Tang Jianan"s engagment caused such an uproar, everyone was shocked.
Not to mention anyone from the Tang family, even Old Madam Tang felt it was useless to to get angry. Tang Zhan and his a.s.sistant leisurely vacationed from Paris to New York, indulging in their pleasures. Since he said it was for business, who would dare refute him, and besides, the company was signing contracts with big clients every day. Tang Haoyun was completely sh.e.l.lshocked, suddenly feeling like he did not understand this little brother of his his at all. Ever since they were young, he was always so frivolous, not taking any matters to heart. But no matter what, he shouldn"t have chosen to kick up a fuss at such a time,—unless, unless he did it because…? When such a daring thought emerged, he scolded himself internally, not daring to think further—it was just, Qian Zhongshu(1) once said that to rid someone of an idea that already sprouted was as difficult as trying to get a pregnant woman to get an abortion.
Even Xia Yao, Yu Manwen, Wu Nianzhen, etc. all shut their doors and refused to come out. Especially Xia Yao, she unplugged all of the phones in her house and tightly shut her doors and windows, not even daring to open the blinds. Her manager had always carried an ambiguous att.i.tude, intentionally misleading the media, causing everyone to really believe that she was going to marry rich. In the end, he turned around and proposed to someone else. This was such a big loss of face, she was too ashamed to face anyone. With her as the cushion to soften the blows, Yu Manwen and Wu Nianzhen were not as depressed. The news outlets tried to retrace the steps of Tang ershao‘s relationship, writing in detail about this girlfriend. The number of visitors to their websites greatly increased and the discussion forums exploded, people speculating everywhere.
And then there was Zhou Xinzhu who was even more shocked than the Tang family members themselves. This woman was too unbelievable. Wasn"t she Fang Botao"s woman? How did she suddenly become Tang Jianan"s fiancee? Her methods were so strong, Zhou Xinzhu was about to prostrate herself before her. She was more clear than anyone on how difficult it was to marry into the upper-cla.s.s. The girlfriends of her older and younger brothers, and even her father"s lovers, which one of them didn"t try until their heads were bleeding and yet still couldn"t get in the door. Even though Feng Ping had not married in yet, the fact that she was able to coax Tang Jianan into an engagement was already a miracle in of itself.
Fang Botao was a little better since after living for so many years, he had acc.u.mulated many years of experience. In addition, he did sense something during the banquet that night. So even though he was quite curious and shocked, he didn"t dare to openly call Tang family.
Even so, Feng Ping still received a criticizing phonecall. Uncle Shortie"s first sentence was, “Xiaojie, are you sober?”
“Completely sober.”
“Are you doing this willingly and not because you"ve been threatened?”
“Completely willing.”
“Oh, then congratulations xiaojie.” He let out a breath, “This is quite shocking. Bingchen shaoye rained down curses on me, xiaojie you should still bring along a cellphone, please?”
“What"s the difference, you can find me regardless.” Feng Ping laughed.
“Are you testing the limits of my abilities?”
“I know your abilities are limitless.” Feng Ping bootlicked him, “I"m not worried at all.”
“Are you doing this out of love?” Uncle asked after a moment of silence.
“Of course not.”
“It"s a sin to play with the feelings of other people.”
“Then if I"m the one being played?”
“This, this is an even bigger sin.”
“Then…what? How else should I pa.s.s the time? I"d die so quick…”
Her uncle drily coughed, “Aye, then nevermind. You"ve never been a saintly person anyways. I"d advise you two hurry up and birth a few children, Cui Ming Lake is too lonely.”
This advice carried bad intentions.
Feng Ping laughed, “This is not a bad idea, I"ll consider it. Anything else? My fiance is about to come home.” She especially emphasized that word.
Her uncle couldn"t help but expose her, “From what I know, Tang Jianan will not returning home at all tonight.”
Feng Ping loudly laughed, “You indeed know everything.”
Her uncle was helpless, “Yesterday there were three phonecalls asking for your recent whereabouts, including from Bingchen"s side—of course, they will definitely not leak your matters to the outside. However, Tang family does have some power, so this matter won"t be hidden for long.”
“We"ll talk about it when the time comes.”
“Goodbye xiaojie.”
Feng Ping set down the phone, turning around to see Housekeeper Lu standing by the doorway, carrying a fruit plate. Aye, did she have to use this method to eavesdrop all the time, it was so uncreative.
After interacting for a while, Feng Ping could somewhat understand her fiercely protective nature. Tang Jianan lost his mother at a very young age and Tang Zhan was busy with his business. Such a lovely and lonely little boy would always cause the female servants" feelings of motherhood to rise. As the days pa.s.sed by, those feelings also deepened, especially since when Tang Jianan moved out of the old house, he asked for her to serve him. Now that a new person suddenly barged in, and someone who had an unclear background at that, giving her the cold shoulder was to be expected.
For Feng Ping, she didn"t feel much of a loss on this matter. At most, she was getting her fifteen minutes of fame and having news articles written about her. The one who was really being troubled was Tang Jianan. Xia Yao had many fans and he had already received a lot of backlash and criticism from them. Ever since he announced the news of his engagement, he had spent two straight nights at the company, and those reporters lying in ambush outside the lobby probably didn"t sleep for two straight days either. For him to still care about her peace and quiet at this time was quite a rare occurrence. As expected of the son of a wealthy household, he had long developed his own methods to deal with the reporters. This was a skill he had developed from his youth. Even so, there were still reporters lurking outside his villa, hungry for gossip.
Feng Ping laid on the bed, flipping through the newspaper as she ate fruit.
Housekeeper Lu couldn"t stand to continue watching this. Mingxuan xiaojie was never like this, she was always demure and graceful, full of manners. Oh my G.o.d, the fruit fell on the newspaper and she actually picked it back up and ate it, was her future female master really going to be like this?
She couldn"t stand it and went downstairs.
Feng Ping continued reading the newspapers as if nothing happened. Xia Yao"s manager finally showed up, and when reporters asked about Xia Yao"s current feelings, her manager stated that she was not very affected and was calm, giving her congratulations to Mr. Tang. Since she was part of the entertainment industry, even if she lost the person she could not lose her image. On the contrary, it was the hot-blooded fans who cried out in protest for their idol, slandering and causing a ruckus everywhere, making things really ugly.
Of course, there were still some gossip-lovers who put in a lot of effort to dig up Feng Ping"s background. Someone revealed that she had dated a wealthy man in this city that was over fifty years old, and this wealthy man was the operator of several hotels. In a flash, many people followed this topic, causing it to trend. This couldn"t be helped since there were too many people in this day and age who had nothing else to do. Feng Ping was also one of those people, finding it extremely interesting.
Oscar Wilde once said that there was only one thing that was worse than being the topic of gossip, which was having no one gossip about you. He was not wrong, life was only more interesting if there were scandals.
It"s just, who was this person who wrote this?
She had only appeared once with Fang Botao at the charity ball. That night, there were many wealthy heirs and celebrities gathered together, and pretty much no one paid her any attention. Even if someone did recognize her, it shouldn"t be to the point where they were bored enough to expose her online unless…
Feng Ping couldn"t help but laugh.
Climbing out from the bed, she lazily stretched. Looking at the clock, she saw that it was almost five o"clock, and if Tang Jianan wasn"t coming home, he should be calling at around this time. As expected, the phone rang not too long afterwards.
“Change your clodes, let"s eat dinner at Chen Yang.”
“Huh?”
Feng Ping started. It looks like Uncle Shortie had times when he was wrong too.
“Don"t worry,” Tang Jianan rea.s.sured her, “A car will pick you up in a little bit. It"ll stop at the company and then we"ll go over together.”
“Okay.”
Feng Ping hung up the phone and went to take a shower and change clothes. After a while, a Maybach was outside waiting for her, driving her towards Tang family"s company building.
(1) Qian Zhongshu: A Chinese scholar and writer.