In the winter of a northern city, there was almost no transition between day and night. It was like being slapped hard across the face by an invisible hand—your vision blacking out, and then suddenly it was night.
On the most remote commercial street in the new district, only a handful of shops were still lit. Sitting in his car, Zhou Ruo An yawned, took out his phone, tapped on the profile picture of a flirtatious-looking woman, and sent two words: “Hurry up.”
Before long, the door of a bar was pushed open from the inside. A man and a woman came out clinging to each other. Four entwined legs were far less steady than two, and the pair almost slipped on the thin layer of snow coating the steps.
“Brother, I rushed out just to see you—I think I forgot to turn off the faucet at home.” Wrapped in fur and stockings, the woman looked, from a distance, like an ostrich. In a sweet, coy voice, she gave the middle-aged man a light shove. “You’d better take me home first, or my place is going to flood like Jinshan Temple.”
“Take you home?” The man’s eyes lit up as he glanced at her stockings. “Let’s go, let’s go. Hurry back and turn it off. If the place downstairs gets flooded too, your losses will be huge.”
He took out his phone to call a designated driver, but the woman stopped him. “Brother, this place is so remote. By the time you get a driver, my house will already have turned into the Water Curtain Cave.”
Elio’s Notes: “Flood like Jinshan Temple” alludes to the Legend of the White Snake, while the “Water Curtain Cave” is from Journey to the West. Both are exaggerated, joking ways of saying her apartment will be flooded.
She leaned against him. “It’s only about a ten-minute drive from here to my place. You didn’t drink that much, so it’ll be fine. Besides, there are barely any cars around here at night—you won’t run into traffic police.”
The woman swayed against him until his whole body went soft. “It’s close?”
“Very close.”
He pinched her cheek. “Get in the car.”
The red taillights gradually slid off into the distance, while a family sedan hidden in the shadows of the buildings slowly pulled out behind them. A few minutes later, the shriek of metal scraping against metal tore through the night like a wound. The family sedan slammed on the brakes, forcing the luxury car to a stop.
A coin spun once across the tips of slender fingers before dropping neatly back into a palm. The car door opened, and Zhou Ruo An got out. He walked to the rear of the other car and ran his fingers over the scratched high-end paint. The long scar stretched from front to back, rough enough to sting his fingertips. Pressing a finger to the end of the scratch, he bent down slightly and looked into the car.
“Drunk driving harms others and yourself.”
Ten minutes later, Zhou Ruo An’s account had received an extra forty thousand yuan. He straightened his clothes, got back into his own car, turned the heater to maximum, and pressed his face against the vent until his skin warmed up before sitting upright again. Then he transferred twenty thousand to the flirtatious account he had messaged earlier.
Exiting the interface, Zhou Ruo An opened his contacts and dialed the top number. With the phone pinned between his shoulder and ear, he started the car and drove off. After four or five long rings, a low, heavy panting finally reached his ears.
“Hello.” The voice on the other end was hoarse and rough, the hurried breaths brushing the receiver and sending a faint tingling through his eardrum.
Switching the phone to his other ear, Zhou Ruo An said, “Was this one really that hard to crack? You even had to do it yourself?”
“Mm.”
There was the sound of a wooden stick hitting the ground, followed by a piercing scream that made Zhou Ruo An’s scalp tingle.
He clicked his tongue and pulled the phone slightly away. “What are you doing?”
After a burst of rustling, he heard the flick of a lighter, followed by a low, vicious voice still edged with violence. “Crushing his fingers.”
“He’s screaming pretty miserably.” The car turned right and entered a high-end residential complex. “When are you done over there? I’m hungry.”
The cries on the other end rose another notch. Zhou Ruo An heard the man say, “My friend’s hungry, so I’m not wasting time talking to you. You can’t pay back Boss Li’s debt, right? Then I’ll help you think of a way. Strip you naked, drug you, lock you in a cage, and let dogs have at you. One round gets you ten grand or so. Thirty or fifty rounds, and your debt will be paid off.”
Zhou Ruo An cursed with a laugh. “Lin Yi, you’re fucking sick.”
The car slowed and stopped beside a familiar luxury sedan. Glancing at the fresh scratch on it, Zhou Ruo An said into the phone, “I’ll wait for you at the usual place. Wash up before you come. You smell like a butcher.”
When Lin Yi pushed open the door of the barbecue restaurant, he immediately spotted Zhou Ruo An from across the room, sitting at their usual table and idly chatting up two girls at the next one. He glanced over once, then turned into the restroom and splashed cold water over his head and face before coming back, water droplets still clinging to him.
Zhou Ruo An shot him a sidelong glance and handed him a few tissues, his attention still on the girls. The coin flipped back and forth between his fingers, drawing a burst of giggles from them.
After wiping his face, Lin Yi sat down beside him, grabbed a bottle of beer, hooked the cap against the edge of the wooden table, and popped it open. Foam surged out. He tipped the bottle up and drank deeply, his Adam’s apple sliding as the girls stole glances at him.
Setting the bottle down, Lin Yi flipped the skewers on the charcoal grill. “Just beat the guy half to death, and he only coughed up two hundred thousand. Principal plus interest, and he still owes more than three hundred thousand.”
Zhou Ruo An lifted a brow and, sure enough, saw the girls’ expressions stiffen as they straightened in their seats.
The laughter faded, and the corner fell quiet. Zhou Ruo An flicked the coin into the air and caught it again, smiling. “Why scare them?”
Lin Yi ignored him, divided the cooked skewers into two portions, and sprinkled chili powder over one half.
“Bai Ban said you only just got here too.” He handed the non-spicy skewers to Zhou Ruo An. “Things didn’t go smoothly on your end?”
Zhou Ruo An bit into a piece of meat and chewed slowly, then pushed his empty cup toward Lin Yi. “Smooth. Got a hundred thousand.”
The stream of beer paused. Lin Yi glanced over. “That much?”
“At first, I only squeezed twenty thousand out of him.” Zhou Ruo An used a skewer to hold the bottle at an angle and continued pouring. “But since you weren’t done yet, I went and took another job.”
He raised his cup and took a drink. “When I was working this mark tonight, I noticed a vehicle pass for the International Economic and Trade Forum on his windshield, and a pink lumbar cushion in the back seat. Anyone who can attend a forum like that is either an official or a businessman. And if he’s got a pink cushion in the back seat, he’s definitely got a family. If either guess was right, I could squeeze out another sum.”
Setting down his glass, Zhou Ruo An turned toward Lin Yi, pulled up a payment QR code, and raised his phone. With his other hand, he flicked the coin forward and smiled faintly.
“Sir, this is my dashcam. It contains evidence of your drunk driving and your cheating. I brought it here especially for you.”
A faint smile surfaced in Lin Yi’s eyes. He bit a cigarette between his lips and turned the skewers again. “Let’s cut the crap. How much?”
“One hundred thousand.”
Lighting the cigarette, Lin Yi tossed the lighter onto the table. “I don’t have that much.”
“Then eighty thousand. Not a cent less. Eighty thousand to wipe out all future trouble—that’s a bargain.”
Lin Yi exhaled a plume of smoke, the bluish haze blurring the line of his profile. “You’re extorting me.”
“Two choices. Either you take the dashcam back and enjoy it yourself, or let everyone online enjoy it with you.”
“Fuck.” Lin Yi laughed, took the coin, then scanned Zhou Ruo An’s QR code. After tapping casually on his phone, he tossed it aside. “My bad luck. I’ll take the loss. But when you say all future trouble disappears, you’d better mean it.”
Almost instantly, Zhou Ruo An received the transfer. When he saw the amount, he paused in surprise. “Why’d you send me 520?”
“520?” Lin Yi glanced at it, then looked away and flicked ash from his cigarette. “I meant to send 250. Hit the wrong button.”
Elio’s Notes: “520” is Chinese internet slang because it sounds like I love you. “250” is a slang insult meaning fool or idiot. The joke is that Lin Yi claims he meant to insult him, but accidentally sent a number that sounds like a love confession.
Zhou Ruo An snatched the cigarette from his lips, took a drag, and let both his smile and his curse—“Fuck off”—dissolve into the thin smoke.
Zhou Ruo An had a poor alcohol tolerance. Two bottles of beer were enough to flush his face.
Lin Yi paid the bill, took the packed leftovers, and left the barbecue restaurant with him. The frigid night wind spared no one, slapping them head-on like a ringing blow to the face. The person walking ahead shivered, and Lin Yi pulled him back, blocking the wind for him.
The car was parked deep in an alley. The streetlight there had been broken for a long time, so they had to feel their way through the dark.
Soon afterward, the family sedan drove out of the alley and onto the main road. Before the gust of wind stirred up by the passing car had even died away, a van parked by the roadside silently followed behind.
Between the bustling district and the urban village lay a desolate stretch of road. The streetlights were dimmer there, and the snow on the ground was a good inch thicker.
Zhou Ruo An had once asked Lin Yi whether there was also a road like this between hell and heaven—broken, overgrown with weeds, yet if one struggled through it, perhaps heaven and earth could still be overturned.
What had Lin Yi said back then? Once you fell into hell, you got boiled in oil and burned by fire. Every path was a dead end. There was no road back.
Zhou Ruo An clicked his tongue, cutting off the memory. Reclining in the passenger seat, he found a comfortable position, closed his eyes, and pretended to sleep while replaying the day’s events in his mind.
Just as his thoughts were settling, a violent force struck from the side, hurling him into the window. The shriek of brakes pierced his ears.
“What happened?” Bracing himself against the car window, Zhou Ruo An sat upright and looked at the van that had stopped alongside them. “Did we scrape it?”
Before he could finish, someone got out of the van. A large face pressed itself against the driver’s-side window, the voice dripping with menace. “Been drinking, have you? Drunk driving is a criminal offense—you’ll be going to jail.”
Zhou Ruo An let out a laugh, then turned to glance at Lin Yi, who was sitting in the back seat, half-hidden in shadow. “We’re all in the same line of work. Go easy.”
In the dead of night, on that deserted road, the man’s screams sounded like a fat pig waiting to be slaughtered on the chopping block.
Lin Yi, with his cropped hair and trench coat, held a cigarette loosely between his fingers. His military-style leather boot pressed down on the man’s face. Under the glare of the headlights, there was an oddly languid elegance to him.
From inside the car, Zhou Ruo An laughed and cursed, “All he knows is how to show off.”
“My bro really is handsome.” Sitting in the driver’s seat was a boy of eighteen or nineteen, his face dotted with freckles and carrying a sharp, calculating air. “If my bro hadn’t been worried you’d get cold and told me to come warm up the car ahead of time, this guy might’ve taken advantage of the situation.”
The coin was tossed high into the air, then caught again. “Study the law, know the law, use the law. Remember it well: don’t drink and drive.”
The boy ran a hand over his buzz cut, just like Lin Yi’s. “I don’t care about any laws or not. Anyway, in this lifetime, I, Bai Ban, am sticking with Brother Lin.”
The coin slipped from Zhou Ruo An’s fingers, and he bent to pick it up, speaking casually. “You’re nineteen, and he’s twenty-two. Your ‘lifetime’ is too long—there’s no such thing as that many solemn vows.”
Before Bai Ban could argue back, Zhou Ruo An pointed at the man sprawled on the ground. “Drive over.”
The car rolled forward. The passenger-side window lowered, and Zhou Ruo An held out his payment QR code. Glancing at the battered van, he said to the man lying on the ground, “Ten thousand. My repair fee.”
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