AM Chapter 4

04 Rotten to the Core

The last time Chen Mo rode a Ferris wheel was five years ago—when Liang Jingren took him to the amusement park when he was still in the second year of junior high school.

It seemed to be Liang Jingren’s first time on a Ferris wheel. Before the Ferris wheel had even made it halfway around, Liang Jingren’s condition deteriorated rapidly. His face was even worse than after riding the roller coaster. Maybe it was because the Ferris wheel was too slow, slow and shaky, just like seasickness.

But Liang Jingren said that he was actually afraid of heights. He thought he could get excitement from large amusement park rides like roller coasters and the pendulum, so he thought he had overcome his fear of heights, but it still didn’t work.

So, is that why he doesn’t fly? Chen Mo wondered, looking at the scenery outside the pink window frame of the Ferris wheel gradually widening and shrinking.

Then he could take a boat, but the voyage by boat would be longer… maybe he actually gets seasick too.

After breaking up with Liang Jingren last year, Chen Mo chose to embark on the road of studying abroad alone. When he set off, Liang Jingren only asked a few people to see him off. He didn’t come himself.

He’s about to go into his second year of college, and Liang Jingren hasn’t come to see him even once.

“Chen Mo, can I sit over there with you? Will it be unstable?” The blonde girl opposite smiled shyly, but her behavior wasn’t shy or hesitant at all. Without waiting for Chen Mo to nod, she got up and sat over directly.

Chen Mo felt the whole car shake suddenly when the girl sat down beside him.

Chen Mo regained his senses and turned his head, smiling as he tucked the stray hair beside the girl’s ear behind her ear, and said, “Your hairstyle looks great today. It goes so well with your outfit. You look like a Barbie doll. I didn’t even recognize you at first.”

The girl smiled and leaned her head on his shoulder, twirling the hair she had re-dyed and permed last night, smugly saying, “Hehe, I prepared it carefully for today’s date~”

When the pink car reached the highest point of the Ferris wheel, Chen Mo and his blonde girlfriend kissed.

His blonde girlfriend took a selfie with his phone and sent it to herself. She likes to share her life on social platforms. Since dating Chen Mo, her phone has had many more photos of Chen Mo and their group photos.

There are also many photos of them together on Chen Mo’s phone, but Chen Mo rarely posts these photos on social platforms. He feels that it’s enough for one person to post them.

However, Chen Mo will carefully select one or two of these photos and send them to a specific person—his roommate, Lucas.

In the apartment, Lucas was lying on the sofa, scrolling through his phone and shaking his high-propped legs.

Suddenly, his roommate sent him a message. He clicked it open and saw: Wow, a handsome young man with a beautiful woman, with a blue sky and white clouds outside the Ferris wheel window in the background.

Lucas curled his lips, “Tch~ Showing off what? So what if you’re dating a blonde bombshell? You son of a bitch!”

Lucas’s parents and Chen Mo were born and raised in the same motherland, and later went overseas to the New Land to open a restaurant and gradually settle down. Therefore, Lucas looks like an East Asian. Chen Mo found out after living with him for a month that this person is not foreign at all except for his name, and he is also very rogue-like.

Lucas would occasionally video call Liang Jingren, who was far away across the ocean. The opportunity for them to connect was Chen Mo—

Just two weeks after Chen Mo moved into the shared apartment, Chen Mo was taking a shower in the bathroom. His phone, which he left in the living room, rang. Lucas answered the phone for him. As they chatted, the two of them somehow opened a video call.

When Chen Mo came out after showering, Lucas handed over his phone with both hands in a flattering manner, and told him truthfully that he had just answered the phone for him, and asked him, “Your dad is so young. Does he need a lover? Dear Little Chen, can you introduce me?”

Chen Mo snatched the phone back without saying a word, his brows furrowed.

Chen Mo had never told him about Liang Jingren’s existence, let alone Liang Jingren’s contact information, but from that day on, Lucas got in touch with Liang Jingren and became Liang Jingren’s private detective, reporting on his studies and life every now and then.

However, Lucas seemed to be really interested in Liang Jingren. In addition to monitoring him for Liang Jingren, he would also tell Liang Jingren some foreign jokes that the other party might not understand. Chen Mo once heard them talking on the phone in the room, and Lucas made Liang Jingren laugh with his out-of-tune singing.

The two of them became familiar with each other without realizing it, even more familiar than he and Liang Jingren, the nominal father and son.

Since he had Lucas as a “surveillance camera,” Liang Jingren never called him again. Every time he turned to the phone call records from last year, Chen Mo couldn’t help but grit his teeth.

After the date, it was already dark. Chen Mo drove back to the shared apartment alone.

Lucas’s posture was simply unbelievable—his legs were on the back of the sofa, his entire waist collapsed on the sofa, and his head slid directly down to the floor. Even in this posture, he could still play with his phone happily.

Chen Mo threw the coat he took off on him, and Lucas turned his head to greet him: “Yo, isn’t this our handsome young man? Didn’t you go on a date? Why are you back so early? I thought you wouldn’t be back tonight!”

“Her brother picked her up.” Chen Mo said as he walked to the sofa, bent down and snatched the phone from Lucas’s hand, and then sat down on the sofa.

Lucas turned over and finally resumed the sitting posture that a normal person should have.

“What are you doing!” He wanted to take back his phone, but Chen Mo dodged the hand he reached out several times.

Chen Mo looked through Lucas’s phone chat history on his own, and said seriously, “Let me see if you’ve been spreading my photos everywhere.”

Unfortunately, the group photo on the Ferris wheel had not yet appeared in the chat history with Liang Jingren.

Chen Mo silently opened Lucas’s phone album again. At this sight, he was stunned.

“I didn’t even save your photos, what are you looking at?” Lucas shrugged his nose a little anxiously and a little guiltily.

Chen Mo found a screen recording of him and Liang Jingren video chatting in Lucas’s album.

“Isn’t this saved?” Without hesitation, Chen Mo clicked on the screen recording.

Immediately afterwards, he heard Lucas’s complaints about him, saying that he had dressed up brightly this morning to go on a date. In the video, Liang Jingren said with a smile: “Young children, it’s normal~”

Chen Mo hadn’t seen Liang Jingren’s smiling face for too long.

Throughout the video playback, Chen Mo remained silent.

Probably entering the second stage, the topic of the two people in the video finally shifted from “Chen Mo,” but before it could finish playing, Lucas reached out to grab the phone again. This time he seemed a little anxious, “Give it back to me quickly!”

Chen Mo pressed his fingertip down to lock the phone screen, and the laughter that came from the speaker immediately stopped.

“Why did you record the screen?” Chen Mo asked. He still didn’t return the phone to Lucas.

“Uh, I that…”

“Did you get his permission before you recorded it?” Chen Mo turned to look at his roommate, who was stammering.

Lucas really didn’t say hello to Liang Jingren before recording the screen. He honestly lowered his head and admitted his mistake: “I’m sorry, I accidentally clicked on the screen recording…”

“Deliberately, how could you accidentally do that.” Chen Mo coldly exposed him, and looked at him with a disapproving and disdainful look, saying, “Don’t you think this is very perverted?”

Lucas felt uncomfortable being looked at with such a look, but he really did something wrong, so he gritted his teeth and admitted it, “Okay, okay, give me back the phone, I’ll delete it in front of you, okay!”

Chen Mo seemed to honestly show the phone screen in front of him, but when Lucas went to take the phone, he realized that Chen Mo’s hand was gripping it tightly, and he didn’t intend to let him take it away at all.

An ominous premonition surged into his heart, and a drop of cold sweat broke out on Lucas’s forehead. He opened his mouth, “Hey, I said…”

At this moment, Chen Mo raised his hand, and the screen he was holding tightly lit up, displaying “Please use the correct fingerprint or password to unlock.”

Chen Mo stared at Lucas, who looked embarrassed and swallowed, and said, “All along, you’ve been secretly taking pictures of me, monitoring my social media accounts and the people around me, and contacting Liang Jingren privately. I’ve been turning a blind eye to all of this, too lazy to bother with you. I just think you’ve been bought by him. Now I just want to ask you to help me.”

Before long, Lucas’s phone was successfully returned to its owner’s hands.

The call recording has been deleted, but it hasn’t disappeared, it’s just been transferred.

“Damn, you’re the pervert!” Looking at the video sent to Chen Mo’s chat window, Lucas couldn’t help but gasp.

“Hehe,” Chen Mo smiled insincerely, “He can spy on my life, so why can’t I give him a taste of his own medicine? Besides, I’m not going to do anything with this video. I just want to carefully check what the two of you are saying about me behind my back… What’s wrong, are you feeling guilty? Or are you actually using this video for other purposes?”

Seeing him staring at himself and smiling at him, Lucas felt a chill in his heart.

It’s true that he had other purposes. He just wanted to show off to his classmates that he really had a listed company president as an online friend. After all, they wouldn’t believe it just by him saying it. Therefore, this screen recording was never “accidentally” recorded.

It’s just that he really didn’t want Chen Mo to see or hear the content that followed—Chen Mo hates his stepfather Liang Jingren so much. If he finds out that he took it upon himself to invite Liang Jingren to fly over and be a guest, Chen Mo will probably really hate him.

If he is hated by Chen Mo, who is surrounded by stars and favored by classmates, seniors, and professors, his campus life will probably become very difficult.

Liang Jingren reminded him at the beginning: “Little Lu, it’s inevitable that there will be friction between you and Chen Mo living together. You should try to go along with him and don’t provoke Chen Mo. He’s as petty as a mosquito.”

How did he answer at the time? Oh, right, he also laughed and said a lot of good things about Chen Mo, saying that Chen Mo was gentle and polite, and the professors and classmates liked him very much.

“Chen Mo can take care of himself, right? He looks pretty clean! Sharing an apartment isn’t the same as sleeping in the same room. I think I can get along with him. No problem!”

Lucas considered himself to be broad-minded and tolerant, and readily promised Liang Jingren that he would not provoke Chen Mo, and would also closely care for and protect Chen Mo, his stepfather who was far away across the ocean.

At this time, Chen Mo stood up from the sofa expressionlessly, preparing to return to his room. Lucas tightly held his phone, opened his mouth, but finally couldn’t help but ask, “Chen Mo, do you and Brother Ren have some misunderstanding?”

Lucas thought that Liang Jingren was a good stepfather. He was too good to Chen Mo—Chen Mo didn’t touch the money he sent to his card, so Liang Jingren sent some of the pocket money to him, so that he, as a roommate, could buy Chen Mo delicious food and drinks for extra meals, unlike his parents, who are always stingy even though they have opened two branches. Speaking of which, his college life can be so extravagant thanks to Chen Mo!

Chen Mo turned his head and sneered, “Misunderstanding? Ha, what misunderstanding?”

Lucas said: “You said he swindled marriage and money, and forced you to go abroad, but he is actually…”

Chen Mo glared at him fiercely and said, “Ah, so you think it’s a misunderstanding? Everyone can go online. Why can others accurately search for relevant reports online, but you can’t? They’re still foreigners, and the relevant reports in China are like foreign languages to them.”

Lucas was silent. He had indeed seen those reports a long time ago, and he had even found those reports to share with other classmates. As a result, Chen Mo was labeled as pitiful, strong, and forbearing in the hearts of the students. Everyone was willing to extend an olive branch to him and take him to do projects to get scholarships.

“You’ve really been charmed by Liang Jingren.” Chen Mo left a sentence coldly, turned and entered the room, slamming the door shut.

After locking the door, Chen Mo quickly put on his headphones and clicked on the video forwarded from Lucas’s chat window.

He precisely positioned the progress bar to the part he hadn’t heard yet… Then, he heard Lucas complaining about their school’s troublesome group assignments, and Lucas boasting that he had recently developed a new dish in the apartment and had even received praise from the picky eater Chen Mo…

“I’m going to discuss it with my parents this weekend and let them try to promote it in the restaurant. Maybe it will be officially added to the restaurant menu in the future!” College student Lucas seemed to be ready to take over the restaurant’s operations.

Hearing Lucas bragging like this, Liang Jingren said: “You’re very confident! Hey, it just made me hungry, I really want to fly over there right away to taste Chef Lu’s cooking~”

“Okay, okay, you come! I’ll treat you to a Manchu Han Imperial Feast!”

“Really? That’s too grand! It sounds so tempting to me. Let me check my recent schedule. Maybe I can really take the time to go…”

In the video, Liang Jingren’s head was out of frame for a while. Before long, he seemed to have confirmed his schedule and said to the camera: “I happen to be free at the end of this month! I’ll make an appointment to apply for a visa tomorrow!”

Rotten to the core… Chen Mo bit his lower lip, and the in-ear Bluetooth headset was flashing a faint light indicating low battery.

“Wow, Brother Ren, you’re really efficient!” Lucas was surprised and delighted.

Liang Jingren laughed: “My foreign language is not good at all. I’m really afraid of embarrassing myself when I land. I’ll have to rely on you then, Little Lu~”

Lucas said: “No problem! Tell me before you come, I’ll be waiting at the airport all day to welcome you, Brother!”

“I’ll be your free tour guide then! Tell me where you want to go in advance, so I can plan it in advance! If you don’t know where to go, I’ll drive you around!”

Liang Jingren laughed, “Is your driving skill good? I don’t dare to ride in a little brat’s car.”

“Brother Ren, I’m already an adult! I’m an old driver!!”

“Hahahaha…”

The sound coming from the earphones became smaller and smaller as Chen Mo forcefully pressed the volume down button until the video became silent.

About two minutes passed, and this annoying and unbearable video finally finished playing. Chen Mo took a deep breath and lay on his back on the bed.

Now he knew Liang Jingren’s plan to come here at the end of the month—because he wanted to eat the dishes made by Lucas, because Lucas invited him.

What about me?

Chen Mo punched the pillow and thought: Rotten to the core.