Chapter 10: When Did Sheng-sheng Find a Lover?
“Heh, really?”
A low chuckle sounded from behind, carrying unconcealed amusement and arrogance.
Liang Sheng, who was still weeping in sorrow, suddenly choked up. The low chuckle sounded exceptionally familiar. He turned his head in shock and saw his husband, who had supposedly died of a heart attack, currently standing perfectly fine by the door.
The man’s lips were curved upwards, his eyes half-closed. He didn’t look directly at him; instead, he stood with one hand in his pocket, his long legs elegantly and casually crossed as he leaned leisurely against the wall.
The sound of his little wife crying until he was out of breath seemed like beautiful music to his ears.
Liang Sheng thought his excessive grief had caused hallucinations, and he immediately rubbed his eyes. But the hallucination didn’t disappear. He instantly realized what had happened. He turned back and yanked away the white cloth. There was no corpse underneath, just two pillows.
It was obvious—he had been tricked by Shen Xingyu again!
The drastic fluctuations between grief and anger hit him far too fiercely. Liang Sheng couldn’t handle it at all, his heart clenching in agonizing pain.
Clutching his chest, he unsteadily stood up and limped toward the man, demanding:
“Y-you didn’t have a heart attack? Why did you lie to me! Do you know… I-I…”
He was too upset to continue speaking, large teardrops falling continuously. He raised his hand and wiped them away haphazardly, turning his already filthy face even blacker, like an unwanted little beggar.
Shen Xingyu opened his eyes and looked at him. Only then did he notice that the other was covered in mud, with multiple scrapes on his pale arms and completely soaked clothes, as if he had fallen into a mud pit and climbed out.
A pungent, fishy stench of muddy water wafted over.
Shen Xingyu was a severe germaphobe. He subconsciously wrinkled his nose, completely turning a blind eye to his little wife’s teary, miserable state, and asked with amusement: “You what?”
“I was scared to death…”
Liang Sheng sniffled through his sobs. Lingering terror remained on his pale face; he had clearly been frightened out of his wits, his words coming out disjointedly. “I didn’t know… didn’t know what to do…”
“I knew it, Sheng-sheng. You still care about me, you can’t bear to let me go.”
Shen Xingyu smiled tenderly and indulgently. He habitually raised his fingers to stroke his little wife’s soft hair, as if petting a stray cat wagging its tail to beg for mercy.
He loved this feeling, relishing the thrill of toying with this relationship that the other could never cast off.
“Liar!”
Liang Sheng angrily slapped his hand away. He had fallen and bruised himself bloody, cried his eyes out thinking his husband was truly dead, only to find out he was nothing more than a joke toyed with in the palm of his hand.
His eye sockets burned with an intense, suffocating soreness born from extreme fury. Why did he always repeat the same mistakes, handing over his true heart only to receive deception after deception…
Shen Xingyu didn’t care about his utterly useless rage. He continued to stare down at him with the cold, condescending attitude of a victor:
“Admit it, Liang Sheng. You simply can’t leave me. Without me, you’d die, wouldn’t you?”
“I-I…”
Liang Sheng stuttered. He didn’t know why, but he was truly terrified of Shen Xingyu. From beginning to end, this man was arrogant, conceited, and untamable. Every time he faced the rare gentleness Shen Xingyu showed him, his firm resolve to leave would instantly turn indecisive…
“You just said it yourself. As long as I woke up, you would be obedient and come home with me.”
Shen Xingyu advanced step by step toward Liang Sheng.
Liang Sheng had completely lost his footing.
He had always been controlled by Shen Xingyu; no matter what he did, he would ultimately fall into this man’s trap.
“That doesn’t count! That’s because you lied to me!”
“If I didn’t lie to you, did you really want me to die?”
Shen Xingyu smiled, but there wasn’t a shred of warmth in his eyes.
Liang Sheng was rendered speechless. He indeed didn’t want his husband to really die. He stubbornly turned his head away, shifting his gaze aside. Even though he was so wronged that tears were about to spill over, he refused to lower his head and yield.
Seeing this, Shen Xingyu knew he couldn’t blindly force the person; he had to manipulate him properly. He would wait until the other was entirely willing, and then strike him a heavy blow.
“I’m sorry, Sheng-sheng, I was wrong. As long as you’re willing to come back, I’ll never make you sad again, okay?”
Shen Xingyu dropped his high-and-mighty act, rarely lowering his voice to coax him. His face appeared deeply affectionate, yet his eyes remained frigid.
He didn’t understand love, so naturally, he didn’t know how showing love to someone should look.
Perhaps Liang Sheng, who had been trapped in darkness all those years ago, was far too desperate for salvation, which was why he couldn’t distinguish whether the gentleness in the man’s eyes was true devotion or mere pretense.
“R-really?”
Liang Sheng was somewhat swayed.
Having lost his mother, his husband was the only one left to rely on.
“Yes, it’s the absolute truth.”
Shen Xingyu nodded slightly, gazing deeply into Liang Sheng’s eyes, brewing a tranquil storm.
Completely oblivious, Liang Sheng drew courage from the grievances of the past few days and protested angrily to his husband:
“Then you are not allowed to flirt with that little secretary anymore! You’re also not allowed to get intimate with others just to make me jealous! And you have to come home early at night to eat with me!”
“I promise, I’ll do it.”
Shen Xingyu’s voice was so calm it bordered on apathetic.
“That’s good then!”
Liang Sheng was satisfied. Seeing the man suddenly comply with his every wish, a wave of irrepressible excitement washed over his heart:
“A-Yu, did you remember? Remembered that we truly loved each other…”
“That’s right, I remembered.”
This time, Shen Xingyu didn’t deny it as he had before. He lazily raised his eyes, a half-smile lingering in their depths.
“Really?! You remembered our feelings and memories? It was so beautiful, I knew you wouldn’t forget everything…”
Liang Sheng was ecstatic. Thrilled, he threw his arms around Shen Xingyu, burying his face into the man’s solid chest, feeling boundlessly happy: “A-Yu, this is wonderful. You finally remember that we loved each other… Do you know? I’ve waited for this day for so, so long…”
Shen Xingyu didn’t hug him back. Instead, he spread his arms in disgust and turned his head to the side, trying his best not to touch his little wife’s filthy hair.
“I remember seeing Sheng-sheng hugging a strange man this morning, crying buckets of tears~”
He spoke softly, languid and careless, but his words smashed into Liang Sheng like blocks of ice.
Liang Sheng’s entire body went rigid. He looked up in disbelief, tears welling up in his eyes, his lips trembling:
“You…”
“When did Sheng-sheng find a little lover? Why didn’t you bring him over so your husband could meet him?”
Shen Xingyu raised an eyebrow, but his eyes were completely devoid of any gentleness, filled only with intense disgust and mockery.
Liang Sheng was horrified. He subconsciously let go of his arms around the man and babbled defensively:
“I-I didn’t! A-Yu, listen to me explain! He’s my neighbor, there’s absolutely nothing between us! I fainted that night. He originally wanted to take me back to my brother’s house, but my brother wouldn’t open the door, so he had to take me to his place. This morning, it was because I saw my mother’s tombstone and was too heartbroken, that’s why, why…”
“Heh, that’s why you threw yourself into his arms begging for comfort, is that it?”
Shen Xingyu smiled, reaching out a hand to stroke Liang Sheng’s hair with extreme gentleness. Liang Sheng tried to dodge, but was pinned down and couldn’t move an inch.
His little wife was horrified and furious, yet he reveled in it, admiring the other’s pained expression.
“No, it’s not… I was crying so hard back then, I wasn’t paying attention, I just leaned onto Brother Ran…”
Liang Sheng shook his head with a sob, not daring to look straight into the man’s eyes. He had never done anything to betray his husband or the Shen family. Back then, Old Master Shen had laid down strict rules in their contract: alive, he was a member of the Shen family; dead, he was a ghost of the Shen family, and he was absolutely forbidden to have any contact with other men.
“Brother, Ran.”
Shen Xingyu repeated these two words pausing after each syllable, his eyes flashing with interest and a bit of contempt. He then began a subtle interrogation:
“Do you think he’s better than me?”
Liang Sheng’s heart skipped a beat, and he hastily lowered his head: “N-no!”
Shen Xingyu sneered. His icy fingertips pinched his jaw, forcing him to lift his head, looking at him with the gaze of someone inspecting trash:
“Then why did you live together with him?”
Without giving Liang Sheng a chance to answer, he continued to interrogate:
“Do you think the way he looks at you is innocent?! Do you dare say there’s nothing between you two?! That absolutely nothing happened the night you stayed together?!”
His voice went from a low growl to a furious roar.
The fingers pinching Liang Sheng’s jaw tightened increasingly, the force so immense it felt as though he was going to crush his bones!
Liang Sheng was in so much pain that tears nearly fell. He weakly clawed at the man’s wrist, trying to pry it away, but to no avail.
“You’re hurting me… let, let go…”
“Liang Sheng, don’t forget what you promised my grandfather back then—even in death, you are a ghost of the Shen family. Now you suddenly hook up with a wild man, what’s the meaning of this? Are you trying to make me, Shen Xingyu, wear a green hat?!”
Shen Xingyu’s eyes were bloodshot, his originally handsome features twisted together in rage.
He couldn’t accept that his own little wife was having an affair with someone else!
Liang Sheng shook his head with difficulty. His tear-glossed eyes were half-closed, shivering like a frail kitten.
He was being pinched so hard he could barely breathe.
“L-let go of me, it hurts…”
Looking at those tear-stained eyes, Shen Xingyu’s heart trembled slightly. He hadn’t wanted to lay a hand on Liang Sheng, but his intense sense of pride forced him to fiercely toss the person in front of him away.
He rarely lost his temper because he always had everything firmly in his grasp and looked down on everything, yet he had specifically stumbled when it came to Liang Sheng!
With a thud, Liang Sheng fell, seeing stars.
He clutched his stomach, which had hit the corner of the table, and curled up in agony, the fine strands of hair across his forehead obscuring more than half of his face.
Why did he have to treat him like this…
He had been so filled with joy, thinking the Shen Xingyu of the past had returned. In the end, it was all deception! All the gentleness, all the promises, all the apologies—they were nothing but illusions!
Only he, Liang Sheng, was foolish enough to be toyed with by this man time and time again.
When the lies faded, only scattered malice remained.
Shen Xingyu said nothing. He simply crouched down, and seeing his pained state, felt an uncomfortable twinge in his own heart.
“From now on, without my permission, you are not allowed to go anywhere, let alone see anyone. Do not challenge my bottom line again.”
It was another light, airy warning. Aside from being somewhat cold, it lacked any emotional color.
But to Liang Sheng’s ears, it was like sharp thorns, stabbing into his heart over and over again.
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