AM Chapter 53

53 Your Circle Is Truly Messy

Xu Yilin readjusted the positions of the plants on the shelves based on their growth, and then found a dimly lit corner to place the begonia that he had ultimately carried up himself.

Afterward, the group of three took the elevator down to the first floor lobby.

Xu Yilin was preparing to bid farewell and return to the flower shop. Although the flower shop had surveillance cameras, allowing him to monitor the situation on his phone, and he had also informed Old Zhao in advance to help keep an eye on things, it was now time to go back, tidy up, and close the shop.

“Wait a moment,” Chen Mo suddenly spoke.

Both Xu Yilin and Liang Jingren looked at him in confusion.

Chen Mo took a step towards Xu Yilin and asked, “Want to grab a drink together?”

“Huh?”

“Originally, I should be apologizing and treating you to a meal,” Chen Mo said, “but since Ren-ge has already treated us, and we’re full now, let me treat you to a drink.”

Xu Yilin initially wanted to refuse, but when he looked up, he saw Liang Jingren’s gaze fixed on them. He hesitated, swallowed the words of refusal, and then reopened his mouth with a smile, asking, “Drink what? Coffee late at night?”

“Anything you want is fine,” Chen Mo said earnestly.

But in less than two seconds, he quickly retracted his previous statement, changing his tune to say, “Except alcohol, no alcohol.”

“Yeah, we have to drive later,” Liang Jingren said, stepping forward to stand beside Chen Mo.

Perhaps realizing that “we” included Liang Jingren, Xu Yilin nodded in agreement.

Thus, the three grown men walked out of the Daxing Group building side by side, walked a hundred meters, entered the most bustling commercial area nearby, and then—bought three cups of bubble tea.

Chen Mo went to fetch the bubble tea because he was the one treating and paying for it.

The bubble tea shop he chose happened to be running a “buy two get one free” promotion, so the line of customers waiting for their drinks and delivery drivers overlapped, making it feel suffocating just to look at.

Liang Jingren and Xu Yilin didn’t go over there. They stood by the flower bed where the flow of people wasn’t as high, waiting for Chen Mo to return, continuing their plant-related conversation from dinner.

Suddenly, Xu Yilin felt his phone vibrate wildly in his pocket. Since changing careers, he rarely received phone calls at night. He thought it was a customer at the flower shop or Old Zhao looking for him, so without checking the caller ID, he hurriedly answered the phone.

The phone was close to his ear, and the voice coming from the phone was so familiar:

“You said something wrong this afternoon, and Liang Jingren said something wrong too. Our relationship is more than just that simple.”

The call was from Chen Mo, who had sprinted into the crowd after saying he was going to get the bubble tea and had disappeared without a trace.

“I love Ren-ge, and Ren-ge loves me. We’re no longer just people with family connections! I know you have a crush on him, but you don’t have a chance! Liang Jingren and I have done everything that couples do, and I will absolutely not give him up to you!”

“If you understand, get out of the way right now! Idiot!”

After the insulting “idiot,” the other party hung up the phone first.

Liang Jingren thought Xu Yilin’s expression was a bit strange. He asked, “Harassment call?”

Xu Yilin twitched the corner of his mouth and shook his head. The moment he put down the phone, he chuckled in amusement.

He turned to look at the clueless Liang Jingren, thinking: If this person intervened, could he make Chen Mo kneel down and kowtow to me?

Students holding cheap ice cream passed by with a joyful hubbub. Xu Yilin took a deep breath, looked at Liang Jingren, and asked, “Jingren, you and Chen Mo…”

“Was that call from Chen Mo just now?” Liang Jingren guessed, staring intently at him.

Xu Yilin pondered for a moment before nodding. “…Yeah.”

“He must’ve been mouthing off again,” Liang Jingren scoffed, then raised his chin and sighed helplessly, muttering, “I knew I shouldn’t have made plans for today. Why did it have to coincide? So troublesome…”

Xu Yilin paused and quickly said, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have come today.”

“No, it’s not your fault,” Liang Jingren glanced at him and said, “Out of the three of us, only Chen Mo has a problem.”

“…”

“He has a problem with his brain.”

“Pfft, hahaha… You’re right!”

“But…” Liang Jingren paused, staring blankly at a street lamp not far away, swarming with insects, then slightly opened his mouth and said, “That’s why I have to take care of him…”

“…Why?”

The familiar three-character question. Liang Jingren turned his head and smiled at the questioner, saying, “My relationship with Chen Mo isn’t as simple as you think.”

“It’s true that I’m his dad’s friend, but I’m also his dad’s wife.”

“?????”

Upon hearing this, Xu Yilin was severely shocked.

Liang Jingren looked at Xu Yilin’s stiff and dazed appearance, as if he could see a barrage of blinding flashbangs exploding in the other’s mind.

He found it very amusing, laughing heartily, “What? You didn’t know how young and promising I, Liang, was, becoming the CEO of Daxing Group in my early thirties?”

Xu Yilin gaped, shaking his head stiffly.

Liang Jingren blinked, lowered his head, and touched his chin, “Hmm… So people who don’t follow economic news and celebrity gossip really don’t know…”

“Simply put,” Liang Jingren decided to give him, Xu Yilin, a good explanation as a mutual friend of him and Chen Mo, “The founder of Daxing Group is named Chen Daxiang, and Chen Mo is his son. Originally, Chen Mo should have been the heir to Daxing Group, but then I married Chen Daxiang. When Chen Daxiang died, I took over the position of chairman and CEO. But I have been dutifully taking care of Chen Mo according to his wishes. After all, from a legal and ethical standpoint, I’m considered Chen Mo’s stepmother.”

“…”

After listening to this series of “simply put,” Xu Yilin was a mess in the wind.

However, Liang Jingren continued, even lighting a cigarette for himself while smoking and saying, “Ah, but Chen Mo isn’t Chen Daxiang’s biological son either. He’s an adopted son, so our actual relationship is a million miles away. Once he comes of age, he’ll have nothing to do with me. That’s how it should have been…”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Xu Yilin couldn’t listen anymore, repeatedly patting Liang Jingren’s shoulder. His brain was too jumbled right now.

In fact, he didn’t care about the minor details of their backgrounds, but now he had to dedicate ten percent of his brain capacity to memorizing and sorting it out!

Liang Jingren looked at Xu Yilin, who rarely made such rough movements. He suddenly remembered that Xu Yilin seemed to have something he wanted to ask him.

“Okay, I’ve said just about everything. Do you have anything you want to ask?” Liang Jingren said.

Liang Jingren suddenly passing the right to ask questions to him caught Xu Yilin off guard again.

He hadn’t sorted things out yet…

After a while, Xu Yilin reorganized his thoughts and feelings, deciding to ask about what he cared about the most first: “Would you… like a despicable person like Chen Mo?”

Xu Yilin’s question was quite strange. Liang Jingren thought to himself.

He pursed his lips, causing the cigarette in his mouth to sway up and down, then slowly took it away with his hand, saying as he exhaled smoke, “Of course I don’t like despicable people. When I was in school, I beat them up every time I saw them, until they went out of their way to avoid me.”

“But,”

There was a twist? Xu Yilin widened his eyes.

“A well-behaved Chen Mo… is alright,” Liang Jingren said.

Xu Yilin didn’t understand.

“Don’t you think he’s quite interesting when he talks?” Liang Jingren pinched the cigarette butt with three fingers, tilted his head at him, and said with a smile.

“…”

Isn’t that just a disguised form of liking? Xu Yilin thought.

Damn it, what terrible taste and standards does Liang Jingren have?

Wait, Liang Jingren’s liking…

Wait, Chen Mo said he loved…

And they’ve done what couples do…

Huh?? What exactly is their connection to the founder of Daxing Group…?

Xu Yilin realized something was wrong. Xu Yilin started to think. Xu Yilin was a mess again.

A stormy mess.

Observing that Xu Yilin’s face, which had been silent for a long time, was continuously changing bizarrely, turning green and then purple, Liang Jingren asked with some concern, “What are you thinking about?”

Xu Yilin’s neck turned around with a rusty “creak.” He looked at Liang Jingren and said, “…Your circle is truly messy.”

“Hahahaha!” Liang Jingren burst out laughing.

Before long, Liang Jingren finished his cigarette.

He walked to the trash can, extinguished the cigarette butt, and threw it away. When he turned around, Chen Mo, carrying a bubble tea takeout bag, was running towards him from around the corner.

“Ren-ge, sorry to keep you waiting! Ha, whew~ There are so many people!”

After panting a few times in front of him, Chen Mo quickly opened the bag, took out a cup of bubble tea, and carefully inserted the straw without touching it, then handed it to him.

Liang Jingren took the bubble tea and said, “Thank you.”

“Why are you being so polite with me, Ren-ge? Haha~” Chen Mo said with a smile.

Liang Jingren looked into the opened bag and noticed that one of the cups had particularly dark sides.

“Did the shop give you the wrong black soybean milk?” Liang Jingren remembered that he had watched Chen Mo order bubble tea on his phone, so he asked out of curiosity.

Chen Mo said with a grin, “No, I added a little something for Xu Yilin, double the pearls. It must have shaken up all the pearls from running just now.”

After leaving the bag of bubble tea and the only remaining cup of bubble tea for Xu Yilin, Chen Mo and Liang Jingren walked back towards the Daxing Group building, sipping their bubble tea.

Xu Yilin didn’t particularly like bubble tea, so he didn’t take it out to drink, carrying the bag all the way back to the flower shop.

Although he and Liang Jingren had known each other for over a year, they often met at Old Zhao’s coffee shop, where there were no bubble tea toppings available, so Liang Jingren wasn’t clear about his preferences. And he didn’t want Liang Jingren to think he was a picky eater, so he didn’t vote against it when Chen Mo chose the “buy two get one free” bubble tea.

When he returned to the flower shop, turned on the overhead lights, and opened the packaging bag, Xu Yilin regretted it.

From the pearls in the cup in front of him, he could only see a sliver of bubble tea.

This was undoubtedly not a simple addition of toppings; it was Chen Mo sincerely wanting to choke him to death.