ADTCP Ch29part2

Tao Zhen tugged his hem, weighed his words, then softened it: “Once we’re back it’s school again, and you… back to training… and the housing there is so rough…”

“How did you decide to sign with that club in the first place? Won’t it tie your hands? Couldn’t you just follow Uncle Jiang instead?”

At “housing,” Zhu Wensheng’s Adam’s apple bobbed, but he only turned his face at the next question. Long dark lashes lifted. Calmly: “Not really.”

He briefly explained: fighting involves many links and a complex process, liaising with promoters, registering for bouts, analyzing opponents’ habits, tailored training plans, nutrition and recovery… It’s not something one person can manage easily.
If you want to fight well and perform at 100%, you have to focus on strength work and honing technique, instead of being trapped in that mess of logistics.

“Having a club makes things much easier, just like the domestic champ who won a UFC belt. She has a manager handling everything.”

Tao Zhen listened carefully, then looked enlightened, scratching his cheek a bit sheepishly: “True… one person really can’t do it all.”

“Teams are incredibly useful. I guess I’d only been seeing the ugly, exploitative side before.” Maybe he really should consider Dr. Seven’s suggestion and go learn more about Gen Z.

“Mm,” said Zhu Wensheng, not denying Tao Zhen’s earlier view. “Exploitation does exist.”
Whether it’s good or bad depends on choosing the right partner.

The train arrived. Heavy, lead-gray clouds hung low, drizzling a fine rain.

They pushed through the noisy crowd and left the station, the happy holiday already gone in a blink.

The first days back at work were the worst; everyone looked like wandering souls, not yet recovered.

But Tao Zhen was energized. He researched “Gen Z” online, and, after subtly asking Tao Dajun whether the company was reliable and getting a yes, he waited for Dr. Seven’s next stream and sent two Carnivals.

After ending the stream, Dr. Seven messaged immediately, telling Tao Zhen not to spend so much. The Gen Z anniversary was at month’s end; he’d already spoken to the company’s biz team and would send an invitation a few days early.

One invitation equals one guest and includes a plus-one. Not mandatory, but bringing someone is more polite, and… it’s always steadier to have someone with you.

As soon as Tao Zhen received the invitation, he texted Zhu Wensheng to ask if he was free that day.

But holding on to a little excitement, he waited quite a while without a reply.

It wasn’t that Zhu Wensheng was ignoring him on purpose.

After his first afternoon class he rushed to the club. Before he could even change into a tank and shorts to start training, Li Min barreled in from outside.

The woman, usually sharp in black businesswear and 10-centimeter red-soled heels, was, rarely, in a soft beige knit today, even wearing brown frames.

All traces of the iron-blooded MMA manager were gone, enough to make you wonder if she took the wrong meds.

As if reading the room, her mouth twitched. She tapped a cigarette from the pack, clamped it in her teeth, and swept a warning glance over everyone.

They shrank away like quail, leaving only Zhu Wensheng, who set down his gloves and walked over. Coolly: “What is it?”

“You ask me that? Forgot what day it is?” Li Min shot back, the lighter clicking with a hint of irritation. “Grandpa and Grandma are about to nag me to death. If you don’t come back to the old house with me tonight, they’ll refuse to start the banquet, believe it?”

Zhu Wensheng lowered his eyes without expression. “A golden-anniversary banquet, do I really need to be there?”

“I don’t think so. But they’re old; they care more and more about this stuff, especially this year. My mom’s a spendthrift, and your mom… Well, the only juniors by their side are the two of us.”

“And they just had a checkup recently, nothing great… I know they’ve got plenty wrong; I hate how they nitpick MMA. But-”

Li Min popped the crush-bead in her cigarette, inhaled deep, then exhaled smoke as if venting pent-up frustration along with it:
“Ah-Sheng, do it for me, okay?”

The thin smoke curled and blurred their sightlines.

After a moment, Zhu Wensheng murmured, “Mm.” He went upstairs for a jacket suitable for a formal event over his light gray turtleneck and got in Li Min’s car.

***
Grandpa and Grandma Si’s golden-anniversary banquet was unprecedented in scale.
From the foot of the hill, luxury cars arrived one after another; the higher they went, the more people there were. Socialites in couture chatted and laughed, passed through the carved gates into the manor, crossed an impeccably pruned vintage garden and an early-century European fountain, and finally entered the heart of the party.

The old gentleman and lady sat smiling at center stage, receiving congratulations.

Just as the atmosphere was warming and deep laughter rippled, the main doors opened. A tall man and woman walked in from outside.
In front was Li Min, well known to all present. Smiling, she nodded, ignoring attempts to cozy up, and went straight to the elders. She leaned back half a step and bent to introduce the man beside her.

The old gentleman froze, leaning forward; the old lady’s polite smile faltered, and a few seconds later her eyes flushed red.
Before them stood a handsome, black-haired, black-eyed young man, dressed in understated elegance, standing tall and straight like a silent pine.

“Ah-Sheng!”

Madam Si stood first, hurrying over to take Zhu Wensheng’s large hand, tenderly rubbing the calluses in his palm. With tears in her eyes: “Our Ah-Sheng has grown so much…”

Even through his roughened palms, he could feel the wrinkles on the elderly hand, etched with time.

Physical closeness wasn’t his habit, but he endured it, giving the slightest nod. Mr. Si, braced on his cane, got to his feet and called the two of them to sit by the sofa.

By tacit agreement, no one mentioned fighting. They chatted about harmless nothings for a while, looking every inch the harmonious family.

The other guests wisely didn’t intrude, but they couldn’t help trading looks. Someone out of the loop whispered, “Who did Li Min bring? For the Si elders to be this attentive, don’t tell me…”
“Exactly. Who else could it be? The child of the Si family’s eldest daughter and the Zhu family’s only son. Born with a silver spoon, the ‘crown prince.’”

“But… looking at it, doesn’t it seem like the ‘Crown Prince’ isn’t very close to the two elders?”

“Hah, you could say that’s true. The ‘Crown Prince’ isn’t close to anyone, including his own parents. Do you know why?”
One person clearly knew a lot of inside gossip. After stringing the others along, he finally said slowly:

“His mom and dad had a business marriage. After the engagement, his mom fell for a poor worker in the household and planned to elope with him.”

“Of course the Si elders couldn’t agree. They only had two daughters, the younger one was rebellious and useless, pregnant before marriage. Their only hope was the obedient and sensible eldest daughter. But she seemed dead set on it this time. After all their attempts failed, when the wedding was about to be held, they forcibly dragged her back…”

The whispered gossip thought itself discreet, but the peeping gazes gave it away. Zhu Wensheng could guess well enough.
What they were repeating was nothing but scraps of rumor; the truth was something only the people involved knew.

A forced melon is never sweet.

Zhu Wensheng’s parents had no emotional foundation at all. After marriage, the two were cold to each other for a long time. Si Shu couldn’t understand why everyone had to force her into this. She couldn’t even decide her own marriage, and all she could do every day was fight with Zhu Guanqing.

Zhu Guanqing wasn’t one to tolerate that. Raised spoiled since childhood, he couldn’t bear the humiliation and simply treated the pleasure dens outside as his home.

Husband and wife in name, enemies in truth.
If not for the fact that the poor boy Si Shu had once loved ran off with someone else, leaving her drunk and muddled, and that just happened to be a night when Zhu Guanqing was at home, Zhu Wensheng might never have existed.
But once Zhu Wensheng was born, everything changed.

Urged by the joy and expectations of both families, Zhu Guanqing and Si Shu gave in. Considering the pressure and ties all around, they each set aside their impulses, and for four or five years lived a relatively peaceful life.

But the good days didn’t last. Perhaps it was fate for Si Shu. The poor boy she’d once loved returned and tried to rekindle things.
As a mother now, Si Shu felt nothing for this fickle man and coldly rejected him.

But Zhu Guanqing didn’t know the truth. A thorn lodged in his heart, he sought someone to “confide” in, and one thing led to another, he became entangled with his secretary.

The result: when Zhu Wensheng was five, Zhu Guanqing’s secretary showed up at the Zhu family’s doors with a newborn, nearly making Si Shu faint.

The scandal of an illegitimate child set off a huge uproar between the Zhu and Si families. The scene was ugly. But no matter what, the child had to be dealt with. When they took the baby and Zhu Guanqing for a paternity test, they discovered, the baby wasn’t even his.

Because Zhu Guanqing had been in a car accident, to put it simply, he no longer had the ability to father a child.

The “illegitimate child” was cleared up, but the mess was worse than ever.

Si Shu hated him all the more, not only did he have a child, he was out fooling around. Her loathing for Zhu Guanqing was greater than ever.
Zhu Guanqing couldn’t stand that his male pride was trampled; he grew increasingly violent and irritable, to the point of even doubting whether Zhu Wensheng was really his son.

Things spiraled out of control.

One day, while Si Shu was away, a drunken Zhu Guanqing beat six-year-old Zhu Wensheng.

The bruises on the child couldn’t be hidden. When Si Shu returned and found out, she screamed for divorce. She could no longer endure. Both families were called in, and in front of everyone, she dragged Zhu Guanqing and Zhu Wensheng to do a paternity test.

Once all doubts were cleared, she cut everything off cleanly, leaving everything behind, including Zhu Wensheng, and went abroad alone. Zhu Guanqing gave up completely, dumping his son on the grandparents.

Yes.

The two of them were finally free.

Zhu Wensheng lowered his eyes, pulling back his gaze.

Voices still buzzed around his ears; after a while, he finally tuned back in.

“…So, Ah-Sheng!”

“You’ll be twenty soon. Grandma has a little gift for you, same as what we gave Min before.”
Madam Si gazed at him earnestly, her tone gentle: “That company, ‘Gen Z’, do you like it?”

“Would you let Grandma give it to you?”