Chapter 655: Chapter 655

She was draped in a cotton linen robe that resembled the garb of a Buddhist monk, white in color, endowing her with the air of an immortal. This sensation seemed to fuse seamlessly with the sacred Mount Jesus.

The vehicle came to a stop a few steps away from the elderly woman.

After paying the fare, Xiao Yebai and Gu Nuan got out of the car.

Waitstaff from the hotel entrance approached to help them transfer the luggage from the vehicle, and since it was a five-star hotel, the service was meticulous. Before the staff had brought the belongings upstairs, the always capricious and wealthy Yebai, as usual, gave a tip to the waitstaff in advance.

This gesture made them work even harder for Yebai.

Gu Nuan couldn’t help but think that if all employers were as generous as her husband, willing to pay their staff in advance, then truly, there would be no such thing as labor disputes in the world.

Throughout human history, whether employers paid their employees before or after their work didn’t seem to have a standard practice.

It could only be said that this stemmed from a lack of trust between people.

The elderly woman, casually observing the tip that Yebai had given in advance, could not help but let a smile touch her lips, accustomed to solemnity, with an inherent aura of nobility, she said, "Like your mother."

"Really, Aunt Zhao?" Xiao Yebai raised an eyebrow in response.

It seemed that this woman was the legendary Mrs. Zhao of the Zhao Family.

By age, there was no mistake, Mrs. Zhao was a friend of Xiao Jianming and Ruan Ruzhen; she was roughly the same age as Xiao Jianming and should be around seventy by now.

Gu Nuan couldn’t help but think that if it wasn’t for Xiao Yebai being the youngest son of the aged Xiao Jianming, then surely, her husband would be quite old by now, with many children to boot.

Mrs. Zhao, unlike her friend Ruan Ruzhen who had many children, only had two sons. However, since her eldest son, Zhao Zirong, had married Shumei, the eldest daughter of the Xiao Family, and Shumei had given birth to three children for the Zhao Family in one go, the Zhao lineage had suddenly expanded substantially.

For this, the Zhao Family had always been grateful to the Xiao Family and liked their eldest daughter-in-law very much.

Nobody could have expected that a huge trap had already been tightly set for Shumei.

Mrs. Zhao, though in her seventies now, did not seem so old. In a recent media magazine issue, there was an exclusive interview with her. Via her husband’s introduction, Gu Nuan found the article on a digital webpage while on the road.

In that article, there was a photo of Mrs. Zhao with her full head of black hair, dressed in a white blouse and purple skirt, exuding the rigorous nobility and elegant coolness of the traditional Chinese woman, appearing at most fifty, no older than sixty years old to any observer.

Clearly, due to some setback, within just a month’s time, Mrs. Zhao’s hair had turned half white, with a salt-and-pepper mottle, further revealing the ruthlessness of time and age.

Perhaps Mrs. Zhao’s hair had already been white, and it was simply unattended to and left un-dyed, giving insight into the unprecedented crisis the Zhao Family was facing. It had worn her down, causing her to overlook such typically important details as her appearance, which she had always cared about so much.

For the wives of the rich, this was indeed the case. Without the support of money, all the previously money-built images would falter like a mirage in the desert. Wealth and vanity, fabricated by money, were so fragile.

Those who have not experienced it do not understand.

Mrs. Zhao understood, having been in these circles for many years, she had encountered all sorts of dreadful scenes. She had seen some families, once at the pinnacle of wealth, collapse just like the four great families in the "Dream of the Red Chamber". In prospering times, they shined with glory, but in decline, they were left without even a place to be buried, resembling beggars clad in straw clothing on the streets, or at worst, becoming pariahs, shunned by all.