As night fell, Yao Zhen leaned against the headboard, listlessly playing a game on his phone. Liang Jiming was in and out of the room constantly, bringing medicine and water with meticulous attentiveness.
Yao Zhen would occasionally cut him a sidelong glance before immediately looking away. Being this thoughtful… he’s definitely possessed by a ghost, right? Unable to concentrate, he lost several game rounds in a row. Bored, he exited the game and opened WeChat to message the contact pinned at the very top: Shen Jinghe.
Yao Zhen: [Jie, you’re out in such a remote, harsh place doing research. Doesn’t that Lawyer Liang ever go to accompany you? How is he even your boyfriend?]
About twenty minutes later, a reply came back, her tone sounding quite helpless.
Shen Jinghe: [Why do you love picking on his flaws so much? He’s very busy. He went to Zurich for a seminar last week and won’t be back for three months.]
Yao Zhen: [He clearly cares more about his career than you, Jie. Why do you even want someone like that?]
Shen Jinghe: [Smile]
Yao Zhen poked at his screen. Shen Jinghe was perfect in every way; she was just under Liang Jiming’s spell, her eyes clouded to his true nature. On a whim, he sent another:
Yao Zhen: [Have you guys even been in touch lately?]
Shen Jinghe: [No, I’m swamped with work every day, and his seminar is a closed-off program with a time difference.]
Shen Jinghe: [Gotta go, heading into a meeting.]
“Unbelievable,” Yao Zhen muttered. What kind of relationship was this? How had they not broken up yet? Still, it worked in his favor; if they were the type to be inseparable, his little charade wouldn’t last a day.
Liang Jiming pushed the door open and walked in. Yao Zhen moved with lightning speed to swipe away the WeChat dialog and reopen his game interface.
Liang Jiming walked over to the bedside, glanced at him, and reached out to check his forehead again.
Yao Zhen leaned back against the headboard to avoid him. “What now? The fever’s already gone, stop touching me all the time.”
“Are you that resistant to me touching you?” Liang Jiming asked.
“…”
He couldn’t exactly say yes, so he grumbled crossly, “I haven’t forgiven you yet.”
Liang Jiming nodded and said, “The temperature hasn’t spiked again, that’s good. I’ll go order some food for you. What do you want to eat?”
Yao Zhen’s stomach was genuinely hungry. He muttered, “Anything but porridge.”
“Understood,” Liang Jiming replied. “Wait here like a good boy.”
As Liang Jiming turned and left, Yao Zhen rubbed the goosebumps on his arms. So cringey.
He clicked back to the WeChat interface. Remembering it was Shen Jinghe’s birthday at the end of the month, he messaged his assistant: [Go ask if the custom scent I ordered is ready. Pick it up in the next two days.]
Xiao Wei: [Understood.]
As he exited, he casually unpinned Shen Jinghe from the top of his chat list. It would be a disaster if Liang Jiming accidentally saw her there one day.
Half an hour later, Liang Jiming walked back in. Yao Zhen was still playing games. Distracted by the sound of the door, his hand slipped, and he lost again. As the mournful “Game Over” sound rang out, the young master pouted, feeling displeased.
Liang Jiming stepped forward and took his phone. Yao Zhen froze for a second before reaching out to grab it back. However, Liang Jiming had already started a new round. His fingers moved quickly, and within a few minutes, he had cleared the level.
The young master was stunned.
Liang Jiming handed the phone back. “You were on this round half an hour ago, and you’re still stuck here now? You can’t even play games right?”
Yao Zhen lunged as if to scratch him. “You’re mocking me again.”
Liang Jiming caught his hands, easily pinning both wrists together. “You’ve got a lot of energy for someone who is sick.”
Yao Zhen: “…” So it was just a delusion to think this jerk had changed.
Seeing him puffing with anger, Liang Jiming let go and casually ruffled his hair. “Eat something.”
He didn’t know how they used to act together, and since he couldn’t remember, he didn’t force it. But since he had accepted this relationship, he would follow his own instincts.
Yao Zhen was a bit dazed. He didn’t react until Liang Jiming turned around, wanting to snap but forcing himself to hold back. Fine, this guy completely believes my words. Step one is a success. I’ll just sacrifice a little ‘dignity’ and endure it.
Once Liang Jiming truly fell into the role and fell in love with him, he would reveal the truth, mock him mercilessly, and dump him. The thought alone was exciting.
With that settled, Yao Zhen’s head stopped hurting. He sat at the dining table with a great appetite, finishing a bowl of noodles in record time.
Liang Jiming, who had already eaten, sat beside him. Watching him eat like a wolf, he suddenly asked, “Can you send me that photo you showed me before? Do we have any other photos together?”
“Cough—”
Yao Zhen nearly choked on the soup. He looked up. “What for?”
“The doctor said looking at old things helps recover memory,” Liang Jiming said.
Yao Zhen replied calmly, “That photo was a candid shot from Zhao Zihua and the others. It’s so blurry your own mother wouldn’t recognize you. It’s useless, so I deleted it.”
In reality, the two in that photo weren’t him and Liang Jiming at all. It was a shot of someone else he took to pull a prank and had forgotten to delete from his album. If he let Liang Jiming look at it too closely, the guy might see something was wrong. He wasn’t stupid.
Liang Jiming frowned. “Don’t use bad language.”
Yao Zhen suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. “There aren’t any others. I was afraid my family would find out, so we never took photos together. After we came here, you were always picking fights, and we argued every other day. Who would want to take a photo with you?”
Liang Jiming asked, “Did I argue with you because I was afraid of holding you back?”
This was the lie Yao Zhen had made up earlier, and he didn’t feel guilty at all. “Yeah. You were so ‘noble,’ worried you’d drag me down, always trying to make me go back.”
“…” Liang Jiming fell silent. Before his memory loss, he must have been lying to this young master. He probably wanted to run away because he wasn’t getting what he wanted.
Yao Zhen warned him, “If you ever try to run again, or try to send me back, I’ll really break your legs.”
Liang Jiming asked again, “How long have we been together?”
“Not that long, just over a year.” Yao Zhen made it up on the spot. “But we were planning on getting officially married.”
Liang Jiming looked surprised. “…How would we do that?”
Yao Zhen smirked. “It’s possible here.” Then his face dropped. “But don’t even think about it yet. I told you, until you remember me, I won’t forgive you. An apology is no use.”
Liang Jiming asked, “Are you very young?”
Yao Zhen arched an eyebrow. “Are you trying to say I’m immature?”
“No,” Liang Jiming said, humoring the young master’s temper. “Just asking.”
Yao Zhen stated loudly, “I’m turning twenty-three soon. You got a problem with that?”
Liang Jiming felt a wave of relief. At least he wasn’t a minor. Otherwise, it would have been a real crime.
Yao Zhen sneered back, “You’re the old one here. A thirty-year-old man ‘robbing the cradle.’ I’m the only one who’d settle for you.”
As he spoke, Yao Zhen suddenly remembered from passport info he had seen that tomorrow was this man’s birthday. What a coincidence.
Liang Jiming nodded calmly. “Thank you for settling, then.”
“…” Shameless.
The next day, Xiao Wei brought back the item Yao Zhen wanted. It was a custom scent he had ordered from a famous master in Southeast Asia; it had taken two months to arrive.
This was the birthday gift Yao Zhen planned to send to Shen Jinghe. She wouldn’t accept anything too expensive, so this was just right. A wood-toned, cold fragrance with a calming effect—perfect for the hardworking and exhausted Shen Jinghe.
When Xiao Wei brought the item up, he saw Liang Jiming was nearby and was tactful enough not to take it out immediately. He mentioned that he had taken the water-damaged watch to the boutique that morning; the shop said it had to be sent back to the factory, and the repair fee was estimated at several hundred thousand.
Yao Zhen didn’t care at all. “Fix it if it can be fixed; if not, forget it.”
Liang Jiming interjected, “Don’t always squander money like this. You should save where you can.”
Yao Zhen glanced at him sideways. “You’re stricter than my dad.”
“It’s for your own good,” Liang Jiming said calmly. “You’re used to spending money like water and can’t change overnight, but you have to break this habit. Since your father exiled you here, would he let you spend as freely as before?”
His dad wouldn’t, but he still had his mom~
Yao Zhen shifted with a grin, leaning closer to Liang Jiming. “If I really go bankrupt, will you support me?”
Liang Jiming moved his gaze away from those overly dazzling, smiling eyes. “Depends on your performance.”
Tsk, acting all high and mighty.
I’m only playing with you because I think you’re worth the effort.
Yao Zhen teased him on purpose: “Then should I listen to you?”
Liang Jiming didn’t believe him. “Talk to me after you actually do it.”
He stopped wasting words on the young master. Seeing the hotel manager message him again, he stood up and said, “I’m going downstairs for a moment.”
Yao Zhen waved him off casually.
The manager wasn’t asking for help with documents that day; he was there to process Liang Jiming’s onboarding paperwork so he could collect a monthly salary from the hotel. Even if he was still “living off a man,” it was at least a bit better than before.
“It’s Young Manager Yao’s idea to have you join the administration department as a deputy manager.”
The manager explained that with Liang Jiming’s abilities, he could have gone straight to the legal department, but since he didn’t meet the educational requirements, they had to drop it.
Liang Jiming nodded, having no objections. He noticed a copy of his own resume in the manager’s hand and asked for it. “Did the young master give you this, too?”
After getting a positive answer, Liang Jiming quickly scanned the resume. It was mostly what Yao Zhen had said: a high school education, seven years in a security company, and later becoming the young master’s private bodyguard.
As his eyes swept across the page, he saw his birthday. It was actually that day.
Upstairs, Yao Zhen took the item Xiao Wei brought back and looked it over, feeling very satisfied. He took a greeting card, wrote “Happy Birthday” with a flourish, and signed his name. He instructed, “Send this out as soon as possible.”
The timing was perfect. If sent that day, Shen Jinghe should receive it a day or two before her birthday. Xiao Wei had other things to do and said he’d come back for it in a while.
Yao Zhen casually left the gift on the coffee table. His mother called, so he went back into the master bedroom to answer it.
When Liang Jiming returned and entered the living room, his eyes immediately landed on the items on the coffee table. He hadn’t intended to touch them, but as he sat down, he caught a glimpse of the flamboyant handwriting on the nearby card. His gaze paused, and he reached out to pick it up.
Yao Zhen came out after finishing the call and froze at the sight. He raised his voice, “Hey! Why are you rifling through my stuff?”
Liang Jiming looked up, went quiet for a moment, and said, “Thank you.”
“…” Yao Zhen was instantly struck dumb.
Liang Jiming had already picked up the gift intended for Shen Jinghe.
No, wait—it’s not what you think!
GIVE! IT! BACK!