Chapter 63: Blacklisted

Mu Rong Shu and I could tell that Ru Feng and Yan Wan weren't very happy after the debacle at Tong Le Seafood Restaurant. Worse, Yan Yang and Liu Zhang Feng had taken our side against theirs, which worsened the mood. When we returned to the Yan home, the two ladies immediately disappeared into their rooms, slamming the doors as they went.

Not wanting to make the atmosphere awkward, Mu Rong Shu and I chose to leave the Yan home.

"Sorry, Uncle Yan Yang," Mu Rong Shu apologized. "We didn't mean to cause any trouble."

"No, it's no trouble at all!" Yan Yang quickly said, flustered. He wiped the perspiration from his face and bowed his head, casting a panicked stare at me. For some reason, he was really, really afraid of me. As if he knew my true identity or something, but that made no sense. If he knew I was a summoner born to the Zhao family, then he might as well know that his niece and the paternal side of her family was a clan of assassins, and he would be even more afraid of her than he was of me.

Then again, none of these son-in-law stories ever made any sense. They were just contrived scenarios that provided excuses for the son-in-law protagonists to flex his power and slap everyone's faces while showing off. Someone ought to tell these Chinese authors that humility was a virtue, and that nobody likes show offs and braggarts.

Of course, there was a difference between bragging and showing off your identity as some king of the underworld or a general of the military and hiding your identity so that you would have an excuse to slap people's faces when they insulted and scorned you for no reason (like, why would they even do that in the first place? Because you're a son-in-law? How did that even make any sense?).

"Don't worry, uncle." I smiled reassuringly. "Shu and I will find an accommodation. We've already reserved a hotel room."

"If you say so." Yan Yang swallowed, shrinking back under my gaze. Damn, but the man was totally scared of me. Why? Relax, dude. If you insulted me, the most I would do was insult you back. Why would I bankrupt you, seize your company and assets, and destroy your family? Over a few insults? What sort of idiot does that? That had to be the most extreme level of pettiness I had ever heard of.

Then again, I guess authors loved their "overbearing CEOs" trope. Imagine destroying an entire family's livelihood and multimillionaire company just because the idiot insulted your woman. I can understand getting some form of revenge, but blowing things way out of proportion was just…dumb as hell. Not to mention completely unrealistic and ridiculously impractical. Money didn't grow on trees, after all. Also, you had to beware of making enemies.

The most dangerous opponent is the one who had nothing to lose. Since you had already taken everything away from them (except their lives), they would be willing to resort to anything to take revenge. They had nothing else to lose, after all.

So Mu Rong Shu and I packed up, grabbed our luggage and proceeded to my trusty Toyota. Using the GPS, I drove us to the Jiang Nan Hotel that was under Tang Li. Upon hearing that Mu Rong Shu and I were looking for alternative accommodations, he immediately invited us to stay in a VIP suite. I had declined – why the hell would we need a VIP suite? And we preferred to keep a low profile, anyway – and instead requested for a more normal room. He insisted that he provided the room for free, but I rejected that.

"I won't take advantage of you. You're running a business, so please allow me to contribute to your business, to support you. We are friends. I don't want to be thought off as a freeloader."

"I would never think of you as a freeloader!" Tang Li protested. I shook my head.

"I know, but I want to make sure your staff is paid. I want to tip them and make sure they earn well. You know how the current economy is like. They will need every penny they can get."

"Fine, fine."

"My wife and I will be exploring Jiang Nan City over the next few days," I continued with a smile. "And I would appreciate it if you didn't, uh, jump into our dates. We're treating this as a belated honeymoon."

"Sure! Of course!" Tang Li chuckled and gave me a thumb's up. "But if you need support, let me know!"

"Nah. But I need to give you the Solar Amulet soon."

"Oh, don't worry about that. I'll be coming to collect it on Saturday. I have kept my schedule for the whole day open."

"Okay, if you say so."

And thus I hung up on the phone and drove to the hotel whose address he sent to my smartphone via text message. Beside me, Mu Rong Shu smiled.

"He's such a good friend, isn't he?"

"He is," I agreed.

*

While we were busily driving to Jiang Nan Hotel, Yan Wan and Ru Feng were plotting against us. Yan Wan, in particular, had called her grandfather, Yan Yue, but she was smart enough not to tell him everything. Instead, she had discussed with her mother to cook up a little lie.

Let's rewind a few hours back.

"How dare that trash humiliate me like this?!" Yan Wan clenched her fists angrily. She turned to her mother, bristling. "There's no way Cousin Shu's man is so capable! They must be acting this out! I know! Cousin Shu made use of the Mu Rong family's influence to hire Tang Li to put on a show, so as to deliberately embarrass me!"

What the fuck…? What sort of stupid logic was that? Was she…delusional? Who the hell would waste time and money hiring people to put on such dumb shows? Also, why would Tang Li ever agree to such a farce? It wasn't as if he lacked money.

Unfortunately, I wasn't there to set the record straight. Instead, Ru Feng encouraged this insanity.

"That's right! We must find a way to get back at them!" She then gritted her teeth. "Your father is useless! I can't believe he's so scared of that trash! He didn't dare to fight back! He picked the outsiders' side over ours!"

"Don't tell dad!" Yan Wan panicked. "He'll definitely stop us!"

"Yeah, I have no intention of doing so." Ru Feng narrowed her eyes. "But we have to be careful about this. Whether it's fake or not, it's undeniable that the trash has some sort of relationship with Tang Li. If it turns out to be real…"

"There's no way it's real! It's definitely an act! I know it!"

Even now, they insisted on calling me trash and thinking that the whole thing was an act. If that wasn't delusional, I didn't know what to call it. Did such idiots truly exist in reality? Then again, tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and flat earthers existed, so…

"That doesn't change my question. How do we punish them for their audacity?"

"Hmm…good question." Yan Wan thought for a moment. Then she brightened up. "We cause them to be blacklisted by the Yan family!"

"Oh?" Ru Feng was intrigued. "What do you mean? How?"

"We'll call grandpa and tell him that Cousin Shu and her husband will not be attending the Dragon Boat Festival dinner," Yan Wan explained, her eyes gleaming conspiratorially. "He'll definitely get mad!"

"Yeah, but if he finds out that we lied to him…" Ru Feng looked worried. Yan Wan nodded, thinking deeply. Then she brightened up.

"Don't worry, I have a friend! A hacker working in the telecommunications company. I can have him help out and block Cousin Shu's number from grandpa's phone. That way, they'll never be able to call him or receive any text messages from him. Grandpa has yet to send us the details regarding the venue of the dinner on Saturday, so they will have no way of attending the dinner!"

"What a brilliant idea!" Ru Feng nodded enthusiatially. If I could be present physically instead of breaking the fourth wall like this, I would have just burst out laughing. What the fuck were they trying to do, scheming like bitches and resorting to hacking just to do…I don't know, why exactly were they doing this? To prove a point? Because they hated Mu Rong Shu and was envious of her? Because they thought I was trash?

No, seriously, why were they going this far to bully us? There was no real reason, no actual benefit to doing so. Maybe they feel some sort of vindication, or they enjoyed the feeling of power, but it still made no sense to me.

"All right, let's go with that then!"

And so Yan Wan contacted her friend and arranged for Mu Rong Shu's number to be blocked without Yan Yue even realizing what had happened. She then called her grandfather, pretending to feign hurt.

"Grandpa, I have bad news!"

"Oh?" Yan Yue sounded worried, mostly because his favorite granddaughter was in distress. "What happened, Wan Er?"

To be more exact, Yan Wan wasn't his favorite granddaughter, but the one grandchild he placed all the hopes of the Yan family on. The Yan family might be a big family, but they were considered only second tier in Jiang Nan City. Fortunately, it was well known throughout the city that Yan Wan was the girlfriend of the up and coming Liu Zhang Feng.

Therefore, if she could get married to Liu Zhang Feng, whose business was expanding exponentially, the Yan family might be able to climb the ranks and accumulate more wealth through their connections with his company.

As such, the hopes of the Yan family and its future lay squarely on the shoulders of Yan Wan. Or so the logic went. I never understood such rationale, but hey, that was how all CEO and son-in-law stories worked. Marriage politics and social connections or whatever nonsense.

Apparently, family politics was what drove Yan Wan to one-sidedly compete against Mu Rong Shu and attempt to show her up and humiliate her, so as to boost her own reputation in the Yan family. Or whatever nonsense. I didn't understand it, personally. Well, I did, given how my brother utterly oppressed and bullied me to secure his own position as heir to the Zhao family, but that was neither here nor there.

"Cousin Shu has no intention of visiting Jiang Nan! I just called her, and she says she and her husband will not be attending the Dragon Boat Festival this year. I get the feeling that she wants to cut off all connections with the Yan family!"

"Preposterous!" Yan Yue yelled, even though he didn't know the truth and was only going off what his precious granddaughter was telling him (evidently, Mu Rong Shu was not as precious to him as Yan Wan was). "Ever since she married that trash named Zhao, her behavior has become more and more outrageous!"

…uh, really? When did her behavior ever become outrageous? What was he even talking about?

"If she really intends to sever all ties with the Yan family, then let her! The Mu Rong family can have her! It's not as if our Yan family needs an ungrateful white-eyed wolf like her!"

There was so many things wrong with his statement that I didn't know where to begin (thankfully I wasn't there physically so I couldn't retort like the straight man I was). First of all, the Mu Rong family was theone who took care of Mu Rong Shu, brought her up, provided her, sheltered her and trained her. The Yan family did nothing whatsoever to provide for the Mu Rong granddaughter after her mother passed away. They basically shoved the responsibility of taking care of Mu Rong Shu to Mu Rong Lao. Therefore, there was absolutely no reason for Mu Rong Shu to be grateful to them. The reason why she maintained contact with them was because of her late mother, but that was it.

Secondly, given that the Mu Rong family was the one who brought her up and provided for her, she technically already belonged to the Mu Rong family. So why did Yan Yue sound as if he was throwing her away to the Mu Rong family?

"That trash must be a bad influence on Cousin Shu." Yan Wan couldn't resist a malicious stab at me, probably because she still held a grudge against me for the incidents today. It was true that I was responsible for most of what happened today, from the handbag shop to Tong Le Seafood Restaurant and Tang Li showing up.

"Hmm, since she likes trash so much, she can be thrown away with her garbage of a husband." Yan Yue snorted. "She has made her choice. The Yan family won't welcome her back since she likes her Mu Rong family and trash husband so much."

Inwardly, Yan Wan celebrated, but outwardly, she tried to sound sad. "Isn't that harsh, grandpa?"

"It's no more than she deserves."

"…this filial granddaughter understands." Yan Wan smiled and hung up. She turned to her mother and winked triumphantly. "The scheme is a success!"

"Heh," Ru Feng smirked. "Now watch Shu panic when she realizes she can't call grandfather!"