Chapter 195: Absurdity
Lian Cheng mumbled.
Beneath the corridor, a waiter silently called Professor Wang away. Lian Cheng followed for a few steps before stopping, her scalp tingling, her mind a chaotic mess she couldn’t control.
She retreated back to the pavilion, not wanting to sit on the stone bench yet, and leaned on the railing to watch the pond water.
The courtyard wall was dark and thick, making the pond water dark too. A few fat koi swam near the surface, their tails wagging, losing their direction.
Thirty million.
She had finished her leave and was in her second year of university. The Northern Market had a gaping hole, and Liang Chaosu’s two years of effort were about to be ruined.
Of course, this ruin was what outsiders saw, and Lian Cheng believed it at the time.
Four months later, Liang Chaosu suddenly turned the tables. His attackers were surrounded and defeated, forced to abandon the market.
It was a great victory achieved through enduring humiliation and a long period of waiting.
This thirty million, she now thought, must have been the bait. He poured all his available funds into it, making others believe he was a lamb with no way to fight back.
“Want to feed them?”
Before the words were out, Lian Cheng felt a weight on her shoulders. Clothes still warm from his body wrapped around her. Liang Chaosu stood beside her, handing her a small porcelain bowl, half-filled with coffee-colored fish food.
“Fish aren’t afraid of getting fat, and they eat at night too.”
Lian Cheng’s mind was full of messy memories today, feeling cold and listless, not wanting to deal with him.
She straightened up, pulled off the jacket on her shoulder intending to throw it away, but realized it was hers when she held it, and hugged it back. Back and forth, an inexplicable fire burned in her chest, and she endured, suppressing it.
Liang Chaosu grabbed a handful of fish food and sprinkled it onto the water surface. The weather was cold, but the pond water immediately boiled, splashing water everywhere as the fish tails flapped.
Lian Cheng took a step, wanting to leave.
“The banquet is over,” Liang Chaosu looked at her. “I told them to leave directly.”
Lian Cheng took out her mobile phone.
Liang Chaosu’s pupils were dark, reflecting her profile. “Your room is in Yuchun Garden. Zhang An has already sent your luggage there.”
The fire burning in Lian Cheng was intense, and Professor Wang’s vivid explanation had a great impact on her.
Liang Chaosu was a businessman by nature, not a philanthropist. He could earn a seventy percent profit and wouldn’t lower it to fifty out of kindness. Professor Wang was reserved, not saying many things directly, but writing them in his eyes.
He felt he was narrow-minded, respected Liang Chaosu, and was also grateful to her. It was precisely for her that Liang Chaosu provided funds regardless of the cost.
“I admit, on the matter of restoration, I misunderstood you.” She didn’t avoid her mistake, but couldn’t say sorry to the perpetrator.
Lian Cheng was clear on one point: without Liang Chaosu, she wouldn’t need to envy Tai Duoduo, and her four years of constant fear wouldn’t have happened.
Perhaps she would have also lost Shen Lichuan, and the Liang family wouldn’t have truly accepted her. While her heart would have been broken and she would have been dejected, she could have struggled to leave.
She wouldn’t have ended up here.
Liang Chaosu moved a few steps closer. His clothes carried the chill, hitting her like a foreboding disaster of frost.
Lian Cheng stepped back, and he stopped. His eyes were a murky river, and in the windswept pavilion, a wordless sadness extended.
Lian Cheng asked again, “But you repaired the building, purely for me?”
Liang Chaosu visibly froze for a second. After the year, a cold spell in early spring made the mountainous area even colder. The night wind blew through Lian Cheng’s hair and past her nose, her hair lifting to cover her eyes.
Liang Chaosu didn’t need to meet her gaze to know she was looking at him with calm, almost condescending eyes. Reality proved his innocence, yet in her heart, he was overturned and sentenced. His chest puffed out, filled with a mix of melancholy and numbness. “Then what do you think it was for?”
Lian Cheng answered crisply, “For your desperate counterattack at the time. You invested all your book capital into the project, misleading your opponent into thinking you were fighting a battle of no retreat.”
Liang Chaosu lowered his head and stared at her for a long time, then suddenly let out a laugh.
This time, it was Lian Cheng’s turn to be stunned.
He took a step and raised his arm, bridging the thin air, leading Lian Cheng out of the pavilion. “You think too highly of me.”
Lian Cheng shook off his grip. “I never wanted to think highly of you; I dared not think lowly of you.”
She had witnessed with her own eyes, heard with her own ears, and experienced with her own body. Everyone who thought lowly of Liang Chaosu ultimately regretted their endless downfall.
Liang Chaosu laughed again, his chest shaking, but there was no trace of mirth in his eyes. “But you’ve always thought lowly of me.”
Lian Cheng’s silent refutation, her gaze fixed on him.
“If you had paid attention to my predicament before.”
He brought up that poor and powerless past again. He had forgotten the fear, the immense pressure, the sleepless nights. All he remembered was the anxiety, the burning throat that developed into blisters, worsening to affect his esophagus, and recurrent high fevers. It was a pity that this time, he wasn’t lucky. No matter what, coaxing, deceiving, or scaring, Lian Cheng wouldn’t stay in the study.
“You would know that Qingxi Valley was never a lure for me to deceive others. I genuinely allocated thirty million because I was losing confidence. It was a dead end, surrounded on all sides. I just wanted to see your smile in the water at Qingxi Valley. If this last thirty million was to be lost to the opponent, it was better to let you smile a few more times.”
“Moreover, this project existed because of you. Even if I couldn’t protect anything else, I had to ensure this project was flawless.”
He gazed at Lian Cheng, her eyebrows and eyes in the night were as pure and cold as snow on an untainted mountain peak, silent and resistant.
Lian Cheng, “What do you want to say?” She wouldn’t feign confusion or play coy, her clear frankness evident. “Do you love me?”
Liang Chaosu stopped in his tracks. White sheer curtains swayed in the deep night under the corridor. Rocks, flowing water, pond fish, fallen leaves, the wind was silent, and he heard his heartbeat, quietly fluctuating.
“Liang Chaosu.” She called his name. “If you love me, how could you bear to hurt me?”
It started raining again outside the corridor, a sudden downpour. In a breath, it poured. The white curtains clung wetly to the pillars. A piece was blown by the wind, and water droplets splashed all over Liang Chaosu.
Liang Chaosu raised his hand to shield Lian Cheng as they hurried back to the room. The door opened, Lian Cheng stood at the doorway, Liang Chaosu outside. Raindrops permeated the air, and with every breath, moisture surged into his lungs, nourishing a barren, scorched land.
“Because,” his Adam’s apple bobbed, “I want you to love me too.”
Liang Chaosu rarely spoke naked words like “I love you.” He always had a certain subtlety, inherent in his nature, bound by etiquette, difficult to express.
Lian Cheng nodded, her hand on the door. “It’s absurd. I don’t agree.”
The raindrops pounded on the eaves. Lian Cheng’s voice cut through clearly.
“The agreement was for me to examine you impartially.” She closed the door, leaving a crack, revealing her face, calm and unmoved. “You asked me to look at Qingxi Valley, to see the evidence of you doing good for me, but the evidence of you harming me is too numerous to list.”
Liang Chaosu watched the door close. Amidst the chaotic sound of rain, the clear sound of a lock clicking shut.
He stood there rigidly.
After an unknown amount of time, Zhang An hurried over. Seeing Liang Chaosu completely drenched from afar, he turned back to get a towel.
After handing him the towel, he glanced at the tightly shut door. The antique windows cast a dim yellow light. Miss Lian Cheng was, as always, hard-hearted.
Liang Chaosu’s back was stiff. He threw the towel back into Zhang An’s arms, calming himself. “Has Xiao Da arrived?”
Zhang An cautiously peered at his expression and added, “Assistant Xiao is handling the check-in. You should take care of yourself. Shall I call a doctor first?”
Liang Chaosu glanced at him sideways, his eyes as dark as ink. The overwhelming emotions he couldn’t suppress surged, deep and profound, a rare lack of self-control for him.
Zhang An lowered his head and silently followed Liang Chaosu away.
