Chapter 114: Pierced by a Thousand Arrows
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The silent standoff between Shang Yucheng and Liang Jinshang was brought to an end by a resounding crash from the bedroom.
Liang Jinshang started. She had kept Liang Xizhou locked in there for far too long!
She rushed into the room. Before she could spare a thought for the shattered vase, Liang Xizhou was already glaring at her, his face dark with anger.
“When are you sending me back? Or does the mighty President Shang intend to make things difficult for a disabled man and place me under house arrest?!”
Liang Jinshang knew how thoroughly Liang Xizhou’s sharp tongue could offend people.
Shang Yucheng had never thought much of him to begin with. And after learning today that Liang Xizhou had tried to force her into registering their marriage, he was probably still suppressing his fury.
If Liang Xizhou continued provoking him and truly angered Shang Yucheng, falling into his hands would leave him no better off than an ant.
“Don’t worry. I’ll have you sent away shortly,” Shang Yucheng said coolly. “The transport from Saint Ann Recuperation Hospital will arrive in half an hour. You can stay there for a while.”
Saint Ann Recuperation Hospital?
It was known throughout Jincheng as the “Stairway to Heaven.”
Many terminally ill patients and elderly people chose to go there. Officially, they called it “recuperation,” but in truth, it was where they spent the final stretch of their lives.
The surroundings were excellent, and naturally, the cost was exorbitant. Only the wealthy could afford to wait for death there.
But why was he sending Liang Xizhou there?
“I’m not going!” Liang Xizhou roared. “Are you cursing me to die?!”
“If I were merely sending you there to die, you wouldn’t be worth the money,” Shang Yucheng said, lighting a cigarette, his tone utterly indifferent. “I’m sending you there to enjoy yourself. When you come to your senses and decide to go abroad for treatment, I’ll give you another sum of money.”
In other words, if Liang Xizhou refused to take the first step toward treatment, Shang Yucheng would never let him out.
How could Liang Xizhou possibly accept that tone, as though he were being granted alms?
“What gives you the right?! Even if I refuse treatment for the rest of my life and drag Liang Jinshang down with me, it still has nothing to do with you! I don’t want your filthy money, either! Once we receive the relocation compensation…”
“Relocation compensation?” Shang Yucheng tapped the cigarette between his fingers in Liang Jinshang’s direction, his posture arrogantly dismissive. “There are some things I can’t be bothered with. But from now on, anything concerning Liang Jinshang has nothing to do with you.”
“You won’t get a cent of her money.”
“And that ramshackle cage your Liang family lives in—if I say so, it won’t be demolished either.”
Liang Jinshang’s face went deathly pale.
She knew that in Jincheng, the Shang family might not literally be able to cover the sky with one hand, but they were close enough to being untouchable.
He really could influence what happened to that property during the redevelopment.
Liang Jinshang forced the words out with difficulty. “Shang Yucheng… you can’t treat him like this…”
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Shang Yucheng’s austere features were hidden behind the blue-gray smoke, making his emotions impossible to read. But Liang Jinshang could already sense his impatience.
He had had enough of every plea and every act of partiality on Liang Xizhou’s behalf, every protest that he “couldn’t” do this or that.
His patience had run out.
“Of course I can treat him this way,” Shang Yucheng said cruelly. “You keep provoking me over a cripple in front of me. Is he truly so irresistible to you that you can’t restrain yourself, or are you testing how much I care about you?”
Liang Jinshang no longer had the heart to dwell on the vicious insult in the word “cripple.”
Because beneath Shang Yucheng’s indifferent tone lay contempt for her as well.
She was not so shallow as to use another man to make her boyfriend jealous.
“Shang Yucheng…” Liang Jinshang gave a bleak smile. “You can break your promise to me for the sake of the Gong sisters, but I can’t stand up for the man who saved my life in front of you?”
Then what essential difference was there between this utterly unfair relationship and the one they had shared before?
Wasn’t it still the same? She had to obey him, heed his orders, and let him decide her fate.
Shang Yucheng narrowed his eyes and exposed her. “The man who saved your life? At best, this cripple was the savior of that woman. If she had been replaced by you, he might not have risked everything for you.”
Liang Xizhou had been standing by and watching the spectacle. Rarely did he agree with Shang Yucheng, but this time he did.
“Ha! Of course I wouldn’t!”
Liang Jinshang looked at him stubbornly. “No. You would.”
She did not say it merely to defend her pride before Shang Yucheng.
She said it because she knew that if the person who had been violated that day had been her, Liang Xizhou would have charged forward all the same.
He was passionate, righteous, and upright.
He was the great hero of a martial-arts legend who would advance alone even against ten thousand men.
When the entire school had isolated and tormented her, only Liang Xizhou and Nan Yi had remained on her side.
Liang Xizhou did not love her, but during that dark year, he had been her greatest protector.
“I wouldn’t,” Liang Xizhou sneered. “Nan Yi wouldn’t, either. If Mr. Dongguo could live again, would he save that venomous snake a second time? He’d probably want nothing more than to crush it beneath his foot!”
Liang Jinshang’s heart was pierced again and again by the two of them, until it was riddled with holes.
After a long, deathly silence, Shang Yucheng finally said unhurriedly, “You see? He hates you to death now. When you chose to play the villain, you should have followed it through to the end. The cripple is going to rot in the mud for the rest of his life anyway. If you walk away now, he won’t be able to stand up and chase after you.”
The sneer faded from Liang Xizhou’s lips, and his face turned livid.
His many years of illness had already twisted his temper. Whenever he encountered Shang Yucheng, Shang’s words sent his blood rushing straight to his head.
Liang Jinshang could not understand how what had begun as an auspicious day had ended in a disastrous banquet and complete defeat.
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When she heard Shang Yucheng’s mocking words about following evil through to the end, the emotions she had suppressed all day finally broke through her restraint.
She cried out, “Shang Yucheng! You don’t know anything at all! I didn’t do that, I didn’t!… I was the one who decided that we should split up and run, but Nan Yi was the one who chose that route first! If I had truly known where the bad men were, I would have faced them myself! They were after me—how could they possibly have let me go? I was clearly driven into a dead end, too…”
At the time of the incident, Liang Jinshang had wept and explained these words countless times.
But no one had believed her.
If, as she insisted, someone had also chased her down the route she had taken, then where were those people?
“It was He Xiaoque who saved me…” Liang Jinshang squeezed her eyes shut, desperately holding back her tears, and murmured the words.
Liang Xizhou had heard the same explanation countless times over the years.
At first, Liang Jinshang had tried with all her might to explain that He Xiaoque had come.
She had hidden behind a wall and heard He Xiaoque fight those men and drive them away.
But no matter how she explained it, without evidence, even if she wore her throat raw, it remained only one side of the story.
Liang Xizhou, Nan Yi, and countless others knew only that He Xiaoque, the sole witness, had said the exact opposite of her claim: “I wasn’t the one who saved her.”
Not only had He Xiaoque denied saving Liang Jinshang, he had vanished from Jincheng entirely a few days later.
His disappearance pushed Liang Jinshang into an even deeper abyss.
All her explanations became nothing more than the excuses of someone who refused to repent.
Gradually, Liang Jinshang fell silent as well.
She quietly accepted the accusations and resentment of Liang Xizhou and Nan Yi.
Having someone hate her was better than having no one hate her at all.
Let her be the target. Let the price be a heart pierced by ten thousand arrows, so that their hatred would at least have somewhere to go.
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