AM Chapter 41

41 Moving

Chen Mo hated being called a “dumbass” the most since he started school, but he himself often used this term to mock others. As a result, his classmates’ evaluations of him in elementary and middle school were very poor. The situation only improved when he entered a high-scoring, high-quality cultural high school.

In high school, uncivilized language decreased significantly. Even those with a habitual tendency to swear mostly used it for complaining or as an intensifier. Scenarios involving vulgar insults were rare.

No one would call Chen Mo a “dumbass,” and Chen Mo’s words and actions became much more civilized and humble. Many high school teachers had a good impression of him, but he still didn’t receive a “Three Merits Student” award in his three years of high school—because he didn’t actively try to curry favor, and also because there were too many “goody-two-shoes” in his class who liked to do thankless tasks.

Although those guys were united, friendly, helpful, positive, and willing to include him in group assignments, shopping trips to find spots for the arcade, and temple fairs, Chen Mo still thought: they’re all dumbasses.

Chen Mo didn’t like doing group assignments. The one who always took the spotlight was the spokesperson who presented the group’s results and received enthusiastic applause. Chen Mo didn’t like shopping or going to arcades; he found them too noisy, and the games weren’t fun. Chen Mo also didn’t like temple fairs—they were noisy, crowded, and too packed. He preferred watching TV at home.

It wasn’t until high school, or rather, his third year of high school, that he made his first true “close friend,” Jiang Jinhao.

Jiang Jinhao was a real dumbass. He was a repeat student who transferred from another school. It was said that his family spent a lot of money, but this dumbass always followed them to shopping trips, arcades, and karaoke. In short, he didn’t do serious things like studying or reviewing. The only time he was focused and attentive was when he was rushing to finish assignments, frantically copying his papers one after another. Chen Mo sometimes worried that he would copy his name as well.

Once, during a short break, he invited Jiang Jinhao to the Villa to play, because during class breaks when they were reading magazines, only Jiang Jinhao heard him point to a motorcycle in the corner of the magazine and say, “My family has this.”

Chen Mo originally wanted to invite Jiang Jinhao to his house to show off, but Liang Jingren was also there that day. The two of them seemed to hit it off immediately and started chatting about motorcycle models and modifications that he didn’t understand, leaving him in a corner of the sofa.

Chen Mo, who was instructed by Liang Jingren to cut fruit for the guest, deliberately bumped Jiang Jinhao’s knee while carrying the fruit plate back. When he bent down to place the fruit plate on the coffee table, he whispered, “Dumbass.”

As a result, the big dumbass, who was chatting happily with Liang Jingren and grinning like an idiot, actually heard him and immediately looked up to shout, “You’re the dumbass!”

Liang Jingren, who was sitting across from him, was stunned. Chen Mo, who was being greeted rudely in his own house, was also stunned.

But Chen Mo didn’t stay stunned for more than two seconds before angrily retorting, “You’re the FING dumbass! If I say you are, then you are! Dumbass, dumbass, big dumbass!”

Jiang Jinhao was so anxious that his face turned red, and he retorted without giving in, “I’m not! Whoever said it first is the dumbass!”

Chen Mo chuckled twice, crossed his arms, and began to mock him sarcastically, “Heh heh, a dumbass is qualified to play reversal? You don’t even look at how much you scored on the monthly exam…”

“Hahahaha!!” Liang Jingren’s laughter cut off his unfinished words, shattering this meaningless dispute. “Are you two elementary school students? How idiotic, hahahaha!”

Liang Jingren scolded both of them, but he was completely unaware of it and laughed happily.

Jiang Jinhao sat on the sofa, pouting aggrievedly. Before long, he was attracted by the fruit plate that Liang Jingren pushed towards him and started eating happily, forgetting everything in the blink of an eye.

Chen Mo had a good memory. He remembered this battle with no winner for a full five and a half minutes. During these five and a half minutes, he went into the kitchen and never came out until Liang Jingren came in to comfort him:

“It’s rare to have a friend come over to visit, don’t quarrel.” Liang Jingren casually opened the refrigerator, took out a soda in his favorite flavor, and handed it to him.

Chen Mo took the soda and immediately opened it. The soda was still very fizzy, and a few gulps were enough to barely counteract the anger he was suppressing.

After gulping down a few mouthfuls of sweet soda, Chen Mo looked at Liang Jingren, who was looking at him with amusement and helplessness, “Humph,” and said, “He’s not my friend.”

“Okay, okay, he’s my friend, okay?” Liang Jingren said with a smile, “Then you have to be respectful to my friend when you go out later.”

Hearing this, Chen Mo widened his eyes and blinked. If he had enough strength, the aluminum can in his hand would have a dented fingerprint. He really didn’t expect that “friend” could be argued like this.

Oh, so Liang Jingren didn’t come to comfort him, but to annoy him.

However, not long after, this annoyance was blown away by the strong wind coming from the highway—

Liang Jingren took them both to the garage to look at cars and pick cars. Jiang Jinhao, who had become an adult a year earlier, had a motorcycle license. With Liang Jingren’s permission, he excitedly rode a motorcycle, and he had the opportunity to sit behind Liang Jingren and hug his waist again.

That afternoon, Jiang Jinhao had a great time and returned home satisfied. In the setting sun, he ran backwards while waving to the two people outside the Villa courtyard, shouting, “Bye-bye Bro Ren! Bye-bye Chen Mo! I’ll come to play with you next time!”

Liang Jingren smiled, raised his hand, and waved, while saying, “Your friend has a pretty good personality!”

Chen Mo also had a good time that afternoon, only “hummed” twice, and didn’t deny it, but when facing Liang Jingren, he still stubbornly used his old words to retort: “Isn’t he your friend?”

Liang Jingren had just taken out a cigarette and was about to light it. Hearing his words, he directly poked the unlit cigarette on his nose, and laughed as if he was teasing him, “You really are a little dumbass.”

Chen Mo had no intention of refuting the word “dumbass” from Liang Jingren’s mouth.

He didn’t hate Liang Jingren calling him a “dumbass,” but he didn’t particularly like it either. What he did at the time was to grab the cigarette that was touching the tip of his nose and put it in his mouth, swaying it, and then ran into the Villa.

——He wasted one of Liang Jingren’s cigarettes. This was his small revenge against Liang Jingren.

Chen Mo never thought that one day he would be overjoyed to hear someone call him a “dumbass.” But on the morning after the storm, when Liang Jingren smiled and spat out these two words to him, Chen Mo found that he was not only happy, but even absurdly moved.

Moreover, Liang Jingren’s “dumbass” was extremely lethal, causing him to be in a state of infatuation all morning, even after driving for more than an hour back to the company, he had no heart to work.

In the afternoon, Chen Mo took a leave of absence. He ran out of the company with a rosy complexion, his reason for leave being “physical discomfort.”

He contacted a moving company, and they said they could arrive at the apartment as early as 6 PM. Although he could get off work as usual and return to the apartment by 6 PM, there were some things he didn’t want strangers to handle.

Chen Mo returned to the apartment early and began packing his frequently worn clothes, then carefully wrapped the keyboards he displayed and collected with foam paper and stacked them one by one into large cardboard boxes.

After packing the important items for him, Chen Mo wiped his sweat, put his hands on his hips, and breathed a sigh of relief. He looked up at the electronic clock on the wall, and it was still early.

He thought for a while and decided to go downstairs to have a cup of coffee first and wait for the time to pass slowly.

He went to Old Zhao’s coffee shop and bought two cups of coffee, one of which was Xu Yilin’s preferred caramel hazelnut flavor. Liang Jingren and Xu Yilin were both regulars at Old Zhao’s shop. They only needed to ask to know what they liked to drink.

Chen Mo ran across the street with two cups of packaged coffee and entered the flower shop, which had resumed normal operation due to the clear weather, in a leisurely manner.

At this time, Xu Yilin was watering the small potted plants on the wooden shelves on the wall of the shop.

Glancing at the person coming in with two cups of coffee, Xu Yilin didn’t even need to say “welcome.” They were too familiar, and he was used to it.

But Xu Yilin was still very surprised that Chen Mo came over at this hour. He asked in surprise, holding the watering can spout, “Are you off work? Or were you fired?”

Chen Mo was in a good mood and didn’t bother to argue with him. “I took a leave of absence!” He walked past Xu Yilin, went to the workbench, and said happily, taking out the two cups of coffee from the paper bag at once and pushing Xu Yilin’s cup to the inside of the table.

Xu Yilin could tell that he was in a great mood and asked, “What good thing happened today?”

Chen Mo picked up the coffee cup and held it to his mouth, looking at him with a smile and saying, “My sweetheart called me a dumbass.”

Xu Yilin: …

Seeing Xu Yilin’s expression as if his mouth was about to twitch, Chen Mo’s mood became even more pleasant.

“You really are,” Xu Yilin opened his mouth and said.

Chen Mo raised his chin indifferently and took a sip of coffee, looking as if he was quite proud.

Xu Yilin thought: This is bad, the thick-skinned guy is immune to swear word attacks, so what will happen in the future?

The flower shop was particularly empty and lonely without flowers, but the rows of green plants on the wall were still growing vigorously, so the shop was not lacking in vitality.

Xu Yilin put down the watering can, turned around and bent over to tidy up the flower buckets that had just been washed without any fresh flowers, and said speechlessly, “The person you like is also a freak.”

What kind of normal person could associate with Chen Mo? Anyway, Xu Yilin couldn’t imagine it.

Oh no, didn’t Chen Mo get dumped a long time ago? Xu Yilin suddenly remembered, and then he thought: Did Chen Mo come to my shop to buy flowers to re-pursue his ex-boyfriend? So his ex-boyfriend couldn’t stand it anymore and scolded him, right!

In any case, he scolded him so right! It’s just a pity that he didn’t scold him dirty enough to make Chen Mo break down, but instead made him feel good, sigh!

Just as Xu Yilin was vividly imagining a complete storyline, Chen Mo suddenly put down his coffee cup, narrowed his eyes, looked at him, and smiled, revealing a frightening truth: “Yeah, he was also the one who told me to pursue you before, really a freak.”

Xu Yilin’s hand shook, and the acrylic flower bucket that wasn’t held up very high fell directly to the ground. He widened his eyes, exclaimed “Holy shit” incredulously, and then asked, “What is this, the master’s task?”

“Is he sick???”

“I’m going! I resolutely refuse to be a part of your PLAY!”

“Hahahaha!” Chen Mo laughed and clapped his legs for a while, then put the half-cup of coffee that was shaking on the table and said to Xu Yilin very formally: “I’m moving away from here soon, and I probably won’t come often in the future. Remember to miss me! Or miss the free takeaway coffee that I automatically deliver to your door? Haha!”

After that, Chen Mo stayed in the flower shop until 6:15 PM before the moving company called.

During this time, he sent a message to Liang Jingren asking if he could go to the Daxing Group cafeteria to have dinner with him today. Liang Jingren replied with a “no.” To this, Chen Mo just smiled and turned the phone screen upside down on the table.

At that time, Xu Yilin didn’t have much to do anymore, purely finding things to do for himself. He went in and out of the flower shop several times, moved a few potted plants to the table, and carefully looked at them from top to bottom, left and right.

“Are you giving the plants a beauty contest?” Chen Mo couldn’t help but ask after seeing it.

Xu Yilin actually nodded and said, “Almost.”

“What happens after they’re selected?” Chen Mo asked again.

Xu Yilin didn’t answer.

Chen Mo took the coffee cup that had already been emptied on the table as a grip to play with, “Speaking of which, it seems that there weren’t that many potted plants in the shop before.”

“That’s because I sold almost all of them. I only get a shipment once a quarter. After all, there’s only me in the shop, and I can’t stand that kind of heavy physical exertion every now and then,” said Boss Xu.

Chen Mo looked through the glass window at the mobile flower racks stacked with plants outside the shop and said in surprise, “Then it seems that your business is actually not bad.”

He hadn’t paid much attention to the fact that there were so many potted plants in front of the flower shop before when he passed by the flower shop. He should have sold a lot by then.

Xu Yilin turned the pot of the small potted plant in front of him and said, “I mainly sell flowers. It’s easier to sell these when they’re placed together and look green when I just get the shipment. After the customers have chosen them, the remaining ones aren’t so easy to sell. I mostly sell them at a discount or give them directly to regulars.”

“Give me some too~” Chen Mo smiled and reached out to him.

“No,” Xu Yilin refused straightforwardly, “I only give them to people I like.”

“Do you like Liang Jingren?” Chen Mo blinked and asked.

Xu Yilin’s hand that was gently stroking the leaves suddenly stopped, and he looked up at him in surprise.

Chen Mo didn’t know what this surprise stemmed from. Was it because he felt extremely speechless at his words? Or was he really hit by him.

After about half a minute, Xu Yilin opened his mouth and said, “No.”

Unfortunately, he opened his mouth too late, so late that Chen Mo found it a bit suspicious.

Although he replied to the message sent by Chen Mo, Liang Jingren still looked around vigilantly for a week after arriving at the cafeteria, trying to find that familiar figure.

He always felt that Chen Mo wouldn’t give up so easily, especially since he seemed to be too gentle and kind to the other party this morning. He was worried that Chen Mo would be self-righteous and constantly test his level of tolerance.

However, after he finished eating, Chen Mo didn’t suddenly appear to scare him. Looking at his phone again, the window that always sent him pictures and messages had no new messages at all.

Liang Jingren found it strange, but he couldn’t say what was strange, and what was strangest was himself—he was actually conflicted because Chen Mo had disappeared since morning and hadn’t appeared again.

At night, as the car drove into the residential area and got closer and closer to the Villa, Liang Jingren suddenly stopped being conflicted—

He was relieved when he saw the window of the Villa lit up.

Chen Mo always did things that were beyond his expectations, but this time… it could be considered within expectations, right?