Chapter 5

There was still traces of tears on Shi Sheng’s face, her eyes reddened from ‘crying’ as she bit on her lip, as if to act strong. Overall, she made for a very pitiful looking appearance. “Auntie, thank you for all these years of looking out for me. We’re both women so you should understand how I feel, I…”

This sentence aimed directly at the sore spot of Mrs Nangong. Nangong Zheng wasn’t as monogamous as Xu Chengyue’s father; He kept many mistresses. Since Nangong Zheng had always been sensible enough to not let any of them get pregnant or make trouble for her, she just pretended like they didn’t exist. Such was the existence of the modern bourgeoise.

Hence it was understandable that Mrs Nangong’s heart softened upon seeing such a young and likable young lady about to follow in her own footsteps. She moved her lips but in the end was unable to say anything.

“Have you thought it through clearly?” Her father was again asked her seriously.

Shi Sheng nodded, “I’ve thought it through.”

She looked at Nangong Jing. That was a face that was clearly heavy with despair yet when Nangong Jing met those eyes, he saw only calmness. Even if there were still some tears left in the corner of her eyes, in their depths, it was an absolute calm. Nangong Jing felt that there was something wrong, as if she shouldn’t be acting like this.

Though upon thinking that he could finally get rid of the engagement, he suppressed that feeling of wrongness and coolly met Shi Sheng’s gaze.

“Chengyue, this isn’t a small matter. It concerns the interests of both of our families so can you please reconsider?” What was going through Nangong Zheng’s mind was, ‘If father knows that I let these two dissolve the engagement, he’s going to scold me to death.’ As it just so happened, Nangong Zheng was most afraid of his father and hence the one who least wanted their engagement broken.

No matter whether it was considering the interests of their two families or from a private angle, dissolving the engagement was not a smart move.

‘If it hadn’t been for this brat… He actually dared to cheat on his fiancée in his own home. Too reckless, he needs more guidance.’

“Mr Nangong.” Chu Tang spoke suddenly, scaring the living daylights out of Nangong Zheng, who hurriedly turned to look respectfully at Chu Tang.

Chu Tang’s lips curved. “I believe the lady has made herself quite clear. I hope Mr Nangong will not delay her in her pursuit for happiness.”

Nangong Zheng glanced at Shi Sheng who had her head lowered out of the corner of his eye. ‘She actually made Chu Tang speak out for her…’

“I understand.” Chu Tang was a person who could make a person go broke just because of a disagreement. He didn’t dare to offend him.

Aside from Shi Sheng and Nangong Zheng, it was probable that no one else here knew about Chu Tang’s true identity, hence seeing Nangong Zheng so servile to him inevitably made everyone else extremely curious.

Though, of course, no one dared to ask.

Dissolving the engagement would require calling for a press conference so Nangong Zheng had the matter temporarily delayed until three days later. Three days was enough time for anyone who was going to change their mind to do so.

Chu Tang had given Shi Sheng a name card before he left. It was black with silver patterning, giving it the look of subtle yet luxurious. On it was only his name as well as a string of numbers, clearly a private mobile number.

Ever since Shi Sheng had got on the car, her father had been looking at it curiously. In the end he couldn’t resist his curiosity and asked, “Girl, that man was…?”

To be able to make Nangong Zheng so respectful… He couldn’t think of anyone right off the bat.

“Chu Tang.” Shi Sheng showed the name card to her father. These two words: ‘楚棠'{pinyin: chu3tang2} were written in bold on the name card so they were exceptionally clear.

His mind filtered through all the Chu Tangs that he knew of before recalling a certain legend of the business world that had once revealed a blurry profile shot of his face on the cover of a financial magazine.

‘Chu Tang… Is it the one I’m thinking of?’

Having guessed what was going through his mind, Shi Sheng nodded, ‘Yes it’s the one you’re thinking of. That Chu Tang.’

Completely ignoring her father whose inner thoughts must have been a maelstrom of chaos by now, she calmly entered the string of numbers into her phone. ‘At least that pervert didn’t have too bad of an impression of me. This task shouldn’t be too hard…’

Only when they reached home did her father just manage to pull himself out of his stupor. “Girl… you didn’t dissolve the engagement with the Nangong brat for him, right?” It was quite apparent her father had quite a… refreshing train of thought.

Shi Sheng’s lips twitched. ‘Are you sure you’re my dad?’

Seeing that Shi Sheng’s expression wasn’t quite right, her father thought he had said something wrong. “Don’t be upset, it’s the Nangong brat that’s missing out. Chu Tang’s a good man, let’s take him down!”

‘Dad, you’re awesome! If Chu Tang were that easy to take down all the women in this world should just kill themselves by smashing their heads into tofu!’

Shi Sheng shook her head, choosing to ignore this father who had a strange train of thought. Now that she had dissolved the engagement, she had completed task number one – To leave that asshole.

‘Though if I get the chance to step on him a few times, I will gladly offer up my services. Without Xu Chengyue serving as the catalyst for the relationship between Nangong Jing and Su Yiyi, would their relationship still be as resilient? I look forward to testing this!’

“Hey, wait for dad! Come on and tell me, how did you get to know Chu Tang? He actually gave you his private number, does he like you? Work harder to chase him down, make that Nangong brat regret to death…”

#MyDadThinksWeirdly,PlsHelp,UrgentAndWaitingForAnAnswer#[1]

#FutureSon-in-LawCaughtCheatingOnDaughter,EncouragesDaughterToFindAnotherManToBitchSlapHim#

Three days later, the press conference was held. Back when the engagement was announced, it was pretty big news. Xu Chengyue and Nangong Jing were touted as the model for this circle – childhood sweethearts, a match made in heaven. As a result, the dissolution of the engagement garnered attention from everywhere.

It wasn’t explained clearly in the press conference why the engagement was called off, leading to endless speculation by the public.

As of right now, one of the parties directly involved the whole fiasco was sitting in a high-end restaurant staring at a certain pervert sitting across from her. All she did was send a message without too much hope of getting a reply… But she got one! Not only did he reply, he even agreed to have dinner with her, nearly scaring the crap out of her!

Shi Sheng tugged on her lips in a forced smile. “Has Mr Chu stared enough?”

‘If you weren’t the man I was trying to slee- I mean date[2], I’d have started launching punches about now.’

They had already been here for nearly half an hour and the entire time Chu Tang had just been staring at her like that, causing her scalp to tingle and her body to stiffen.

“Miss Xu is quite bold. Right after dissolving an engagement with someone else, you invite me out on a date. You aren’t afraid the reporters will write any incriminating articles?” Chu Tang’s wicked gaze swept over her face with bold abandon, in it were hints of teasing and playfulness.

Shi Sheng held down her right hand with her left while her inner monologue went something like, ‘Resist! You can’t hit him! He’s your future boyfriend!’

Shi Sheng maintained a stoic face. “I am just attempting to repay Mr Chu’s help in speaking out that day.”

“But why do I feel like…” Chu Tang paused before raising his voice, “You want to hit me?”

‘Oh and why on earth would I want to hit you? Trust me, I want to sle- date you!’

“Mr Chu really knows how to crack a joke.” Shi Sheng gave a stiffened smile before forcefully changing the subject, “Are you hungry? Why don’t we eat first?”

Sitting here for half an hour, she had noticed the waiters next door looking at them funnily a few times. Most importantly, she hadn’t eaten much earlier during lunch. It was already 7pm and she was starving.

“I’m not hungry.”

‘*flip table* Are you even a gentleman? Can’t you see I’m starving here?!’

Chu Tang continued, “I ate afternoon tea before I came out.”

‘What the fuck! You ate before coming out on a date with me! Simply inhuman!’

Seeing the person who was sitting across from him grinding her teeth, Chu Tang felt an inexplicable amusement as his eyes curved into crescents and the wickedness that seemed to linger around him retracted. The Chu Tang as of now appeared to be an angel fallen onto earth…

Shi Sheng got the shivers when this thought popped up and resolved to eat something to suppress it.

[1] Just think of this as something like a Twitter post. As I don’t actually use Twitter or know how this works I’m just winging it here.

[2] I try making this as non-crass as possible when I can