The Abused Villain is Always Obsessed with Me - Chapter 18

Manna had heard rumors about the strained relationship between Feng Hechi and his adopted son, not just from Feng Hechi himself, but also from gossipy colleagues and friends.

But she never imagined it would be this bad.

Yet it seemed more than just a strained relationship.

Lu Cang stared fixedly at Feng Hechi, then a faint smile curled his lips. “Yes, you’re my adoptive father. How could I possibly interfere with you?”

Feng Hechi’s brow furrowed slightly.

Lu Cang had never used the term “adoptive father” before. Forcing him to acknowledge Feng Hechi as such would likely be more painful than killing him.

And that smile of his… it looked rather strange.

Lu Cang’s gaze slowly shifted to Manna, who stood awkwardly to the side, still smiling. “Sister, you’re not his friend, are you?”

Manna froze.

“Let me guess… you wouldn’t happen to be the woman he met at that club, would you?”

The curve of Lu Cang’s lips was as artificial as a smile seen through a pane of glass, his dark eyes like lightless, dried-up wells.

The perfume she wore was the same scent he had once smelled on Feng Hechi.

A flame of jealousy seemed to ignite in his chest, spreading upward with each breath until it coated his words with a scorching, sharp edge.

“If you two wanted to do something, why not just do it at the club? Why bother coming all the way to my house?”

Manna stared at him, stunned.

The boy before her had an innocent face, and even with his gloomy expression, he was still just a high school student.

“My family doesn’t want women like you in our home.”

His smile remained fixed, but his words were like sharp blades, piercing straight into her heart and tearing through flesh until it dripped with bl00d.

Women like you.

The boy’s lips parted slightly as he spat out the cruel words. Beneath his fringe, his eyes flashed with a sinister light.

Manna stumbled backward, taking another step until she nearly lost her balance.

She hadn’t particularly cared about her job.

It was just a way to make money.

This casual attitude allowed her to thrive at the club, where she moved with ease and even had the ear of the owner.

Then, on an ordinary day, she met him.

This man’s appearance was strikingly different from the club’s usual clientele. His features were sharp, with slightly upturned phoenix eyes. When his pale, thin lips pressed together, the deep affection in his gaze was so intense it felt impossible to escape.

He arrived at the club and specifically requested the most beautiful woman to drink with him. Though simply dressed, he tossed a thick wad of cash onto the table.

The manager, convinced he was a wealthy man in disguise, eagerly sent Manna to his private room.

But the man waved her away, explaining he was only there to gamble and drink.

Manna froze, her breath catching as she met his narrow, piercing gaze.

After that, every time he visited the club, he requested her company. Yet they mostly just drank and gambled, his words growing increasingly intimate.

She thought this man was probably the type who lived only for pleasure.

Later, he visited less often and visibly grew more financially strained, eventually racking up massive gambling debts.

It was then she learned he had been spending the compensation money from his deceased girlfriend. His girlfriend had died from overwork, driven by his constant partying, drinking, and idleness.

What a bastard, she thought.

That day, she stared at the sky, smoking for a long time, finally stubbing out the cigarette on the back of her hand.

Yet she still liked him.

She couldn’t explain what she liked about him.

But liking someone was never something easily explained.

From then on, she avoided mentioning her identity or work around him, simply staying by his side as an ordinary, unremarkable companion.

But his adopted son, with a faint smile, mercilessly shattered this illusion, like a child’s hand popping a colorful soap bubble.

Juice splattered.

Yet she couldn’t blame the boy.

He was speaking the truth, wasn’t he?

She was just a little sad.

The living room fell into a deathly silence.

From his position, Feng Hechi couldn’t see Manna’s expression, but after Lu Cang’s words, she seemed frozen in place, utterly still.

Lu Cang had already shifted his gaze from her face, looking intently at Feng Hechi from across the room. His expression was blank, his eyes dark and inscrutable, as if waiting for Feng Hechi’s reaction.

Feng Hechi frowned, then rose and walked over to Manna.

Stopping beside her, he lowered his head slightly to study her face, his expression freezing.

Her usually radiant face was now streaked with tears, the carefully applied foundation smeared into a mess.

She pressed her lips tightly together, stubbornly refusing to make a sound, as if clinging to her last shred of dignity.

“Manna?”

Feng Hechi instinctively reached out, then hesitated, realizing something. He grabbed two tissues from the coffee table and offered them to her.

Manna sniffled, lowered her eyes, and accepted the tissues without wiping her face. Instead, she turned to pick up her purse from the sofa and murmured, “I’ll head back now.”

Without waiting for Feng Hechi’s reply, she turned decisively and strode toward the door. The door creaked open and slammed shut, leaving only Feng Hechi and Lu Cang in the room.

Lu Cang didn’t turn around. Expressionless, he lifted his gaze to meet Feng Hechi’s. As their eyes locked, he spoke softly:

“You care about her a lot, don’t you?”

Feng Hechi remained silent, his eyes narrowing slightly as he stared intently into Lu Cang’s. The strands of hair framing his forehead parted with the upward tilt of his head, fully exposing his eyes.

Lu Cang possessed beautiful peach-blossom eyes, their corners faintly tinged with pink, as if brushed with rouge. His long, thick lashes cast fan-shaped shadows on his lower eyelids.

Yet his pupils were as black as ink, calm as still water, yet seeming poised to erupt into a raging storm at any moment.

As he spoke, his expression remained unchanged, his eyes meeting Feng Hechi’s without hesitation.

It was as if he sought something from him—perhaps a simple answer, or something more.

Feng Hechi’s gaze turned colder inch by inch as he stared at the youth before him. Suddenly, he reached out and gripped Lu Cang’s cheeks tightly.

His knuckles dug deep into the soft flesh, the heels of his palms pressing down with immense force on Lu Cang’s jaw muscles, forcing his teeth apart and his lips to part slightly.

Pain.

That was the first thought that surged through Lu Cang’s mind.

The masseter muscle on Lu Cang’s cheek ached and throbbed under Feng Hechi’s forceful pressure. His mouth, unable to close, involuntarily secreted saliva.

It felt as though Feng Hechi had complete control over him with just one hand.

Despite this, Lu Cang refused to look away, his gaze fixed steadily on the man’s eyes.

Feng Hechi’s face remained expressionless, his eyes beneath raven-feather lashes as dark and turbulent as a storm-tossed sea at night.

After a moment, Feng Hechi spoke.

“Manna is my invited guest.”

He didn’t answer Lu Cang’s question, merely stared coldly at him. Lu Cang paused, momentarily taken aback.

“Who gave you the audacity to speak to my guest like that?”

“You ill-mannered wretch.”

The frigid rebuke pierced Lu Cang’s ears without mercy, a faint flicker of anger simmering in Feng Hechi’s eyes.

Lu Cang’s eyes flickered, some emotion stirring deep within his pupils, yet obscured as if behind a veil of mist.

“It seems I’ve been too lenient with you.”

Feng Hechi’s voice dropped several degrees, icy as frost, his gaze chilling.

He suddenly released Lu Cang’s cheek.

Lu Cang, having just broken free from the suffocating sensation of being restrained, barely had time to react when a cold voice rang in his ear.

“Kneel.”

Two simple words.

The tone was commanding, lofty and condescending, the final syllable dropping with a weight of authority unlike anything he had ever experienced before.

Lu Cang’s shoulders stiffened. He suddenly realized Feng Hechi was angry.

This was unprecedented.

Compared to the overwhelming pressure he felt now, Feng Hechi’s previous actions had seemed like effortless teasing.

He could feel the man’s gaze, cold as a blade tempered in ice, piercing his flesh like a dagger.

Lu Cang lowered his eyes, avoiding eye contact, and slowly bent his knees. His hard kneecaps struck the floor with a muffled thud, neither too loud nor too soft.

His back remained ramrod straight, his hands hanging at his sides, his bony fingers showing no trace of trembling.

Lu Cang lowered his head, staring at the man’s shoes. His voice, steady and calm, broke the silence.

“I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

The shoe tips, mere inches away, pivoted toward the bedroom, accompanied by a coldly dismissive remark.

“Two hours. If you’re even a second short, I’ll add another hour.”

The bedroom door clicked shut, and silence returned.

The living room lights remained on, but Lu Cang sat with his back to the light, his face completely shrouded in darkness.

His spine remained ramrod straight, his entire body acting as a barrier, blocking the light from reaching behind him. In the darkness, the corners of his lips suddenly curved upward into a smile.

The smile widened, and a faint chuckle escaped his lips.

Feng Hechi was angry—because of him.

Not the usual anger hidden behind a thick fog, but genuine fury burning in his eyes.

And this anger was because of him.

His actions had actually stirred the man’s emotions, shattering his usual calm and composure.

He had clearly seen the indifference in Feng Hechi’s eyes when he asked if he cared about that woman.

He didn’t know what relationship Feng Hechi had with her—perhaps she really was just a friend, as she claimed.

But it was obvious that Feng Hechi didn’t care about her, wouldn’t experience any emotional turmoil because of her.

Yet he had succeeded.

The Feng Hechi of the past had always been imperious, his eyes devoid of any genuine emotion.

He seemed to treat Lu Cang, and everyone else, as mere tools to achieve his goals, showing no regard for them as individuals.

But today, Lu Cang had finally shattered that veneer of detached calm.

Both the depths of Feng Hechi’s eyes and the upturned corners of his gaze were now stained with simmering anger.

Even the memory of that cold, commanding tone sent a faint tremor through Lu Cang’s fingertips.

Now, he could be certain.

The Feng Hechi before him was not that repulsive, disgusting man.

They were fundamentally different.

That man had been a festering maggot, moldy refuse, a loathsome creature festering at the bottom of society.

He would never have possessed the innate authority that made Lu Cang instinctively obey with a mere glance from the current Feng Hechi.

That kind of power was born from privilege, cultivated over years through wealth and lineage.

The man Lu Cang had despised and resented had finally vanished.

The current Feng Hechi had replaced him.

Despite the lack of concrete evidence, despite the possibility that it was all just his imagination, Lu Cang stubbornly, resolutely clung to this belief.

Even now, Feng Hechi still regarded him with a detached, calm gaze, as if unwilling to waste another moment on him.

Yet, during the chilly autumn, when the cold seeped into his bones, Feng Hechi had plunged into the icy river to pull him out.

He had stopped Lu Cang’s suicide, paying the price with a deep, indelible scar etched across his palm.

A maelstrom of conflicting emotions flooded Lu Cang’s heart, his throat tightening as if gripped by an invisible hand, making it hard to breathe.

Lu Cang felt he should hate Feng Hechi—hate his condescending gaze, his indifferent tone of command, and the casual way his eyes brushed over him.

Yet he craved it all.

Craved the fleeting warmth of Feng Hechi’s palm against his skin in the bone-chilling river.

Craved the firm grip on his wrist in the darkness.

Craved the sight of those eyes, blazing with anger, yet filled solely with his reflection.

It was years after his mother’s death, amidst the endless darkness and days spent being trampled like trash in a corner, that Lu Cang had once again felt, with stark clarity, that he was still alive.

Lu Cang’s right hand, hanging at his side, began to tremble slightly. The excitement surged through his peripheral nerves, and for a moment, he couldn’t control the tremor.

He reached out with his left hand, bent his arm, and gripped his right hand tightly, trying to still it.

But the trembling spread rapidly through his body like a contagious disease, causing his entire frame to shake violently.

A long, dull ache, as dense and persistent as clotted bl00d, filled his heart. The turmoil of emotions was too complex and intense for Lu Cang to decipher.

He didn’t know why this was happening, nor what that man meant to his clogged, aching heart.

But he knew what he wanted.

He wanted to see more emotion in those indifferent eyes.

He wanted those eyes to look at him, just a little longer.

He wanted to receive something from that man again—even if it was just a tiny bit of warmth, dismissed as charity.

The kind of warmth that lingered only in the hazy memories of his childhood.

The kind of warmth that would remind him that his life—abandoned, discarded, and treated like worthless trash—still existed.

In the darkness, the half-hidden face revealed eyes that burned with a terrifying intensity.

Eerily ghostlike, they shimmered with a sickly light.