Chapter 25 Gong Shengjie’s Offer (1/2)
Lu Tianzi subconsciously frowned upon hearing about the meeting with Gong Shengjie, and that slight change in expression did not escape Ye Xiangyuan's eyes.
”Are you all right?” Ye Xiangyuan asked in concern.
Lu Tianzi shot a awkward glance at Ye Xiangyuan before nodded awkwardly.
Now he understood why Uncle Ye sounded so hesitant when mentioning this.
Earlier, Ye Xiangyuan had insisted on joining them for the meeting, only to be rejected by Lu Tianzi.
At that time she had not even bothered to hide her anger about being left out. To mention the meeting right now, they truly risked provoking the hornet's nest once again.
But this matter had slipped Uncle Ye's mind earlier. When he finally remembered, it was already dinner time. Uncle Ye knew that Lu Tianzi always locked himself in the room after dinner, not wanting to be disturbed.
So Uncle Ye had no other choice but to remind him now when his daughter was still present.
Ye Xiangyuan naturally understood that Lu Tianzi still had not changed his mind, and she did not want to ruin the celebratory mood at the moment either. She simply turned back to her food, no longer continuing the conversation.
This allowed both Uncle Ye and Lu Tianzi to let out a sigh of relief.
Even so, the originally festive mood in the house had cooled by quite a bit. Lu Tianzi quickly finished up his meal before returning to his room to cultivate.
Time passed quickly when a martial artist was cultivating. In fact at higher realms, weeks or even months could pass in a single meditation session. In the blink of an eye, morning had already arrived in Ivory Rock City.
After having breakfast, Lu Tianzi spent his time reading through Uncle Ye's books. After spending the entire morning just on reading, Lu Tianzi could roughly gauge that he would be able to finish all the books in just two more days.
After which, he would truly have an incredibly strong foundation in the field of herbalism, and could even be called an expert in his own right!
”Ah Zhan, Elder Huo is here!” Uncle Ye called out from outside.
”I'm coming!”
Lu Tianzi kept away the books and walked out to see Elder Huo waiting outside the house.
”Elder Huo!” Lu Tianzi clasped his fists towards the elderly man in greeting. ”Thank you for the help once again.”
”Haha! This is nothing!” Elder Huo waved it off casually. ”Let us go, we definitely don't want to be late for the meeting!”
While Lu Tianzi was grateful for their help, he knew that saying anymore would only make things awkward. Thus he would not continue harping on the matter either, choosing to silently remember their goodwill in his heart.
This might seem to be a ridiculously unnecessary matter for him, but Lu Tianzi understood that to these people with identities as workers, getting involved with someone directly related to a District Head was probably a nerve wrecking matter.
That was especially the case for Uncle Ye, who had no connections to friends in positions of power like Elder Huo did.
If Gong Shengjie managed to convince his father, it would be far too easy for Gong Tiesha to make life difficult for Uncle Ye!
But of course, that was only if Gong Tiesha was the type of person who acted indiscriminately in favour of his son.
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Eternal Spring Hall was the most prestigious restaurant in the Workers District.
The food there was prepared by only the best of chefs, famed to satisfy even the fussiest of palates. The waitresses there were all young and pretty, their presence alone was able to stimulate the customers' saliva glands even before the food was served.
Up on the second level were individual rooms that provided customers the privacy from any prying eyes. However, the exorbitant prices for booking these rooms also implied that they were only catered to the higher echelons of society.
On this day, the meeting with Gong Shengjie was set to be in one of these rooms. Neither Elder Huo nor Uncle Ye would have been able to come up with such money, so the cost was naturally borne by Gong Shengjie.
This arrangement was also suggested by Gong Shengjie himself, likely as a way to demonstrate his position of superiority.
When Lu Tianzi pushed the door open and entered along with Uncle Ye and Elder Huo, Gong Shengjie was already seated comfortably within the room, calmly sipping on fine tea. A group of men stood at attention behind him, obviously subordinates whom he had brought along.
”You have come,” Gong Shengjie exclaimed without even looking up from his cup of tea, his tone calm and indifferent.
”I hope I am not late,” Lu Tianzi answered politely before moving to sit across the table from Gong Shengjie, his eyes quickly scanning the other men in the room.
But that was when Lu Tianzi realised something strange.
Those men… why did they look so familiar?
Seeing Lu Tianzi's gaze sweep past them, the men tensed up immediately, each of them already breaking out in cold sweat.
A few days ago when Lu Tianzi was returning to Uncle Ye's house from the marketplace, he had been ambushed by 10 men in a quiet alley. And these men were the exact people who had tried to ambush Lu Tianzi!
Right now, rather than the arrogance in them when they first tried to attack Lu Tianzi, each of them looked to be nervous beyond compare!
Lu Tianzi was not the only one who noticed it either.
Their nervous expressions were so obvious that even Uncle Ye and Elder Huo were perplexed by what they were seeing. But Lu Tianzi was the only one among them who understood the reason why.
At this moment, Lu Tianzi finally realised that Hu Yuanbo had never noticed his presence after he returned to the city.
The whole ambush incident was Gong Shengjie's idea, and these were all his subordinates!
No wonder they were so weak!
Now everything made sense!
Lu Tianzi felt extremely annoyed at the moment. To think that he almost abandoned the safety of the city just because of this person who could do nothing but rely on the name of his District Head father!
He could only be thankful that he did not follow through with his plan of leaving in the end!
If Lu Tianzi could recognise these men, they naturally could recognise Lu Tianzi as well. But even without that, they already beforehand that the person Gong Shengjie was meeting today was the exact same person who had beaten them up before.
As his subordinates, they had naturally told Gong Shengjie of this matter. However, Gong Shengjie had still insisted on coming for this meeting. Being his subordinates, they could not possibly say no.
Thus they could only grit their teeth and show up no matter how reluctant they were.
There was only silence after Lu Tianzi sat down at the table.
Despite his subordinates' anxiousness, Gong Shengjie continued to busy himself with his cup of tea, not speaking another word.
Gong Shengjie was not an idiot.
He knew that if all his subordinates together had lost to this inhumanly powerful worker named Zhanyuan, then even with himself included, his side was definitely still inferior strength wise.
But he was not worried.