“Shao Chen Feng, chairman of Jinggui Electronics, forty-two years old. Two months ago, he divorced his wife and left the marriage with nothing, then announced the company’s bankruptcy. Jinggui Electronics has now completed bankruptcy liquidation, and Shao Chen Feng is currently negotiating the transfer with various potential buyers.”
Ren Yu closed the file and asked Lin Yi, “Mr. Lin, is there anything else you’d like to know?” The newly opened café had only one occupied table. There were three people seated there, yet the tallest man sat alone on the opposite side.
Before Lin Yi could speak, Zhou Ruo An moved first.
He set down his coffee cup, tilted his head toward Ren Yu, and whispered, “You haven’t dared look at Lin Yi all night. If you keep fucking embarrassing me like this, I’ll go to HR and transfer Fu Chun Shen over to be my assistant, then ask him exactly what kind of sexual rumors he spread about you back then.”
After delivering the threat, Zhou Ruo An grabbed Ren Yu’s head and turned it thirty degrees to the right, forcing him to meet Lin Yi’s eyes.
The moment their gazes collided, Assistant Ren—who seconds ago had been putting on the airs of an elite, a trace of aloofness hidden behind his gold-rimmed glasses and arrogance dragging at every word—gave a small shudder.
After thoroughly cursing him in his head, Zhou Ruo An had no choice but to speak himself. “There are already five companies openly competing to acquire Jinggui Electronics. Brother Lin said you have a way to help me, so tell me. How?”
Lin Yi’s left hand was injured and wrapped in gauze. Zhou Ruo An had caused the injury several days earlier by grinding it beneath his shoe. It had mostly healed by now, yet the gauze was still wrapped conspicuously around it and the hand lay openly on the table.
Lin Yi lifted his coffee with that injured hand and took a sip. He frowned slightly, followed it with a mouthful of plain water, then asked, “Can you trust him?”
Zhou Ruo An glanced at Ren Yu. “No choice. He’s the only person around me I can use. So far he’s been fairly loyal and hasn’t pulled anything.”
Under the sheer pressure of Lin Yi’s presence, Ren Yu’s brain wasn’t functioning properly. It took him several seconds to realize they were talking about him.
He clicked his tongue inwardly. Couldn’t you two gossip about someone behind his back instead of right in front of him? Whatever resentment remained vanished the instant Lin Yi called his name. Ren Yu instinctively straightened his back and sat upright.
“Ren Yu, twenty-seven, from Zhejiang. Your parents are retired, and you have a younger brother in high school.” Lin Yi pushed his coffee cup forward, his calm voice spreading outward like the ripples in the liquid. “Your father, Ren Jia Sheng, has a serious heart condition and can’t handle excessive stimulation. Your mother, Zhang Qing, works as a volunteer instructor at a university for seniors after retirement. She likes purple daisies and always picks up a bouquet on her way home.”
Lin Yi lowered his voice slightly. “Am I right, Assistant Ren?”
The hand resting on the documents abruptly clenched into a fist. For the first time, Ren Yu glared at Lin Yi. “You investigated me? What do you want?”
Leaning back into his chair, Lin Yi spoke with a faint air of control. “Don’t play dumb. You know exactly what I mean.”
Hearing this, Zhou Ruo An naturally understood that Lin Yi was helping him put pressure on Ren Yu. Lin Yi had played the bad cop, then left Zhou Ruo An the chance to win the man’s loyalty. Zhou Ruo An didn’t want to accept the favor, but he didn’t want to waste the opportunity either, so he followed the opening and patted Ren Yu on the shoulder with a sincere expression. “If I use someone, I trust them. I trust you.”
Having steadied Ren Yu, Zhou Ruo An turned back to Lin Yi. “Enough circling around. Tell me how you plan to help me get Jinggui.” This time Lin Yi got straight to the point. “Half a year ago, Shao Chen Feng, chairman of Jinggui Electronics, was set up and scammed. The other side lured him into a highly profitable gray-area business and claimed everyone would make money together. In reality, the whole thing was a pig-butchering scam designed specifically for him. Shao Chen Feng lost everything, and because the project he joined crossed a legal red line, he didn’t dare go to the police. He could only swallow the loss.”
Elio’s Notes: A “pig-butchering scam” is a long con in which a victim is cultivated over time before being stripped of large sums of money, often through fraudulent investment or romance schemes.
Zhou Ruo An considered what Lin Yi had said, idly turning his coin as he asked, “If even Shao Chen Feng doesn’t dare talk about this, how do you know?”
“In our line of work, information comes a little more easily.”
Ordinarily, with Lin Yi’s speaking style, that would have been the end of the explanation. But because Zhou Ruo An was sitting across from him, he added one more sentence. “Someone got drunk at a drinking party and let part of it slip. The information wasn’t complete, so I looked into it afterward.”
Zhou Ruo An took a sip of coffee. “Even if he really was scammed into so much debt that he had no choice but to sell the factory, what does that have to do with my acquisition?”
“If someone scammed you until you were drowning in debt and your family fell apart, what would you want most?”
That single sentence struck Zhou Ruo An like a revelation. “You can help Shao Chen Feng recover the money?”
“If he got the money back, he wouldn’t sell the factory anymore.”
“Then what are you planning?”
Lin Yi laid his injured hand flat on the table and curled his fingers slightly. “The gauze is loose.”
Shit. Zhou Ruo An cursed inwardly and leaned back in his chair without moving. Ren Yu looked between the two men, sensing the standoff, then cautiously reached out. “Mr. Lin, should I tighten it for you?”
Lin Yi smiled. “Assistant Ren, why don’t you go pay the bill?”
Without an instruction from his own boss, Ren Yu didn’t dare move. Fortunately, Zhou Ruo An quickly spoke. “Ren Yu, go get my cigarettes from the car.”
As though granted amnesty, Ren Yu immediately answered and hurried from his seat.
The coin landed on the table with a short, crisp sound. Such a simple noise, yet somehow it carried unmistakable irritation.
Zhou Ruo An said coldly, “The gauze is loose? Need me to tie it for you?”
Lin Yi extended his hand. “Much appreciated.”
The moment Zhou Ruo An’s fingers touched the gauze, Lin Yi’s low voice spread softly between them. “The person behind the scheme has a powerful background. He isn’t someone Shao Chen Feng can easily touch, otherwise Shao Chen Feng wouldn’t be so frustrated…”
His voice abruptly stopped, and Lin Yi frowned.
Zhou Ruo An pulled out a faint smile. “Sorry. Used too much force. Did that hurt?”
Lin Yi smiled as well and lifted his uninjured hand to run it through Zhou Ruo An’s hair.
Lin Yi had often done this when the two of them first made their three-month agreement. Zhou Ruo An had gone from resisting and hating it, to indifference, until eventually he seemed to have grown used to that fleeting, almost absent touch.
That period had been one of the few peaceful times between them after Zhou Ruo An entered the Zhou family. He could trust and rely on Lin Yi the way he had before, pouring every malicious and selfish thought in his head straight out to him instead of keeping them bottled up and painstakingly polishing them into something more acceptable.
Lin Yi would usually listen through the smoke of a cigarette, saying little but listening carefully.
Sometimes Zhou Ruo An would ask, “Do you think I’m too despicable?”
Lin Yi would bite down on his cigarette and smile. “There’s no point comparing which of us is more noble. Whether it’s despicable doesn’t matter. What matters is that whoever you want taken down, I’ll help you.”
Zhou Ruo An was unwilling to admit that during that period he had actually felt relaxed, even happy. With Lin Yi beside him, he somehow didn’t feel lonely. The shadow on the ground had gone from one to two, and on that precarious solitary road, he was no longer walking alone.
Except when Lin Yi started saying romantic things.
Those occasional declarations were awkward and clumsy, neither fully classical nor fully colloquial, mixing dictionary definitions with fragments of prose and poetry. Zhou Ruo An would grit his teeth and listen until his ears practically developed calluses, yet somehow he had endured all of it.
But now Zhou Ruo An dodged the hand reaching for his hair. Lin Yi was too greedy. He wanted to chew Zhou Ruo An to pieces, crush him, and nail shackles onto him.
Zhou Ruo An could not satisfy that pathological obsession.
He watched the smile disappear from Lin Yi’s face as the man lowered his hand and continued, “The person who set the trap is bold, and he’s ruthless too. He pushes people all the way to the brink.” After tying the gauze into a knot that was neither too tight nor too loose, Zhou Ruo An immediately pulled his hand away. “So we help Shao Chen Feng take revenge on the scammer and let him vent his anger, but he still can’t recover what he lost. Then he has no choice but to sell the factory to me, the righteous hero who helped punish the villain?”
Lin Yi nodded. “Exactly.”
“How do we take revenge on the scammer?” Zhou Ruo An went straight to the point. “Brother Lin has never been the type to just talk. You already have a plan, don’t you?”
Through the glass, Lin Yi saw Ren Yu returning with the cigarettes. He said slowly, “Zhou Ruo An, you aren’t that precious. One night with you isn’t worth this much. If you want me to work for you, it has to be an equal exchange.” He stood and raised his injured hand. “Thanks for rewrapping it, Young Master Zhou.”
With that, he turned to leave, but Zhou Ruo An’s cold, harsh voice stopped him. “At least tell me who the scammer is.”
Lin Yi looked back, his tone slightly cool. “If you hadn’t dodged just now, I might have told you. But now…” He deliberately paused. “Young Master Zhou will have to trade something for it.”
He didn’t linger. Lin Yi strode toward the door and, as he passed Ren Yu, said softly, “If you ever turn disloyal, I’ll destroy your family.”
＊
Zhou Ruo An had limited connections and repeatedly hit walls in the Jinggui Electronics acquisition. He even used Old Master Jin’s connections to meet Shao Chen Feng privately, but the man was utterly dejected, his head hanging low and his words few. Zhou Ruo An could lay out ten thousand words, yet Shao Chen Feng always came back to the same four: “Highest bidder wins.” The competing companies kept raising their offers. Even if Shengkai Foreign Trade ultimately won, it would be a terrible-value deal. Whether it was Zhou Bin, Zhou Zhe, or Zhou Ruo An, they would all end up like someone drawing water with a bamboo basket—coming away empty-handed, with no real credit to claim.
When Shao Chen Feng walked him to the door, Zhou Ruo An had already run out of options. After hesitating several times, he finally tested the waters. “Chairman Shao, have you heard of a pig-butchering scam? The schemes can be extremely elaborate. They may cultivate a single target for a long time until that person is completely trapped and loses everything.”
“What do you mean?” Shao Chen Feng abruptly shed his dejected air. His drooping brows tightened, his gaze filling with vigilance and anger.
So Lin Yi had been telling the truth. Shao Chen Feng had been scammed out of all his savings.
Zhou Ruo An had found a breakthrough, yet he couldn’t bring himself to feel pleased. He casually made up an excuse to brush it aside. “Nothing. A friend of mine got scammed, so it just came to mind.”
After taking his leave, Zhou Ruo An got into his car. The weather was gradually warming, and the swallows were returning south. Zhou Ruo An disliked any creature with an excretory system circling above his head, just as he disliked bird droppings landing on his windshield.
He drove into an automatic car wash and sat inside as thick white foam spread across the car, gradually cutting off his view.
Courage had a way of gathering in narrow, enclosed spaces. Zhou Ruo An picked up his phone and, as though afraid he might regret it, quickly dialed Lin Yi.
The call connected, and a calm “Hello” came through. Zhou Ruo An’s courage seemed to extend only as far as making the call. His long breaths repeatedly washed over the receiver, yet he never said a word.
Instead, Lin Yi spoke first. “Tomorrow night at eight. Jinrui Hotel, Room 1601. Decide whether you’re coming. I’ll wait fifteen minutes, no more.”
Lin Yi was also the one who ended the call. Zhou Ruo An held the phone up for another moment before slowly lowering it. Looking ahead, he saw bird droppings mixing with foam beneath the spinning brushes until the two had become one, impossible to tell which was clear and which was murky.
It was nothing but filth.