AM Chapter 21

21 First Love and Lover

Ever since Chen Mo was reinvigorated by Liang Jingren’s simple words that day, he went to the cafeteria on the third floor of Daxing Group every day until he moved. He didn’t come on the day of the move because he was too busy and tired, and after moving, he repeated this pattern—after all, his new residence was only a ten-minute walk from the building.

Although he didn’t see Liang Jingren every day, he could always see him a few times a week. Liang Jingren was very good at saving money and trouble. Unless there were special circumstances, he usually had dinner in the cafeteria before going home.

As for those days when he couldn’t catch Liang Jingren going to the cafeteria or gym after work, Chen Mo would call Liang Jingren at exactly 6:30 or 7:00 PM. The content of the call was simple, just two sentences:

“Where are you?” “Have you eaten?”

At this time, Liang Jingren usually replied:

“Outside.” “Eaten.”

Chen Mo didn’t ask for more details, because Liang Jingren didn’t need to tell him, and he didn’t want to be hung up on—he would hang up first after asking.

The first time he did this, Chen Mo could imagine Liang Jingren’s bewildered and confused expression. Later, Liang Jingren seemed to get used to it, and would even take the initiative to call him before important meetings and social events, telling him not to wait for him, and more importantly—not to call randomly. Chen Mo, of course, agreed obediently.

Although Liang Jingren didn’t resist his approach, and they could often have dinner together—cafeteria food, Chen Mo didn’t think Liang Jingren had accepted him. He felt that he might be nothing to Liang Jingren anymore, so Liang Jingren treated him like an ordinary person, without avoiding, hating, or loving him.

When they ate together, if he didn’t say anything, Liang Jingren wouldn’t say anything either. In those countless silent moments, Chen Mo felt like they had really become strangers.

So he had to break this silence, and he had to break Liang Jingren’s intention to return to his past solitary and peaceful life.

During his four years abroad, during the four years he unilaterally thought about Liang Jingren, Liang Jingren closely contacted his roommate out of concern for “his child,” trying every means to care for him. However, if the two were no longer father and son, then Liang Jingren would have no obligation to waste brainpower on remembering him, let alone paying attention to him or caring about him.

Chen Mo would never allow himself to have the slightest thought of retreating, because behind him was a bottomless cliff. If he fell, no one would reach out to pull him. If he really disappeared from Liang Jingren’s sight for a period of time, then his existence would be completely erased from Liang Jingren’s mind.

—Liang Jingren would definitely forget him, completely and utterly.

“Chen Mo, here for dinner again?”

In the cafeteria on the third floor of Daxing Group, Chen Mo occasionally encountered Shen Qing. After all, Shen Qing had a virtuous wife at home, so most of the time he went home for dinner after work.

Chen Mo had his first dinner with Shen Qing not long after he moved. That day, Liang Jingren happened to be away, apparently because something happened at the bar and Liang Jingren went to help in the afternoon.

Chen Mo and Shen Qing were not close. Apart from Liang Jingren as a middleman, they had little to talk about. However, when talking about Liang Jingren, there was one topic that inevitably came up at the beginning. Even a seasoned social person like Shen Qing couldn’t help but be curious. He wondered, “What exactly happened between you two back then? Why did you suddenly go abroad?”

Chen Mo retorted, “Hasn’t Liang Jingren ever told you the reason?”

At that time, Shen Qing was stunned for a moment. Chen Mo watched him stunned, and he himself was also stunned, slowly feeling some worry in his heart. As a result, Shen Qing told him: Liang Jingren said that because Chen Mo broke his vase worth 100,000 yuan and refused to apologize, he kicked Chen Mo out.

“He really said that?” Chen Mo was both surprised and not very surprised.

Shen Qing, however, pressed him, “So what’s the real story?”

Chen Mo tilted his head, pretending not to understand, “Ah? What real story?”

Shen Qing stroked his chin, looking shrewd and calculating, “As far as I know, Liang Jingren doesn’t have any antique treasures worth 100,000 yuan, right? Isn’t his money all from your dad, Chen Daxiang? Even if you really smashed a vase, you’d be smashing your own vase. Why would Liang Jingren be angry?”

Hearing Shen Qing’s words, Chen Mo burst out laughing, laughing so hard that he couldn’t eat his meal, and he easily choked when he tried to eat. He didn’t expect Liang Jingren to make up such a clumsy lie to fool outsiders. It was too funny.

However, Chen Mo didn’t intend to tell anyone the real story, so in front of Shen Qing, he only laughed and said the word “secret,” letting Shen Qing guess for himself. Anyway, Shen Qing wasn’t the type to pursue things relentlessly and get to the bottom of them.

Shen Qing clicked his tongue and said, “Oh well, I don’t care. Anyway, it’s good that you two are doing well now. Old Liang is really something, not only fooling those uneducated gangsters, but also trying to fool me. Can’t he tell a more sophisticated lie?”

Hearing this, Chen Mo immediately stopped laughing—those gangsters, Strong Bro and the others, they weren’t as perceptive as Shen Qing and didn’t know how to read people’s minds, and they weren’t as cultured and law-abiding as Shen Qing. They were people who had done villainous things. You could tell just from their fierce faces and scarred arms. If their boss, Liang Jingren, openly told them the truth, told them the truth about how he forced him that night…

—Chen Mo thought he might die. Or be crippled for life.

So Liang Jingren’s clumsy lie about the vase worth 100,000 yuan was actually to protect him…

Seeing Shen Qing walking towards him and greeting him, Chen Mo politely stepped forward and said, “Shen Qing Bro, what a coincidence, why are you eating in the cafeteria today too?”

“My wife is working overtime tonight, and there’s no food to eat at home~” Shen Qing scratched the back of his head.

Since that was the case, and Liang Jingren wasn’t here today, Chen Mo smiled and walked alongside him, asking, “By the way, I still don’t know what your wife does?”

Chen Mo still remembered seeing Liang Jingren talking and laughing with a woman in a restaurant across the street last month. Although he later found out that the woman was Shen Qing’s wife, he was still curious about what the two of them were talking about at the time—because Liang Jingren looked very happy at that time.

Were they talking about Shen Qing’s embarrassing moments? Chen Mo had thought about this.

“Ah, you don’t know? Well, Old Liang wouldn’t say anything without being asked.” Shen Qing nodded and said, “My wife is a teacher.”

As soon as this identity was revealed, Chen Mo immediately felt uneasy and uncomfortable.

“Uh, then, where does she teach?” Chen Mo’s voice was slightly dry.

“She’s a middle school teacher, currently teaching politics at No. 2 Middle School,” Shen Qing said.

Chen Mo hesitated for a while, then asked, “Did she… teach here before? Which schools has she taught at?”

Shen Qing also hesitated. He raised his chin and thought for a moment, “I think so, but I really haven’t looked into which schools she’s taught at in such detail…”

“Oh…”

“Hey, Chen Mo, I suddenly realized that she’s just the right age to be your teacher!”

“…”

Chen Mo was really silent this time.

After he was adopted by Chen Daxiang, he went to middle school here. He was afraid that some of his “deeds” would be passed on to people who didn’t know him through the mouths of the teachers at his alma mater, affecting their impression of him.

Shen Qing saw that his expression was not right, and immediately saw through the inner activities of this child who was more than ten years younger than him, and laughed, “Haha, Chen Mo, don’t be nervous, she probably didn’t teach you!”

“Why is Shen Qing Bro so assertive?” Chen Mo tried to force a smile and asked.

Shen Qing smiled and said, “If she had taught you, wouldn’t Old Liang know?”

Huh? Chen Mo was stunned. He seemed to have caught something odd in the words, but he couldn’t react for a moment.

Then, Shen Qing said, “Xiao Li, my wife, she and Old Liang have actually known each other for a long time, it seems like for more than ten years. One day before we got married, the two of us were walking on the street and happened to meet Old Liang, so the three of us had a meal together. Later, we slowly started talking and realized this. It really startled me at the time! But they hadn’t been in contact for a long time at that time…”

Shen Qing’s words also startled Chen Mo. Although his expression didn’t betray him, after hearing the woman’s identity and the time she met Liang Jingren, Chen Mo had been absent-minded. He even only took the tray when he was holding the tray, forgetting the rice bowl on the table that hadn’t been seasoned yet. It was only when the aunt at the window shouted loudly that he woke up.

That night, Chen Mo returned to his newly rented apartment early, lying on the carefully selected mattress, but tossed and turned unable to fall asleep.

Finally, he decided to call Liang Jingren.

At eleven o’clock at night, the phone was answered. There were no noisy voices, music, or clinking of glasses in the background of the other party’s call. The white noise from the phone and the other party’s usual flat opening line “What’s the matter?” made Chen Mo relax slightly.

Chen Mo lay on the balcony, looking at the building across the street with the Daxing Group logo, which was still lit with a few lights. He opened his mouth and said, “I had dinner with Shen Qing Bro today.”

“Oh.”

“And then we chatted a little about his wife.”

“…Hmm.”

“It is said that you two knew each other a long time ago? Is that true?” The night wind blew on his face, making it a little itchy. Chen Mo smiled faintly, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes like the lights in the building across the street, “Sometimes I really can’t help but sigh at the coincidence of fate~”

“It is indeed…” Liang Jingren affirmed his statement.

Chen Mo, on the other hand, didn’t like that he had said the word “fate.”

“Ren Bro, I’m a little curious, did that teacher teach you? Was she your teacher?”

Liang Jingren said, “She didn’t teach me.”

“I see, then…”

Liang Jingren said, “She was my first love.”

The moment the word “first love,” which was as beautiful as spring, crashed into his mind, Chen Mo wanted to lose his memory.

It’s too cold at the top, why did he rent such a high floor? Was it to admire the neon lights on the high ground that he couldn’t admire on that continent? The logo of the building across the street is different from the lights in the windows. It is always on and huge, so it is even more dazzling.

Chen Mo slowly exhaled a breath. If it were winter, it might turn into fog. If he remembered to light a cigarette, it could also show a cold and lonely entity in the summer night.

“If your first love is her, then what about my first love?”

“…What are you saying so capriciously?” Liang Jingren couldn’t understand him. They couldn’t even see each other’s expressions over the phone.

Chen Mo lowered his head and said, “I haven’t liked anyone before you…”

Chen Mo thought his words were easy to understand. This was a blatant confession, a confession even more blatant than “I want your body.”

But the one who responded to his confession was not even Liang Jingren himself. Another strange man’s voice came from the phone—

“Aiya, darling~ Who are you talking to on the phone?”

“Wait! What are you doing?!” This was Liang Jingren’s voice.

“…Who?” Chen Mo’s throat was like the flickering street light that hadn’t been repaired after the rain that day. “Who… is calling you ‘darling’?”

The other party used Liang Jingren’s phone to answer, “Of course it’s his lover~ You little fool!”

Then, the call was unilaterally hung up—

Beep…beep…beep…

Chen Mo was going crazy.