Chapter 79: How Could She Possibly Be a Mistress!
He couldn’t just let him keep holding him like this!
With that thought, Liang Sheng raised his hand to push him away, but he suddenly felt something icy and cool against his neck. Something was wordlessly dripping down.
It slid down his neck to his collarbone, pooling like a tiny reservoir before slowly seeping into his clothes.
The thin shirt clung tightly to his skin.
Liang Sheng froze.
Moving only his eyes, he could only see the man’s dark head resting on his shoulder. He couldn’t see his expression, but he could feel the man’s breath growing damp and hot, punctuated by occasional sobs.
What was happening?
“What… what are you doing?”
He panicked slightly, thinking Shen Xingyu’s heart was hurting again, and gave him a firm shove.
Shen Xingyu seemed to lose all his strength in an instant. With one push, he slumped to the side, his face still lowered.
“What is wrong with you?”
Liang Sheng grew even more anxious at the silence.
He tried to sit up to check on the man, but he was pinned down by the man’s firm, powerful arm.
“What… what are you doing!”
Just as Liang Sheng was about to lose his temper, he suddenly saw the man look up with a pair of watery eyes, his lids rimmed with red.
He couldn’t help but freeze.
Was he… crying?
He actually cried?!
This man cried right in front of him?!
Truly… a rare sight.
Shen Xingyu stole a glance at him.
His eyes were full of loss and grievance, like a puppy that didn’t know what to do after being scolded by its master.
Perhaps realizing how pathetic he looked right now, he shamefully buried his face back into his little wife’s chest, stripped of every ounce of his usual high-and-mighty indifference.
Even his hair seemed to have softened.
His sturdy back remained bowed.
“You…”
Liang Sheng was rendered speechless.
He had never seen such a wronged expression on Shen Xingyu’s face. It made it impossible to even stay angry.
Shen Xingyu was surprisingly well-behaved, lying in his arms and doing nothing at all, only whispering a muffled apology:
“Don’t be angry anymore…”
The tips of his hair brushed against Liang Sheng’s neck, intentionally or not, causing a slight itch. Liang Sheng’s face flushed as he turned his head away.
“Impossible.”
[Stop trying to use these ‘playing the victim’ tactics to win my sympathy!]
Hearing his usual decisiveness, Shen Xingyu felt even worse. He sobbed intermittently, his voice piteously soft:
“I’m sorry… forgive me, okay…”
Liang Sheng was the type who could be coaxed but not coerced. Unfortunately, the man had treated him with nothing but coldness and hardness for years, leading to his current disappointment and resentment. Now that the man had suddenly become docile, obedient, and piteous, he didn’t know what to do.
No, he couldn’t let himself be misled by him!
Liang Sheng shook his head and shoved him away, saying fiercely, “I won’t forgive you!”
Despite humbling himself so low and seeking compromise, he still couldn’t soften Liang Sheng’s heart. Shen Xingyu felt like a complete failure.
His throat felt dry. He took a breath and sat up despondently on the edge of the bed, his back to Liang Sheng.
His lowered eyes were hidden by his long lashes.
It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
Liang Sheng also sat up somewhat awkwardly, curling his legs and tugging at his messy hem. He glanced at the man’s broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted silhouette. Thinking about how the man had just been lying in his arms, he suddenly felt a wave of heat wash over his cheeks.
Ahhh!
What was wrong with him?!
Why was he thinking about that!
Panicking, Liang Sheng quickly patted his cheeks.
Wake up, wake up!
“Do you know why I burned your mother’s photo?”
The man’s voice suddenly rang out. It was deep and chilling, nothing like the aggrieved tone from moments ago.
Liang Sheng stiffened, and his smoldering rage ignited once more.
“You just wanted to destroy everything I care about! You wanted me to have no one but you in my eyes! You selfish person! Don’t you dare dream of getting my forgiveness!”
His face flushed as he leveled his accusations, tears blurring his vision as he remembered his mother’s smiling face being consumed by flames.
His heart ached.
“That’s not it.”
That light, airy denial left Liang Sheng in a daze.
Shen Xingyu turned slightly, gazing at him for a long time, seemingly hesitating over whether or not to speak.
Being watched like that made Liang Sheng’s heart race with unease. Unable to take it, he shouted, “What exactly are you trying to say?!”
Shen Xingyu steadied his emotions. He closed his eyes and opened them again. Having made a great resolution, he asked softly:
“If I told you that your adoptive mother was the mistress from twenty years ago—the one who tortured me, threw me into the ocean, and destroyed my family—would you believe me?”
The question made Liang Sheng freeze. He could see the hatred and disgust in the man’s eyes, completely undisguised.
He knew Shen Xingyu had suffered greatly at age eight, but he didn’t believe his mother could be such a person!
He denied it firmly: “Impossible! There’s no need to use such a low-class tactic just to make me suffer! How could my mom be the mistress you’re talking about? She isn’t! Stop lying to me!”
Shen Xingyu had long expected his disbelief. He didn’t force an explanation. Instead, he took out his phone and scrolled to a photo he had kept for years—a warning to himself never to forget the face of his enemy—and showed it to Liang Sheng.
“I imagine you are more familiar with this person than I am.”
Liang Sheng’s heart hammered with a mysterious dread.
However, he firmly believed his mother wasn’t that kind of person, so he wasn’t afraid of whatever insulting “evidence” the man might produce.
“I’ll look then!”
He angrily snatched the phone. When he saw the woman on the screen looking radiant and full of life, his pupils experienced a seismic shock.
The hand holding the phone trembled violently.
His face turned deathly pale.
That person in the photo, dressed in glamorous, elegant, and expensive clothing… actually looked exactly like his adoptive mother!
“How is this possible… it’s impossible… my mom isn’t… this person isn’t her!!”
Liang Sheng shook his head in bewilderment and dropped the phone.
But the mannerisms and aura were identical to his mother’s.
She only looked a bit younger than his mother.
Specifically, that pocket watch—the relic his mother had left him after her death, the one Shen Xingyu had thrown into the ocean.
It was hanging around the woman’s neck in the photo.
His mother had said it was—
No matter how much he didn’t want to believe it, he couldn’t convince himself otherwise.
“It’s her.”
Shen Xingyu gave a quiet confirmation. He leaned down to pick up the phone, looking at the wicked woman in the photo. His fingers gripped the device so hard his knuckles turned white. He took deep breaths to suppress his emotions as he spoke of the events from back then:
“She incited my father to invest in an oil extraction project. However, due to insufficient funds and technical shortages, many people were killed. Later, when my father was thrown into jail, he found out this woman had already absconded with the investment money.”
Liang Sheng was so frantic he was on the verge of tears:
“Impossible… my mom was just an ordinary worker. How could she have anything to do with your father? She just looks like my mom! Maybe… maybe it’s…”
He suddenly didn’t know how to continue his argument. Maybe it was what? Plastic surgery?
Or a twin?
But he had never heard of his adoptive mother having an identical twin sister.
However, once Shen Xingyu mentioned it, he suddenly remembered. After his mother lost her mind, she was always murmuring that she was sorry to someone. Who exactly she was sorry to, he had asked, but she never answered.
Could the person she was sorry to be Shen Xingyu?
But why…
If she truly did those evil things, why would she feel sorry? Was it a last-minute awakening of conscience in her later years?
Liang Sheng couldn’t understand.
His entire brain felt like it was going to explode.
Shen Xingyu seemed to know what he was thinking. Enduring his rage, he bit out every word with heavy emphasis: “She changed her name and identity, dressing herself up as a virtuous wife and mother to marry a farmer. Did she think such a contrast would prevent me from recognizing her?”
“Since… since you knew my mom ruined your family, why didn’t you send her to prison when you found her?”
Liang Sheng’s sobs were broken and intermittent.
He cried.
He never dared to think that the kind and simple adoptive mother he held in his heart would be a wicked mistress in the mouth of another.
“Of course I wanted to! There wasn’t a moment I didn’t!”
Shen Xingyu clenched both fists, letting out a low roar as his eyes turned red.
But seeing Liang Sheng’s eyes full of tears, his heart softened again. He couldn’t bear to vent his hatred for a mistress onto Liang Sheng.
His nose stung with a sour sensation as he spoke despondently:
“But… back then, seeing how much you loved her and how happy you were, I suddenly couldn’t harden my heart. I didn’t want you to be like me—finally having a home, only to be separated by life and death again.”
For all these years, he had actually always known Liang Sheng was innocent. Yet he could never stop himself from taking out his hatred for Liang’s mother on him.
Liang Sheng felt the underlying meaning in those words was ambiguous.
It was as if they had known each other a long, long time ago.
One couldn’t remember, and the other couldn’t speak of it.
He was completely broken now, shaking his head through his tears:
“I… I don’t believe it! I can’t accept it! She was so good to me! How could she possibly be a mistress!”
He ran out, stumbling.
The truth Shen Xingyu had suddenly told him was too cruel.
But thinking carefully, it didn’t seem so sudden after all.
From the way Shen Xingyu treated his adoptive mother with such a terrible attitude and verbal humiliation—back then, he had actually been naive enough to think it was because of the vast disparity in their social status. He thought Shen Xingyu didn’t want to acknowledge someone so poor as his mother-in-law. It turned out that wasn’t it at all.
Everything had its reasons.
Shen Xingyu wanted to chase after him, but he lacked the courage.
He could only watch Liang Sheng disappear from his sight.
He felt terrible as well.
He knew he had wronged Liang Sheng.
In the end, his hatred still outweighed his love.
He didn’t want the other party to be continuously blinded by the lies of a wicked person.
Slumping his shoulders, he sat on the bed, looking utterly lost.
Shen Xingyu raised his hand, covering his exhausted face.
Suddenly, tears flowed out from between his fingers.
Would Liang Sheng hate him?
Hate him for destroying the most beautiful image of his mother in his heart.
Outside the porthole, the sky was very dark.
The moon had hidden behind the clouds.
The sound of the old-fashioned wall clock chimed.
The romantic and cute decorations around him lost their color in an instant.
A few petals fell from the roses taped to the wall.
They slowly landed on the man’s knee.
The Cinnamoroll balloon also drifted down to his feet.
Shen Xingyu’s bleak gaze was momentarily distracted.
He gently pinched the petal on his knee, thinking about how when he did all this, he only wanted Liang Sheng to be happy.
Now, because of his own selfishness, a perfectly good birthday had turned into a night of tears and weeping.
It wasn’t Liang Sheng’s fault.
He couldn’t force his own hatred onto the other party.
No, he had to go find Liang Sheng!
He almost forgot—this was a river!
What if Liang Sheng couldn’t take it…
Shen Xingyu finally regained his calm, growing more terrified the more he thought about it.
He hurriedly ran out.
Fortunately, the boat wasn’t large, and there wasn’t much other space.
Shen Xingyu spotted Liang Sheng leaning over the railing at a glance.
Panicking, he rushed forward in a single stride.
The weeping Liang Sheng hadn’t even recovered before he was yanked back and crashed into an embrace.
Shen Xingyu hugged him tightly.
Like a long-lost treasure found again.
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