Chapter 348 — Breaking Off the Engagement

A phone rang. Fang Tian felt around beside him and fished out a mobile phone. It was an Apple—and regarding this, Yang Ce was speechless. The reason was simple: Fang Tian felt the Apple had far too many functions and was inconvenient to use... Yang Ce was thoroughly embarrassed—so too many functions became a defect in his eyes?

Glancing at the caller ID, Fang Tian's sleep-drowsy eyes flew open at once, and the shrewd gleam of his everyday self returned. The SIM card had international caller ID activated—Fang Tian's friends were scattered across the five continents, many of them abroad, such as that Li Lin in Vietnam.

In order to confirm who was calling, Fang Tian had signed up for international caller ID. The monthly fee was not cheap, and most people would never bother with such a service—except those with special needs, like Fang Tian.

"Hello? Old Wang?" Fang Tian picked up. "What made you think of calling an old fellow like me?"

"..." The man on the other end held it in for a while, clearly quite uncomfortable. After a moment he finally could not restrain himself and let out a curse. "Damn it, Old Fang, what do you mean by that? I'm a year older than you. If you're an old fellow, then I'm practically in my grave!"

"Judging by that tone, you're in a good mood?" Fang Tian didn't mind. He knew that the more Wang Yu spoke to him in that tone, the better his mood was. If he were all solemn and grave, that would mean he had run into trouble.

"Not bad," Wang Yu admitted with a chuckle. "I hear that apprentice of yours and my precious daughter have cooked up a Black Butterfly assassin group together, and they're making quite a splash?"

"Hear, my ass—you only heard?" Fang Tian said sourly. "I don't believe for a second you haven't been quietly following up and investigating."

"So you saw through me." Wang Yu was utterly unapologetic. "Isn't this just how everyone talks nowadays? You watch those youngsters open their mouths—it's all 'I hear,' 'they say,' 'speaking of which'... and the like."

Fang Tian rolled his eyes. "Do you have business or not? I'm listening to a storytelling broadcast—no time to shoot the breeze with you."

"It's daytime on your side, and it's the middle of the night on mine—you tell me whether I have business," Wang Yu said, flustered and exasperated.

"Oh, so you old codger can't sleep and decided to come harass me." Fang Tian said with sudden understanding. "Then I'll hang up, all right? Shan Tianfang's storytelling is about to start."

"You immortal old bastard, wait!" Wang Yu was about to explode. "What I mean is, if I didn't have business, would I be calling you in the middle of the night?"

"..." Fang Tian switched off the radio and set it aside. "All right, out with it. What is it?" "Here's the thing—I suddenly thought of something fun. Want to play along with me?" Wang Yu lowered his voice and spoke softly.

"What fun thing?" Fang Tian's interest was piqued too. Generally speaking, if Wang Yu said he had business, then he definitely had business, so Fang Tian grew serious as well.

"Let's put on a little show—a broken engagement!" Wang Yu said mysteriously.

"What? Say what? A broken engagement?" Fang Tian was startled. "Old Wang, what the hell are you up to? Who's breaking off an engagement with whom? Haven't your sister and I been broken off for ages?"

"Not you—my daughter." Wang Yu's face went dark with exasperation. Inwardly he thought: the moment his sister is mentioned, this kid reacts so fiercely. He's this old already—in a few days he should have his sister come back and try to match the two of them up again. Maybe it would work out, and the family would have a double happy event.

"Your daughter? Your daughter's engaged again?" Hearing that it was about Wang Yanqiu, Fang Tian asked at once in surprise.

"Isn't she engaged to your apprentice! To Yan—who else could it be?" Wang Yu said helplessly. "Old Fang, is your brain not working? Who else could my daughter be engaged to?"

"Breaking the engagement? What does that mean? You old bastard Wang, are you using this as a chance for payback?" Fang Tian grew anxious at once. "Because I won't marry your sister, you want to get even and make your daughter refuse to marry my apprentice? Fine, don't marry then—forget it, break the engagement!"

"You damned fool, do you take me for senile? My daughter's already been coaxed into your apprentice's bed—who else is she going to marry?" Wang Yu said frantically. "Listen to me—we're playing at a broken engagement. Did a door squeeze your head recently? Can't you understand plain human speech?"

"I understand human speech," Fang Tian said flatly.

"..." Wang Yu truly wanted to strangle Fang Tian through the phone line, but he didn't have that kind of supernatural power. "Playing at a broken engagement—do you understand or not?"

"Yes, go on. I'm listening." Fang Tian stopped teasing him and asked.

"Back when the two of us arranged their engagement, neither of those children was willing, were they?

My little princess even ran away from home over it, and the two of us were worried sick. This time, let's give them a taste of their own medicine. What do you think?" Wang Yu laid out his idea.

"Give them a taste of their own medicine? Mm, I think I roughly get what you mean," Fang Tian said after hearing him out.

"You mean you'll agree to Wang Yanqiu's demand and call off her engagement, and I won't force my disciple to marry your daughter either, and then in the end the two of them discover it was all a tragedy?"

"Oh, it won't come to tragedy—just a big joke at their expense!" Seeing that Fang Tian had guessed almost exactly, Wang Yu said, "That's about the size of it. We agree to let them break off the engagement. But break it off they may—only they have to meet first. We'll say that even if the marriage won't happen, the goodwill remains, and that if the engagement is to be called off, everyone should sit down and discuss it amicably..."

"And then they meet and both freeze, right?" Hearing this, Fang Tian thought it a fine idea—amusing, even. Wang Yu really was a sly, ruthless one, to dream up something so constructive.

"Ha, exactly! Just thinking about the two of them standing there not knowing what to do with themselves makes me endlessly happy!" Wang Yu roared with laughter.

"I say, Old Wang, how did you ever come up with this idea? It's just too..." Fang Tian said in admiration.

"Heh heh, I've had nothing to do lately, haven't I? With time on my hands, I've been reading novels, and I noticed that stories about broken engagements are all the rage these days. One thing led to another and the idea came to me!" Wang Yu said.

"Chasing-the-catch flow? What's that supposed to mean?" Fang Tian asked.

"It's in novels—the protagonist gets jilted, then trains hard and becomes invincible under heaven. You know, the popular ones—Proud Sword Soaring the Clouds, Battle Through the Heavens, Summoning Ten Thousand Years, that sort of thing... And lately I've been following an absolutely fantastic book called The Demon-Guidance Swordmaster. That author posts ten updates a day, it's superb. I recommend you give it a look and you'll understand what broken-engagement flow is. The book's number is 11..." Wang Yu introduced it with a face full of smiles.

"Uh..." Fang Tian was listening in a fog, but whatever this broken-engagement flow was, Wang Yu's idea was rather interesting: "The book stuff, we'll talk about later. But I've decided—I'm playing this broken-engagement game with you."

"Heh heh, actually, calling off an engagement is pretty much the same as getting engaged. When the time comes I'll invite all our friends from the trade to come and bear witness, and have the two children get engaged."

"Yes, that works. Let's do it that way. I'll go talk to my disciple in a bit." Fang Tian nodded in agreement.

"And I'll have a word with Yanyan too, haha." Wang Yu chuckled.

So after hanging up, Fang Tian called Yang Ce.