Living Only For Myself: Make Those Who Hate Me Regret It-Chapter 186: So, Was I Wrong to Stand Up for You?
He looked at Shen Chen, who was standing off to the side, and pointed to the door. "Ah Chen, go tell them to get a female doctor."
Shen Chen raised an eyebrow. He glanced at Xu Su’s clothes and instantly understood what Zhou Mochen was thinking. He actually went out to get someone.
Xu Su was speechless. "...Zhou Mochen, you’re being ridiculous."
"Be good, it’ll be over in a moment." He coaxed her in a soft voice, placing light kisses on the crown of her head.
Soon, a female doctor who looked to be in her forties came in. When Zhou Mochen saw Shen Chen follow her inside, he lifted his chin. "You wait outside too."
"....." Shen Chen stopped in his tracks. After a moment, he gritted his teeth and forced a smile. "Fine."
It wasn’t just Shen Chen; even Xu Su was stunned into silence by his actions. Zhou Mochen’s possessiveness truly ran bone-deep.
The female doctor was very gentle, but no matter how delicate her touch, the wounds had to be thoroughly cleaned before any ointment could be applied.
As the doctor wiped the three scratches one by one with a cotton swab soaked in saline, Xu Su was in agony, trembling uncontrollably.
Zhou Mochen pulled her halfway into his arms, his heart clenching as if being twisted by a knife. He finally understood what it meant to wish you could bear someone else’s pain.
By the time her wounds were cleaned, treated, and bandaged, Xu Su was covered in a cold sweat from the pain, completely drained of strength.
Zhou Mochen swept her into his arms and carried her towards the hospital entrance. As he passed Shen Chen, he shot him a look. "Get the car."
In the back seat of the Land Rover, Zhou Mochen held the young woman on his lap, cupping her face to look at her red, swollen eyes.
Xu Su felt a little self-conscious under his gaze and turned her head away. "Don’t look. I’m ugly when I cry."
"You’re not ugly. My Susu is always beautiful." He kissed her eyes, suppressing the fury that filled his chest as he coaxed her gently, "Good girl, tell me how you got hurt."
Only Zhou Mochen knew the extent of his panic when his girl had been sobbing too hard to speak on the phone earlier.
His hands had been shaking the entire drive to the hospital. If Shen Chen hadn’t offered a quick explanation over the phone, he might have lost his mind right then and there.
Xu Su hesitated, unsure of what to say. Shen Chen, who was playing chauffeur up front, spoke first.
"How else? She got beaten up," he tutted, casually explaining on Xu Su’s behalf. "Don’t worry, the guy’s still laid up in the hospital. Broke at least four ribs. I was there, you know. I couldn’t just let Xu get hurt for nothing, could I?"
Xu Su nodded. "He’s right. That Little Huang Mao is hurt way worse than I am."
"Hah..." Zhou Mochen let out a cold, angry laugh. "Little Huang Mao? Who the hell does he think he is? How can you even compare him to you?"
He looked up toward the driver’s seat. "Ah Chen, tell me everything, from start to finish."
"It’s not that complicated. Some punk, Little Huang Mao, was disrespectful to Xu. The girl here blew her top and threw a drink on him, and the guy started swinging." Shen Chen summed it up in a few sentences as he drove.
"So you didn’t protect her? You just let her get hurt right in front of you?" Zhou Mochen’s voice was laced with ice.
’He’s taking his anger out on him...’
Realizing this, Xu Su couldn’t help but defend Shen Chen. "He did protect me! Shen Chen’s arm got a huge bruise where a chair leg hit him, and he might have other injuries too. Zhou Mochen, if he hadn’t been there, I could have been hurt much worse." 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚
’Shen Chen had already done a great job. Aside from that first moment when he couldn’t react in time, he’d stepped up to defend her afterward.’
Her words silenced both men in the car.
Shen Chen hadn’t expected her to notice his injury. He couldn’t quite put a name to the feeling in his heart, but the corners of his lips couldn’t help but curl up slightly. "It’s still my fault. I should have started swinging the moment those guys started spouting their filth."
’Ever since she got hurt, Shen Chen had been blaming himself for being so dense. Why did he have to wait until she couldn’t take it anymore and acted on her own before he dared to step in?’
"Filth..." Zhou Mochen repeated Shen Chen’s word, his expression unreadable. He now had a general idea of what had happened. He tightened his embrace on the young woman in his arms and said to the front, "Ah Chen, I want a list of everyone involved, who said what, and a full report on their family and social backgrounds. Send it to me tomorrow."
"No need. I threw the first punch, so there’s no reason for someone else to clean up the mess. I’ll handle it," Shen Chen said, his tone still calm and unhurried as he flicked on the turn signal and drove into the underground garage. "Don’t worry. I’ll make sure every last one of them pays."
Xu Su: "....Why are you two acting like gangsters? Can’t you just talk like normal people?"
Now that her wound was bandaged and no longer exposed to the air, it wasn’t constantly pulling and hurting, so Xu Su’s mood had improved considerably.
She refused to let Zhou Mochen keep carrying her and quickly hopped out of the car on her own. "They were really just running their mouths. Little Huang Mao learned his lesson—he has several broken ribs, after all. There’s no need to make such a big deal out of it."
Shen Chen heard her magnanimous remark the moment he stepped out of the car and laughed in exasperation. "Fine. So I was just being meddlesome, is that it? Xu Su, you’d better remember this: when a man makes crude jokes, he’s testing your boundaries. If you don’t get angry, if you just swallow it, believe me, those ’harmless words’ will turn into ’harmless actions’ sooner or later."
"....." Xu Su fell silent. She thought back to that first table of sleazy, middle-aged men. After she’d finished her drink, hadn’t they tried to get her contact information? Even telling them she was still a student hadn’t deterred their malicious intentions.
At this thought, she gave Shen Chen a complicated look. "You seem to understand what those kinds of guys are thinking really well..."
’Men understand other men, especially an old hand with women like Shen Chen. He’s probably run his mouth in front of his fair share of beautiful women; how else would he be so knowledgeable?’
Xu Su thought she had it all figured out, but how could Shen Chen miss her unspoken implication? He slammed the car door shut with a deafening BANG, shot her a furious, teeth-grinding glare, and stalked off.
"....." ’Is he really angry?’
An arm wrapped around her shoulders. Zhou Mochen gave her a gentle squeeze and soothed, "Don’t mind his foul temper. But Ah Chen is right, this isn’t over. Don’t you worry about any of it. Just act like you don’t know a thing."
"Promise me you won’t get into a physical fight on your own again, no matter how angry you are."
The thought of her injuries still made Zhou Mochen’s heart seize with fear. He kept his arm around her as they walked, his tone gentle but firm. "Protect yourself. Don’t make me worry. If someone wrongs you, I can make them pay it back. But if you get hurt... even if I destroy them, the damage is already done."
At the elevator bank, Shen Chen was waiting for them. He looked up when he heard Zhou Mochen’s words.
Having been lectured by both of them in turn, Xu Su felt a little indignant. "But some things are just impossible to tolerate."
She looked at Shen Chen. "You tell me, how is anyone supposed to tolerate words like that?"
"They are infuriating," Shen Chen agreed, nodding for once. "So, was I wrong to stick up for you?"
