His Addiction - Chapter 9

The meal ended on a sour note.

After Xu Zhi left, Chen Jing pouted in dissatisfaction, muttering, “She really has no manners.”

Liang Muzhi, slightly annoyed, had just managed to calm Xu Zhi down. He frowned and said to Chen Jing, “If it weren’t for you bringing up the past, she wouldn’t have gotten upset.”

Chen Jing was incredulous, “You’re blaming me? I was just standing up for you! Look at you, so foolish, suffering so much, not confronting her about it, yet still treating her like a friend.”

“Are you done yet?” He snapped, his tone firm. “I’ve already told you, she’s my best friend.”

Seeing that he was genuinely angry, Chen Jing reluctantly backed down. “Fine, I won’t say anything else. Let’s eat.”

But Liang Muzhi had lost his appetite.

Chen Jing and Xu Zhi were very different. Chen Jing was passionate, flamboyant, and straightforward—just like him, she loved to have fun.

She wasn’t the first girl to pursue him, but she was the one he had the hardest time dealing with. She confessed to him the first time they met, and she was always blunt, never holding back.

Because of this, her outspokenness had ruined the dinner.

But since she was his girlfriend, he had to spoil her. Sighing inwardly, he thought to himself that he would have to go back and appease Xu Zhi again.

Xu Zhi returned to school feeling even worse than when she had first learned that Liang Muzhi had a girlfriend.

It wasn’t just simple disappointment anymore, but also anger.

Liang Muzhi didn’t trust her. After hearing just a few words from Chen Jing, he started to suspect that Xu Zhi had leaked the information.

In the afternoon, while studying in the library, she kept checking her phone.

There was no message from Liang Muzhi, no calls. He was probably still with Chen Jing. Her gaze fell on the newly added friend’s profile picture.

It was Liang Jinmo’s pitch-black avatar. She clicked on it and saw the message “I’ve accepted your friend request. Now we can start chatting.”

She should apologize to him. She also wanted to confirm if he had told the Liang family about Liang Muzhi’s fight, but it took some courage to lower her pride.

She hesitated until evening and sent her first message to Liang Jinmo: “Are you there?”

There was no response for a long time.

Xu Zhi: “I owe you an apology for what happened at lunch. I was a bit out of control with my emotions and shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”

Still no reply. She sent an apologetic dog sticker.

Noticing that WeChat had updated with new stickers, she tried sending “Little Pig Bowing” and “Little Cat Apologizing.”

This time, there was a response.

Liang Jinmo: “Stop.”

Liang Jinmo: “Where did you get all these weird stickers?”

Xu Zhi’s eyes brightened and quickly replied: “They’re built into WeChat, you just need to update it to get them. Also, I’ve saved a lot of fun ones. Do you want them? I can send them to you.”

Liang Jinmo: “No.”

Xu Zhi was just happy to get the conversation started, though she didn’t know if it was because she was too eager, but her fingers were too quick and she had already sent one of her recently collected stickers. As soon as she saw it, her heart sank.

The sticker she sent was one shared by Yang Xue two days ago: Jerry the mouse and another mouse holding hands, both mice looking excited with sparkling eyes. The caption read: “Sisters going to the brothel.”

She quickly recalled the message.

Liang Jinmo: “…”

Liang Jinmo: “Your activities seem pretty rich.”

Xu Zhi was so wronged, and quickly replied: “No, it’s just a sticker. I’ve never been to that kind of place.”

She noticed that Liang Jinmo was typing, and she reread their conversation carefully.

Maybe it was the distance created by the network, but Liang Jinmo felt different from how he usually came across. He didn’t seem… so unapproachable anymore.

She also made a new discovery: he didn’t use punctuation when finishing his messages.

When she looked again, the typing indicator had disappeared, but there was still no reply.

What had he been typing all this time? She found it hard to imagine that someone like him would edit a single message over and over again.

Her fingers moved, and she decided to speak first: “You’re not mad anymore, right?”

The message sent, and she nervously kept her eyes on the screen.

This time, the reply came quickly: “I’m not mad. I’ve gotten used to it.”

Xu Zhi didn’t quite understand and asked: “Got used to what?”

Liang Jinmo: “The way you talk to me.”

Xu Zhi froze.

She thought back to their past interactions. They hadn’t spoken much, but had she ever been rude to him? No, right?

The phone vibrated, and Liang Jinmo sent another message: “You’re all the same.”

Then it hit her—he had already gotten used to how the Liang family, even friends like Liang Muzhi, treated him coldly. Now, she had also been categorized into that group.

She had spent so much time with Liang Muzhi, and when they were children, she even joined him in bullying Liang Jinmo… She felt completely unable to defend herself.

The conversation ended there. Liang Jinmo didn’t send any more messages, and Xu Zhi had no idea what to say next.

At this point, it was impossible to ask whether Liang Muzhi had been the one to leak the fight to the Liang family.

In fact, they didn’t interact much, and it didn’t matter that she couldn’t get his forgiveness. But still, she owed him—if it weren’t for him that night, she would have had nowhere to go. And because of their past, she always felt a subtle sense of indebtedness to him.

The last two lines of his messages left her feeling heavy. That night, lying in bed, she couldn’t stop thinking: How could he say that? She had done some good for him too, hadn’t she?

Her mind drifted to a past memory.

When they were children, she went to the Liang house almost every day to play with Liang Muzhi, but she rarely saw Liang Jinmo.

Liang Jinmo wasn’t liked at the Liang house, so he stayed in his room on the second floor, rarely coming out.

Sometimes, she didn’t know what he had done wrong, but he would be locked in the attic by Fu Wanwen.

The attic in the Liang house was unfinished, with no lights and no windows. When the door was closed, it was completely dark, damp, and cold.

Xu Zhi was scared of the dark and couldn’t imagine what it must have felt like for Liang Jinmo to be locked in that place. If it had been her, she would have been terrified.

One year, on Liang Muzhi’s birthday, Liang Jinmo was locked in the attic again.

The Liang house was quite lively that day since it was the little young master’s birthday, and many classmates came, including Xu Zhi.

A group of elementary school students was playing noisily, and Xu Zhi was distracted throughout. While Liang Muzhi and the boys played video games, she quietly went upstairs to the attic.

The latch on the door was locked, and her hand hesitated as she touched it.

A month ago, she had torn up Liang Jinmo’s test papers, and the thought had been bothering her for a month. She didn’t know how the victim, Liang Jinmo, had been feeling. He probably hated her, right?

But she still opened the door.

Inside was a completely different world from downstairs.

The music and children’s laughter seemed far away. Xu Zhi stood at the attic door and saw nothing but darkness inside.

She opened the door a little wider and finally saw Liang Jinmo sitting in the corner.

He was hugging his knees, sitting casually on the rough cement floor, staring at her silently.

Xu Zhi felt a bit scared when their eyes met. She had never seen such a look in the eyes of any other child—cold, sharp, like a knife.

She gathered her courage and walked over, crouching down in front of him, then pulled something out of her pocket and pressed a button.

Suddenly, Liang Jinmo saw a beam of light.