DLRAS Chapter 158 [If Never Missed]

Chapter 158: If we have together in our previous life.

“Why are you drinking alone today?”

Chen Wengang set down his glass. The ice sphere knocked against the crystal wall with a soft clink as he shot a sidelong glance.

“Where is Zheng Yucheng?”

The lighting in the bar was dim and ambiguous. Huo Niansheng rested his arms against the counter, his attractive, flirtatious eyes making him look affectionately devoted no matter who he was looking at.

Further away, a group of Huo Niansheng’s friends were whispering among themselves, their faces wearing knowing smiles as they muttered about God knows what.

Those wealthy playboys had nothing better to do and were always up to some tedious, juvenile tricks. Within Zheng Yucheng’s social circle, it was inevitable to cross paths with this brand of fair-weather friends. They had once placed a private wager, sending someone to pursue Chen Wengang just to test whether he would experience a change of heart. To some of them, he was merely a source of cheap amusement. And a notorious playboy like Huo Niansheng looked even more like someone looking for a casual thrill; not a single word from him was worth trusting.

Chen Wengang remained completely silent, his gaze anchored on a stray stain on the counter—it looked like a splash of paint that had landed there by accident.

Huo Niansheng took a seat on the adjacent high stool, utterly indefatigable as he continued to pester him: “Drowning your sorrows in drink?”

He was tall with exceptionally long legs; even with the people behind them resting their feet on the stool rungs, his own long legs remained propped firmly on the floor. The lighting was scarce, but it didn’t hinder anyone from noticing the impeccable, refined quality of his attire and leather shoes. No matter where this man walked, a tide of glances relentlessly trailed behind him.

Yet he remained thoroughly relaxed and unbothered, as though he were naturally born to be the absolute center of everyone’s visual field.

The drink was gone. The glass had hit rock bottom, leaving nothing but a single sphere of ice.

Chen Wengang set the tumbler down. It was precisely the Qixi Festival, and couples seeking pleasure and entertainment were entering the bar one after another in pairs. Zheng Yucheng had also been invited by He Wanxin to watch a movie. He had originally assured Chen Wengang that he had rejected her offer, but when the moment arrived, he claimed to be left with no choice and felt compelled to attend the engagement.

It had already happened countless times—again and again. He would eternally possess a justification, a compelling hardship that made it impossible for anyone to refuse him.

Suddenly, Huo Niansheng leaned in close.

Startled, Chen Wengang leaned back slightly to avoid him. Huo Niansheng tilted his head, seemingly observing whether the other man was thoroughly dejected. Their distance had crossed a safe perimeter, and a distinct woody fragrance drifted over with his movement. The corner of his mouth suddenly curved into a smile as he extended an invitation—

“Don’t be unhappy anymore. How about I take you out to have some fun?”

The background music shifted into a soft, gentle melody, and the snickering sounds from his group of friends grew noticeably more distinct.

Moreover, it was always the same routine. No matter where he went, there would always be individuals viewing him as a laughingstock, leaving him with absolutely no peace of mind.

Yet, Chen Wengang stubbornly refused to leave. He gestured toward the bartender, but Huo Niansheng reached out to intervene: “Don’t drink anymore.”

He stood up, grabbing Chen Wengang’s wrist in an authoritarian manner. “Come on, I’ll take you out to catch some fresh air.”

Through some inexplicable, bizarre twist of fate, Chen Wengang stepped down from the high chair.

He had no desire to linger in the bar and let boring people make a mockery of him, nor did he wish to return to the Zheng household to be cooped up in his room with a chaotic mind—where he might even be subjected to a barrage of questions from Zheng Bingyi. Aside from that, he couldn’t think of any alternative destination for the time being. But as for what transpired afterward, his memory became entirely blank.

Drinking while sullen made it exceptionally easy to get intoxicated, and he couldn’t recall how many glasses he had ordered throughout the night. By the time he awakened, his memory had experienced a complete blackout.

Chen Wengang woke up with a splitting headache. Sitting up from the bed, it took him a considerable duration to compose himself before the fragmented pieces of his memory slowly fell back into place.

The room was a luxurious hotel suite. The window curtains were not drawn tightly, permitting a piercing ray of white light to shoot through a narrow gap, instantly jolting him into absolute alertness.

Chen Wengang’s heart sank into an abyss. He was entirely naked, his body retaining the physical sensations and unmistakable marks of a night of passion. Someone had cleaned him up, yet the space beside him was completely vacant. At that moment, the bathroom door swung open, and Huo Niansheng stepped out after washing his face.

He was clad in a bathrobe that left a portion of his chest exposed, instantly locking eyes with Chen Wengang’s intensely complex gaze.

Huo Niansheng offered a gentle, affectionate smile, stepping forward to plant a kiss against his forehead: “Yesterday was—”

Chen Wengang gritted his teeth, pushing him away with a sharp shove.

Flipping the blanket aside, he uttered absolutely nothing, snatching up his button-down shirt and thrusting his arms into the sleeves.

The shirt was completely covered in creases, looking thoroughly disheveled, though it appeared more like the result of his own choices from the previous night rather than being subjected to any forceful tearing. His clothes and trousers had even been neatly folded, laid out in an orderly manner atop the bed-end stool.

Huo Niansheng maintained an entirely composed demeanor, watching Chen Wengang don his clothes with a completely expressionless face.

Only the slight trembling at Chen Wengang’s fingertips betrayed his internal emotional state—though it remained uncertain whether it stemmed from absolute shock, intense fury, or perhaps a combination of both.

In truth, Chen Wengang’s mind was an absolute chaotic mess as a growing number of disjointed fragments resurfaced. For instance, Huo Niansheng extending the invitation, and the sudden explosion of his long-suppressed, secret resentment—if Zheng Yucheng could spend his time accompanying someone else, what did it matter what he did?

Rather than detesting the playboy standing before him, it would be more accurate to say he loathed himself even more.

Chen Wengang rarely committed blunders, particularly when it concerned matters of principle. A scenario of this nature was something that absolutely should never have occurred. Yet alcohol possessed a way of numbing the nerves, prompting individuals to make highly irrational decisions. This was a reality he had clearly comprehended all along; long ago, Zheng Bingyi had strictly admonished them that when going out to drink with others—whether clients or friends—absolute caution was mandatory, otherwise it would inevitably culminate in a catastrophic disaster. Especially given their specific social standing, there was no telling how many ill-intentioned individuals were constantly watching them, exhausting every method to plot against them. Becoming thoroughly intoxicated was the absolute most perilous vulnerability.

Yet, he had ultimately fallen into the trap anyway.

At present, rather than dwelling on assigning responsibility, Chen Wengang merely wished to vacate the premises immediately: “Kindly step aside.”

Huo Niansheng, however, maintained an incredibly nonchalant attitude, treating a single-night encounter as though it were hardly a monumental development.

Yet, perhaps because Chen Wengang’s countenance looked entirely too dreadful—bordering on pathetic—he stepped closer, attempting to loop his arm around the other man’s shoulder. Utilizing a somewhat comforting tone, he murmured, “Calm down first.”

Chen Wengang fastened his final button: “I am leaving.”

Huo Niansheng offered a helpless smile. Letting out a soft sigh, he extended his mobile phone forward: “Are you calling the police?”

Chen Wengang lifted his gaze to look at him.

Huo Niansheng gestured with his eyes toward the device held in mid-air: “You possess the absolute right to summon the authorities.”

Lowering his head, Chen Wengang brushed past Huo Niansheng, refusing to linger for even a single additional second as he fled the hotel room like a fugitive.

Halting a taxi by the roadside, he provided the address of the Zheng estate. Throughout the journey, there was no telling what thoughts consumed his mind; by the time he regained full awareness of his surroundings, he had already arrived at his destination.

Chen Wengang pressed the doorbell, and the security detail permitted his entry.

Encountering Uncle Lin within the living room, the older man inquired as to where he had vanished for the entire night without returning.

Chen Wengang explained in a low voice: “I drank excessively and secured a hotel room to spend the night.”

Uncle Lin desisted from further inquiries, merely instructing him in a slightly critical tone to head upstairs, change his attire, and catch up on some sleep.

Half an hour later, Chen Wengang lay flat upon his bed, his head still throbbing with a rhythmic, splitting pain from the hangover, making him wish he could cleave it open with an axe.

His damp hair soaked into the pillow; the moment he had entered the room, he had subjected himself to a thorough shower from head to toe. Yet, what had transpired had transpired, and harboring regrets could never cause time to reverse and erase the reality.

After a brief interval, a knock sounded at the door. Forcing himself to sit up, he found a domestic helper delivering a bowl of hangover soup to his room.

Placing the empty bowl back onto the tray, he left it by the doorway and returned to lie upon the bed, rolling over to find the surface beneath his head thoroughly cold.

It was only at this juncture that he commenced reflecting upon Huo Niansheng’s demeanor. The other man’s expressions and gestures replayed continuously in his mind, leaving Chen Wengang momentarily incapable of discerning whether extending the mobile phone had been a genuine gesture, a subtle threat, or pure mockery. Yet regardless of the underlying motive, Huo Niansheng was fully aware that Chen Wengang could never truly summon the police. Huo Niansheng was a young master born of an aristocratic, prominent lineage; he was Huo Meijie’s nephew, and a cousin to Zheng Baoqiu and Zheng Maoxun, making him tied by blood and marriage to the Zheng family. As long as he hadn’t inflicted severe physical harm upon Chen Wengang, a single night of passion was a bitter pill that Chen Wengang simply had to swallow in absolute silence.

Furthermore, how exactly would one define their actions from the previous night?

Huo Niansheng had offered to take him out for fresh air, and he had chosen to follow him out. Huo Niansheng had accompanied him to the hotel, and it wasn’t as though he had been forcefully dragged there.

Whether it truly qualified as consensual or not—given the sheer power and influence of the Huo family—if the other party set his mind on being obstinate, those elements alone would render the matter entirely impossible to untangle.

Even if one were to take ten thousand steps back and assume Chen Wengang was absolutely determined to pursue the matter to the absolute end, creating a massive scandal would leave the Zheng family’s public reputation with absolutely nowhere to hide.

Consequently, certain developments could only be severed with painful finality—

Zheng Yucheng’s eyes widened in absolute disbelief: “A breakup? Have you lost your mind? What exactly is the issue this time?”

Chen Wengang remained completely silent.

Zheng Yucheng appeared visibly agitated: “Merely because I accompanied He Wanxin to watch a single movie? Haven’t I already explained the reasoning to you? It wasn’t appropriate to slight Uncle He’s dignity, and I explicitly sought your consent beforehand. If you truly harbored such a strong objection to my attendance, you could have voiced your opposition at that moment, and I would have exhausted every method to find a solution. Wengang, surely you aren’t going to emulate those dramatic girls—offering agreement first only to settle old scores later, viewing it as some twisted method to test your boyfriend.”

Resting his weight against the desk, Chen Wengang kept his eyes lowered, refusing to look at him as his gaze anchored onto the floor. “That is not the reason.”

Zheng Yucheng demanded an answer: “Then why don’t you simply declare it? What exactly is the reason?”

When Chen Wengang finally lifted his gaze once more, his brows were slightly knit, yet the look directed at the other man had grown completely calm.

He had secured an appropriate window to summon Zheng Yucheng to his room during the dead of night, leaving just the two of them facing one another. Growing up together from childhood, they had engaged in conversations of this nature countless times; during those past days, they had discussed absolutely everything—games, homework, teachers, and their aspirations for the future.

Yet on this occasion, it was Chen Wengang initiating the breakup, while resolutely refusing to offer a single justification.

Zheng Yucheng was entirely incapable of comprehending it—why was the other man suddenly acting in such an intentionally obstructive, erratic manner out of the blue?

He pursued the questioning relentlessly, even uttering words that severely wounded their emotional bond, yet Chen Wengang maintained absolute silence from start to finish.

Ultimately, Zheng Yucheng’s temper flared, yet he remained entirely helpless. The two parted on thoroughly bitter terms, descending into an absolute cold war over the subsequent two days.

Chen Wengang possessed no superior alternative; he executed the decision to break up as a form of self-punishment. Arriving at the conclusion was an exceptionally agonizing process, yet the actual execution was swift—it took him a mere few hours to firmly settle his mind. He was entirely incapable of admitting his actions to Zheng Yucheng, yet it was equally impossible to conceal the reality and continue their relationship as though absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had transpired.

Such a course of action directly violated his ethical boundaries. Having committed a severe blunder himself, he simply had to bear the cost of forfeiting certain treasures.

Perhaps it was for the best; a swift termination was preferable to prolonged agony. They had already arrived at a deeply entangled, irreconcilable impasse, and perhaps this development offered a sense of liberation for everyone involved.

For two consecutive days, Zheng Yucheng refrained from offering Chen Wengang a ride when driving to the corporate offices or the university campus, refusing to utter a single word to him.

Even Zheng Bingyi commenced noticing the signs of discord, though on the surface, everyone desisted from bringing it up.

While Chen Wengang appeared gentle and easily compliant on the exterior, the reality was that once he firmly set his mind on a matter, his stubbornness turned exceptionally formidable, refusing to yield even a single step. Yet when facing his family members, he remained the individual offering explanations, assuring Uncle Lin that Zheng Yucheng was merely experiencing a foul mood and things would resolve themselves once he managed to clear his mind.

Upon the conclusion of his classes on this specific day, Chen Wengang received a phone call from an unfamiliar number. Yet, the voice emerging from the receiver was instantly recognizable: “Are you doing alright?”

Chen Wengang’s countenance turned entirely cold: “Young Master Huo.”

Huo Niansheng inquired, “Do you happen to have some free time this evening? I would like to invite you out for dinner, or we can engage in any alternative activity you might prefer.”

Chen Wengang paused briefly, his internal emotions instantly turning into a complex mix of sentiments that left him temporarily speechless. He demanded, “What exactly do you think you are doing?”

Huo Niansheng replied, “Extending an invitation for a date. Or, if you happen to believe that the pace is unfolding entirely too rapidly, then let’s categorize it as a formal pursuit of your heart.”

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