The Mysterious Heiress: Researcher In Disguise

After a short pause, Jiang Zong lifted his head.

He blinked a few times as he held Fu Zhi’s gaze with his brows raised questioningly. “What did you just call me?”

He had barely finished his sentence before his illness came back to haunt him. He covered his chest and let out a few fits of cough, his breathing sounding raspy.

“Mr. Bigshot,” Fu Zhi repeated, setting her jaw tight. “I’m asking you to pay for the damage.”

‘Pay for the damage, understand?’

The pan had been gifted to her by her second brother. It had cost more than a few hundred thousand yuan, not to mention that it was the only one in this world.

Nobody spoke for a moment, and silence reigned.

Jiang Zong looked at Fu Zhi again and had to admit that she was the prettiest young lady he had ever seen in his life.

Her figure was slender, and the black sweater she had put on brought out the fairness of her skin. He coughed again as he rubbed his chest.

Then, suddenly, he asked, “Are you taking advantage of me?”

Fu Zhi was stunned. She failed to capture the awkwardness that hung in the air. As she frowned, there was only one thought in her head.

‘Not only is this arrogant-looking, bad-tempered, weak young man refusing to compensate me, but he even has the audacity to make an unfounded countercharge?!’

The more Fu Zhi thought about it, the angrier she became. She clenched her fists tightly, and just as she was about to rush forward like a bomb to annihilate the bunch of people in front of her, Lu Yubai dashed up to her and hugged her from behind.

“Zhizhi! Zhizhi!” He shouted her name again and again, trying his very best to talk some sense into her. “You have to calm down. He’s Jiang Zong, the young master of the Jiang Family that your friend talked about last time. You’re a good girl, so let’s cool down first and not call him that. We have to show him that we’re not taking advantage of him, and all we want is for him to compensate us for our loss, alright?”

Lu Yubai felt like he was Fu Zhi’s parent at the moment.

Zhou Zibai was worried that Fu Zhi would ruin them all as well.

Fu Zhi fell silent, and she thought that Lu Yubai was right.

That said, she did not want to make things difficult. It was just that the pen was really expensive. Besides, she thought that she should never hesitate when dealing with a matter that involved money, for hesitation would only lead to downfall.

With that thought in mind, Fu Zhi took a deep breath and patted Lu Yubai’s arms, which were wrapped around her. She kept a straight face, as if she had gotten over the things that had just happened.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Jiang Zong.” Then, she pointed at the broken pen on the ground and continued speaking matter-of-factly. “You broke my pen, so you have to compensate me.”

Lu Yubai sighed heavily as he smacked his forehead. He felt that if money had not been involved, Fu Zhi would not have made a fuss over such a trivial matter. She would not even have spared a glance for Jiang Zong. She would have just walked away.

However, the thing was that the pen was extremely expensive…

Smacking his lips in annoyance, Jiang Zong commented, “What a noisy girl.” He beckoned to his bodyguard to give Fu Zhi a cheque and also retrieve the broken pen from the ground, fully demonstrating that the richer one was, the stingier one was.

After that, the group of bodyguards surrounded their master once again as if someone was coming after his life.

Jiang Zong did not go to have a walk with Jiang Xi in the end. He saw Gu Yan, who was standing not far away, and walked up to her after some contemplation.

Fu Zhi studied the cheque meticulously before sticking it into her pocket ultra-carefully. Lu Yubai looked at his sister, whose eyes were gleaming with delight at the sight of money, and felt that he had an obligation to change her care-for-nothing-but-money attitude.

After they finished taking the picture, he pulled Fu Zhi aside and told her from the bottom of his heart, “As humans, we should dream big in life and strive to broaden our horizons. So tell me, aside from money, what do you yearn for the most right now?”

Fu Zhi replied, “The money that you put aside.”

Lu Yubai was stumped. He felt like he was going to have a heart attack, so he turned away from Fu Zhi and began to regret his foolish decision to try to change her.

‘She’s beyond saving!’

Fu Zhi was in a good mood right now. Then, she received a message on WeChat.

It was from Xu Wei.

She told her that she had bought her a cup of bubble tea and asked her to meet up with her at the bubble tea shop.

On the other side of the city, Lu Yumo’s eyes glowed when he finally saw his mother’s message in their family WeChat group. He then hastily chimed in and sent a voice message to the group. “Mom, I’ve been calling you all day. Why won’t you pick up the phone? I’m running out of living expenses!”

Lu Yubai heard Lu Yumo’s voice message, and his eyes flashed with hope again. Just as he was about to use Xu Wei selflessly giving Lu Yumo money as an example to teach Fu Zhi that money was not everything in life, he heard Xu Wei say, “Then you may as well not live.”

Xu Wei’s response was something that Lu Yubai had not expected to hear. He was thrown for a loop, and he was so stunned that he could not come back to his senses for a long while. By the time he finally came around, he swore to himself that from now on, if he heard someone say that Fu Zhi was not Xu Wei’s biological mother, he was going to slap his or her face so hard that their parents would not be able to recognize them.

*

At night, in her own room, Gu Yan kept calling and checking again and again with the human resources department of the association. She still could not get over the fact that the change of captain had been ordered by Sheng Hua himself.

After having a short bout of contemplation, she decided to call someone. “Is everything ready?”

The man on the other side of the phone replied respectfully, “Rest assured, Ms. Gu. This is not a big deal. After I transferred the money, they got everything prepared. When they release everything, Fu Zhi will not be able to participate in the competition anymore…”

Gu Yan nodded after she heard what the butler said and then hung up the phone.

She turned her head around and looked at the young lady in the mirror. The girl in the mirror had the same face as her, but jealousy and resentment were prominent in her eyes.

Gu Yan snapped the mirror closed. She had never imagined that she would be jealous of Fu Zhi one day and she could not believe it. Everything was going very well for Fu Zhi, while she had become the type of person she loathed the most.

However, there was nothing she could do.

Even though she made Lu Yushen drop her and pick her up from school, he would wait for Fu Zhi at the front door of the school after he got home.

Fu Zhi had once again taken away the love that should have been hers, and even Sheng Hua, who saw her as his friend, had begun to side with Fu Zhi.

She did not know what had gotten into his head to make him choose Fu Zhi to be the team leader, but she had a bad hunch.

However, she did not dare think too much about it. The only thing she knew she should do right now was prevent Fu Zhi from taking part in the friendly match at any cost!

The next morning, thanks to the unified effort of several commercial accounts, the topic “It’s official, Fu Zhi is going to lead a team into the friendly match with Country R ” was all over the internet. It even became the number one hot topic on Weibo.

Fu Zhi?

Team leader?

Match with Country R?

Hold on a second. Where was Gu Yan? Which one of them was going to lead the team?

These were the questions that popped into the netizens’ minds when they read through the topic.

However, before the netizens could figure anything out, several commercial accounts dropped a few bombshells again, thrusting the already-confused netizens into greater confusion.

They said that the association had decided to switch Gu Yan out and make Fu Zhi the team leader before the result of the final round of the competition was released. They also mentioned that Fu Zhi was very familiar with Han Wei and Professor He, refused to do homework, and just wallowed in entertainment in No.1 High School.

Initially, the netizens were skeptical about this, but more and more of them began to believe it after the commercial accounts attached a few photos of Fu Zhi sleeping or playing games in class.

In any case, the commercial accounts were trying their best to make Gu Yan the victim of the whole incident, while Fu Zhi was the culprit.

Gu Yan’s fans exploded from rage. They were already dissatisfied with Fu Zhi, and now they hated Fu Zhi to her core.

[She’s really such a phony b*tch. She pretends as if she doesn’t care about fame and wealth and all that, and now she did this?]

[It’s an international competition. One should never wear a hat bigger than his or her head. Is she sure she can shoulder the responsibility if she disgraces our country?]

Everyone on the internet was criticizing Fu Zhi for being selfish and not putting the interest of their country before her own.

Sheng Hua was stunned when he saw everything happening on the internet.

It had taken a lot for him to make Fu Zhi the leader, and he had no idea what the hell these people were doing.

Left speechless, Sheng Hua hurriedly instructed his staff to speed up the result.