Chapter 88: I’m Flirting with You

Shang Yucheng caught hold of Liang Jinshang and strode off with her. His car was parked outside the alley; there was no way to drive it in.

“Liang Jinshang, you are not leaving.” Liang Xizhou’s voice rose from behind them, dark and chilling.

That aloof, contemptuous air of Shang Yucheng’s humiliated Liang Xizhou more deeply than a gob of spit in his face ever could.

Liang Jinshang did not want to go with Shang Yucheng. At that moment she was a criminal stripped bare before the world, and she had no wish to be dragged off by him for judgment.

But she wanted even less to stop, because Liang Xizhou was having another spell. If she stayed, she would only become the outlet for his emotions yet again.

Compared with being flayed by him over and over, better to receive a clean, merciful end like Nan Yi had.

After being pulled several steps along, Liang Jinshang said, “Shang Yucheng, let go of me.”

He arched a brow. “You really want to go back with that cripple?”

Liang Jinshang looked behind her. The wheelchair was moving slowly, unable to match their pace on foot, yet Liang Xizhou still pursued them recklessly.

“If I don’t go back with him, he’ll keep following me all night.” She lifted her free hand and covered the emotion in her eyes. “Once we reach the main road, something could happen to him.”

In the first few years after he was paralyzed, Liang Xizhou had tried to kill himself more than once.

One time, in the middle of the night, he had wheeled himself straight into moving traffic.

That had been the closest he had ever come to death. Father Liang, stricken with fury and grief, had been sent directly to the intensive care unit.

Even if only for the sake of her adoptive father, Liang Yuanhan, Liang Xizhou’s life mattered.

“He wants to die?” Shang Yucheng turned toward Liang Xizhou. “Write me a waiver, and I can provide three methods on the spot.”

“Shang Yucheng, stop provoking him!”

Yet Liang Xizhou did not fly into the rage she had expected. He only gave a cold laugh. “No wonder, after hearing this woman’s glorious history, you didn’t run off like that man Chao did. Turns out you’re the same breed.”

Shang Yucheng acted as though he had heard nothing.

Leaning close to Liang Jinshang’s ear, he murmured, “Under my bed there is a tin box. Open it and inside you’ll find a piece of jade. Ask Le Quan to sell it. Divide the inheritance into five shares…”

Those were the words from Liang Jinshang’s suicide note.

“How did that end up with you?!”

Shang Yucheng said, “Now come with me.”

Liang Jinshang dragged her feet, still turning back hesitantly to look at Liang Xizhou. Shang Yucheng ran out of patience, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and steered her straight toward his car, tossing back a final line: “Stop looking. If he dares die, I’ll make sure he gets buried.”

In a daze, Liang Jinshang was taken to the car by him.

The moment she got in and saw the note, she snatched it back at once and clutched it to her chest.

Shang Yucheng let out a soundless scoff.

The line he had just quoted came from later in the letter. He did not believe this woman was naive enough to think he had not read the whole thing.

“What’s written here… could you maybe… forget it…” Shang Yucheng was not the sort of man to run his mouth. He would not spread it everywhere. Liang Jinshang drooped listlessly. “I’m leaving.”

“I said you could go?”

“What else do you want?” She stared dully at the windshield. “Do you want to ask about what he said just now?”

“What is there to ask?”

For anyone else, including Chao Jingyu just now, something like that would naturally provoke curiosity.

Shang Yucheng was not curious—perhaps simply because he did not care about her.

“Oh. Then what do you want?”

He pointed at the sheet in her arms. “Don’t you have anything you need to explain to me?”

The lifelessness about Liang Jinshang visibly lifted a little, but not in any good way; it was as if her whole body had suddenly armed itself with thorns. “This is my family’s business. Why should I explain anything to you?!”

“Are you sure it’s your family’s business?” The corner of Shang Yucheng’s mouth tipped upward. “That jade you listed as inheritance—if I’m not mistaken, it should be mine.”

“So tell me, what did you think I wanted to ask?”

There was someone mentioned in Liang Jinshang’s suicide note, someone she called A-Qi. She had assumed Shang Yucheng wanted to ask who A-Qi was.

Perhaps she was simply too guilty at heart.

A man who had no interest even in the vicious harm she had done back then—how could he possibly care about this?

Shang Yucheng was still waiting for an answer, so Liang Jinshang had no choice but to say, “Mr. Shang, at that time I was leaving my last words. In my family, some were ill, some were struggling; every one of them was living a hard life. The only thing I could think of then was to leave them a little money.”

In that note she had written down the Liang father and son, Fang Xinhou, A-Qi, and He Xiaoque.

The first two needed no explanation. Fang Xinhou was to be released from prison a year later, and what awaited him was a wife who had killed herself eight years earlier, and a daughter who had died on the eve of their reunion. Money could not comfort such losses, but at least it could secure his livelihood.

A-Qi was still young. Back then Liang Jinshang had failed in her duty as an elder sister, abandoning her to an orphanage and then standing by helplessly as rumors drove their mother to death. The only thing she had left with which to make amends was a little money.

Liang Jinshang sighed. “I’m sorry. I’ll find a chance to return the jade to you.”

Shang Yucheng seemed never to have asked very earnestly in the first place, nor was he listening to her with any seriousness. Seeing the thin sheen of sweat at her temples, he pulled out a tissue to wipe it for her.

Liang Jinshang instinctively shrank back. When she saw the displeasure on his face, she took the tissue from his hand. “I’ll do it myself.”

“So now you know modesty?” His gaze swept over her lips. “Or is the cream something you can’t wipe off by yourself?”

There was something deeply off in that tone.

Liang Jinshang’s thoughts lagged half a beat. A few seconds later she realized that when Chao Jingyu had wiped her mouth, Shang Yucheng must already have been there.

“…When did you arrive?”

Shang Yucheng turned the air-conditioning a little colder. “I spent more than an hour out there feeding mosquitoes.”

Everything in his attitude today, and on top of that, the fact that he had actually waited outside for her that long…

Liang Jinshang was not stupid. “You… what do you mean?”

Shang Yucheng had no patience for feigned ignorance. “When a man corners a woman like this, what do you think it means?”

Liang Jinshang parted her lips. “…Because I owe you money.”

That piece of jade really was worth a great deal.

“I don’t have time to watch you play dumb.” No longer willing to indulge her evasions, Shang Yucheng cut straight to the point with wild, insolent disdain. “I’m making a move on you. Can’t you tell?”

It was not that Liang Jinshang could not tell. It was that she found it unbelievable.

Once, her feelings for him had been so painfully obvious, and behind her back he had disdained her for being the daughter of a convict.

Now her suicide note had laid everything out in black and white, and suddenly he no longer regarded her that way?

But today was not the time to settle old scores. If she truly wanted something to happen between them, then that old account might be worth dragging out and discussing.

As things stood, she had no intention at all of developing anything with Shang Yucheng.

The simplest way to refuse him was to choose the most immediate reason. “Shang Yucheng, Liang Xizhou said a great deal just now, and you heard all of it. You’re worth tens of billions. You’d better not come near someone as selfish, vicious, and dangerous as me.”

Shang Yucheng looked at her with a faint chill in his eyes. Only after a long while did he ask lightly, “Everything he said is true?”

Liang Jinshang answered without hesitation, “True.”

Shang Yucheng said, “Then you deserve praise.”

“If my woman ever faced any danger, I would teach her to be brave enough to shove everyone else out to take the bullet for her.” His tone was casual, careless. “No matter what comes of it, I can clean up after her. All I want is for my person to remain safe and sound.”