With the time nearing midnight, Su Xingque didn’t expect Meng Jing to see the video right away. Pulling a tissue from the box on the table to protect his hand, he patted Shen Zhu’s cheek with a moderate amount of force.
“Get up.”
The figure curled on the sofa remained completely motionless. His lower lip was tucked slightly inward, clamped tightly by his teeth—a clear indicator of the terrible state the body’s owner was in.
How can this guy sleep in public so entirely defenseless? A thread of irritation leaked from his heart once again. Su Xingque grabbed his suit jacket from the back of the sofa and strode toward the door.
Anyway, he had tried to wake the boy up; the fact that he hadn’t opened his eyes was Shen Zhu’s own problem. Besides, once his mother saw that video, she would most likely look down on Shen Zhu for being wild and reckless.
As long as he worked a little harder to find more flaws, getting a divorce would be a matter of minutes.
At this thought, Su Xingque’s mood brightened slightly. He opened the door to the VIP lounge, only to find a valet standing outside with cleaning tools, preparing to enter.
“It started raining outside, Mr. Su. Do you need an umbrella?”
As a high-end establishment, Shengfeng’s service was always impeccable.
“No,” Su Xingque replied, stepping through the space the valet had cleared. He took half a step forward, then paused and turned back. “The person inside—call a cab and send him back.”
The valet nodded and opened his mouth to ask for the address, but Su Xingque was already striding away with long, effortless steps.
This left the valet in a massive bind. He managed to haul Shen Zhu out to the entrance, but after spending several minutes trying to coax an address out of the boy to no avail, he decided to dump the hot potato as quickly as possible. He hailed a random taxi and stuffed the boy into the back seat.
“Where to, young man?” The driver asked, slowly pulling away from the curb as he flipped the meter down, shouting over his shoulder.
Shen Zhu had long since passed out from the pain, unable to even hold himself upright. Under the driver’s disdainful gaze, his body listed to the side, his upper torso slumping across the rear seat.
“What awful luck,” the driver cursed, gritting his teeth. “Another one dead drunk.”
A few minutes later, he asked again. Seeing still no response, he pulled over at a spot where parking was allowed, ducked out of the car, and hurriedly shielded himself from the rain as he opened the rear door and leaned his upper body inside.
Someone had called the cab, but no one had paid. Suppressing his anger, the driver fished out Shen Zhu’s phone and lifted the boy’s finger, intending to unlock it to get paid.
But after trying all ten fingers, he realized the guy didn’t have fingerprint unlocking enabled.
Back when Shen Zhu was swindling money at bars, he had been terrified that the old foxes he scammed might suddenly wise up while he was drunk and use his fingerprint to unlock his phone and transfer the money back. Consequently, he had strictly relied on a passcode.
He just hadn’t expected that after guarding against a thousand threats, he would end up screwing himself over.
Refusing to suffer even a fraction of a loss, the driver pocketed Shen Zhu’s phone while cursing up a storm. He hauled Shen Zhu out of the car like a sack of potatoes and dumped him right into the roadside greenery.
The late-night road was utterly desolate, leaving only the relentless patter of early spring rain driven against the asphalt by the wind. The biting cold seeped deep into his skin, creating a paradoxical, burning sensation as his body temperature struggled to fight it off.
Driven by the abnormal spikes in his body temperature, Shen Zhu forced himself awake. He felt as though he were being roasted over an open flame, and his reflexes had slowed to a crawl.
Wow, perfect. A stomach ache plus a fever.
The rain had washed away most of his intoxication. Shen Zhu lay in the dirt for a brief moment before unsteadily pushing himself to his feet.
He had no idea how he had ended up in this place. Feeling around his clothes, he realized his phone was gone.
Fortunately, his marriage certificate and keys were still there.
Although the little red booklet had been tucked inside his pants pocket, it hadn’t escaped the disaster. The pages were soaked and wrinkled, and the black text had blurred into messy ink stains.
Well, not a huge deal, Shen Zhu thought, wiping the water droplets off the photo before stuffing it back in.
Fortunately, the spot where the driver had abandoned him wasn’t too far from his rental. Clutching his stomach, Shen Zhu slowly limped his way back home, grieving his lost phone the entire time.
By the time he returned to his rundown apartment, the pain in his stomach had reached an agonizing threshold. He felt as though his internal organs were dragging downward. His throat tightened, and he rushed to the bathroom, clutching the toilet bowl as he dry-heaved.
It wasn’t until he threw up bile that the violent spasms in his stomach subsided slightly.
That damn Su Xingque. Shen Zhu drew a mental picture of a little voodoo doll named Su Xingque and stabbed it violently dozens of times.
He dug through a drawer to find some stomach medicine and cold medicine, washing them down with cold water from a mug just to get the job done.
Triggered by the icy water, the stomach pain flared up again with a vengeance, but Shen Zhu simply didn’t have the residual energy to do anything else to soothe it.
Fine, just hurt then, he thought. At least the fever is providing a bit of warmth to my stomach. Feeling as though his muscles and bones had been entirely drained from his body, he collapsed onto the bed in sheer exhaustion, rolled himself into the blanket, and slipped away—though whether into sleep or unconsciousness, he couldn’t tell.
When he woke up again, the sky was already glaringly bright. His shabby apartment lacked curtains, allowing the piercing sunlight to stream straight in, beating down against his eyelids with an annoying, suffocating heat.
He tried to roll over to continue sleeping, only to find that his right hand wouldn’t move.
Shen Zhu woke up a fraction more, noting a heavy numbness spreading through his right forearm. The back of his hand felt distinctly cold—a highly unsettling sensation.
Tilting his head to look, he discovered his arm had been tied to the edge of the bed frame, and an IV drip line was pierced into the back of his hand.
Shen Zhu: ???
Did some creep break into my house last night because I forgot to lock the door?
Terrified, the hairs on the back of Shen Zhu’s neck stood on end. He lifted his gaze, only to instantly petrify.
Su Xingque was sitting on his broken wooden chair, legs crossed, casually scrolling through a tablet.
The sunlight leaped off the scratched wooden tabletop, casting clean lines across the man’s profile, chest, and fingertips. Even though the morning light forced a soft halo around him, the oppressive weight of his aura remained starkly apparent.
Judging by the sheer force with which Su Xingque tapped the screen, his mood had clearly deteriorated to an absolute nadir.
Their brief encounter at the corporate office had already cemented Su Xingque’s status as a textbook workaholic in Shen Zhu’s mind. And right now, this big boss—who could delegate half a dozen projects in the time it took to walk a hallway—was sitting inside his tiny, pathetic shack.
Shen Zhu timidly shrank his neck back into the blanket, preparing to resume playing dead.
A split second before his eyelids successfully closed, the man who had finished processing his work raised his eyes.
Their gazes locked. Shen Zhu swallowed hard out of sheer nerves.
Su Xingque is seriously, breathtakingly handsome.
But that was hardly the priority right now.
Shen Zhu’s mind raced. Capitalizing on the fact that his fever hadn’t broken yet, he buried half his face beneath the blanket, staring up at Su Xingque with watery, doe-like eyes. After a few seconds, he half-closed his eyes and offered two delicate, fragile coughs.
He even gave a small sniffle.
“Um, why are you—”
Before the word “here” could leave his mouth, Su Xingque rose to his feet and stood over the bed. His towering frame blocked out the sunlight, casting a heavy shadow across him.
Shen Zhu instinctively shrank back. Above him, a sharp click rang out as the deadpan CEO held up his phone and snapped a photo directly of his face.
Su Xingque sent the photo to Meng Jing and held down the voice note button:
“He’s awake. Leave the rest to Wilson.”
Leave it to who?
Shen Zhu’s eyes widened in sheer shock.
Why the hell does that sound exactly like a line from a mob boss?