Tang Zhelan found herself seated in the lounge area on the third floor of the inn. She was left by Zhao Feng who took her luggage and brought it to the largest room they could offer to their customers. She had declined the idea as she didn't want to be a freeloader to his family and offered to pay for her stay instead, but Zhao Feng would hear none of it.

  "It's been a long time since you took a break from work, Miss Lan. Please don't worry; it's no trouble at all. My grandmother also knew you were here and agreed with the arrangement of your stay."

  Beside her, Zhao Jing cupped her chin with both hands as she watched Tang Zhelan take a sip from her newly brewed tea. She had volunteered to accompany their special guest while her uncle busied himself preparing Tang Zhelan's room and accommodation for a VIP guest.

  "Is there something you need?" Tang Zhelan asked, bringing down her teacup to look at the young girl seated across her. She felt so out of place being here.

  She had shed her coat and was now reduced to her pristine white blouse and dark slacks that bespoke a high price tag just because of its brand and the quality of material used on it. Her layered bob haircut which was dyed in gray would easily attract one's attention upon seeing her.

  Her well-manicured hand held the teacup with such a straight posture expected from a woman with her social status. It was easy to say that she wasn't a local of Lijiang and came from a rich family.

  Zhao Jing shook her head and grinned at her. It was rare for her uncle to have a guest like Tang Zhelan, and she had been curious about the woman whom his uncle had been talking about.

  "I just want to be here with you." She paused as if she remembered something. "Miss Tang, are you here to take my uncle back to the city?" she asked with a solemn tone.

  "Why would you think of that?" Tang Zhelan asked back. Just what kind of things Zhao Feng told his niece about her?

  "Because Uncle is always worried about you. He said that you don't have many friends in the city."

  "What about you? Do you have friends?" Tang Zhelan tried not to get annoyed at what the girl was implying. Why did it even matter if she had friends or not? She would rather be alone than group herself with the wrong people.

  Zhao Jing tapped her forefinger on her chin as she gave it a thought.

  "Not that much, Miss Tang. Sometimes the friends I made before eventually forget about me when we don't end up in the same class at school," the girl replied.

  "Then it's the same thing for me. I don't have many friends as most of them are overseas or too far from where I am living," Tang Zhelan answered the girl's previous question. She made a mental note to talk with Zhao Feng later to question him.

  While it was true that she and Zhao Feng had been good friends, she was really clueless as to why he even bothered to mention her to his niece when it had been a long time since he resigned as a butler in their household. She didn't think she had left a remarkable impression on him at all.

  "Then Miss Tang, are you married?" The little girl's curiosity persisted.

  "No, I'm not. At least, not yet," Tang Zhelan answered the girl with honesty. She might be able to run away from her parents and dodge the marriage arrangement they prepared for her, but Tang Zhelan knew that they wouldn't stand still and do nothing.

  "Why are you asking anyway?" Why would a girl as young as Zhao Jing ask her about such things?

  "Because you are gorgeous, Miss Tang. The other women I know at your age are already married, but you aren't," Zhao Jing said.

  Tang Zhelan scoffed inwardly. Whether she married or not, it wasn't anyone's business to interfere with her life.

  "There are things a woman could do in her life aside from getting married and giving birth to a child, Zhao Jing. You don't really have to follow the norms of the society if you don't like it."

  If she had been born as a male, Tang Zhelan knew her parents might have treated her well. But because she was born as a female into a family who deemed it as a lesser gender, she had been raised since young to be a proper bride in the future.

  At least in this place, daughters were regarded as more precious than sons. It was a pity that she had been born to the accursed Tang family. However, with the things going on with their family, she knew that the tradition was bound to lose its influence over the daughters of the Tang family.

  Lu Tianxin was able to dodge the bullet by having a child out of wedlock. She had been mum about the identity of the father of her child, which only earned disp.l.e.a.s.u.r.e from their grandfather.

  It wasn't lost on her that Tang Moyu was just playing Elder Tang and the rest of the board in the palm of her hands. She certainly didn't come back from abroad to help them.

  After all the things the Tang family did to her, how could the empress extend an olive branch to save the company? Tang Zhelan didn't think her cousin had such a magnanimous and merciful heart to forgive their family for betraying her in the past.

  Once the empress was done with them, Tang Zhelan was certain that Tang Moyu would crush the family with her own hands to settle the debts they owed her. Perhaps it had been her luck to be kicked out of the company even before that happened.

  What she needed to do right now was to get away from her parents and make sure the empress wouldn't drag her back for revenge.