Chapter 1613: Discredited
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
No matter how brilliant a woman was, she would still get muddled once she got old. The mourning period had not even pa.s.sed, but the Zhou family was using such excuses to refuse to attend Qiao Zijin’s funeral. That was seriously foolish, but utterly brilliant at the same time.
Zhou Zheng had gotten married at such a sensitive time. She did not feel as though she owed the Zhou family a favor because Qiao Zijin had cheated on Zhou Zheng. But could she really not hate Zhou Zheng for doing this at such a time? He was practically insulting them. She was practically already a saint for tolerating the Zhou family even though their relations.h.i.+p was thoroughly strained.
She fought relentlessly with Qiao Zijin and could never get along with her. But both of them shared the same surname. If her relations.h.i.+p with Qiao Zijin was really so strained, would she let Qiao Zijin marry into the Zhou family to lead a good life? Anyone with a brain would know that that would be impossible.
Qiao Nan had always felt that her disagreements with Qiao Zijin were the Qiao family’s problems. There was no need to air their dirty laundry out in public. At the same time, she had never thought of letting outsiders know about their strained relations.h.i.+p as long as Qiao Zijin did not overstep her boundaries.
Qiao Nan was all too clear about her status. Even if she had not entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she was the Zhai family’s daughter-in-law. As long as she revealed just a hint of her disharmony with Qiao Zijin, Qiao Zijin would probably have a hard time trying to lead her own life not just in Ping Cheng or the capital, but half of China!
Zhou Zheng never had any say in how she wanted to deal with Qiao Zijin.
Zhou Zheng had done a terrible job in not being angry toward Qiao Nan. His tone was especially difficult to listen to when he was trying to explain the situation to Qiao Nan. Zhou Zheng’s ecstatic tone and att.i.tude made it seem as though he was Qiao Nan’s creditor. Because of what Qiao Zijin had done, Qiao Nan owed him a huge favor.
Such uncalled for confidence had to go!
All Mother Zhou’s efforts before had all been ruined by Zhou Zheng’s one call!
In short, Zhou Zheng’s style and att.i.tude had already reached Qiao Nan’s bottom line. Even though bad things struck her one after another, and her relations.h.i.+p with Qiao Zijin had been so strained, she had always still been able to say that the dead should be respected in the end. But who would have expected that Zhou Zheng had an even more ruthless and vicious att.i.tude than Qiao Nan? It was no wonder Qiao Nan was fuming.
If all her acc.u.mulated negative emotions were really to explode, it would not be a small matter.
After hanging up the call, Qiao Nan looked at Qiao Dongliang, who was angrier than she was. “How long has it been since Zijin got divorced from him? And he’s getting married already? I knew it. I knew it wasn’t Zijin’s fault. It’s definitely Zhou Zheng’s fault. He’s getting married so quickly. It must be that he already had an affair even before getting divorced from Zijin! Zijin was being falsely accused! Zhou Zheng must have wanted to be with his mistress, so he purposely set Zijin up and accused her of an affair to force her to get a divorce! Nan Nan, I won’t blame you if you don’t care about this matter. But I’m Zijin’s father. I must get to the bottom of this. I must make Zhou Zheng and the Zhou family apologize to Zijin!”
Qiao Dongliang had just raised his suspicions when that bold Zhou Zheng made such a call that could be easily misunderstood. It was really no wonder that Qiao Dongliang was infuriated.
Qiao Nan pursed her lips. “Sometimes, it’s better to do than just to say. Dad, believe me. Don’t investigate this matter. If you try to investigate it, it’ll only be shameful to our Qiao family. Don’t you remember that the guy Qiao Zijin had found outside was Chen Jun? Zhou Zheng may have married his ex-girlfriend, but Qiao Zijin had also gotten into a relations.h.i.+p with her ex-lover and ex-boyfriend. The Chen family has much higher standing than the Zhou family in Ping Cheng. If Zhou Zheng really only meant to smear Qiao Zijin’s name to force her to get a divorce so that he could marry his ex-girlfriend, do you think that Qiao Zijin’s partner would be Chen Jun? Zhou Zheng isn’t so daring.”
“If he dared to do so, he should realize that once anything happened to him or the Zhou family, it would already be magnanimous of our Zhai family as long as we didn’t add salt to the injury or deliberately get revenge against them. When they got into any trouble, they shouldn’t expect our Zhai family to help him in any way. Besides, if the Zhai family didn’t render help, the Zhou family wouldn’t be able to deal with the Chen family alone. If this matter was really orchestrated, you wouldn’t even be the first to act on it. The Chen family would have long ago made a mess of the Zhou family.”
Wronged?
If this matter was truly false, Chen Jun would be the first to refuse, and he would even cause a ruckus in the Zhou family. For such a setup, one could not possibly pick just any person. At the very least, the Zhou family and Zhou Zheng could not afford to offend the Chen family.
Qiao Dongliang was especially unwilling to accept this fact. Now that Qiao Zijin was gone, even if it was too late, Qiao Dongliang still wanted to do something for Qiao Zijin as a father. It was just that Qiao Dongliang was not Ding Jiayi and was still rational.
Hearing Qiao Nan’s a.n.a.lysis, he knew that Qiao Nan was right. If the Zhou family did not understand the times and looked at the Zhai family’s reputation, Qiao Dongliang knew that there was no way Qiao Zijin could have married into the Zhou family on her own account.
Similarly, if Zhou Zheng was going to malign Qiao Zijin, the Zhou family would definitely have been prepared for the Zhai family to find out about it. If the affair was fake, they had even implicated Chen Jun. How could Chen Jun endure the Zhou family discrediting him in this manner?
One was the Zhai family, and the other, the Chen family. The Zhou family could not even afford to offend the Chen family. How could they even dare to test the limits of the Zhai family?
“So, what do you intend to do? I really… can’t accept that Zhou Zheng got married so quickly. No matter what, I won’t let this matter rest just like that.” Since Zhou Zheng dared to treat Zijin like that, he had to get revenge on Zhou Zheng.
Qiao Nan sighed. “Dad, if I don’t care about this, how do you intend to get revenge on the Zhou family?”
“…” Qiao Dongliang’s face flushed as he cradled his head in anger without speaking.
How would he get revenge? He had no power, no manpower, and no money. How would he get revenge? He had said that he was unhappy with Zhou Zheng’s att.i.tude and wanted to get revenge. Unless he really went up to Zhou Zheng and gave him a good beating, there was nothing else he could do.
Zhou Zheng had gotten married so quickly and refused to allow Zhou Ying to attend Qiao Zijin’s funeral. It was just that Qiao Dongliang was unwilling to let Zhou Zheng get his way just like that. But Qiao Dongliang really lacked the ability to do anything that would teach Zhou Zheng a good lesson. The only thing he had left was his daughter, Qiao Nan.
Actually, Qiao Dongliang had been beating around the bush the whole time. What he had in mind was for Qiao Nan to teach Zhou Zheng a lesson.
Qiao Dongliang scratched his scalp and sent the helve after the hatchet. “Nan Nan, Zijin is already gone. Don’t be so stingy with a dead person. Didn’t you say that we should respect the dead?”