AM Chapter 64

【Adolescence 2】A Psychologically Dark Child [Extra]

【Adolescence 2】A Psychologically Dark Child

It was still when I was in the second year of junior high school. One day, before school ended, the sky was suddenly covered with dark clouds, and soon a heavy downpour began.

The villa wasn’t far from the school, about a ten to twenty-minute walk. But Chen Mo didn’t have an umbrella to go home.

His umbrella had been confiscated by the teacher.

Because during class dismissal, some idiot provoked him, and then the two of them used their umbrellas to “fence” battle in the hallway.

After school, that idiot and a group of smelly boys went noisily to the office to ask for their umbrellas back.

He didn’t go.

He didn’t dare to go alone.

Outside the guard booth at the school gate was a rain shelter. Waves of students, one after another, passed by with umbrellas and raincoats. Chen Mo stood quietly under the shelter, watching and waiting for the rain to stop.

But this rain wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. It wasn’t as heavy as it had been at first, but it didn’t seem to be getting lighter either. The raindrops looked smaller, but the density was still high.

This rain was falling very evenly. As long as he rushed out, even just to the convenience store ten meters away to buy an umbrella, Chen Mo had no doubt that he would be drenched to the bone.

But waiting forever wasn’t a solution…

Chen Mo clenched the straps of his schoolbag on both sides.

It was getting darker and darker…

No, it had been dark all along. From the moment the rain started, it had been dark. So dark that the lights had to be turned on in the classroom in the afternoon, so dark that everyone was excited, screaming louder and louder during the lightning and thunder, as if they had never seen such a spectacle.

“Chen Mo!”

In the steady, dense sound of the rain, Chen Mo thought he heard someone calling his name.

He lifted his gaze from his shoes, which were about to be soaked, and looked forward—

A familiar SUV, with its hazard lights flashing, was parked next to the convenience store. An arm reached out from the lowered car window. His newly-minted stepmother of two months, Liang Jingren, was waving a phone with a brightly lit screen, dampened by the rain.

Chen Mo tightened his straps again, leaning forward as raindrops drifted into his eyes.

Now he had a reason to brave those few meters of rain.

He had to brave the rain.

Someone had come to pick him up, and he had to brave the rain so that the person who came to pick him up wouldn’t get impatient waiting.

Chen Mo raised his foot, ready to run. Just then, someone suddenly held an umbrella over him.

Chen Mo slowed his pace and glanced sideways.

“I’ll shield you over there,” a female classmate, who often had to stay after school for tutoring, said to him with a smile.

Chen Mo didn’t want to get wet or inevitably splash water on his shoes, so he agreed to walk with this classmate.

But this classmate seemed not only slow-witted and slow to react but also slow in her movements, so slow that Chen Mo couldn’t ignore the students hurrying past, chatting and laughing, so slow that he noticed that the outer layer of the umbrella above his head was actually pink—he could tell from the dangling, dripping pink ribbons.

—He pushed away the person holding the umbrella beside him, then buried his head and ran forward, crashing into the back seat of the SUV with a head full of raindrops in a few seconds.

“It’s only a few steps, what’s the rush? She was kind enough to hold an umbrella for you, why did you push her?” Liang Jingren turned his head, puzzled, to look at the person who had slammed the car door shut, then taken off his schoolbag, sat down, and started messing with his rain-soaked hair.

Chen Mo pouted, took out a tissue from his schoolbag, and wiped the dirty water off his shoes as he said, “I don’t want to be laughed at…”

“Laugh at what?” Liang Jingren asked.

Chen Mo stammered, “Well…they…seeing me and a girl under the same umbrella, they’ll definitely make up stories about it…”

“Even if Luo Xi is genuinely kind, her umbrella is pink. Those people will definitely spread rumors behind my back that I’m effeminate…”

Because he had previously laughed at a classmate who had mistakenly taken a younger female student’s HelloKitty umbrella, Chen Mo felt that they would definitely retaliate against him. Once they knew he had used a pink umbrella, they would pay him back in kind.

The person with their hands on the steering wheel didn’t know what he was thinking. After Chen Mo finished speaking, he pursed his lips and looked up, observing Liang Jingren, who had been twisting around to look at him in the back seat.

Liang Jingren’s expression had a subtle change. What was visible on the surface seemed to be mostly surprise.

Liang Jingren was silent for a moment, concealing all the surprise on the surface. He opened his mouth and said, “Why are you so psychologically dark?”

“…”

Chen Mo didn’t answer. He closed his mouth, leaned his head back, and turned to look at the rain that kept tapping on the car window.

The direction of the rain sliding down began to tilt backward as the car moved forward.

Liang Jingren’s gaze was no longer on him. He held the steering wheel, looking straight ahead as he drove, and said, “No one will like you if you’re like this.”

It wasn’t a blaming tone.

Chen Mo glanced at the rearview mirror in the corner of his eye. It clearly showed the lower half of the driver’s face—Liang Jingren was saying it with a faint smile.

Chen Mo sat up straight again, even using his hands to pull on the back of the front seat, leaning his head forward, unconvinced, “Someone likes me!”

Hearing this, the driver tilted his head to the side, raising an eyebrow with interest, “Oh?”

“It’s that Luo…”

Before he could finish, Liang Jingren interrupted, “That little girl who held the umbrella for you just now?”

Chen Mo pursed his lips and said, “Forget it, she’s too stupid.”

“Hahahaha, you’re even picking and choosing!”

“…Stop laughing, it’s annoying.”

Chen Mo looked at the smile at the corner of his mouth and felt annoyed.

He felt that Liang Jingren was mocking him, but he also felt that it wasn’t mockery. In any case, although he was angry, he wasn’t particularly angry. He just didn’t want Liang Jingren to keep laughing.

But Liang Jingren didn’t listen to him at all. He continued to drive with a smile, just not laughing out loud. He leaned back and turned his head in another direction, pretending not to know.

After a while, Liang Jingren repeated the topic from just now, “Okay, you’re right, she is a bit stupid.”

Otherwise, how could she like you. Chen Mo silently completed the unspoken words in his heart for him.

“But,” Liang Jingren didn’t say that sentence, “you can’t bully people just because they’re stupid.”

Chen Mo opened his mouth, but didn’t make a sound in the end.

He had indeed bullied a stupid person when he was in elementary school—a real mentally handicapped person.

He tore the other person’s notebook into mop-like strips, and the mentally handicapped person still played with him foolishly, completely unaware of being bullied.

Moreover, he was only in the first grade at the time and just thought it was fun to play like that. He didn’t think it was bullying, especially since the other person was still laughing when he was tearing it.

It wasn’t until later that the other person’s mother asked the teacher and tracked down his mother’s contact information, and then he was scolded by his mother, that he dared not blatantly play this kind of game of destroying things anymore.

But after that, until he transferred schools, he still often played with that mentally handicapped person. Perhaps because neither of them had many other friends.

After returning home, Chen Mo hurriedly took a shower and washed his hair before going downstairs to eat.

His hair was only casually wiped and wasn’t yet dry. The Auntie saw him and quickly took out a hair dryer, calling him to the living room to dry his hair before eating.

Chen Mo, who was just about to sit down, hesitated, holding the back of the chair and looking towards the living room, as if in a daze.

The Auntie at that time was surnamed Wang, and seemed to have just come from the countryside. Her hands were very rough, and Chen Mo always felt that her fingernail crevices and joint wrinkles must be hiding old dirt left over from digging sweet potatoes in the fields, which was why they seemed so black.

Liang Jingren, who was sitting across the table from him, had finished eating at this time. He put down his chopsticks, stood up, and also looked towards the living room, saying, “Auntie Wang, put down the hair dryer. I’m almost done eating, help me clear the dishes and bones. I’ll dry his hair for him.”

Hearing this, Chen Mo suddenly turned his head to look at him.

Liang Jingren looked back at him, smiling and said, “I don’t care if youDislike dislike it or not. If you dare to run, I’ll hold your head down and pat it like a ball.”

Chen Mo knew that Liang Jingren was already aware of the extent of his psychological darkness, guessing that he might be Contempt scornful of Auntie Wang in his heart, just not wanting to hurt people by saying it outright, and too lazy to argue with him. He thought: What if Liang Jingren did argue…

Chen Mo looked at the other person’s smile, and a chill ran up his spine.

He didn’t dare to resist.

Then he was forced to obediently sit on the living room sofa and endure a blast of hot air from Liang Jingren.

Actually, Liang Jingren’s technique for drying his hair was quite gentle. Although he was holding his head down, he didn’t pull his hair painfully.

At that time, Chen Mo hadn’t had anyone help him dry his hair for a long, long time. He didn’t like people touching his head.

Liang Jingren had a reason to touch it—a reason he couldn’t refute or resist, so although he didn’t like it either, he accepted it.

Once some things are accepted the first time, the mindset changes, and it becomes easier and easier to accept them later.

Unfortunately, Liang Jingren didn’t get to let him accept it a second or third time…

After that, whenever it rained heavily, whether he brought an umbrella or not, Liang Jingren would have his underlings drive specifically to pick him up, holding a large black umbrella that could shelter a family of three.

After the end of the second semester of junior high, Chen Mo finally learned about Chen Daxiang’s illness.

Liang Jingren’s words, “Your dad went on a business trip,” were just a cover. Chen Daxiang hadn’t been on a business trip in these six months. He just had to go to the hospital for check-ups every now and then. When he felt really uncomfortable and the pain was unbearable, he had to be hospitalized for observation.

In another year, he would be going to high school. When Chen Mo was called by Chen Daxiang to discuss the matter, Chen Daxiang was sitting on the clean VIP hospital bed, holding a toothpick and eating an apple.

The apple seemed to have been peeled by Liang Jingren. He carefully cut the peeled apple into pieces, soaked them in lemon water, and placed them in a small bowl.

Watching Liang Jingren skillfully adjust the small table board and the backrest of the hospital bed where the fruit bowl was placed, Chen Mo felt that he seemed like a professional caregiver that Chen Daxiang had hired.

—Actually, his first reaction was that this was the moment when Liang Jingren seemed most like Chen Daxiang’s wife.

But he quickly abandoned this thought.

Chen Mo felt that this wasn’t right.

That would make Liang Jingren too miserable, having to take care of a bedridden old man, and possibly soon become a widow gossiped about behind his back. Too pitiful.

Oh, but if Chen Daxiang died, wouldn’t he be able to inherit a large fortune? Chen Mo suddenly thought.

Thinking this way, Liang Jingren didn’t seem so miserable after all.

Wait…could it be because of this reason…

That’s why Liang Jingren decided to marry Chen Daxiang without hesitation?

Wow, what a scheming man.

But he did suffer a lot of criticism because of it. Even he could hear students and even teachers gossiping at school, let alone the situation in the company.

Regarding this, Chen Mo was also very impressed with Liang Jingren—what a man of great courage.

“Jingren, you can go out first. I want to chat with Little Mo alone.”

When Chen Daxiang spoke, Liang Jingren had just moved a folding chair to the front of the bed, also in front of him.

Liang Jingren straightened up after placing the folding chair and looked at him. Chen Mo also looked up and met his gaze.

Liang Jingren said, “I’ll go first. If there’s an emergency, press the bell for the doctor. It’s that red button by the bedside.”

Chen Mo nodded.

Actually, Chen Mo didn’t want him to leave.

When Liang Jingren walked past him towards the back, Chen Mo really wanted to stop him, to call him to stay.

Because since Liang Jingren joined this family, he hadn’t been alone with Chen Daxiang for too long, for several months. He had forgotten a little, didn’t know how to be alone with Chen Daxiang anymore.

But he didn’t do that. He just clenched his fists and sat down in front of Chen Daxiang’s bed, holding the back of the folding chair as the hospital room door closed.

Chen Daxiang treated him very well, very kindly, very gently, almost always granting his requests. Even outsiders could see this.

And it wasn’t just outside, in front of outsiders, that he treated him well. It was the same at home, so Chen Mo didn’t have any complaints about this adoptive father.

However, he always remembered the day his parents were buried. Chen Daxiang, wearing all black but unable to hide his beer belly, held his hand and stood on the edge of the grass, watching. Many people he didn’t know very well were crying around him, but he didn’t cry. He even raised his head and whispered to Chen Daxiang, who had decided to adopt him:

“Uncle, I only recently learned the term ‘Licking the dog (tiǎngǒu – lapdog/simp),’ and today, I realized that being a lapdog can be so great.”

He really didn’t intend to make Chen Daxiang angry at the time. He genuinely thought that Chen Daxiang was great, very remarkable.

Children speak without malice. He was only nine years old at the time.

His mother knew him best, knew the destructive power of his innocent words, so before sending him to the villa, she had already chosen a new name for him—he would take Chen Daxiang’s surname and be renamed “Mo.”

The two characters “Chen Mo” (Chén Mò) are pronounced the same as “silence” (chénmò), which means “silence.”

His mother hoped that he would say less when he got to Chen Daxiang’s house, so he wouldn’t be annoying and get kicked out.

That day in the hospital, he didn’t discuss the issue of junior high school admission with Chen Daxiang as they had talked about on the phone. Chen Daxiang said to leave that to him and Liang Jingren to discuss.

Chen Daxiang said that his condition was deteriorating quickly, very unstable, and he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to hold on until he started high school.

Therefore, he showed his adoptive son, who had been silent since entering, the first draft of his will.

The general content of the will was: If Chen Daxiang unfortunately died, then his property would not be left to his adopted son Chen Mo. He would donate most of his personal property and then leave the company’s shares to Liang Jingren through legal marriage inheritance. Liang Jingren would also assume the responsibility and obligation of his adopted son’s “stepmother,” continuing to take care of Chen Mo until he was eighteen years old.

Why eighteen years old?

Because at eighteen, he would be an adult, and adults would have to be responsible for their own actions and future.

“I feel that your mother entrusted you to me, so I have the obligation to raise you into an adult,” Chen Daxiang said.

Chen Mo understood, completely understood.

Chen Daxiang was already great enough. Even though he was about to die, he could still exchange debt for debt—exchange money debt for personal favor debt, binding Liang Jingren to the company and the villa, just so that someone could watch over and take care of him until he was an adult.

But was Liang Jingren trustworthy? What if he…

“Little Mo, when I’m not around, do you and Jingren get along well?” Chen Daxiang had suddenly married a male wife to him as a stepmother a few months ago, regardless of his feelings, and was only now suddenly remembering to ask him what he thought.

Ah…but this question was too easy to answer.

“Yes. He’s very good to me,” Chen Mo said honestly.

—It couldn’t be any more pleasant.

Chen Daxiang smiled with relief, slowly nodding and saying, “That’s good, it seems like this was the right decision…”

“Although I’m not always accurate in judging people, the business partners I find are usually quite reliable.” Chen Daxiang looked up at the ceiling, seemingly reminiscing about something. “Jingren is very honest. Although people in the business world can’t be too honest, the point on which we agree most is that you have to be honest and trustworthy.”

Didn’t they say that honest people are the easiest to bully? Chen Mo curled his lip, thinking: Liang Jingren doesn’t look like someone who would honestly take a beating.

Chen Daxiang’s hand, which was covered with hemostatic bandages with several needle marks, suddenly reached out and grabbed his hand. Chen Mo guessed that what he was going to say next might be very important, or it might be very sentimental. In any case, he sat up straight first, straightened his serious expression, and looked at the person on the hospital bed.

“Little Mo, don’t bully Jingren,” Chen Daxiang said to him, holding his hand.

Chen Mo slowly widened his eyes.

He didn’t understand, didn’t comprehend, didn’t approve.

But he only revealed the first two emotions, showing a hint of surprise.

Chen Daxiang said again, “Little Mo, you have to remember, I don’t owe you anything, and Liang Jingren is the same. We never owed you anything.”

After coming out of the hospital, Chen Mo received a phone call, then, with the phone to his ear, walked to the parking lot.

Soon he found Liang Jingren leaning against the car door and calling him.

He was too lazy to fasten his seat belt, so he directly got into the back seat of the car.

After the car started, Liang Jingren asked him what he had said to Chen Daxiang in the hospital room.

“That’s private, right?” Chen Mo said, looking out the car window.

“Mm…”

After hearing this ambiguous sound from the driver’s seat, Chen Mo turned his eyes to slant a look towards the driver’s seat.

Liang Jingren was staring at the complex road conditions outside the hospital. He pondered for a moment before saying, “I thought he would explain something to you… In short, if there’s anything you need me to help with, just say it.”

Chen Mo looked at his handsome profile, opened his mouth, and said, “Yes, there is something.”

“What is it?”

He suddenly had a whim, wanting Liang Jingren to meet his biological parents.

So Chen Mo said, “I haven’t been to sweep my parents’ tombs in a long time. Chen Daxiang hasn’t taken me in the past two years. Can you go with me once?”

“Sure, what day?”

“I’m on summer vacation. Any day is fine.”

“Then this Saturday. By the way, do you want to bring anything?”

“I’m not too sure…Brother Ren (Réngē – Bro Ren) You’re an adult, you decide!”

It had rained for two consecutive days before the agreed tomb-sweeping date, and suddenly it was clear on Saturday.

Along the way, Liang Jingren played soothing and cheerful light music in the car. Chen Mo, sitting in the back seat, looked at a bunch of brightly colored flowers beside him, and a pack of handmade sandwiches that the Auntie had prepared for them as lunch. He felt that they weren’t going to sweep the tombs, but rather going on an outing.

“Brother Ren (Réngē – Bro Ren) Are we going to the amusement park?” Chen Mo joked.

Liang Jingren laughed as he drove, “It’s not impossible. If you want to go, we can go to the amusement park after sweeping the tombs.”

The originally complex and heavy mood improved at this time, matching the good weather.

Chen Mo said with a smile, “Okay! It’s a deal!”

However, when the tombstone engraved with his parents’ names and dates of burial appeared in front of him, the dark clouds in his heart suddenly gathered with lightning and storm, sweeping and covering everything again.

When he looked around and found that all around were only tombstones, and Liang Jingren holding a bunch of glaringly bright flowers, he couldn’t help but snatch the bouquet and smash it hard on the tombstone directly in front of him—

“Bastards!! Bitches!! Whores!! Selfish Ghosts!! Shameless!!!”

White roses, sunflowers, bellflowers, and flower petals he didn’t know the names of were scattered messily on the tomb. The carefully folded packaging paper became as dirty, torn, and wrinkled as old newspaper that had been used to wipe windows after repeated pounding and venting.

“Damn it! Go to hell! Go to hell!! Give me to die!!! Idiot! Moron!! Slut!!”

After the ruined bouquet was discarded by him, Chen Mo kicked and stomped on his parents’ tombstone, cursing the dead while his shoe soles repeatedly stepped on the name that was obviously a woman’s.

This woman had given birth to him, raised him, but in the end, for the sake of a man, his dad, she didn’t want him.

Chen Mo had never shown Chen Daxiang this direct hatred for his biological mother, because no matter what, that was Chen Daxiang’s unforgettable White Moonlight (báiyuègūang – white moonlight, an idealized and unattainable figure).

Therefore, when Chen Daxiang asked him to go to sweep the tombs together, he would lie and say that he wasn’t feeling well, that he felt uncomfortable, and wouldn’t go.

He did feel uncomfortable, unbearably uncomfortable.

Everyone said that he was very lucky, latching onto Chen Daxiang, a rich man who was honest and didn’t have a family or children, as an adoptive father. He never denied his luck. He lived better than before, he had someone to take care of his food, clothing, and shelter, what could he be dissatisfied with?

But what about his misfortune? No one cared.

He wanted someone to care.

So he brought Liang Jingren here—anyway, Liang Jingren knew that he was a psychologically dark little man.

—I’m just this kind of psychologically dark guy, so what, can you accept it?

—Now Chen Daxiang doesn’t want me either, I’ve been reduced to a third-hand item, so what, can you accept it?!

Chen Mo, wearing the brand-name sneakers that Chen Daxiang had bought him, gritted his teeth and kicked and stomped on his parents’ tombstone. For the first time, he displayed his destructive desire so thoroughly, even disregarding the fact that the soles of his feet had begun to ache, and his knee had accidentally bumped against the stone tablet, turning red.

But he just wanted to vent his anger. He didn’t want to cry.

He hadn’t shed a single tear even when these two people, with whom he shared the strongest blood ties, were buried. How could he cry for them now?

But tears stubbornly, uncontrollably, rolled down, scalding his face in the blinding sunlight.

He cried for his misfortune, for his pitifulness. He blamed them for being so selfish as to turn him into an unfortunate and pitiful child.

He cried like this, panting heavily from exhaustion, and still had to bend down to pick up the tattered bouquet, raising it and using it as the most handy weapon of attack.

It wasn’t until all the rose heads had fallen off that the broken thing, which was completely unrecognizable, was thrown to the ground again by him.

Then he just stood there empty-handed, looking up at the sun, and howled and cried.

Like an idiot.

Liang Jingren, who seemed to have been ignoring his actions all along, or rather, whose existence he had momentarily ignored, suddenly reappeared at this time.

He hugged him tightly in his arms with an irresistible force, then his strong arms went around his back, one hand firmly holding his shoulder, and the other on the back of his head, also forcefully suppressing him, so that he couldn’t raise his head.

The weak, silly Chen Mo was trapped like this, unable to break free, causing him to cry even louder, his eyes and nose leaking water like broken faucets.

When he was completely cried out and finally raised his head, the sunlight could no longer sting his red and swollen eyes, because Liang Jingren’s head blocked it all.

“Chen Mo, do you still want to go to the amusement park later?” Liang Jingren, whose expression couldn’t be seen under the backlight, asked.

Chen Mo seemed to have become a real idiot, reacting very slowly, and asked after a long time, “Why go to the amusement park?”

Liang Jingren seemed to blink his eyes and said, “I thought you really wanted to go. If you don’t want to, then we won’t go.”

Chen Mo also blinked his eyes. Gradually, he remembered that he had asked Liang Jingren to take him to the amusement park after sweeping the tombs.

However, he had to break the promise.

Chen Mo sniffed and smiled, saying, “I want to go, but not today, right? How can I be fit to go like this…”

Liang Jingren wiped his face with his hand and said, “Then let’s buy an ice cream by the roadside and go home.”

Chen Mo nodded, agreeing.

Then, they bought two cheap ice cream cones at a small shop near the cemetery that also sold paper flowers.

Liang Jingren finished his ice cream cone in a few bites outside the car, tore off a couple of tissues, handed them to him, and then grabbed the steering wheel to drive. Chen Mo sat in the passenger seat, carefully licking the ice cream cone that was melting faster and faster.

After finishing the ice cream cone, he used many tissues to wrap up the sticky packaging paper and was scolded by Liang Jingren, “Waste of paper.”

Chen Mo ignored this sentence and turned to talk to him about something serious—his high school choices.

His scores were good. He could get into any of the three famous old high schools in the city. But he wanted to go to a private high school a little farther from home.

“Why? Won’t it be very inconvenient to go back and forth?” Liang Jingren asked. “Are you planning to live on campus? But, it’s still a school in this city, and even if it’s farther, it’s only an hour away. Chen Daxiang probably will find a driver to pick you up and drop you off.”

“Mm…you’re right.” Chen Mo really didn’t plan to live on campus. “I mainly want to join their rocket elite class. It’s said that the school has hired very impressive teachers to specifically teach that class.”

Actually, he just didn’t want to continue interacting with this group of classmates from junior high and elementary school. As long as he changed the environment, he could get away from them.

Liang Jingren believed what he said and even praised him: “Not bad, you’re really motivated! This is preparing in advance to (chōngjī – strike, attack) a key university, haha! But the tuition for private high schools is a bit expensive… I’ll talk to Chen Daxiang about it when I get back. Hmph, money is a minor problem!”

“Ah…being able to go to a key high school and then to a university, that’s really good!” As he spoke, Liang Jingren suddenly exclaimed, “I should be able to enter the university with you as a family member to visit, right? Haha, I didn’t even finish high school, but I can actually enter a university, maybe even a very prestigious university, how amazing!”

Chen Mo didn’t expect him to talk to him about the topic of university, after all, according to Chen Daxiang’s plan, Liang Jingren only needed to take care of him until he graduated from high school at the age of eighteen…

“You want me to go to university?” Chen Mo turned to look at the person in the driver’s seat, widening his eyes, and asked a surprised and idiotic question.

Liang Jingren glanced at him and laughed, “What do I want or not? It’s whether you want to or not!”

“If you want to study, then study. Again, money is a minor problem. If you have the ability and drive, sending you abroad to study is no problem!”

Chen Mo opened his mouth and was stunned.

“By the way, how are your grades now?” Liang Jingren suddenly asked.

Chen Mo came back to his senses and replied, “Top five in the class, around top thirty in the grade.”

“Wow, that’s very good!” Liang Jingren smiled, tapping the steering wheel with his index finger and starting to calculate and imagine, “If you can maintain it in high school and even university, you might even be able to get a master’s degree and a doctorate, a top student!”

He didn’t know where this person got his confidence… No, it was a blind belief in his grades. Chen Mo’s mouth twitched slightly.

However, Chen Mo rarely felt expectations from others. These expectations didn’t give him any pressure or motivation. He just felt speechless.

But while speechless, he was also very happy.

He looked at the smile on Liang Jingren’s face, who was driving and looking straight ahead. The corners of his mouth, which were originally twitching, eventually settled into an upward smile.

In stark contrast to the seemingly relieved smile was his dark inner thoughts. He thought:

It would be good if Liang Jingren owed him something…

It would be good if Liang Jingren was indebted to him and could stay by his side forever…