The next day, Second Master Zhan slept until the sun was high in the sky. The moment he got up, without even checking the time, he grabbed his phone, walked out of the bedroom, and rang Zhan Wei.
As soon as Zhan Wei picked up, his father let rip, scolding his son until he was blue in the face.
Zhan Wei was completely baffled by this sudden torrent of abuse from his old man. He did not even get a chance to speak. He wanted to ask what on earth he had done wrong, but his father just launched into a tirade the second the call connected.
After a full ten-odd minutes of venting, Second Master Zhan felt much better and hung up.
Zhan Wei: “…”
What the hell was that about?
It took him a while to digest the main point of his father’s rant: he was being blamed for calling his mother last night to say he would bring Lan Ruoruo home to meet the family.
His mother had been so excited she did not sleep a wink, which in turn disturbed his health-conscious father’s rest.
Because his old man had missed his beauty sleep, he was now taking it out on him over the phone.
Zhan Wei did not know whether to laugh or cry.
How could he have predicted his mother would react like that? It was not as if this was her first time becoming a mother-in-law; he already had two sisters-in-law.
Then he realised it was probably because he was thirty-one and still unmarried. His mother had been terribly worried, so the moment he finally said he was bringing a girlfriend home, she became too excited to sleep.
Zhan Wei understood his mother’s feelings and felt a little guilty at the same time.
His father was right; it was his fault his parents had not slept well.
Zhan Wei promptly sent his father several red envelopes as an apology.
Second Master Zhan accepted them without hesitation.
He was not short of money; he had far more than his son did. Still, anything his son offered in filial piety, even if it was just a hundred yuan, he would take. It was the thought that counted.
No matter what his sons, daughters-in-law, or grandchildren gave him, he always accepted it graciously. He never refused or made disapproving remarks.
He feared that if he turned something down once, nothing would ever be offered again.
Seeing that his father had accepted the red envelopes, Zhan Wei felt relieved and threw himself back into his busy work.
Meanwhile, at Guancheng Central People’s Hospital.
Zhan Yue stood at the door of his ward, gazing down the corridor and waiting for Zeng Xiaoya to do her rounds.
The butler finished washing the thermos lunch box, came out of the bathroom, and discovered that his Eighth Young Master had vanished.
“Eighth Young Master, Eighth Young Master!”
The butler called loudly.
He put down the lunch box, turned, and hurried out of the ward.
Eighth Young Master was still injured. Where could he have gone?
True, the injuries were not serious, but both his hands were unusable at the moment. The butler had been looking after him so thoroughly that he even fed him every meal.
Surely Eighth Young Master had not tried to go off by himself?
The moment the butler pulled open the ward door, he spotted his young master standing right there in the doorway, staring longingly down the corridor.
To anyone who did not know better, that lovelorn expression made it look as though Eighth Young Master was waiting for his sweetheart.
“Eighth Young Master, what are you looking at?”
The butler followed Zhan Yue’s gaze. Apart from the occasional nurse, all he saw were patients and their families.
Ah, he got it. Eighth Young Master must find the ward too stuffy and did not want to stay in bed, so he came out to people-watch.
“Has Dr Zeng not come round yet today?”
The butler froze.
He had assumed his young master was just passing the time watching the bustle.
So it was for Dr Zeng after all.
The butler had been caring for Eighth Young Master for a while now and knew that Dr Zeng was his attending physician.
