Chapter Ninety-Two: Yield Not an Inch

Gong Xueyuan looked at Liang Jinshang, her lips moving as she silently spat two words: "Slut."

Liang Jinshang had no patience for pretense. She flung the silver spoon in her hand onto the coffee table.

The sharp clink was jarringly out of place, and the furtive glances around them instantly turned open and unabashed.

"What did you say, Gong Xueyuan?" Liang Jinshang narrowed her eyes, every ounce of her troublemaking intent laid bare. "Say it louder!"

Gong Xueyuan’s expression stiffened. She had not expected Liang Jinshang to tear away the mask so bluntly, to come at her head-on without the slightest hesitation.

Even though everyone present was on her side, Gong Xueyuan still found herself overpowered.

It was just like back in their school days, when she had been the campus beauty with admirers all around her, only to be publicly knocked to the ground by the wild, ruthless Fang Jiabao, who had pressed the sole of her shoe against Gong Xueyuan’s face and snarled, “Gong Xueyuan... should I stab you to death?”

Gong Xueyuan jolted and could not help nudging Zheng San.

Zheng San, naturally, had to save his girlfriend’s dignity. “I say, Jingyu, the girl you brought doesn’t know the rules. We’re all out here to have a good time—who is she yelling at?”

Chao Jingyu was still weighing how to smooth things over when Shang Yucheng lifted his eyes lazily and said, “At most, her hearing isn’t very good. What do you mean, doesn’t know the rules? Go on, explain that to me.”

Chao Jingyu fell silent and glanced at him.

Everyone had already decided that Liang Jinshang was someone Shang Yucheng had brought along, and yet Shang Yucheng was defending her even faster than he was.

He knew Young Master Shang had long been used to being supreme and inviolable, never caring what others thought, but Chao Jingyu could already imagine how these people would gossip behind their backs after tonight, speculating about the three of them.

Zheng San was naturally wary of Shang Yucheng, but he still refused to swallow the slight. With obvious ulterior motives, he tried to stir the pot. “Ah, well, if she doesn’t know better, that shouldn’t be my concern. One’s own girlfriend should be managed by oneself, right, Jingyu?”

Chao Jingyu was not some soft persimmon. He glanced meaningfully at Gong Xueyuan and gave a cold laugh. “Then how come I don’t see you managing yours?”

Zheng San had been snubbed twice over, but Gong Xueyuan was still sulking, so he had no choice but to coax her.

Yet after a couple of placating words, his face also darkened.

This brazen woman did not leave him any dignity at all. Whom was she staring at all the time?

And those tears, falling so cheaply, were obviously for everyone to see. She still had not gotten over Shang Yucheng, that bastard!

Zheng San’s expression had never looked worse. For the first time, he felt the sickening disgust of slipping his feet into someone else’s cast-off shoes only to find the shoes pinching.

Gong Xueyuan cast Shang Yucheng a resentful look for quite a while, but he did not spare her so much as a glance. He called for a waiter right in front of everyone and had Liang Jinshang’s spoon replaced.

After her little scene, Liang Jinshang’s appetite had actually improved.

When the new spoon failed to arrive in time, she simply took Shang Yucheng’s and lowered her head to eat, becoming the one completely detached from the fray.

The instigator withdrew faster than anyone, and the others hurried to sing, to drink, to stir the room back to life.

Across from Liang Jinshang, Chao Jingyu raised his glass toward Shang Yucheng. “Yucheng, let’s have one.”

Shang Yucheng curved his lips in a smile. By the time Chao Jingyu had finished one glass, he had already drained three without the slightest change in expression.

What kind of person drinks three glasses straight when being toasted?

The two of them understood each other without words.

Chao Jingyu lifted an eyebrow and followed with two more.

Every inch of ground had to be fought for; not a single step given.

The two men drank in silence, and by the end there was no longer any distinction between who was toasting whom. When Liang Jinshang finally lifted her head from the pineapple fried rice, she saw that more than half a bottle of liquor had been emptied as though it were water.

She was astonished—and more than that, heartbroken. She had not even had a sip yet!

She turned to Chao Jingyu. “Doctor Chao, don’t you have work tomorrow? Can you even do surgery after drinking this much?”

Chao Jingyu was clearly pleased by her concern. First he glanced at Shang Yucheng, then said with a smile, “I’m off tomorrow, so it’s fine... Are you full?”

“Yes.” Liang Jinshang nodded. Only then, as if remembering something, she said to Shang Yucheng, “Drinking on an empty stomach—be careful not to get so drunk you end up crawling all over the floor!”

Liang Jinshang said this only because Shang Yucheng had just helped her reclaim a point, and her tone was no softer for it.

She had not expected Shang Yucheng to answer with a deep, low laugh.

After laughing, Shang Yucheng did not even look at Chao Jingyu. He took from Liang Jinshang’s hand the spoon she had used and lowered his head to eat his own pineapple fried rice.

Liang Jinshang did not understand what he was laughing at, but Chao Jingyu understood perfectly.

He rubbed his brow and leaned back, almost self-mockingly. He really must have drunk too much.

After kindergarten, he and Shang Yucheng had never again competed so childishly with one another, each trying to outshine the other.

All for the sake of one girl...

Chao Jingyu looked at Liang Jinshang’s clean and fresh face and noticed a grain of rice still stuck at the corner of her mouth.

She had never been his type to begin with. A girl who could not even eat neatly, with scarcely a trace of allure—he did not even know what spell had come over him.

Liang Jinshang rose to use the restroom. Shang Yucheng had eaten enough as well. Wiping his mouth, he asked Chao Jingyu, “Still drinking?”

Chao Jingyu laughed and cursed, “Drink what? Let’s talk.”

Male friendship was not like girls’, with endless things to say.

Chao Jingyu had been precocious since childhood, and Shang Yucheng was sparing with words; they rarely had heart-to-heart conversations. Yet no one would ever doubt how solid the bond between Shang Yucheng and Chao Jingyu was.

“What is there to talk about?” Shang Yucheng said lazily. “Isn’t it just a woman?”

“Just a woman?” Chao Jingyu bumped his shoulder. “This is one of the few times I’m serious, so don’t fight me for her.”

Though the unspoken understanding had long existed, Chao Jingyu rarely stated so plainly his affection for Liang Jinshang.

Most men cared about face; especially men as accomplished as they were, women were merely ornamentation. Who would go around talking about them all day?

Shang Yucheng gave a disdainful laugh. “When are you ever not serious?”

Chao Jingyu had had two or three relationships that came to nothing. What set him apart from those idle scions was that he had, under the broadest understanding of the term, the most proper view of love; he never toyed with feelings.

“This time is different.” Chao Jingyu thought back to that morning, seated in the helicopter bound for Qingshishan, and to the unsettled, wavering anxiety that had never before gripped his heart so completely.

Passing through the half-lit sky until daylight finally broke before them, he said, “That day I swore that if I saved her with my own hands, I would protect her properly from then on. You’ve never known what it feels like to have someone constantly on your mind, Yucheng.”

Shang Yucheng lifted his eyes and looked at him steadily. “How do you know I haven’t?”

Chao Jingyu could not help laughing. How could he possibly have?

If this man had any heart at all, he would have had countless chances to cherish Liang Jinshang properly long ago.

And besides, if Shang Yucheng had truly been as worried and distressed that day as he claimed, why would he have called for help from Chao Jingyu?

With the power of the Shang family, a single word from him would have brought people faster.

Why didn’t he use the Shang family’s influence?

But Chao Jingyu did not press further. He knew that with Shang Yucheng’s temperament, even if he did ask, he would not give a straightforward answer about whether he had or had not.

More than twenty years of friendship had sailed smoothly along, never flashing a red light over Gong Xueyuan, yet now it was Liang Jinshang who had set off the alarm.

“Give me a straight answer. That time, in the hospital...” Chao Jingyu smiled with helplessness, his tone unreadable. “Were you really only covering for me because you had no choice, or were you taking the opportunity to claim her for yourself?”