Chapter Ninety-Five: Still Playing Coy

Liang Jinshang took Nan Yi to a nearby café.

As soon as they sat down, she asked heatedly, “Did Shang Yiming hit you?”

Nan Yi shook her head. “No. It wasn’t him.”

“Then who did this to you?”

“That’s not important.” Nan Yi cut her off. “What happened on the mountain that day had nothing to do with Shang Yiming. It was me acting on my own, wanting to make you suffer a little.”

A little suffering...

If Liang Jinshang had not been lucky enough to have friends like Le Quan and Chao Jingyu—friends loyal enough and capable enough—she might have vanished in that deep mountain long ago.

At first, her heart had softened at Nan Yi’s frail appearance. But at that moment, she slowly straightened in her seat. “In fact, it was more than a little suffering.”

She pointed to the wound on her forehead. “This was from the fall that night. If a tree hadn’t broken the fall, I’d be dead already. Nan Yi, are you sure you never considered that possibility?”

In Nan Yi’s pale face, those dark eyes looked especially stark.

She stared at Liang Jinshang for a long time. “Of course I considered it. I hated you enough to want you dead. Didn’t you know that?”

Her voice suddenly rose, drawing the attention of several people nearby.

Liang Jinshang did not care in the slightest who was looking.

She knew that once she faced Nan Yi again, the hurt from years ago would not be something she could avoid.

“How do you want me to make it up to you?”

Nan Yi gave a bleak smile. Make it up to her?

Physical wounds could heal, but the wound in her soul had been bleeding year after year without ever stopping.

From then on, she avoided crowds, dared not even look directly at herself, and always felt inferior to others.

And then there was the present-day Liang Jinshang: a graduate of a prestigious university, with a respectable job, and most importantly, a man standing behind her, backing her up.

Those things could have been Nan Yi’s life too.

“Fang Jiabao, you can stand there now and so easily say the words make it up to me, because back then I took all those sins in your place! If the one who had been ruined by several men today were you, do you think that rich second-generation from the Shang family would still look at you as anything more than a wilted flower and discarded branch?”

What did this have to do with Shang Yucheng?

Before Liang Jinshang could ask, Nan Yi went on, “Not only is Shang Yiming’s job gone, but even my current job—the one where I don’t have to deal with people, the one that pays me enough every month to buy my medicine—do you know how hard it was for me to get that position? And now, with one casual sentence from Mr. Shang, it’s gone.”

Liang Jinshang truly had not known about this.

But she did know that Nan Yi’s family was in poor shape, and that Nan Yi needed to keep taking antidepressants.

Although Liang Jinshang had been transferring money to her every month, judging from Nan Yi’s reaction, that money probably had never reached her hands.

And if she had no job anymore, even buying her medicine would become a problem.

Just as Liang Jinshang was about to call Shang Yucheng, he called her first. “You’ve been putting on airs for twenty minutes. Aren’t you coming down yet?”

The words came so abruptly that Liang Jinshang’s first thought was of the message Shang Yucheng had sent her before getting off work, asking whether she was working overtime today.

She had said no.

So he had come to pick her up after work?

She immediately realized: was Shang Yucheng actually carrying out the standard method of pursuing someone?

Still... if his only aim were to satisfy some physical desire, then with Shang Yucheng’s means, Liang Jinshang really would have had no way to stop him.

Between the two of them, there was long ago no longer any point in counting one time more or less, and trying to decide whether it was a loss or a gain.

Did Shang Yucheng really need to put on a proper courtship posture, step by step?

For a moment, Liang Jinshang felt all sorts of conflicting emotions, and even the words she had meant to accuse him with stuck in her throat.

“Shang Yucheng, I’m not at the company right now.” Liang Jinshang gave him the name of the café.

Shang Yucheng had probably never waited for anyone before. A few minutes later, when he appeared in the café, his face was full of displeasure. Even the waiter who came to take his order was so intimidated he became instantly deferential.

“He doesn’t drink coffee. No need to order for him,” Liang Jinshang said naturally, helping him refuse.

Shang Yucheng did not even spare Nan Yi a glance, but his born aura of authority was indeed enough to make people feel pressure.

Nan Yi shrank even more visibly, her shoulders tensed tight on both sides.

Liang Jinshang looked at her and felt a pang of heartache. She asked Shang Yucheng whether he had really ruined Nan Yi’s job.

Only then did Shang Yucheng cast Nan Yi a cool, indifferent glance. “Why would I bother with something so minor? If she says it is, then let it be that way.”

Then he turned back to Liang Jinshang, lifting a brow as he said coolly, “I waited for you all this time, and I don’t even get a drink out of it?”

Since Liang Jinshang had something to ask of him, she could only take on a compliant and accommodating attitude, asking him what he wanted to eat so she could order.

Shang Yucheng really looked down on the drinks from this kind of fast-turnover place. Liang Jinshang went through the menu item by item, and he rejected each one in turn, putting on quite the air.

“...” Liang Jinshang slapped the menu down. “Then stay thirsty!”

Nan Yi had been covertly watching the two of them the whole time. She knew exactly who Shang Yucheng was after a quick search online.

Originally, there would never have been any connection between them in this lifetime.

If not for yesterday, when the warehouse supervisor came to settle her wages and quietly told her that it had been ordered personally by the young heir of the Shang family, and even asked how she had managed to offend such a powerful figure?

Over the years, Nan Yi had lived with such caution that not to mention offending people, she hardly ever even raised her voice.

She lived like a shadow that might vanish at any moment in this bustling city.

If she had truly offended Shang Yucheng, then it could only have been because of Liang Jinshang.

The only man Nan Yi had been forced by her family to have any contact with over the years was Shang Yiming.

Even in front of Shang Yiming, she still had to tread carefully and please him. She had never imagined that Liang Jinshang could act so recklessly and willfully toward Shang Yucheng.

As if she truly were someone who had been spoiled.

Nan Yi’s gaze drifted slightly, and an involuntary air of self-pity settled over her.

Her face and bearing naturally carried a trace of melancholy. Shang Yiming had said more than once, “Your fragile look is enough to drive every man crazy.” Though the words that followed were never pleasant, usually just him trying to get her into bed.

After being neglected for a while, Nan Yi softly reminded her, “Jiabao.”

Liang Jinshang immediately answered. After eight years, she had not heard Nan Yi call her in such a gentle voice again.

Nan Yi’s voice was very pleasant.

Shang Yucheng lifted his eyelids and glanced at her too.

Liang Jinshang leaned aside and spoke quietly, asking Shang Yucheng to give Nan Yi her job back.

Shang Yucheng neither agreed nor refused. With his eyelids half-lowered, he looked noble and elegant in a way that was almost maddeningly alluring.

Nan Yi could not help staring, and the spots on her face not covered by the slap mark flushed red.

Seeing that Shang Yucheng was hard to move, Liang Jinshang said, “Forget it, Nan Yi. We won’t beg him. I’ll find you a job myself.”

Only then did Shang Yucheng move. He leaned close to Liang Jinshang’s ear and said in a voice only the two of them could hear, “I’m backing you up, and you’re undermining me instead. Do you have Stockholm syndrome? Whoever treats you badly, you turn around and treat them well.”

His words were full of sarcasm and not pleasant at all.

It was almost as blunt as calling her shameless to her face.