Out in the desolate wilderness stood the abandoned No. 2 warehouse, its main doors tightly chained shut and wooden slats nailed over the windows.
Zhou Ruo An found a snowdrift outside the warehouse doors and stuck a long, slender firework into it.
Taking the cigarette from his mouth, he lit the fuse.
The single-shot firework streaked into the sky, but lacked staying power, bursting in midair with only a dull pop and a thin wash of color.
Red, yellow, orange, green—each took its turn claiming the sky for a few seconds. Thirty-five yuan for one firework; at that rate, it was more than ten yuan a second. “Shit,” Zhou Ruo An muttered, thinking that once he had money, he would build a fireworks factory.
The glowing ember of his cigarette lit the fuse of the final firework. Zhou Ruo An straightened and walked toward the warehouse doors. It wasn’t far; just as his fingers touched the icy iron chain, the firework exploded directly overhead.
The two iron doors were bound together by chains, leaving a gap less than a finger wide—enough for someone to look out through, or for the light of the fireworks to shine inside.
Zhou Ruo An cleared his throat and called out, “Brother Lin, you didn’t expect I was the one who locked you in, did you? But naturally, I had my reasons.” He looked up at the sky. “This is the last time we’ll watch fireworks together. Since it’s the last time, it can’t be dirty. If remembering it only makes you sick, you might as well forget it. So if you want to remember anything, remember this. As for that drunken mess from last time, just throw it out of your mind.”
He took out the key and weighed it in his hand. “I took care of the electronics factory situation this time, and Zhou Jing Tao gave me some money. Not much, but just enough to pay back what I owe you. I’ll transfer it to your account later, and that’ll wipe the slate clean between us. After that, you go your way and I’ll go mine. How does that sound?”
The night in the wilderness was exceptionally quiet. Zhou Ruo An could hear the faint breathing on the other side of the door, but the person inside remained silent.
A cloud of white mist escaped Zhou Ruo An’s lips, blurring half his face. For a fleeting moment, there was a trace of loneliness in his expression. “I once thought about working with you, but you’ve always treated me like a cash cow. If that’s how it is, I won’t force it.”
He gave a perfunctory curl of his lips, using mockery to cover the brief disappointment. “And Lin Yi, don’t think you’re such hot shit. Even lions doze off sometimes. Look at you now—you’ve been locked up here by me for three days.”
“It’s not easy to get at you.” Zhou Ruo An leaned closer to the iron door, as though speaking directly into someone’s ear. “But it’s not impossible either.”
“I figured it was you.” The hoarse, dry voice sounded like loose sand drifting over earth cracked by drought as it scraped through his throat and came through the door.
Zhou Ruo An frowned slightly, instinctively recalling the side effects of fasting that Ren Yu had mentioned earlier.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“At first, I thought Zhou Zhe was the one who locked me in here. But once I saw the bedsheets on the bed, I knew it was you.”
The bright, multicolored cotton bedding was noisy enough to be almost festive. Zhou Ruo An thought back for a moment and realized he had actually chosen it according to Lin Yi’s tastes.
“Damn,” he muttered under his breath.
“What? Planning to kill me?” The voice from behind the door was hoarse and raw, unpleasant to hear.
“If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have brought food. I bought those dishes you like from Third Alley. You’ve been hungry for three days too. How about it, Brother Lin? Do me the honor of having some?”
“Alright.”
“Then from now on, between us…”
“Pay back the debt, settle the accounts. You’re you… and I’m me.”
Zhou Ruo An heard the answer he wanted. He unlocked the chain and slowly pushed open the heavy iron doors. Moonlight spilled inside inch by inch, revealing the tall man standing just beyond them.
Lin Yi had lost a good deal of weight. His complexion was ashen, his eye sockets slightly sunken, and stubble covered his face. He still looked fierce, but now there was something down-and-out and haggard about him.
Zhou Ruo An looked away without sparing him a second glance. Lowering his head, he kicked a chunk of snow at his feet. “Let’s go. We’ll eat in the car.”
“No rush.” Lin Yi took two steps forward and leaned against the iron door, looking at the impeccably dressed Zhou Ruo An. “There are some debts between us that money can’t settle.”
Zhou Ruo An immediately sensed danger. His voice tightened. “What are you talking about?”
“For example, cutting off my phone signal and locking me in here for three days.”
Zhou Ruo An took a step back, his voice turning sharp and urgent. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Right. You just wanted to show me that you can fight back too. Push you far enough, and you’ll bite.”
“You’re a smart man, Brother Lin.” Zhou Ruo An glanced furtively at the car parked by the roadside and edged back another half step. “There’s no need to spell everything out between us.”
“Some things still need to be said plainly. If we’re going our separate ways, then everything from before has to be settled cleanly first.”
The moment the words left his mouth, Lin Yi suddenly straightened and moved. He wrapped an arm around Zhou Ruo An’s neck from behind, clamped a hand over his mouth, and dragged him backward, pulling both man and shadow into the vast darkness of the warehouse. The iron doors slowly swung shut. The beast completed a perfect hunt.
＊
A small room had been partitioned off inside the warehouse. There was a bed with a new quilt on it and a small electric heater beside it.
The heater’s dial had been turned all the way up, yet it still couldn’t hold back the cold drafts slipping through the room. It was like some pathetic little punk running into an even tougher one—hopelessly outmatched, all it could do was lie there and whimper.
There was no table, so the meal boxes had been placed on a battered cardboard box. Lin Yi had already finished two of them.
Four empty mineral-water bottles stood at his feet. When the toe of his shoe shifted, he accidentally knocked one over. The floor was uneven, and the bottle rolled downhill for several meters before another pair of leather shoes stopped it.
The room was so empty and deathly quiet that even a rat running past would have sounded like it was wearing high heels. The bottle rolling across the floor finally drew the attention of the man busy eating. His gaze followed its path and eventually came to rest on a pair of elegant handmade leather shoes.
There was just something strange about the way those shoes were positioned.
The toes touched the floor while the heels hovered slightly above it, leaving the person wearing them swaying unsteadily.
His gaze traveled upward from the leather shoes: slim trousers, long legs, a slender waist, narrow shoulders, and above them, Zhou Ruo An’s pretty face.
His hands were crossed and bound behind his back, his wrists tightly wrapped in hemp rope. A long length of rope remained, running beneath his arms and pulling his shoulders slightly backward, forcing his lightly muscled chest to jut forward.
The end of the rope was tied to a beam in the ceiling and pulled taut, leaving only the very tips of his toes touching the floor.
Lin Yi studied him closely as he chewed his food and thought, Zhou Ruo An really does suit being tied up.n