Just as the first faint light of dawn appeared on the horizon, the owner of the Er Ye Motel was dragged out of bed to settle the bill.
“Room fee: eighty.” The owner, a man in his sixties, gave Xue Bao Tian a sidelong glance. “Three boxes of condoms. Strawberry-flavored, twenty-five. Spiral-ribbed…”
“No need to itemize it!” Xue Bao Tian cut him off through gritted teeth. “Just give me the total.”
The owner spent a while adding and subtracting figures in his little notebook. “One sixty-five. Just give me one sixty.”
Xue Bao Tian pulled out five hundred yuan in cash and tossed it over, raising his brows. “Old man, can you clean this place up? It’s eighty a night. I’m paying forty to stay here, and the flies, mosquitoes, and cockroaches are paying the other forty. I’m fucking here to sleep, not watch a low-budget version of Animal World.”
The owner put on his glasses, held the bills up to the light, and inspected them leisurely. “You still had time to watch Animal World?”
“I…” Xue Bao Tian pulled his clothes together, looking suspiciously red in the face. “Those… condoms weren’t used. My… buddy just opened them to have a look.”
The owner stuffed the five hundred yuan into the drawer and obligingly played along. “My rooms are soundproof. Couldn’t hear a thing.”
“Fuck.”
Xue Bao Tian kicked the door open and saw Zhang Chi waiting by the roadside.
With both hands in his pockets, he swaggered over and sneered, “You gays sleep with someone and don’t even pay for the room?”
Zhang Chi had given all his money to Brother Blade yesterday, and now his pockets were cleaner than his face. Xue Bao Tian thought he ought to feel ashamed, but Zhang Chi said openly and without the slightest embarrassment, “This time, I owe you a favor.”
“How are you planning to repay it?” Xue Bao Tian cut him a sidelong look. “Next time I feel like mourning, how about you die once for me? Fuck, these days any useless idiot thinks he can owe someone a favor.”
He pulled out a cigarette and tossed it between his lips. “Zhang Chi, we agreed yesterday—just once. But you opened three boxes of condoms and used one from each. So while I was watching Animal World, you were watching the science channel, huh?” He lit the cigarette, took a deep drag, and blew the smoke into Zhang Chi’s face. “Tell me. How are we settling those extra two times?”
Zhang Chi waved away the smoke and replied calmly, “Two Hundred, you can’t trust what a man says in bed.”
The words were painfully familiar. Xue Bao Tian himself had often used the same excuse on women after pulling his pants back on and walking away. Now that it had been thrown back at him, he felt a faint, guilty sense of karmic retribution.
“You motherfucker.” Xue Bao Tian laughed from sheer anger. “Fine, Zhang Chi. I admit defeat. Get the hell out of here. Take your strawberry-flavored, spiral-ribbed condoms and get as far away from me as possible. Never let me see you again. That’ll be the biggest favor you can do me!”
A newly affiliated pharmacy under Ruixiang Pharmaceuticals was opening. It happened to fall on the sixth day of the sixth month, an auspicious day for wealth and business, so every major and minor shareholder in the company attended for good luck. The celebration was lavish, with drums and gongs loud enough to make one’s head throb.
Xue Bao Tian had not slept well the night before and had been put through the wringer besides. Now his waist ached, his legs were weak, and every step felt as though he were walking on cotton.
He lingered at the edge of the crowd, leaning against a wall and smoking as he watched his brother-in-law dart around making sure everyone noticed him.
“Is that the head of Ruixiang who traded one kidney for hundreds of millions?”
Xue Bao Tian’s narrow eyes shifted toward a few onlookers whispering nearby.
His family’s sordid affairs had been discussed all over Yancheng for ten years. A few more idle remarks made no difference. Xue Bao Tian exhaled a plume of smoke and ignored them.
“I heard Ruixiang’s current chairman is actually the former chairwoman’s illegitimate son. Because of his status, she couldn’t acknowledge him. Later, she got sick and needed a kidney transplant, and his was the only match. That’s how she finally brought him into the family, and in the end he inherited such a huge business.”
Another person shook his head in disagreement. “That’s not what I heard. I heard Ruixiang’s current chairman was actually the former chairwoman’s lover…”
Before the man could finish, a voice beside him cut in. “Ruixiang Pharmaceuticals’ current chairman, Xue Kun, is a distant relative of the former chairwoman. Distant relative, understand? When Xue Kun was forty, he proved to be a match and saved her life. The former chairwoman had no children. She lived another three years, then handed Ruixiang over to Xue Kun before she died. He isn’t her illegitimate son, and he sure as fuck wasn’t her lover. Got it?!”
“I mean, that version of the rumor does exist, but it just doesn’t sound very believable.” The group suddenly realized something was off. “Wait—we’re just chatting. Why are you swearing at us?”
“Fuck!” Xue Bao Tian viciously flung away his cigarette. “Swearing? I fucking want to hit someone!”
Xue Bao Tian still remembered the year a crowd of well-dressed elites nearly wore down the threshold of his family home. His father had not even understood what was happening before suddenly being crowned chairman of Ruixiang Pharmaceuticals.
A dirt-poor country bumpkin who had once scraped out a living in a small town moved into a villa overnight and stepped into a position where everyone watched him. The kidney he had donated went into the grave with his distant relative; the one he kept, meanwhile, was wrapped in fine clothes and showered with rewards far beyond its worth.
At sixteen or seventeen, Xue Bao Tian had suddenly become rich along with his father. Dazzled by the glittering world around him, he ran wild for several years. It was not until his MIT-graduate brother-in-law joined the family that he finally felt a sense of crisis, reined himself in somewhat, and began putting his mind toward legitimate business.
Ribbon-cutting, firecrackers, red silk falling—the ceremony was complete.
After finally enduring the celebration to the end, Xue Bao Tian followed the crowd out with a cigarette between his teeth, his mood foul. The parking lot was nearby, row upon row of luxury cars parked neatly together. Only one white sports car stood out: a forklift had hoisted it high into the air by the chassis, and all four wheels had been removed.
“Xue Bao Tian!” Xue Kun, surrounded by a crowd, angrily called his son’s name. “Get over here!”
The onlookers, their expressions subtle, instinctively opened a path and watched the gloomy-faced young man walk out from behind the crowd.
“What is this?” Xue Kun pointed at the sports car. “What kind of spectacle are you making of yourself now?”
Xue Bao Tian exhaled smoke and lifted his drooping eyelids. After giving his car a vicious glance, he replied lazily, “Moving up in the world. Dad, look how high it’s risen.”
Xue Kun was furious, but with so many people watching, he could only storm away. Xue Bao Tian’s brother-in-law, Wei Hua, came over instead, putting on a show of concern. “Bao Tian, if you need help, just tell your brother-in-law. We’re family. No need to be polite.”
Xue Bao Tian smiled. “Actually, there is something I need your help with. Monica’s been copying the way you talk lately. Even if she is a dog, she shouldn’t sound quite that doglike, right? Brother-in-law, maybe you should talk less at home so she doesn’t keep imitating you.”
Wei Hua’s expression changed instantly. His jaw clenched as he said angrily, “Xue Bao Tian, that sharp mouth is the only thing you’re good at.”
Xue Bao Tian slipped an arm around Wei Hua, smiling as he lowered his voice. “Brother-in-law, everyone’s watching. President Xue, whom you respect so much, is watching too. I may be his useless son, but even he hasn’t scolded me yet, so it isn’t your turn, is it? You should smile now. Otherwise, how are you going to keep up appearances in front of everyone?”
Wei Hua forced an ugly smile onto his stiff face. His voice dropped just as low, audible only to the two of them. “Xue Bao Tian, if your surname weren’t Xue, you’d be nothing but a fart.”
Xue Bao Tian gave his shoulder an affectionate pat and went straight for the heart. “If you didn’t rely on a woman, you wouldn’t even be worth a fart.”
The sports car remained suspended in midair by the forklift, casting a rectangular shadow over the ground.
Xue Bao Tian sat inside that shadow, a few bills pinched between his fingers as he traded them to a child for a lollipop.
He peeled off the wrapper and put the candy in his mouth. Glancing at the assistant crouched beside him, he drawled, “Go on. Who did it?”
“I checked the surveillance footage and the forklift company and found the driver. He said the person who hired him didn’t leave a phone number and paid in cash, but the guy was tall and had a mole at the tail of his eyebrow. I thought about it, and he sounds like the secretary who’s always with Huang Zheng.”
“Huang Zheng?” Xue Bao Tian puffed out one cheek around the lollipop as he thought. “The one whose family owns the hotpot chain? I paid when I booked his restaurant. Why the hell would he mess with me?”
The assistant avoided his gaze and muttered, “You booked his restaurant, invited his ex-girlfriend to dinner, and ordered a whole table of bright-green vegetables. Anyone would lose it.”
Elio’s Notes: In Chinese slang, “wearing a green hat” means being cuckolded, so the table full of green vegetables adds another layer to Xue Bao Tian’s deliberate provocation.
Xue Bao Tian sucked on the lollipop and lifted his eyelids. “Who told him to act like such a big shot in front of me?”
“Vice President Xue, what do we do now?”
“Now?” Xue Bao Tian gave a sinister smile. “We’re eating hotpot tonight. Find me a few small animals that have no business being in a hotpot.”
He bent forward and stepped out of the shadow, looked up at his sports car with all four wheels missing, and added, “Forget the small animals. Get something bigger.”
Xue Bao Tian found himself surrounded inside the hotpot restaurant, with Huang Zheng and several chefs blocking him in.
The restaurant had already been cleared out. The broth boiled furiously in the hotpot, churning up things disgusting enough to turn the stomach.
“What, your hotpot has filthy crap in it and customers aren’t allowed to complain?” Xue Bao Tian sat with one leg crossed over the other, tapping the tabletop rhythmically with a finger. “President Huang, Wangchuan is supposed to rank first among Yancheng’s ten best hotpot restaurants. With hygiene this appalling, how are you going to live up to that sterling reputation?”
Xue Bao Tian had calculated that Huang Zheng would never dare let a private grudge affect the restaurant’s business. Huang Zheng ranked fourth among his siblings and was not favored at home; he had to keep his head down and tread carefully just to get his share. Now that diners had been frightened away by the things in the pot, Xue Bao Tian was certain Huang Zheng was only putting on a fierce front—like a balloon that would burst at the slightest prick.
He waited for Huang Zheng to back down, waited for this useless idiot to lose face and come begging for peace.
But Huang Zheng gave someone a signal and had the curtains facing the street lowered. Xue Bao Tian frowned. This was not quite what he had expected.
“Take Young Master Xue’s phone,” Huang Zheng ordered the chefs.
Xue Bao Tian’s body tensed. “What do you mean?”
Huang Zheng was unusually forceful tonight. “What do I mean? I’m teaching you how to behave!”
The chefs were all tall and burly. In a few quick moves, they snatched Xue Bao Tian’s phone away. Huang Zheng spun it once between his fingers, then held it over the boiling hotpot. “Didn’t Young Master Xue want to contact the health department?” He loosened two fingers, and the phone dropped straight into the roiling broth. “Take it out, and then you can call.”
“You motherfucker!” Xue Bao Tian kicked Huang Zheng squarely. “When I was playing games like this, your three older brothers were still taking turns kicking your ass!”
Clutching his chest in fury, Huang Zheng turned to the chefs. “Are the surveillance cameras off?”
“They’re off.”
“Then what the hell are you waiting for? Beat him!”
At the order, the chefs swarmed forward. Outnumbered, Xue Bao Tian took several punches in quick succession. Just as the struggle grew fierce, the restaurant door suddenly opened and several men filed inside.
The grappling in the room seemed to freeze. Huang Zheng stared, then demanded through gritted teeth, “Didn’t you fucking lock the door?”
The man beside him ducked his head. “We put up a ‘Closed Today’ sign.”
Huang Zheng cursed under his breath, then forced a smile at the newcomers. “Sorry. We’re not open today.”
Taking advantage of the interruption, Xue Bao Tian tried to escape, but the chefs held him so tightly he could not move. He shouted at the top of his lungs, trying to get the newcomers to call the police for him.
The newcomers raised their brows and smiled without a word. They strolled in calmly, then strolled right back out again, looking as though they could not care less whether he lived or died.
Only one man stepped outside, then backed through the door again and called out, “Two Hundred, want me to repay that favor?”