Chapter 59: This Kid Has Quite Some Wild Tricks Up His Sleeve

She spoke in a flat, indifferent tone, leaning back against the head of the bed. "In their circle, anyone is free to treat me like this."

Chen Meng felt a chill run through her entire body. She sat down on the edge of the bed, took hold of her hand, and her voice choked with tears, "Yuanyuan..."

Tang Yuan wanted to smile, but the movement pulled at the injuries on the corners of her mouth and face, causing a sharp pain that made her slightly frown. "But I won't let them bully me forever."

Chen Meng poured her a glass of water.

However, the corners of her mouth hurt too much for her to drink, and her eyes were swollen until only narrow slits remained.

Logically speaking, since she was not returning to Shuiyue Bay, she should have called Shen Zhou to report her whereabouts, lest she be dragged off again tomorrow for that kind of dignity-destroying physical examination.

Yet she was in far too much pain right now, curling up and falling asleep right there on the hospital bed.

In the middle of the night, she woke up from the agony and forced herself to turn over.

Chen Meng was keeping watch right beside her, holding her hand. "Yuanyuan, if it hurts, just cry. Crying will make you feel a little better."

In the pitch-black darkness, Tang Yuan's eyes were extraordinarily bright, shining like gemstones.

She said, "I won't be that obedient ever again."

From beginning to end, she did not shed a single tear.

It was as if something unimaginably dark was tempting her to keep sinking, plunging down into a bottomless abyss.

She had expected to receive a call from Shen Zhou the next morning, but when she called back to Shuiyue Bay, she learned that Shen Zhou had left early that morning because of a shipping route out at sea and would not be back for half a month.

Tang Yuan breathed a sigh of relief. She settled down to rest peacefully in the hospital for a week, repeatedly reviewing the background information on Sheng Yun.

As a woman, Sheng Yun had always lived a relatively unrestrained personal life; whenever a male celebrity caught her eye, she would keep him as a kept companion for a period of time.

She was genuinely infatuated with Shen Zhou, but she had never dared to let him realize the depth of her obsession.

Just as Tang Yuan put down the tablet in her hand, she saw Fu Yansheng walk in carrying an insulated food container to visit her.

He was so tall that simply standing beside her hospital bed made her feel a sense of pressure.

The swelling on her face had mostly subsided, but she still needed another ten days or so to fully recover from her injuries.

She set the tablet down, her brows and eyes completely calm. "Did you finish filming?"

"Mhm."

He opened the insulated container, picked up a spoon, scooped up some food, gently blew on it, and brought it to her lips.

Tang Yuan always felt as though he had a mountain of words he wanted to say, yet he did not utter a single syllable.

She ate a little less than half a bowl before closing her eyes to rest.

Fu Yansheng stood up and adjusted the height of the bed for her. His gaze landed on the tablet, on which she had listed several plans and strategies.

Tang Yuan sensed his presence drawing dangerously close and could not help opening her eyes.

True to her intuition, he was staring right at her, placing both hands on either side of her as he looked at her with intense, burning sincerity.

Before Tang Yuan could speak, he leaned down and kissed her.

His kiss was fierce and burning, leaving her nowhere to hide.

Just then, Chen Meng pushed the door open and walked in. At the sight before her, she was so startled that the bouquet of flowers in her hand dropped to the floor.

The loud thud prompted Tang Yuan to forcefully shove him away and slap Fu Yansheng across the face.

Fu Yansheng did not say a word. Meeting her eyes, which blazed with fury, he leaned forward once more and planted a couple of light pecks on her lips.

"I'll come see you tomorrow."

Tang Yuan was so angry that her eyelashes trembled.

Meanwhile, Fu Yansheng straightened up and walked past Chen Meng.

It took Chen Meng ten full seconds to recover before she bent down to pick up the dropped flowers. "I never would have guessed. This kid has quite a wild streak in him."

Tang Yuan was already feeling unwell physically, and this incident only made her feel worse.

Chen Meng felt as though her legs were floating. She had managed Fu Yansheng for two years, knowing him only as taciturn and quiet; she never imagined he would dare to pull something like this.

He had forcibly kissed his own boss.

No wonder that in the past, whenever Tang Yuan hadn't come to the studio, he had occasionally asked after her a few times, though he stopped asking once he presumably figured something out.

Chen Meng took a sip of water to calm her pounding heart. "So, what exactly is going on between you two..."

Tang Yuan wiped the corner of her mouth. Right now, her mind was entirely consumed with how to exact revenge on Sheng Yun; she hadn't given a single thought to anything else.

"There's nothing between us."

Chen Meng nodded, then asked, "Do you remember when you first brought Yansheng back? If I recall correctly, he had just been expelled from school shortly before that, and no one dared to take him in, so he ended up fighting in underground boxing matches. When you brought him back, his body was covered in injuries, and his face was swollen so badly that he was completely unrecognizable as a human being."

Tang Yuan was stunned. "It was him?"

Because Fu Yansheng's face had been swollen to such a grotesque degree that night that his features were completely obscured, she hadn't been able to tell what he looked like at all. When she had stumbled upon a group of people beating him up and asked around, she found out he owed a debt—one hundred thousand yuan—which wasn't a huge sum to her, so she paid it on the spot, handed him over to Chen Meng, and told Chen Meng to let him leave once he recovered.

After that, she had never paid him another thought, failing to recognize him as the person who had been beaten to within an inch of his life.

Later on, Chen Meng signed Fu Yansheng, and after Tang Yuan got married, she had never dropped by the studio again.

Chen Meng took another sip of water and couldn't help advising, "If you don't feel that way about him, you need to make it clear to him early on. That kid took a brutal beating that night; from what I heard, he had taken out high-interest loans just to pay for his mother's medical treatments. Who knows who he might have offended, but no major company dared to touch him, and getting expelled from school back then didn't seem to be his fault either. In short, everything went wrong for him. When I later checked out the underground boxing scene, I heard that when he fought in there, he fought like his life was on the line—like a rabid dog—and he never talked much, acting as if he had never seen money in his life. Even so, after coming to this studio, he still handed over the lion's share of his earnings to me, keeping very little for himself, and spent every penny on his mother's medical care. Yuanyuan, just make things clear to him soon. He's never been in a relationship before; if he falls too deep and can't pull himself out later... I've seen that his feelings for you aren't ordinary for a long time now."

Perhaps it was simply the psychological imprint of a fledgling bird after being rescued by her.

Tang Yuan fell silent. Connecting this with what she had done the other day, she felt an urge to slap herself across the face.

Now, whatever Chen Meng was saying was already too late; she had already done everything she should—and shouldn't—have done.