were not ungrateful ingrates. They had plenty of money and were willing to pay top dollar for the best caregivers to look after Weng Yingxiong.

But could Weng Yingxiong truly accept Weng Yingjie's lofty charity willingly?

The facts proved that Weng Yingjie's thinking had been too simple. Or rather, they had underestimated Weng Yingxiong's ability to cause trouble. Not one caregiver they hired at a high salary could tolerate Weng Yingxiong's explosive temper—he either hit or cursed them, and seemed determined to stir up trouble every hour of every day. None lasted more than two days before quitting.

Weng Yingjie and Zhou Shujing had no choice but to ask villagers to help care for Weng Yingxiong. Everyone in the village knew one another. Even though Weng Yingxiong was paralyzed and unable to have children, no one would let his wife care for a forty-something man. That left only male caregivers.

But the men in the village could barely take care of themselves. How could they possibly take good care of someone paralyzed in bed?

Within days, Weng Yingxiong could no longer endure it.

Back when he was paralyzed at home, Yu Huixin had worked while still caring for him meticulously. Even Weng Shao knew to handle his waste, massage him, and wash him down. But now, even when he urinated on the kang bed, no one paid him any attention.

Old Master Weng was advanced in years and could not endure his eldest son's daily screaming and tantrums either, so he could only have the villagers move Weng Yingxiong back to his old home.

Wasn't that simply leaving Weng Yingxiong to fend for himself?

Unwilling to be abandoned by his family again and again, Weng Yingxiong was deeply provoked and made even more of a scene.

Only when a person realizes that they are about to completely lose something—or someone—do they learn to cherish it, until regret sets in and fear takes hold.

"Do you know about the Abandoned Cat Effect?"

Yu Huixin shook her head blankly.

Weng Shao smiled. "It doesn't matter if you don't."

In any case, on the day after the villagers moved Weng Yingxiong back to the old house, he called Weng Yingjie and demanded that he bring Yu Huixin and Weng Shao back.

Yes, after all that trouble, Weng Yingxiong not only wanted his wife back—he wanted his son back too.

"Don't forget, Weng Shao was given to me so he could support me in my old age and bury me when I die. I raised him for eighteen years. Now that his wings have grown, he wants to abandon me?"

Weng Shao had not acknowledged Weng Yingjie as his biological father, refused to take Weng Yingjie's money, and had even attached himself to Weng Yingjie's enemy, Pei Xingze, planning to challenge his own biological father. This had once given Weng Yingxiong a secret sense of joy.

It was the excitement and anticipation of watching two tigers fight from the mountain, coldly observing a father and son tear each other apart. Unfortunately, before that dark, shameful joy—thick and foul like asphalt—could spread any further, Weng Yingxiong was dealt a crushing blow—

Weng Shao and Yu Huixin had actually abandoned him and gone to the city to live good lives on their own.

For the first few days after being abandoned, Weng Yingxiong still held back his resentment, wanting to prove that he could live well without them.

But Weng Yingxiong quickly realized that such a quality of life depended entirely on whether Weng Yingjie was willing to spend money on him.

Weng Yingxiong had been proud for most of his life and had even mistreated his wife and child, all for the sake of this pride. Yet now his wife and child had not spent a single cent of Weng Yingjie's money, while he had to depend on others for everything. Even the caregivers hired by Weng Yingjie could look down on him!

This realization crushed Weng Yingxiong's meager yet swollen self-esteem once again. Like a balloon inflated bigger and bigger, the instant it could no longer bear the pressure, it could only burst with a bang!

After it burst, there was nothing left. Secret shame, surging anger, and the emptiness after rage—every emotion reached its peak when Weng Yingxiong learned from the villagers that Weng Shao's life was getting better and more glorious by the day, and that he had even become the province's top scorer on the college entrance exam.

At the thought that Weng Shao's future would be as bright and dazzling as Weng Yingjie's, Weng Yingxiong felt as though his organs had been soaked in sulfuric acid.

He could not accept Weng Shao and Yu Huixin abandoning him to live good lives. He was afraid that Weng Shao and Yu Huixin would truly abandon him and go on to live good lives.