Chapter 94: One-Handed Driving

Although they had been drinking together, Liang Jinshang was sure she had never agreed to let him “unlock the other steps,” had she?

How had his hand become so uninvitedly familiar, and why was he getting more and more outrageous?

Shang Yucheng was clearly well versed in this sort of thing. By the time Liang Jinshang pulled his hand away, even her breathing had gone heavy.

Shang Yucheng had no intention of taking his flirtation all the way. Since she had stopped him, he stopped too.

That hand, suddenly robbed of its warmth, still stubbornly rested at Liang Jinshang’s waist, while his whole body leaned shamelessly against her shoulder.

They steadied their breathing.

Both of them were crammed into the back seat. To accommodate Liang Jinshang’s height, he had slid down quite a bit, his long legs pressed against the front seat.

Liang Jinshang felt he was too close and shoved him twice without budging him, then called, “Shang Yucheng.”

“Hm?” Only after a long moment did Shang Yucheng answer lazily, his voice carrying unmistakable, unsatisfied desire.

Liang Jinshang was breathing hard; whatever state he was in, it could only be worse.

“Is this how you act when you’re chasing other women?”

“How?”

“Like that!” Liang Jinshang lifted the very hand that had just been misbehaving and brazenly gestured toward his chest, “When you used to pick up Yuan Xi every day, you were driving with one hand, weren’t you?”

As soon as she finished, she could not help imagining the scene and burst out laughing first.

Once she started, she could not stop. It was as if someone had tickled her into helpless laughter.

This woman was truly gifted at ruining the mood. Shang Yucheng curled his lips, about to say something, when someone suddenly knocked on the car window.

“President Shang.”

It was the driver, Xiao Wang.

Shang Yucheng had been drinking, so of course he could not drive. But the timing of the driver’s arrival was far too inconvenient.

If he did not make a sound, Xiao Wang certainly would not dare open the car and get in on his own.

But staying in the back seat like this, alone with a woman, and remaining silent besides, felt far too easy to misread. Liang Jinshang was just about to call for Xiao Wang to get in when Shang Yucheng stopped her.

“Let him wait a moment.”

Wait a moment?

The little bit of alcohol Liang Jinshang had drunk was nowhere near enough to make her drunk, but it was enough to make her bold. She glanced downward with a mischievous look in her eyes.

“Oh, is it inconvenient for you?”

Shang Yucheng released the arm around her and leaned back into the seat. All trace of any amorous thought vanished.

His fingers touched the fingerprint lock on the car key, and he said to the window, “Get in.”

Xiao Wang could not help wondering whether he had somehow offended his boss to make his face so cold.

But there was still another person in the car, and one question had to be asked.

“President Shang, should I take Miss Liang first, or you?”

“Take us back to Cloudwater Residence.”

Xiao Wang hurriedly agreed.

A lone man and woman, returning to the same place in the middle of the night. What else could they possibly do?

Xiao Wang and Liang Jinshang were old acquaintances by now. For more than two years, whenever Liang Jinshang needed a car, Shang Yucheng had always sent him to pick her up or drop her off.

Last month, he had even lent her his own car to take her family home from the hospital.

Xiao Wang had a rough idea of the relationship between those two, but over the past couple of years, with their breaks and reconciliations and lingering attachment, it had only grown more tangled.

Was this one of the candidates for his future boss’s wife?

Liang Jinshang focused on the scenery outside the window, pretending not to notice Xiao Wang stealing looks in the rearview mirror.

Actually, her mood had been pretty good earlier. Even though she had not said it out loud, Shang Yucheng’s firm stance today had pleased her.

What woman would not want, when facing a long-standing enemy, to have an immensely powerful man stand by her side without asking why?

Especially when, only a few months ago, that man had belonged to Gong Xueyuan.

Because she had been in such a good mood, she had even relaxed enough to joke with Shang Yucheng.

But now, the probing gaze of an outsider dragged her mood back down.

What were they, really, with things between them so unclear?

By the time the car stopped downstairs at Cloudwater Residence, Liang Jinshang got out first. Before Shang Yucheng stepped out, he warned her coolly, “Mind your own mouth.”

“Yes, yes, President Shang!”

As soon as Liang Jinshang got inside, she was ready to shower and sleep.

But Shang Yucheng stopped her again.

“Just now you said that, when a man pursues a woman properly, how should he do it?”

For Shang Yucheng to be so eager to learn from her was enough to shock Liang Jinshang’s entire family.

But what was he pretending to be so innocent for? Back then, when he pursued Si Rong, the whole school knew about it. Even Liang Jinshang, who only knew how to bury her head in her studies, had heard plenty of rumors.

Liang Jinshang curled her lip. “You don’t know how to woo someone, and you still have to ask me?”

Shang Yucheng asked steadily in return, “Do I look like someone who needs to know?”

Arrogant narcissist. Lying scoundrel.

Liang Jinshang turned and went into the guest room, slamming the door hard in his face.

Shang Yucheng did not know what sort of temper she was throwing.

Still, whether he knew how to woo people or not was one matter. As for her, the one being wooed, she was certainly carrying herself with all the proper airs.

Two days later, the main group returned from recuperation at Cloudstream Manor, and Liang Jinshang officially went back to work.

On the very first day back, two major things happened.

The first was that Shang Yiming’s private side jobs and kickbacks were reported by someone.

The second was that Yuan Xi submitted her resignation.

Liang Jinshang had known for a long time that Yuan Xi would resign.

But Yuan Xi’s direct, unceremonious announcement at the team meeting—that before her official departure, she would deal with Shang Yiming’s kickback issue severely and without leniency—was rather intriguing.

Since she was leaving anyway, why go out of her way to make enemies?

After all, punishment for taking kickbacks could range from light to severe.

At the light end, it might be nothing more than a warning and a few months’ deduction from performance pay. At the severe end... well, that depended on how severe.

A few days later, Shang Yiming came to apologize to Liang Jinshang.

“Liang Jinshang, I was wrong about what happened last time. We can talk about any compensation you want. Could you... please show some mercy and let me off this once?”

Liang Jinshang did not even deign to look at him.

Shang Yiming’s face was ashen. He truly looked cornered. “If Lehai really fires me like this and puts out a notice, I’ll never be able to work in this industry again! Now the company still wants to sue me and demand huge compensation. Liang Jinshang, are you trying to drive me to a dead end?”

Only then did Liang Jinshang toss him a perfunctory line. “Oh? You’re afraid of being driven to a dead end? Aren’t you very familiar with that trick?”

“That wasn’t me, Nan Yi was the one who instigated me...”

Liang Jinshang told him to shut up.

She knew perfectly well what had happened. She did not need him stabbing at her heart over it.

She was not a saint, and she would not indulge Shang Yiming.

But when, after work, Nan Yi showed up at her door with a face swollen from being slapped, Liang Jinshang felt as though she herself had been slapped in the face too.

Her saintly heart had relapsed.

“Fang Jiabao, can you spare Shang Yiming?”

Nan Yi had always been the kind of person who looked as though a gust of wind could knock her over, and now she had been beaten into this state. Standing at the company entrance, she immediately drew a great deal of attention.

She hunched her slight shoulders, looking like a snail without a shell.

Liang Jinshang nodded without the slightest hesitation. “All right. Let’s find a place and sit down to talk, shall we?”