After Falling for the Handsome CEO - Chapter 34

Chapter 34: Laughing Until the Tears Came

A night of indulgence had left him with a heart-piercing agony; his body felt as if it had been dismantled, with not a single inch left unscathed.

Shen Jin didn’t know when Yan Yu had left. He only felt an overwhelming exhaustion, the pain surging in waves, each more intense than the last. He wanted to cry, but no sound would come.

In his stupor, he drifted into a strange dream. It was a blurred vision where the faces of others were obscured, as if covered by blank sheets of paper…

In the dream, a woman held his small, childhood self in her arms. Her lips curled into a gentle arc as she pinched his cheek, whispering softly, “Jin-er, when will you finally grow up?”

Then, a man approached and stood beside her. His face was equally indistinct, but his laughter was clear. He leaned in to kiss the woman’s cheek: “Look at you, the child is still so small.”

The woman laughed too, her voice incredibly tender. She held the child close for a moment before gently placing him in a cradle. She rocked it softly, teasing him with a toy, and said with a smile, “When Jin-er can walk, let’s take him to Atle City. He would love it there.”

“Alright, we’ll go together once he can walk.” The man smiled, stroking the woman’s hair, then reached down to tuck the blanket around the child in the cradle. “The weather is turning cold; be careful not to let the child freeze.”

The child in the cradle was too young to understand anything. He simply stared at the two adults with wide eyes, biting his finger and laughing foolishly—innocent, romantic, and without a care in the world.

The dream was so warm and beautiful that Shen Jin never wanted to wake up. But eventually, the searing ache throughout his body jolted him back to reality. Shivering in the cold draft, he found wet tear tracks still clinging to the corners of his eyes…

“Ugh…” Shen Jin furrowed his brow, his vision unfocused. The moment he tried to move, a tearing pain shot through him, pinning him in place. He whispered to himself, “It hurts so much…”

He looked down at his naked body. It was covered in purple bruises and angry red swelling—stark evidence of how brutal the man had been the night before.

Aside from the wreckage on the bed, the room was empty. The man who had ravaged him was long gone.

He had been left lying naked on the bed until dawn. Before leaving, the man hadn’t even bothered to pull a blanket over him.

Shen Jin tried to get up, but he had underestimated the extent of the man’s violence. He instantly collapsed back onto the bed, his legs weak and his waist aching too much to exert any force. The pain behind him was a searing, burning sting…

He didn’t even know if he was bleeding.

After several failed attempts to crawl out of bed, Shen Jin gave up. He lay there like a corpse, staring vacantly at the ceiling. Suddenly, he began to laugh—and as he laughed, the tears began to fall…

“I have a fever…” Shen Jin touched his forehead. The skin was frighteningly hot. His head was a mess, and his consciousness began to blur. He had only just woken up, yet he was so exhausted he wanted to slip back into sleep.

He knew that illness only got worse if ignored. He slowly dragged himself up, using the wall for support. Step by trembling step, he fumbled his way to a nearby cabinet and took some backup medicine.

Then, like an elderly man, he shuffled back to the bed, leaning heavily on the wall. He collapsed onto the mattress and buried his face in the soft pillow, his tears flowing uncontrollably as he let out one low, broken sob after another…