AM Chapter 6

The wide-open door faced the balcony, the cool morning light falling directly on the person smoking there. That person had been facing away from the door, but slowly turned around after hearing it open.

The exhaled secondhand smoke was flung behind him and then carried away by the wind. The half-smoked cigarette between his fingers moved away from his lips, and Liang Jingren spoke to the young man standing in the doorway in a voice that was neither too loud nor too soft, with a hint of just-awakened laziness: “So early.”

Within 0.5 seconds, Chen Mo repeatedly adjusted his expression, finally settling on a blank one, as stiff as a stone.

“What are you doing here?” Liang Jingren asked, leaning against the railing.

Chen Mo said, “This is my apartment.”

Liang Jingren smiled. “Oh, right.” His fingertip flicked casually, and the burning cigarette butt dropped a few flakes of ash, landing right on the tiled floor of the balcony.

Not only did Chen Mo narrow his eyes and stare, but Liang Jingren also noticed. This time his smile wasn’t so casual. He said awkwardly, “I’ll clean it up later.”

Chen Mo walked in and slammed the door shut. The sound startled the person on the sofa awake. Only then did Chen Mo realize that someone was lying on the sofa—Shen Qing, the accountant and secretary who often worked with Liang Jingren and didn’t wear glasses.

That’s right, Liang Jingren’s foreign language skills weren’t good, and he was unfamiliar with the place. How could he possibly fly abroad alone? Even if he himself was willing, his subordinates wouldn’t be at ease. He definitely needed someone to accompany him for mutual support. Shen Qing often traveled with Liang Jingren, making him a suitable choice.

Shen Qing groggily sat up from the sofa, reaching for the coffee table. He only fully woke up after finding his glasses. He put them on and turned his head toward the door, surprised. “You’ve gotten taller!”

Chen Mo stood in the entryway and politely greeted, “Strong Bro, Shen Qing.”

At the same time, he carefully scanned the person who had slept on his apartment sofa wrapped in a blanket of unknown origin. He watched him yawn and ask Liang Jingren on the balcony, “Morning,” before shifting his gaze to the empty space in front of the sofa.

If Shen Qing came here to sleep on the sofa, where did Liang Jingren sleep? The floor? But there were no bedding on the floor. Had it been put away very early? Could it be that he hadn’t even slept on the floor, but…

Chen Mo hurriedly took off his shoes, heading straight for his room without even looking for slippers.

The door was closed. When he opened it, everything inside was as it had been. Lucas hadn’t lied to him after all.

Liang Jingren, pinching the cigarette butt, returned to the living room. He squeezed onto the sofa next to Shen Qing, who hadn’t fully gotten up yet, and stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray on the coffee table. He said softly, “I wouldn’t sleep in a kid’s room.”

Shen Qing, trying to extricate himself from the cramped space, complained, “Smoking so early in the morning…”

Liang Jingren tapped the half-empty cigarette pack and shook out another one, clamping it between his fingers. “I haven’t smoked for days, okay? It’s so hard to buy cigarettes here. If I hadn’t gotten half a pack from the bartender at the bar yesterday, my lungs would have been so itchy I’d have scratched out rashes…”

Chen Mo walked up to the coffee table, frowning. “Don’t smoke here, go outside. And remember to sweep the balcony later.”

Liang Jingren obediently stood up and walked out onto the balcony, lighting, inhaling, and exhaling in one smooth motion.

The state of the two seemed to exceed Shen Qing’s expectations. He stared blankly for a long while before remembering to go wash up.

There was no broom or dustpan in the apartment. After putting on his slippers, Chen Mo simply kicked the Roomba to the balcony. Liang Jingren watched the Roomba struggling to slide to his feet and couldn’t help but laugh, almost choking on his smoke.

After recovering, Liang Jingren looked at the person standing by the balcony and asked seriously, “Do you smoke?”

The lighter he had swiped from the table didn’t seem to belong to Lucas, because he had asked Lucas, and Lucas didn’t smoke.

“Yes,” Chen Mo said. Then he paused and added, “Not as much as you do, not such a big addiction.”

Liang Jingren asked again, “Not smoking anything else, right?”

“…Nonsense.” Chen Mo wanted to roll his eyes.

He could apply the word “nonsense” to himself too—why did he have to follow him out to the balcony? Was he addicted to secondhand smoke? Crap.

Suddenly, “Oh right, where did Little Lucas go?” Shen Qing, halfway through washing up, poked half his body out of the bathroom, a ring of white foam around his mouth.

Liang Jingren replied, “He went to buy medicine.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Chen Mo looked at him with a disdainful expression.

“I have acrophobia,” Liang Jingren said, holding the cigarette and meeting the eyes that contained hostility. “And a little bit of motion sickness.”

Chen Mo was still standing with his arms crossed, but after a click of his tongue, he looked away, no longer meeting his gaze.

But after a while, Chen Mo spoke first, saying, “You were the one who taught me how to smoke in the first place.”

“Was I?” Liang Jingren didn’t admit it.

“Yes,” Chen Mo insisted.

Liang Jingren tilted his head back and thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No. I wouldn’t teach a minor to smoke.”

Chen Mo clenched his fist between his arms, staring at him intently.

“You were the one who kept pestering me, insisting that I let you try a puff.” This was the only memory Liang Jingren could think of regarding their entanglement with cigarettes.

At that time, Chen Mo was five months away from adulthood, right in the middle of the last round of high school review, the most stressful time.

That day, Liang Jingren drove him to the beach to relax. The sea breeze was strong at night. He carefully avoided the lit end and took the cigarette with the warmth of Liang Jingren’s lips from his hand.

He put that end in his mouth, not even knowing how to pretend. He choked half to death between breaths, and Liang Jingren laughed heartlessly beside him.

Chen Mo didn’t learn to smoke at that time, because Liang Jingren quickly snatched the cigarette away while patting his back, not letting him try anymore.

So, to be precise, Liang Jingren hadn’t actually taught him how to smoke.

But the fact that he started learning to smoke after he came of age was indeed inseparable from Liang Jingren.

The two on the balcony were speechless, and the surrounding air seemed to freeze for a moment.

When Liang Jingren turned his head to the side to blow smoke rings, Chen Mo silently lowered his eyes.

Fortunately, this stalemate didn’t last long. Shen Qing came out of the bathroom, beckoning Liang Jingren to pack his luggage.

After Liang Jingren walked away, Chen Mo stared at the cigarette ash on the floor that hadn’t been swept up yet, cursed “damn it” under his breath, and finally couldn’t help but go over and turn on the Roomba.

Before long, Lucas came back with a small bag.

He was surprised to see Chen Mo at home, but no matter how many times he asked “Why did you come back?” Chen Mo pretended not to hear. Lucas assumed that everything he had said on the phone earlier was just a denial of his true feelings, and now he cheerfully and presumptuously started ordering Chen Mo around: “Oh my, you’re back so early, isn’t it appropriate to make some breakfast for our guests? I haven’t eaten yet either!”

Chen Mo frowned and glanced at him. Lucas directly grabbed two eggs from the refrigerator and went to his side, nudging him twice with his elbow, smiling and saying, “I’m just giving you a chance to show off~”

Huh? Show off? Show off to whom? Chen Mo’s mouth twitched. When he looked up, he saw Liang Jingren picking up his luggage and looking over, and he immediately understood what kind of good intentions this idiot Lucas was displaying.

“Amazing, you can make breakfast yourself,” Liang Jingren said with a smile.

Chen Mo felt that he was mocking him.

However, he still took the eggs from Lucas’s hand.

In less than ten minutes, each of the four people at the table had a plate of grilled toast topped with a fried egg, plus a bowl of oatmeal with milk.

Shen Qing stared at the toast and fried egg on his plate and said bluntly, “Doesn’t seem to require much skill.”

Liang Jingren, sitting next to him, had already started eating, chewing and swallowing as he said, “You should be grateful.” After saying that, he glanced at the little Chen chef opposite him. “Don’t discourage the little guy’s confidence.”

Shen Qing looked at him with a resentful expression. “Do you know how many nights I’ve spent working overtime, choking down slices of bread?”

“Who told you to choke it down? Isn’t there milk?” As he spoke, Liang Jingren picked up the milk on the table and poured it into Shen Qing’s bowl.

Shen Qing’s face became even paler. “I like to eat my oatmeal dry…”

“You should have said so earlier.”

“…”

Shen Qing silently pushed the bowl of oatmeal porridge with a liquid-to-solid ratio of 1:9 in front of Liang Jingren, and exchanged it for Liang Jingren’s bowl of oatmeal with a ratio of 5:5, which was more like porridge.

Seeing this, the kind Lucas cheerfully went to get a new bowl and re-portioned a bowl of dry oatmeal for Shen Qing.

This time, Shen Qing was happy and returned the porridge-like substance to Liang Jingren.

Liang Jingren looked at the two full bowls of oatmeal in front of him, clicked his tongue, shook his head, and sighed, “So picky about eating oatmeal, how will you ever find a wife?”

“Oh? Bro Qing isn’t married yet?” Lucas asked in surprise.

Shen Qing looked refined, and his words and behavior were more calm than Liang Jingren’s. He did things in an organized manner. He could neatly pack the same amount of clothing into one suitcase, while Liang Jingren needed two. Therefore, in Lucas’s eyes, Shen Qing was the type of person who was more likely to find a long-term partner than Liang Jingren.

“That’s right, he’s already in his thirties!” Liang Jingren said with a straight face, expressing his concern. “It’ll be too late if he doesn’t find a wife soon!”

Shen Qing snorted through his nose. “You have the nerve to say that to me? Aren’t you also in your thirties? Why are you acting so young.”

“What are you talking about? Don’t talk nonsense! I’m only in my early thirties, a few years younger than you! I’m just younger than you~” Liang Jingren laughed. “Besides, I’ve been married, and I even have a good son who makes breakfast for me~” He gestured with the spoon in his hand toward the young boy opposite him, who had remained silent from beginning to end.

“Yes, yes, yes, you had a child late in life at the age of eleven, you’re amazing!” Shen Qing, as expected of someone who managed accounts, calculated with extreme accuracy—Liang Jingren was exactly eleven years older than Chen Mo.

Liang Jingren initially laughed heartily, but when he saw that Chen Mo still hadn’t looked up, his smile gradually faded.

Shen Qing seemed to realize that the atmosphere was off and completely quieted down, turning back into a shirt-and-glasses man who fit the public’s stereotype.

Chen Mo didn’t know that Liang Jingren and Shen Qing were so close, so close that they could casually joke and tease each other like brothers.

He only knew that Shen Qing was an acquaintance of Liang Jingren’s at the company, and he himself had hardly ever been to Liang Jingren’s, or rather Chen Daxiang’s, company. Liang Jingren’s subordinates, who seemed like members of a triad, often frequented the villa, so Chen Mo was more familiar with them and their interactions with Liang Jingren.

He couldn’t help but think: So Liang Jingren has close friends with whom he can confide in places I don’t know about.

It’s really envy-inducing.

The previously lively atmosphere at the dining table suddenly took a sharp turn for the worse, and Lucas, as the host, felt like he was sitting on pins and needles.

Lucas realized that this pair of father and son, Liang Jingren and Chen Mo, who harbored unresolved conflicts and misunderstandings, didn’t seem to have had a harmonious conversation, so he encouraged the two to talk:

“Chen Mo, you haven’t seen each other for so long, don’t you have anything to say? Chat a bit~”

Chen Mo looked down and poked at the oatmeal in his bowl with a spoon. “What’s there to talk about?”

Liang Jingren opened his mouth and said, “You can brag about your grades to me like you used to.”

“…”

“When you got a perfect score on your Chinese, math, and English tests in middle school, you’d run over to me and tell me. If you didn’t tell me about a test, the score definitely wouldn’t be above 100.” Liang Jingren recounted the past. “And don’t you remember when you won an award for your first essay in high school? You waved the certificate in front of me for ages!”

Lucas chimed in. “Oh? Really? Haha, so there was a time when Chen Mo was so smug!”

“He’s smug plenty of times!” Liang Jingren said with a smile.

“Did you even take a picture of that essay award and show it off to me at the company?” Shen Qing had some recollection of the essay award that Liang Jingren mentioned and joined the conversation. “I remember it was a second prize.”

“Only a second prize, and you bragged about it like that… tsk tsk.” Shen Qing, with his ghostly glasses, started again.

“Hey, it’s still a second prize, how many second prizes did you win when you were in school? I definitely didn’t win any.” Liang Jingren used his spoon to knock on Shen Qing’s bowl, shaking the dry oatmeal inside. “Besides, the person who actually won the second prize for the essay is sitting at the table, can you be a little more careful with your words and say something nice?”

“That’s right~ Chen Mo definitely deserves praise, and a lot of people praise him, so don’t worry. But it’s not good for you to take someone else’s award to brag about. I should point it out and criticize you.” As he said that, Shen Qing used his spoon to push away Liang Jingren’s extended spoon, then flipped the spoon handle over and waved it at him twice.

“Rude…”

“Enough!!”

Liang Jingren was about to reach out and grab Shen Qing’s spoon when Chen Mo suddenly slammed the table and stood up, his face showing an expression of unbearable shame and anger—

“You’re doing it on purpose! Right?!”

Liang Jingren leaned back in his chair, his left eyebrow slightly raised.

Seeing him like this, Chen Mo became even more certain that Liang Jingren had deliberately brought up this topic. After all, only he and Liang Jingren knew the content of that award-winning essay.

Liang Jingren laughed. “Chen Mo’s writing is really good, but the title of that essay is very plain and unadorned, haha~”

“Enough… Shut up…”

The name of that essay was “My Father.”

“Don’t humiliate me anymore…”

Chen Mo felt extremely aggrieved.

The week that Chen Mo showed off his certificate, Liang Jingren had specifically checked the weekly electronic school newspaper that their school pushed out and found the award list for the essay competition.

At the same time, he also discovered that the title of Chen Mo’s award-winning essay was “My Father.”

“Who did you write about? Me or Chen Daxiang? Or your unknown biological father?” Chen Mo only brought back the second-prize certificate and not the essay itself. Liang Jingren was really curious and kept asking him for two days.

Chen Mo always gave vague answers, not giving a clear response.

Liang Jingren thought that he had written about himself and that Chen Mo was just being shy and bashful about it, so he simply stopped asking him and secretly searched for it himself online.

But when he searched it up, he discovered that Chen Mo had written about neither him, nor Chen Daxiang, nor his biological father.

He fabricated a story full of warmth, writing about his father taking him to pick fruit in the orange garden, writing about the fatherly love as towering as a mountain in the setting sun, and writing about the life philosophy of ripe fruit falling to the ground.

“I underestimated you. So you were hiding a fourth father outside.”

When Chen Mo came home from school and heard Liang Jingren say this, he knew that the other party had read his purely fictional, fake, insincere essay.

Being exposed for faking it, it was fake for Chen Mo to say that he wasn’t feeling guilty. However, it was just an essay, and only writing something outstanding would get him a high score. Where had he gone wrong? It was just writing the essay as if it were a novel.

The highly self-esteeming male high school student became increasingly indignant and shouted at him, “So what, I won an award!”

“Yeah, congratulations, little writer~” Liang Jingren said with a smile, pulling him over, touching his head, and smoothing his hair. “I’ll add a chicken leg for you tonight, do you want one?”

“I don’t want one…”

“Hmm?”

“You, you promise me, don’t send that essay to anyone else… I don’t want others to see it.”

“Why? It’s written very well.”

“…I just don’t want them to.”