275: Showdown

The next day, Wang Cheng received a call from Mother Zheng. Because it was inconvenient to speak of this matter over the phone, Wang Cheng invited Mother Zheng to meet and talk at their usual place. When he arrived at the tea restaurant, Mother Zheng had already arrived. She had also just come, so the things she ordered hadn't been served yet. After Wang Cheng sat down, however, the waiter brought the appetizers, all of which were his favorites.

Mother Zheng pushed the dim sum towards her son before looking at him expectantly. "Chengcheng, how was your talk with Jiayan last night? What do you think of her?"

"It didn’t go that well," Wang Cheng said after taking a sip of tea.

"How could it be ‘not well’? Jiayan has a good character, and you two are about the same age, so you should be able to have a good conversation," Mother Zheng said, surprised.

Wang Cheng put down his cup and said solemnly: "Mother, I already have someone I like."

Mother Zheng's expression froze, "Someone you like? But your mother has never heard you mention this before."

Wang Cheng looked straight into her eyes, "I didn't mention it before because their identity is a bit special, and I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to accept them. Therefore, I chose to hide it from you."

Long ago, before yesterday’s events, he had decided to find a time to tell Mother Zheng that he was already with Chu Yifeng. The secret blind date last night happened to make up his mind that long-term pain was worse than short-term pain*.

[T/N: *kind of like how its better to rip a band-aid off quickly instead of slowly; be firm and decisive]

"Since you don't want to tell me, then your mother won’t make things difficult for you." Mother Zheng's expression was a little flustered, and her eyes flickered as she avoided Wang Cheng’s gaze.

Wang Cheng suddenly understood once he saw her behavior. "Mother, had you known about us a long time ago?"

"What ‘long time ago’, your mother doesn't know anything!" Mother Zheng hurriedly denied him before grabbing her bag and standing up: "Your mother just remembered her meeting with Mrs. Chen, let's talk about this next time."

Wang Cheng grabbed her hand and said with a helpless expression: "Mother, the person I like is Chu Yifeng, I have been with him for a while now. I know that it’s not good to hide such things from you, so I don’t want to hide it anymore. This way, you shouldn’t arrange more hidden blind dates like last night’s.”

Mother Zheng sank back into her chair, with an expression as if she was about to cry. "Can’t you choose someone else?"

Wang Cheng shook his head.

Mother Zheng was a lady, after all. She had seen much of the world. After a while, she finally calmed down. She had found her son with great difficulty, and did not want to create a bigger gap from her son because of this. After she was done thinking, she asked: "Who else knows about this? Do your adoptive parents know?"

"My two elder brothers and my mother know. However, my dad doesn't know yet." Wang Cheng was not sure whether Wang Ziyu knew or not, so he ruled her out for the time being.

He was only sure that his two elder brothers and his two mothers knew about the relationship.

Mother Zheng was a little surprised that Mama Wang knew about this, and was even more surprised that she didn’t say anything about it, even with her stubborn personality. "What about on Chu Yifeng’s side?"

"His family knows, and I’ve also already eaten at his house," Wang Cheng admitted, embarrassed. It was precisely because of this progress that he wanted to tell Mother Zheng the truth.

Mother Zheng raised her eyebrows, "No one in his family opposes it?"

"Uh, they were opposed at first, but not much anymore." Wang Cheng hesitated and decided not to mention that Old Lady Chu wanted them to have children.

He spoke lightly of it, but when this fell upon Mother Zheng’s ears, she imagined her little son exerting much effort for the Chu family to recognize him. A strict family like the Chus would never allow their children or grandchildren to get together with the same gender. She felt distressed again.

"Have you ever thought about how your grandfathers will react to your relationship?"

“Old Lady Chu said she would help on my paternal grandfather’s side." Mother Zheng grew even more surprised. She suddenly thought of something she had found strange before. When the Chu family's daughter-in-law held a party some time ago, she invited many noblewomen. At the time, Old Lady Chu had also shown up, and enthusiastically chatted with for a while, bringing up her son and Chu Yifeng many times. It turned out that this was the reason.

"Then how about your maternal grandfather? You shouldn't forget that your grandpa always wanted an heir. As long as you are with Chu Yifeng, you are destined to have no offspring. In this case, your grandpa might not give you the company. Do you want to make things that easy for your aunt's family?"

"What belongs to me will come to me in the end. If it turns out it doesn't belong to me, I won't make things difficult for Grandpa,” Wang Cheng said in a low voice. Inheriting the Zhou Group was good, but he didn’t absolutely need it in the end.

Mother Zheng sighed. Her son was quite an opinionated person; she knew that she would not be able to change his mind even if she opposed it. “Fine, I won’t mention this in front of Grandpa.”

Wang Cheng looked at her cautiously, a little surprised it went so smoothly. "Mother, do you agree with Chu Yifeng and I?"

Mother Zheng angrily glared at him, "If I disagreed, would you agree to break up with him?"

Wang Cheng coughed twice; of course that would be impossible. However, he’d been prepared to have a cold war with Mother Zheng, he didn't expect things to be so simple. Now that he’d gotten his love problems resolved, his mood was much more relaxed. Even though he knew that there were only a few people who knew about him and Chu Yifeng, since his two mothers happened to be in charge of their families, he didn’t have to worry about the others.

Chu Yifeng came home to hear light humming from the kitchen, an abstract melody that seemed to be casually made up. He put on a pair of indoor slippers and went to the kitchen entrance, where he saw Wang Cheng sauteing vegetables while swaying to the imaginary beat of his song. Someone seemed to be in a good mood.

"You’re back? Go wash your hands and help me bring out the food. I made a lot, so we’ll be eating like we’re rich tonight," Wang Cheng said after catching a glimpse of him.

"Did you encounter something good today?" Chu Yifeng brought the dishes he had prepared to the table.

Wang Cheng smiled and pushed him out, "I will tell you all about it later."

Chu Yifeng wisely did not ask. As he was bringing the food to the dinner table, a phone in the living room suddenly rang. He walked over to find that it was Wang Cheng's mobile phone. When he caught a glimpse of Wang Cheng’s busy figure in the kitchen, he answered the phone.

Wang Cheng made four meat dishes and one vegetarian dish, which was straw mushroom with water chestnut. He poured a lot of oyster sauce as he did the stir-frying, so by the time he was done, the straw mushrooms looked more like braised pork ribs. After the two sat at the table, Wang Cheng began to tell him about the showdown with Mother Zheng

"My mother actually already knew that I had an unusual relationship with you. So, last night, under the pretext of having a meal, she made me go on a blind date with a woman. I ended up pissing her off." Wang Cheng put some straw mushrooms in Chu Yifeng's bowl.

Chu Yifeng picked up the mushrooms and ate them. He then said after chewing, "I also have good news to tell you."

"What good news?"

"Someone called you just now, saying that there is news from Shanhai City: they’ve found Old Village Chief Wang's family members that you were looking for."

"!!!"

Wang Cheng was ready to meet the family of Old Village Chief Wang right now. However, he couldn’t just up and leave.

Yazhi’s reputation had grown. All the artists who knew how to seize their opportunities had developed well, one by one. Now, they didn’t have to search for good seedlings, the artists would come forward themselves. It was too much for Pan Zhihai to manage the developing company while being He Zihuan's agent. Wang Cheng could absolutely not leave Yazhi until better arrangements were made. Although the three-month period with Zhou Shichang had not yet concluded, Yazhi was already under Wang Cheng’s name. The inheritance of the media company already had a foregone conclusion by the time Wang Cheng learned of it. Since the results were the same as he expected, he didn’t care much.

When he was about to leave the next day, Wang Cheng received a call from his elder brother.

Wang Ning’an knew why he was returning to Shanhai City, and originally wanted to go with him. After all, this matter also had something to do with him. However, he wasn’t able to leave for the time being, so he asked Wang Cheng to call him once he found them.

Old Village Chief Wang had passed away last year, before the Wang’s Village was bought - less than a month away from the old monk’s passing. Wang Cheng did not go down the mountain because of the old monk’s matters, so he didn’t know about this. Later on, Huaying Real Estate was developing there, so he hadn’t paid attention to it.

The reason why Old Village Chief Wang’s family moved to live in the city was also because of his sudden death. Since they no longer had roots in the village, the family moved away. Fortunately, although they moved to the city, they still kept in touch with some relatives. Otherwise, they would probably have to wait for a while before receiving any news.

Old Village Chief Wang’s son was called Wang Bo, and he was five years older than Papa Wang. He had taken care of Papa Wang when he was a child. Although their relationship was not as close as before because Wang Bo went to school in a different city, Papa Wang and Wang Bo had still been in contact before the Wang's Village dispersed.

Wang Cheng's arrival was quite unfortunate, as Wang Bo and his wife had just gone to visit their youngest son two days ago, and would not return for two days. Wang Bo was also the only one who could know about what had happened before.

Left with no other choice, Wang Cheng and Chu Yifeng had to return to the Guan’s Village first.

Before going back, they stopped by the jam shop. Song Hai and Guan Ying were now in charge of the jam shop in the new district. Although they were a couple, they were both serious and responsible. The jam shop had improved a lot with their efforts. On the commercial center’s side, there was Guan Jiahe and the new recruit, Wang Da. Wang Cheng now gave Guan Jiahe full responsibility of the jam business in the city. Guan Jiahe also helped him look over the jam factory so that he wouldn’t have to worry about things on that end.

Guan Jiahe had gone to the jam factory in the morning. When he came back, he happened to meet Wang Cheng and Chu Yifeng at the door.

Straw Mushroom with Water Chestnut

***

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