Xue Bao Tian heard the sound of a hand clenching, the knuckles cracking loudly. When he looked toward the person beside him, sure enough, Yan Ye’s face was as dark as water.
Leaning beside the door, Xue Bao Tian said lazily, “I’ve been busy all day. I don’t have time to watch the two of you act all lovey-dovey and go through mountains of knives and seas of fire. All of you, get the fuck out.”
He glanced again at the solid muscles beneath Yan Ye’s clothes and felt a little heated. He had originally planned to half-resist, half-go along with it, lure the man upstairs, then slaughter him that night and eat the meat. But with Tong Yan stirring things up, the plan could only fall through.
He unlocked the door with his fingerprint. As he entered, he waved with carefree ease and pulled the door shut behind him, only for it not to close.
A large palm pushed the door open. Yan Ye poked his head inside and held out his phone, the three large characters “Lin Zhi Yi” flashing on the screen.
“Master Xue said he would help me get justice.”
Xue Bao Tian looked at the name for a moment, then took the phone. With a flick of his fingertip, he answered the call.
Lin Zhi Yi’s businesslike voice came from the other end. “There’s an impromptu dinner banquet tonight. Accompany me.”
“What’s so interesting about a dinner banquet?” A malicious gleam flashed through Xue Bao Tian’s eyes. “We’re one short for mahjong. Is General Manager Lin coming?”
Dinner was zhajiangmian. Xue Bao Tian had ordered takeout.
Elio’s Notes: Zhajiangmian is noodles tossed with a thick, savory fried bean sauce, usually made with fermented soybean paste and minced meat, often served with fresh vegetables such as cucumber.
Tong Yan had no chance to show off his cooking skills, so he held his bowl of noodles and asked, “Earlier this evening, why did you send me a message saying you were going to kill me?”
Xue Bao Tian choked.
At that moment, Yan Ye, who had not said a word since entering, pushed away his own bowl of noodles and pulled over the one Xue Bao Tian had left unfinished. He said lightly, “Does he need a reason to want to kill someone?”
Xue Bao Tian clicked his tongue. No matter how he heard it, that sentence sounded fucking passive-aggressive. Which search engine had Yan Ye, this little idiot, learned that from?
Tong Yan set down his bowl, his expression earnest and sincere. “If I don’t figure it out, am I supposed to upset him again next time?”
Fuck. Headache.
Xue Bao Tian shrank backward and let the two of them outdo each other in sweetly passive-aggressive nonsense. Holding a cigarette between his lips, he looked at the more-than-half-full bowl of noodles Tong Yan had left and wondered, Is this guy really a top? Eating this little, will he even have any fucking strength once his pants come off?
The doorbell interrupted Xue Bao Tian’s runaway thoughts. Lin Zhi Yi had arrived quickly. After entering and taking stock of the apartment, he looked toward the kitchen. “No food?”
Xue Bao Tian lifted his chin toward the takeout boxes in the trash can. “We just finished eating. General Manager Lin hasn’t eaten?”
Lin Zhi Yi wore a smile, but he looked distinctly displeased. “It was President Xue who asked me to push aside a dinner banquet and come here to make up the missing fourth for mahjong.”
Hearing this, Xue Bao Tian looked as though he had suddenly realized something. “General Manager Lin is the only son in your family, right?”
Lin Zhi Yi knew he had no good intentions and gave a soft “Mm.” “And?”
“I said we were one short. I didn’t say I was responsible for feeding General Manager Lin too. With comprehension like that, you’re supposed to inherit the family business? If you’re not a calf, what are you?” Xue Bao Tian sighed. “Old Master Lin doesn’t have it easy either.”
Elio’s Notes: Xue Bao Tian is playing on duzi (独子), “only son,” and duzi (犊子), “calf,” which can also be used insultingly. He asks whether Lin Zhi Yi is an “only son” just to pivot into calling him a calf.
Having been thoroughly cursed both openly and covertly, Lin Zhi Yi laughed from anger. He sat down at the square table. “Didn’t President Xue say we were playing cards? Come on, then.”
As Lin Zhi Yi unbuttoned his suit jacket, he asked, “How are we playing? If we’re just wearing down our fingers for nothing, it’ll be boring.”
Pushing the mahjong tiles around the table, Xue Bao Tian smiled sinisterly. “General Manager Lin, there’s been a strict crackdown recently, so we won’t touch money. Let’s switch to another way of playing. We’ll win things off each other instead. Expensive or cheap doesn’t matter. If you carry it with you, it must mean something to you. If you lose, you hand over one item you’re carrying. Whoever loses everything first, the game ends.”
Yan Ye and Tong Yan both followed Xue Bao Tian’s lead, so naturally they had no objections. Lin Zhi Yi hesitated for a moment before smiling and nodding. “That’s rather novel. Let’s do it that way.”
After building the wall, the four of them each drew thirteen tiles. Tong Yan was the dealer and played first.
The turns passed in order, pongs, chows, kongs, and discards going around the table. Xue Bao Tian won the first hand.
He leaned back against the chair, smiling without quite smiling, and drawled, “Thanks for letting me win.”
Tong Yan felt through all his pockets, took out a fountain pen, and placed it in front of Xue Bao Tian. “The one I use most comfortably. Bao… Tian can use it to write me letters in the future.”
Xue Bao Tian cursed, “Fuck,” his face darkening. “Even if the emperor’s imperial brush were sitting in front of me, I’d only use it as a cat toy.”
Yan Ye tossed a lighter onto the table. The words printed on its plastic casing were still faintly visible: Such-and-Such Grand Hotel.
Xue Bao Tian scoffed. “You really can’t have any expectations for a construction worker like you.”
His mocking gaze shifted toward Lin Zhi Yi. “General Manager Lin should at least have something good, right?”
Lin Zhi Yi had originally planned to attend a banquet tonight, so everything he wore was carefully chosen. He could not dig any cheap little trinkets out of his pockets, so he could only remove a ring from his finger and place it in the center of the mahjong table.
Xue Bao Tian merely glanced at it, then used Tong Yan’s pen to hook it toward the corner of the table without much interest. “Continue.”
As a second-generation wastrel, Xue Bao Tian could be considered a benchmark. During his extremely long years of accomplishing nothing, he had mastered eating, drinking, gambling, and pleasure of every sort.
His mind was quick, he knew how to calculate, and naturally he played mahjong well. On top of that, he had learned a few underhanded tricks that could not be shown in public, so dealing with a few rookies was no problem at all.
The second hand was his too.
Tong Yan handed over another pen, a red-and-blue mechanical pencil. Looking at it, Xue Bao Tian chuckled. “Think about this even a little too hard and Teacher Tong starts sounding R-rated.”
Blushing, Tong Yan explained, “Those of us who do auditing always need red-and-blue pencils for annotations. I’m used to it, so I always carry one.”
Yan Ye did not carry many things on him. After searching through all his pockets, he found only a pack of cigarettes. He pulled out two at once and put them between his lips, stretched out an arm to retrieve the lighter from earlier, and lit both cigarettes together. With his mouth full of smoke, he handed one to Xue Bao Tian.
The corner of Xue Bao Tian’s mouth, which had been lifted all this time, slowly fell. With a cold expression, he accepted the cigarette.
Lin Zhi Yi, meanwhile, happily watched the entertainment and said with a smile, “General Manager Yan, if you don’t have anything left to give next time, you can just take off your clothes. Everyone in this room is half-gay, half-not. I’m sure they’d all be interested.”
Xue Bao Tian pushed the tiles arranged in front of him, his narrow eyes lifting slightly. “It’s your turn to put something down, General Manager Lin.”
After considering it for quite a while, Lin Zhi Yi removed the decorative necklace around his neck and tossed it to Xue Bao Tian.
In the third round, Xue Bao Tian was careless for a moment and let Tong Yan win a hand. He returned one pen, while Lin Zhi Yi took off another necklace. “Layering. It’s fashionable.”
Holding the cigarette between his teeth, Xue Bao Tian muttered, “So fucking girly.”
This time, however, Yan Ye delayed without making a move. His pockets were empty, and he had nothing left to give.
Tong Yan pushed down the tiles standing in front of him. His gaze swept over the man opposite him and noticed the black cord around his neck. He asked, “Is that a pendant?”
Yan Ye touched his chest through his clothes. “Not this.”
Xue Bao Tian’s brow twitched slightly, and he looked away. In the room, only he knew that what Yan Ye wore against his chest was the black-jade wushi pendant that the man had shamelessly begged away from him. Afterward, Yan Ye had kept wearing it against his skin and seemed never to have taken it off.
Back when the two of them were in bed, that wushi pendant, carrying Yan Ye’s body heat, would often fall against Xue Bao Tian’s back. Its warm, smooth touch had felt like another hand stroking him.
That wushi pendant had been steeped in their mingled sweat. Both sides had received their heated kisses. It had been warmed by Yan Ye’s body and had also drawn warmth from Xue Bao Tian’s chest.
Yet now it had become the only thing on Yan Ye’s body that could still be handed over.
“Why don’t we…” Xue Bao Tian had barely let his voice out when there was a sharp smack against the table and something hard landed there.
“Take this. But Brother Tong should be careful when touching it. This dagger is incomparably sharp and extremely bloodthirsty.”
An exquisite dagger lay horizontally in the center of the table. It was pitch-black all over, without the slightest decoration, yet its cold hardness was frightening.
Xue Bao Tian looked toward Yan Ye. Seeing that there was no ripple in the depths of his eyes and that he remained steady as an old hound, Xue Bao Tian relaxed and called for them to build the wall again. After that, he swept through all directions, winning three hands in a row. Once he had cleaned out Tong Yan’s “brush, ink, paper, and inkstone” and Yan Ye’s “swords, halberds, hooks, and forks,” he looked leisurely at Lin Zhi Yi across from him.
“General Manager Lin, what else do you have on you?”
Lin Zhi Yi had lost every expensive accessory on his body, and now only the luxury watch on his wrist remained. Smiling, he removed it and placed it in front of Xue Bao Tian. “President Xue, I came here on an empty stomach, and in such a short while you’ve won over a million from me. Why do I feel like I’ve fallen into a pit?”
Using Tong Yan’s pen to hook Lin Zhi Yi’s million-yuan diamond watch toward him, Xue Bao Tian tossed it without hesitation into the kitten’s nest by his foot.
“My cat likes to hear a little ticking when it sleeps. A watch is perfect. I’ll thank General Manager Lin on its behalf.” He stirred the tiles. “It wouldn’t be right to keep General Manager Lin hungry all night. But right now, the only things at home are cat food and instant noodles. General Manager Lin has such a delicate, precious body that I’m afraid neither is suitable.”
“Instant noodles are suitable.” Lin Zhi Yi did not mind. “I’ll trouble President Xue, then.”
Xue Bao Tian was in a good mood, so he lazily got up to make instant noodles. Tong Yan followed to help. Yan Ye remained seated, his gaze deep, the dagger Tong Yan had confiscated flipping up and down between his fingers.
Lin Zhi Yi picked out the four “Fa Cai” tiles and stacked them beside his hand, then glanced toward the figure in the kitchen. “Xue Bao Tian is venting your anger for you?”
Then he asked, “Have you won him over?”
“Not yet.”
“Then good things are close.” Lin Zhi Yi smacked his lips. “Yan Ye, I’ve only just realized that I seem to have misjudged you. You’re much more calculating than I imagined.”
He met Yan Ye’s gaze and continued with a smile, “You used me to make Xue Bao Tian jealous. If it worked, naturally that would be ideal. Even if it didn’t, afterward you could still play the victim a little. With Xue Bao Tian’s personality, he would naturally feel sorry for you. Then if you demonized me a little more and made yourself look more pitiful, wouldn’t he start protecting you?”
Yan Ye smiled and refuted, “I admit to everything else, but General Manager Lin really doesn’t need to be demonized.”
Lin Zhi Yi rubbed a tile with the pad of his finger, slowly sliding from top to bottom, then turned it over and placed it on the table. “Three Wan.”
Having guessed correctly, he proudly returned to the previous topic. “I’m very satisfied with your professional abilities, and I sincerely hope our cooperation can continue.”
Yan Ye put away the dagger and replied gently, “The bodyguard I arranged to replace me is also very capable. General Manager Lin can rest assured.”
Lin Zhi Yi shrugged. “All right. Since you’ve already decided, what else can I say?”
As soon as his words fell, Xue Bao Tian came out carrying the instant noodles. Tong Yan, following behind him, was stopped by Yan Ye, who had risen from his chair.
“Talk for a moment?” he said.
Xue Bao Tian cast the two of them a glance, but it was only a glance. The next moment, he withdrew his gaze, walked a few steps, and placed the instant noodles in front of Lin Zhi Yi.
Lin Zhi Yi now had even more entertainment to watch. He lifted a chopstickful of noodles to cool them and egged Xue Bao Tian on. “You’re not going to manage that? Aren’t you afraid the two of them will start fighting?”
Holding a cigarette between his teeth, Xue Bao Tian gathered up the mahjong tiles. “With Yan Ye’s cowardly streak, unless the other side punches him three times first, he won’t even fight back.” Then, as though suddenly remembering something, he laughed. “Unless Tong Yan runs his mouth.”
Lin Zhi Yi slurped up the noodles and complained, “You won so much from me, and you won’t even add an egg?”
He put the four “Fa Cai” tiles into the box for Xue Bao Tian, then took another two chopstickfuls of noodles to finish the bowl. Afterward, he pushed it away and said with obvious smugness, “President Xue still doesn’t know, does he? In order to stay in Yancheng and accompany you, Yan Ye replaced himself as my bodyguard. Since he violated the contract, he has to compensate me. Adding and subtracting what you won from me tonight, I still come out ahead.”
“Fuck!” Xue Bao Tian’s face instantly darkened. All the arrogant momentum he had built up throughout the night was drenched with a bucket of cold water by that little idiot Yan Ye. He turned toward the tall figure on the terrace and cursed inwardly, A man one meter ninety tall, filled with water up to one meter eighty-five, and the tiny bit of brain left is fucking stuffed full of romance.
At that moment, on the terrace, Yan Ye and Tong Yan stood facing one another.
“What? Are you warning me not to approach Xue Bao Tian? Not to pursue him?” Tong Yan asked first.
Yan Ye’s voice was deep and calm, without anger. “Xue Bao Tian is very good. It isn’t strange for someone to pursue him. If Brother Tong pursues him, I have no reason to object either. But I hope you deal properly with your relationship with Sheng Yu before making any further plans.”
Tong Yan furrowed his brows. “I’ve already broken up with Sheng Yu. We have no relationship at all.”
“Then why is Sheng Yu still following, monitoring, and wiretapping you?”
“What?!” Tong Yan’s expression changed abruptly. “You’re saying he’s been surveilling me this entire time?!”
“I don’t know exactly what is going on between the two of you,” Yan Ye warned, “but you can’t bring trouble to Xue Bao Tian.”
Tong Yan was silent for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll handle everything properly.”
He walked around Yan Ye and left the terrace, then solemnly placed the two pens on the table into Xue Bao Tian’s hand. “When I come back, I’ll pursue you properly.”
Xue Bao Tian looked utterly blank. “Huh?”
Seeing this, Lin Zhi Yi also rose to leave. Xue Bao Tian was quite pleased, and the way he looked at Yan Ye was a little like a scheming wolf granny.
Who would have expected Yan Ye to gather his things and follow them out the door too? Before leaving, he pressed a kiss to Xue Bao Tian’s forehead.
With deep feeling, he said, “Two Hundred, I’ll pursue you properly.”
The door slowly closed. Xue Bao Tian stood where he was, and after a long while, he cursed, “For fuck’s sake, which one of you is actually pursuing me properly?!”