AM Chapter 15

15 “Go to bed early”

15 “Go to bed early”

Across from the flower shop was a small but warmly decorated coffee shop. Chen Mo, understanding social cues, walked in, ordered a coffee, and then, pointing towards the flower shop through the glass window, asked the owner to deliver it there later.

Turning his head from the coffee shop, one could see the “Daxiang Group” logo hanging on the tallest office building one hundred meters away in a straight line.

Chen Mo remembered that when Chen Daxiang passed away, the company only occupied four floors of that office building. Now, everything from the sixth floor up belonged to the company, which explained the huge logo.

However, although Daxiang Group still used Chen Daxiang’s name, it was no longer owned by a Chen.

Back then, when Liang Jingren married Chen Daxiang, Chen Daxiang immediately gave him shares and allowed him to join the board of directors. Although the same-sex marriage law had been in effect for a full year, the company’s old-fashioned shareholders had never seen anything like it. Fortunately, Liang Jingren’s aura dominated the scene, and no one dared to raise questions or objections, only some slight doubts were hidden beneath the table.

In the beginning, no one in the company dared to look directly at Liang Jingren, and no one even dared to call him anything—because no one knew what to call him.

It was Chen Daxiang who came forward at the shareholders’ meeting and asked everyone to call Liang Jingren “Director Liang,” and gradually more and more people began to greet Liang Jingren.

“As for me, everyone can still call me Old Chen! Or call me Chen Zong, that’s fine too, hahaha!” Chen Daxiang laughed so heartily, how could others not echo him, and even spread rumors in the company that he was “henpecked” and that “the wife’s word is law.”

As Daxiang Group grew stronger, even the news media was happy to report the story of this corporate same-sex couple with a slight age gap working together. Some entertainment reporters from small magazines even boldly published sensational headlines—”True love is not just about letting your wife get on top in bed, but also letting your wife get on top in the workplace!”

Chen Mo had seen magazines with titles like this at a small stall in front of his junior high school. If it didn’t have a photo of Liang Jingren and Chen Daxiang standing together on the cover, he wouldn’t have paid attention to it at all. But it just so happened that it was printed together in a picture frame with lace trim!

At that time, Chen Mo bought almost every issue—bought them to tear them up and throw them away.

Even though he had ridden on the back of Liang Jingren’s motorcycle to the amusement park and his impression of Liang Jingren had greatly improved, he couldn’t tolerate this kind of magazine appearing in front of the school gate—what if people in his class saw it? What if people in other classes saw it? What if teachers, principals, students, and parents all loved to gossip!?

Liang Jingren and Chen Daxiang didn’t care about face, but he did!!

The reality was that “Getting on Top” seemed to be a well-founded report. Before long, Liang Jingren really did get on top. Chen Daxiang announced his retirement at the shareholders’ meeting and officially appointed his legal spouse, Liang Jingren, to take over as general manager of his company.

Liang Jingren was capable, and with Chen Daxiang’s support, he won by a high margin in both the shareholders’ meeting and the board of directors elections. From then on, the title of “Director Liang” was undisputed.

Although he heard that Liang Jingren was very serious and strict in the company, Chen Mo had never been to the company. He lived in the same villa as Liang Jingren, and they lived together. He could figure out the other person’s living habits and true personality in less than half a year. Chen Mo thought: What Director Liang, he’s not that serious.

Especially since Liang Jingren had a group of “extraordinary” little brothers who came and went from the villa from time to time. Every time they came to greet him, they were very rough, with a loud “Brother Ren!” After Chen Mo heard it a lot, he found the title “Director Liang” very funny and hypocritical.

However, this title could help him quickly distinguish which people were Liang Jingren’s lackeys in the company and which ones were his little brothers who had been hanging out with Liang Jingren in society before. Therefore, Chen Mo tacitly approved of its existence from the moment it was born and never worried about Chen Daxiang’s position being shaken.

On the day of Chen Daxiang’s burial, Chen Mo and Liang Jingren wore black suits together to attend, which was the first time Chen Mo was exposed to countless camera flashes.

After the funeral, Liang Jingren comforted him backstage. He said he would find a way to settle those reporters and try not to have Chen Mo’s face printed in the newspapers.

He did what he said. No reports showed Chen Mo’s full face. Some only showed a mosaic or half of his face, or simply abandoned the picture and directly focused on the text—

Those reports said that Liang Jingren had exclusive power and that Chen Daxiang’s adopted son had been tragically “frozen out” and had no chance to fight for the property.

The detailed content of Chen Daxiang’s will was not made public, but the public’s eyes were “bright.” They watched Liang Jingren monopolize Daxiang Group and become increasingly successful, and they watched the adopted son Chen Mo go to and from school obediently without any friends. They were all guessing: Chen Mo, that poor child, must hate Liang Jingren to the core.

However, the opposite was true. After Chen Daxiang’s death, their relationship became even better.

Even on the night of Chen Daxiang’s burial, Liang Jingren drove his motorcycle and took Chen Mo to race wildly on the mountain road, watching the sea from the edge of the cliff after crossing the guardrail.

The funeral process was arranged by someone, and Liang Jingren took him there, so for Chen Mo, it wasn’t complicated or troublesome, but rather boring. Pretending to cry and mourning took up too much of his time. During this time, he couldn’t move around, couldn’t talk idly, and wasn’t allowed to eat snacks.

Seeing that Chen Mo was still listless after dinner, Liang Jingren took it upon himself to say that he would take him out for a ride.

Liang Jingren told him to pick any car in the garage, and said that if there were road sections with no people or cars, he could try driving the motorcycle.

—Actually, from the moment Liang Jingren said he could choose a car himself, Chen Mo had perked up.

That night, Liang Jingren’s most beloved “Bumblebee” was parked in a pile of weeds under the speed limit sign on the mountain road. The two of them crossed the guardrail and looked into the distance. The sea was dark, and not even a single fishing light could be seen.

If it weren’t for the faint sound of the waves and the feeling of the salty and humid evening wind blowing in their faces, Chen Mo would have suspected that Liang Jingren was lying about taking him to see the sea. After all, the distance from this city to the sea couldn’t be reached by a motorcycle racing for an hour or two.

“Here.” Just as Chen Mo closed his eyes to feel the atmosphere of the sea more clearly, Liang Jingren handed him a lollipop.

Chen Mo took the lollipop, turned his head slightly, and asked, “Why are you giving me this?”

“Aren’t I afraid you’ll pass out from low blood sugar? I don’t have a baby seat belt. If you pass out, how am I going to take you back?” Liang Jingren laughed.

Chen Mo pursed his lips, silently tore open the lollipop wrapper, and put the lollipop in his mouth.

Sweet… a strawberry sweetener flavor that was sweet to death…

Chen Mo couldn’t help but wonder: Did I really like eating sweets this much before? Otherwise, why would I have thought of lying about having low blood sugar?

Oh, right, it was during the first week after being adopted by Chen Daxiang and transferring to a new school. He brought candy to school and was discovered by the teacher. Chen Daxiang had transferred him to a good school with strict rules, and the teacher immediately called his parents.

Chen Mo, who had lost both his parents at the young age of ten, pitifully said that he had always suffered from low blood sugar. Unexpectedly, he really won the sympathy of Chen Daxiang and the teacher, and they both believed him.

Chen Daxiang didn’t suspect anything and even bought him a lot of candy. Fruit plates and candy boxes were placed in almost every room of the living room, dining room, kitchen, study, and dry area of the bathroom. Chen Daxiang even considered putting a shelf for candy on the wall-mounted tissue box in the toilet.

There was no doubt that all the candy in the entire villa belonged to Chen Mo. And Liang Jingren took his lollipop, his property, without permission on the day of his arrival, so Chen Mo’s first impression of him was unpleasant—very unpleasant. This had nothing to do with the eight strong men behind Liang Jingren and Chen Daxiang’s solemn expression.

Come to think of it, Chen Daxiang never knew that his “low blood sugar” was fake, even until his death. And although Liang Jingren had investigated him and exposed 90% of his lies, he didn’t know much about his physical condition.

Chen Mo could actually confess to Liang Jingren. He knew that Liang Jingren wouldn’t care about his lies, because in Liang Jingren’s heart, he was already an image of a “little liar.” One more lie or one less lie didn’t make much difference. Liang Jingren would still be good to him, take care of him, and back him up—

In the second year of junior high school, he hung up his injuries and made a scene, asking Liang Jingren to find someone to teach the guy who argued and fought with him a lesson. Later, he learned that Liang Jingren had found someone to block the guy’s path, asked about the situation clearly, and then a group of strong men bowed and apologized in the alley for him, who had first been grabby and broken the tip of the guy’s new pen.

Not only that, but they also paid for the pen and treated the guy to spicy sticks, which made the other party take the initiative to apologize to Chen Mo when he went to school the next day.

Liang Jingren also tried to contact Chen Mo’s class teacher at the time to give gifts. When the teacher refused to accept the gifts, he changed his approach and donated books and supplies to the class, providing the whole class with snacks for the potluck, and instructed his little brothers to secretly quell any interpersonal troubles for Chen Mo.

This was also why Chen Mo was willing to learn from those little brothers and call Liang Jingren “Brother Ren.”

If he confessed now that “low blood sugar” was actually one of the thousands of lies he had told, the biggest change might be that the candy in every corner of the villa would be removed. However, this had no impact on Chen Mo, because he really rarely, rarely, rarely took those candies to eat. On the other hand, Liang Jingren would occasionally eat one or two when he was sitting in the living room.

However, the thought that Liang Jingren, who was completely unaware of his unintentional lie, would suddenly hand him a lollipop like today made Chen Mo feel very amused.

So he planned to tell this lie for the rest of his life.

“Chen Mo, will you blame me for taking your things?”

“Huh?” Chen Mo took the lollipop out of his mouth and asked, “What did you take?”

Liang Jingren lowered his head and said, “Chen Daxiang’s company, property…”

At this moment, Chen Mo said a sentence, a very, very, very unethical and unconventional sentence—on that night when he was blowing the sea breeze with Liang Jingren, on the night when Chen Daxiang was buried, he ridiculed his adoptive father, who had treated him extremely well: “Take it, I don’t want the stuff of a simp.”

“Ah, ah??”

Seeing Liang Jingren so surprised, Chen Mo felt strange. “Didn’t you know? Chen Daxiang was my mom’s simp backup, and there’s a photo of him and my mom as childhood sweethearts on his bedside table.”

After saying that, he licked the sickeningly sweet lollipop, smacked his lips, and continued, “They’re all love-struck idiots. Chen Daxiang volunteered to be a cuckold, and my mom trusted him. She stuffed me into Chen Daxiang’s house on the weekend and turned around and went with my dad. It’s speechless.”

Chen Mo also thought to himself: Fortunately, his biological father died in a car accident, an uncontrollable event, otherwise it would be even more speechless.

Liang Jingren didn’t seem to have much morality either. Listening to Chen Mo complain about his dead biological parents and Chen Daxiang, he smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and finally couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

Then he criticized Chen Mo in a small voice: “Don’t grow into a love-struck idiot in the future.”

“I won’t.” Chen Mo said proudly, raising his head. After saying that, he put the lollipop back in his mouth.

Twenty-two-year-old Chen Mo returned to the villa with a bouquet of roses. By this time, the sun had completely set, and all the doors and windows of the villa were pitch black.

He didn’t order takeout or think about making something to eat himself. He just sat in the quiet living room, sitting on the sofa and eating the candies on the fruit plate on the coffee table.

—It is said that sweetness, like flowers, has the magic of healing the soul and making people feel better.

Chen Mo sat on the sofa with the candy and roses, waiting and waiting, waiting until nine o’clock, ten o’clock, ten thirty, eleven o’clock…

There were no more empty candy wrappers on the coffee table, but the person he was waiting for still hadn’t returned.

Chen Mo leaned back on the sofa, looked up at the ceiling, and thought: I shouldn’t have come back.

The sound of the second hand moving on the wall clock was the only sound in the entire living room.

Chen Mo changed his posture at some point, lazily lying on the wide armrest of one side of the sofa. Through the faint natural light shining into the room, he saw the hour and minute hands of the wall clock gradually moving towards 12.

Before they completely overlapped, Chen Mo sat up and took out his phone, letting the dazzling white light drill into his retina. He flipped directly to an accurate number in his address book based only on his finger memory.

The first call was quickly hung up, and Chen Mo immediately dialed a second time.

Four years ago, he ran away from home and eventually went to a foreign country. Liang Jingren also called him again and again like this, but he hung up every time—every time.

Now, he was praying in his heart that Liang Jingren would answer his phone, secretly begging Liang Jingren not to hang up on him every time.

He knew he was wrong. He shouldn’t have said those things during the day. He was just angry. He hated that Liang Jingren didn’t understand anything, and he hated that he pretended not to understand when he clearly did. He hated Liang Jingren’s indifferent and matter-of-fact expression, so he frantically wanted to anger him.

Now, he wanted to apologize to Liang Jingren, who had really been angered.

Of course, he had no intention of maintaining any father-son relationship. They weren’t a real father and son in the first place, and now they had become “strangers.”

But even if they became strangers to each other, Chen Mo didn’t want Liang Jingren to really hate him.

It wasn’t a lie that he was attracted to Liang Jingren’s body, but it would be a real lie to say that he was only attracted to his body.

He wanted Liang Jingren to always be good to him, tolerant of him, take care of him, think of him, and love him—because he had been thinking of Liang Jingren for the past four years.

He thought of him when he was showering, thought of him when he was watching porn, thought of him when he was drinking, thought of him when he was sleeping, thought of him when he was dating a new girlfriend, thought of him when he was dating a new boyfriend, thought of him when he was having sex with different partners…

If Liang Jingren didn’t do this, then…

It’s not fair…

Ah… the phone was connected.

Chen Mo glanced at the glowing screen, so surprised that he forgot to breathe.

He had only dialed the second time… and it was connected?

But… why… was the background noise so chaotic?

It was like being in a rock nightclub…

“Hello? Talk. What do you want if you call and don’t talk?” Liang Jingren’s voice emerged from the noisy music.

Chen Mo had just been concentrating on distinguishing whether there was a sound of “Brother Ren” in the background. If there was, then he would probably know who Liang Jingren was with and where. But he hadn’t heard anything yet, and Liang Jingren spoke.

Hearing that Liang Jingren was a little impatient, Chen Mo quickly said, “Ah, uh, are you at Strong Bro’s place?” He asked directly.

Liang Jingren said, “At a branch.”

“Then, tonight…”

“I’m not going back tonight. Clean up your things yourself.”

“…”

Liang Jingren probably suspected that he hadn’t heard clearly and repeated, “I said, clean up your things tonight and move out of the villa tomorrow.”

“But, but,” Chen Mo panicked and didn’t know where to look. There were so many candy wrappers on the coffee table, dirty and messy, so uncomfortable, “Where, where do I live?”

“What about your parents’ apartment? Did you lose the keys?”

“But, that, it’s an apartment that no one has lived in, and no one has cleaned it…” Chen Mo knew that the excuses he was making were getting worse and worse, but his tongue couldn’t stop stuttering.

“Then what do you want? How about I give you a five-star hotel to live in? Are you paying or am I paying?!” Liang Jingren’s tone became more and more aggressive.

“I don’t want…”

Just then, the address that Chen Mo had been looking forward to hearing two minutes ago appeared—”Brother Ren, come on! It’s your turn to drink!”

But this wasn’t what Chen Mo wanted to hear.

Drink?

Drink what?

Juice or soda?

—Wasn’t Liang Jingren supposed to quit drinking!? Why are they still letting him drink!!!

“Did you drink?… Did you drink??” Chen Mo asked continuously, getting more and more anxious.

The other end of the phone was suddenly silent for a while, and then, accompanied by the new DJ taking the stage, the explosive dance music started, and Liang Jingren’s low, hoarse voice was transmitted along with the chaotic heavy bass:

“It’s none of your business.”

Chen Mo cried.

The sound of crying was transmitted into the phone, and Liang Jingren seemed to have heard it and softened.

Before hanging up the phone, he said to Chen Mo, “Go to bed early.”

On that night when Chen Daxiang was buried in peace, after the two of them returned to the villa, Liang Jingren stood at his door and said to him in the same tone: “Go to bed early.” Then he turned off the lights for him.

This wasn’t the first night that Chen Mo had experienced Liang Jingren not coming home, but it was the first night that Chen Mo cried uncontrollably in the empty villa.