Read Novel Full Chapter 160 Part 2 – Uncle, You Scared Me (II)
Chapter 160 Part 2 – Uncle, You Scared Me (II)
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The Qingming Festival only allowed for a three-day break, so Jiang Li naturally couldn’t stay home for too long.
After performing the ancestral rites with her grandfather, she didn’t leave Minjiang right away. Instead, she went with Tong Yi to a cemetery on the outskirts of the city.
Standing before the gravestone of Tong Yi’s parents, Jiang Li saw an old photo of the couple together. They looked especially young and strikingly well-matched.
Tong Yi had inherited the best traits of both his parents. If they were still alive, they’d surely be proud and happy.
After placing flowers and fruit offerings before several adjacent graves, Tong Yi pulled Jiang Li down to sit with him in front of the headstones.
“Grandpa, Grandma, Dad, Mom—I’m all grown up now. And I’m finally dating the girl I’ve always loved. This is my girlfriend, Jiang Xiao Li. She’ll become my wife one day. I’ll bring her to visit you every year. We’ll live happily together.”
This time, Jiang Li didn’t refute his words. With their fingers intertwined, they sat quietly in front of the graves. Her silence was tacit acceptance.
Half an hour later, the two walked away hand in hand, only to run into Tong Bingran’s family.
The moment Tong Xu saw their linked fingers, his expression visibly dimmed. Tong Bingran, however, greeted them as usual, appearing quite cordial.
Tong Youyou was still as fond of Jiang Li as ever. She clung to her for a while, chatting away before finally leaving with her father.
Tong Xu followed them a few steps, then couldn’t help but turn back. After hesitating for a few seconds, he asked, “That phone call you made to me… were you trying to warn me?”
Before Jiang Li could respond, Tong Yi frowned and said, “Are you daydreaming? Is your brain okay?”
Tong Xu ignored him, his eyes fixed on Jiang Li. He repeated the question, “You called me before… was it to warn me?”
Even if Jiang Li didn’t like him, even if she had chosen Tong Yi, when she found out he had done something against Jiang Ruo, she still made the effort to call him.
Because Jiang Ruo was terminally ill, and Jiang Li was afraid he’d push her too far, afraid she’d do something drastic in desperation.
Didn’t that mean… even if she didn’t accept him, she still considered him a friend?
But Jiang Li answered very firmly, “No.”
Tong Xu clearly froze. “Then why?”
Tong Yi’s expression turned mocking. “Because Jiang Ruo mistakenly thought I was targeting her! Jiang Xiao Li was worried she might come after me, so she called you. Get it now, you idiot?”
Tong Xu: “…”
Tong Yi led Jiang Li away by the hand. Tong Bingran was so annoyed that he smacked Tong Xu on the back of the head. “I told you not to mess with Jiang Li again! You thought I was just talking nonsense, huh?”
Tong Xu tried to defend himself. “No, I just… I just wanted an answer.”
Tong Bingran sneered: “Well, now you have it. Happy now?”
Tong Xu: “…”
Jiang Li had always been firm in her attitude, so he wasn’t exactly surprised—but he still felt a pang of disappointment.
Seeing his son’s vacant, lost expression, Tong Bingran didn’t bother saying more.
He was almost certain Jiang Li hadn’t called his son out of concern that Jiang Ruo might hurt him. More likely, she’d been fishing for information from this idiot and then passed the truth to Jiang Ruo.
That girl was very rational. She didn’t want her boyfriend Tong Yi getting caught in Jiang Ruo’s sights, so she took it upon herself to dig up the truth and hand over the evidence.
As for his own foolish son? Not only did he get played, but he actually believed Jiang Li had called because she cared. Tong Bingran had no idea how his son’s brain was wired.
Forget it, I’d better not tell him the truth, lest he get stuck on it and cause trouble for Jiang Li again, which would be really courting death.
When Tong Bingran took his children to the cemetery to pay their respects, he couldn’t help but sigh: they were all descendants of the Tong family, so why was his own son so much worse than Tong Yi?
Fortunately, his daughter was smart and sensible, which brought him a small measure of comfort.
…
After the Qingming holiday ended, Jiang Li and Tong Yi returned to Beijing and resumed their respective campus lives.
Tong Yi soon realized that even though he was now in a relationship and had already visited his girlfriend’s family, his student life hadn’t changed much at all.
His workaholic girlfriend remained fully focused on her studies. Academic work came easily to her, but the assignments her uncle gave her were never simple—they demanded a lot of effort and attention.
As a result, she was left with little time to spend with her boyfriend.
Tong Yi didn’t try to get in her way either. Instead, he began focusing on making money. For him, schoolwork wasn’t demanding and wouldn’t interfere with his business plans.
Whenever he made progress in his investments, he would eagerly share his achievements with Jiang Li. Though she didn’t care much for business talk, she was quite interested in wealth rankings.
Tong Yi took that as encouragement and pushed himself even harder. His girlfriend was the precious little princess of the Feng family. Even if he were to marry in as a son-in-law, he still needed to prepare a substantial dowry!
In his spare time, Tong Yi also kept an eye on the case progress of Jiang Zhou and Bai Guolin.
The result of the appeal trial came quickly and matched the first—both were found guilty. Tong Yi and Jiang Li briefly discussed the outcome and then stopped following the case.
The kidney-robbing case had come to an end, and the onlookers had dispersed. Though the scandal’s buzz had died down, Jiang Zhou and Bai Guolin’s suffering had only just begun.
Life in prison was harsh. While undergoing reform through labor, Jiang Zhou’s only hope was that Ruoruo would visit him during the designated visitation period.
But after the verdict from the appeal came in and they began serving their sentences, Ruoruo never visited again, not even after he wrote her letters. It was like they’d been thrown into the ocean, never to resurface.
As the days passed, Jiang Zhou’s mental state slowly began to crumble—until he finally received a handwritten letter from Jiang Ruo. Only then did he feel a glimmer of hope.
After reading it, he learned that the reason Ruoruo hadn’t visited was because of circumstances beyond her control.
Their father had come to Beijing. With nothing to his name, he had asked her for money, which he then used to invest—only to lose everything.
After losing the money, their father grew more irritable by the day. Eventually, he began entertaining dangerous ideas, suggesting that Ruoruo use her beauty to attract wealthy men and get money from them.
Ruoruo couldn’t accept that her father had become such a person. She knew that if she stayed in Beijing, she’d be drained dry by him—so she left alone.
To escape him, she even gave up on her education. To her, even if she finished university, the diploma would be useless. She could never live like a normal person or work a normal job.
All she wanted was to escape her past, escape the man who had raised her, and live a simple and peaceful life.
To avoid being found, she couldn’t visit Jiang Zhou in prison—that would expose her whereabouts.
She hadn’t left a return address on the envelope. Was it because she no longer trusted even him? Or had she never expected him to reply?
Or maybe… whether or not he wrote back didn’t matter to her at all?
Jiang Zhou read the letter over and over. Only after a long time did he carefully fold it and put it away.
Finding out whether Ruoruo had truly given up on him would be simple. He just had to wait and see if she ever wrote him again.
But if she really had let go of him… what was he supposed to do?
Bai Guolin soon found out that Young Master Jiang Zhou had received a letter from Ruoruo, but none had come for him.
At the time, he still clung to a shred of hope. Maybe she had at least mentioned him in the letter? But when he asked Jiang Zhou, he was disappointed once again.
That was when Bai Guolin finally understood: he had never truly mattered to Jiang Ruo.
Even though she had once called him a friend, when disaster struck, her heart held only Jiang Zhou.
After falling into despair, Bai Guolin forced himself to stop thinking about her. He wrote a letter to his own parents, hoping to receive a reply.
He just desperately wanted to prove that someone out there still cared about him.
Unfortunately, what he got wasn’t a letter, but a phone call full of his father’s fury.
In that call, Bai Guolin learned that the letter he had sent home had caused his mother so much emotional distress that she had gone into premature labor. Though both mother and child were safe in the end, his newborn sister would need to stay in the NICU for a while.
Hearing the worry in his father’s voice—for both his wife and daughter—Bai Guolin felt nothing but desolation.
Because now, he truly understood—he had been abandoned by everyone.
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