Master Qi said, “An enemy has come calling.”
Hearing that, Yan Xiaodao did not panic, get hotheaded, or make a fuss. Qi Baoshan had spent all these years in the underworld. How could he possibly not have made two or three enemies along the way?
He showed no surprise, but neither did he suddenly become fired up with righteous fervor, spring to his feet, pound his chest, and declare his shining loyalty to his godfather and fearless determination to face their common enemy.
How many years had it been since he’d done dirty work?
If he really had to do it, it wasn’t that he was afraid, but something still felt as though the tip of a knife had inexplicably pricked his heart.
Qi Baoshan’s gaze had never left Yan Xiaodao’s face. He took in every minute change of expression as though he knew exactly what his godson was thinking. Suddenly, he laughed and waved a hand openly. “Where did your mind go? It’s not like that.”
“I’m not sending you out to kill people or set fires. I can’t even bear to send you out to do dirty work—I’d be worried you’d get hurt. You know what you are to me.” Qi Baoshan’s gaze traveled over Yan Xiaodao’s face. Behind his glasses, his features held the cultivated composure of a man perfectly at ease and steady as a mountain, while whatever he was truly feeling remained deeply concealed. He raised a hand and pointed. “Xiaodao, I need you to go handle something important for me. Help me keep someone alive.”
That genuinely left Xiaodao bewildered.
Yan Xiaodao said, “What’s going on? Who am I protecting? Just tell me what to do.”
Qi Baoshan said, “Pack up. You leave in three days. Fly directly to South Island Port, take the international sightseeing route, and board the Cloudtop there. Your visa and plane ticket have already been arranged.”
Yan Xiaodao knew of the enormous luxury liner that sailed the international sightseeing route. “Blue Sea Cloudtop is running out of South Island this season, right?”
Sure enough, everyone had heard of such a grand event. Yan Xiaodao had never experienced it himself, but he had heard plenty about it; even though he had never participated, he had a general idea of exactly what sort of people did.
“Right. Blue Sea Cloudtop.” Qi Baoshan nodded. “A lot of people will be going. That enemy of mine who’s surfaced will definitely be on that cruise too. You don’t need to do anything to him. You only need to keep this person alive for me. Don’t let him get himself killed too easily.”
There was no way to convince anyone while revealing absolutely nothing, so after weighing his words, Qi Baoshan gave him half the story and kept the other half back. “He’s connected to someone I didn’t get along with in business fifteen years ago. Back then, I was still scraping out a living in the south. I hadn’t been there long, didn’t know the people or the place, and you weren’t by my side yet… I made an enemy. That man was the big boss of Hanchao Huashang Group at the time. He had powerful connections, did dirty business, and was bold and ruthless. He had financial crimes on his record as well as criminal cases and deaths. He’d killed people. Eventually, he was convicted.
“He got a long sentence. Later, I heard he died in prison and never made it back out.
“Fifteen years… His surname was Ling. His name was Ling Huang. You definitely wouldn’t have heard of him.
“Now Ling Huang’s son has come back.”
“He’s back. And if one day he turns up at my front door, of course he won’t be dressed to the nines, politely coming to pay me a visit, reminisce about old times, and call me Uncle…”
Qi Baoshan spoke more and more slowly, weighing each word as he circled around what he wanted to say. By the time he reached that final sentence, his gaze had truly fixed on a single point beneath the lamp. The light looked like ghost fire above a grave, almost reflecting the heart-pounding fear of walking dark roads all those years ago… Beyond the small yellow circle cast by the lamp lay nothing but a black void no one could see into or grasp….
Yan Xiaodao met Master Qi’s eyes. “If he’s an enemy, why not just get rid of him?”
Qi Baoshan jerked his head up and locked eyes with him, neither man looking away. Each was probing the other, trying to sound out how much truth lay behind the words.
Yan Xiaodao simply felt that his godfather had not told him everything. Every sentence seemed to contain another layer.
Qi Baoshan also knew Yan Xiaodao was only testing him and did not genuinely want to go around killing people and setting fires.
Qi Baoshan looked away and said lightly, “It’s not that easy to settle. Killing him would make things even more troublesome. I’m afraid I might be next… Besides, Ling Huang was a notorious serious offender with crimes piled high against him. He made more enemies than he could count. There are already enough people who want to butcher his son, wipe out the whole family, and pull the weeds up by the roots. We don’t need to touch him ourselves.
“Xiaodao, all you need to do is keep him from getting carved up alive the moment he shows his face! Keep him alive for me. One breath left is enough. I don’t care if he’s missing an arm or a leg. Capture him, then bring him back to me alive. I still have questions to ask him.”
Capture him, then bring him back alive.
To be perfectly fair, that order felt even more troublesome than being told to do some dirty work. Yan Xiaodao had been doing this sort of thing for years. Between going out to cut someone down and keeping someone alive while everybody else tried to cut him down, the former was unquestionably easier and less troublesome.
And for the first time in his life, Qi Baoshan had not even given him a photograph of the target. Who the hell was he supposed to cut—or protect?
Qi Baoshan sounded slightly helpless. “I don’t have a picture, damn it. I haven’t seen him in years either. I thought he was already gone.
“You don’t need one. The moment you see that person, you’ll know it’s him. There’s absolutely no way you’ll mistake a face like that.”
Master Qi stayed for only half an hour. Before leaving, he still made sure to chat about a few ordinary family matters with his godson and laid out several gifts he had carefully chosen for Xiaodao while away, all little personal items that suited a man’s tastes. The easy warmth between father and son was restored at once.
Ever since the big boss had entered the house, the group of younger brothers downstairs had been intimidated by the chilling low pressure around him. The mahjong tiles and scattered cards were still sitting on the table, and nobody dared move a muscle.
Qi Baoshan finally left the villa in a hurry, his expression slightly less severe. The underlings stood in a neat row in the downstairs living room, silently seeing Master Qi off. Unless he addressed one of them by name, nobody made a sound.
Outside, several personal bodyguards escorted Qi Baoshan into his car, and he headed back into the city.
Qi Baoshan had received an unexpected message that struck the crown of his head like a thunderbolt, threatening to cut off both his future and every road of retreat. He had hacked through thorns and ridden wave after wave before finally bringing this rich stretch of territory under his control, and his ambition had only just been realized. He had nowhere near finished enjoying the wealthy, carefree second half of his life.
【Second Brother, Ling Huang’s son is back. This time you cannot go softhearted again, and you cannot hesitate until you ruin everything. There’s no time to lose. Use a sharp blade to cut through the tangle, and once you cut the grass, tear it out by the roots. As long as he is eliminated, no one besides the four of us will ever know what happened fifteen years ago.】
＊
There had been a dark, swirling shadow in Qi Baoshan’s eyes that night, and it kept Yan Xiaodao tossing and turning until morning. Ordinarily easygoing and carefree, he somehow slept badly the entire night, obsessively turning that one sentence over in his head.
He could never have imagined just how many layers of meaning were hidden inside the words, “The moment you see that person, you’ll know it’s him.”
＊
The north was still caught in the chill of early spring, but the southern frontier was already dressed in green and red, bursting with the lively prosperity of spring. It was as though Yan Xiaodao had entered another world, utterly distinct from the gloomy North China Plain with its yellow sand darkening the sky.
Moored in the harbor, the Cloudtop displayed its magnificent form beneath a blue sea and sky. The silver-gray superliner looked as though at any moment it might cleave through the waves and race alongside soaring seabirds toward the mysterious golden light where sea met sky.
This was no ordinary sightseeing passenger ship. It was a luxury cruise liner that sailed from this port only three times each year during late autumn or early spring. Reservations had to be made far in advance, and tickets were sold only to wealthy merchants and powerful elites within the right circles. Buying one required connections and titles to flash; without them, money alone would not even let you see what the ticket looked like.
Given the ship’s operating costs, its mere handful of sailings each year, and the seller’s take-it-or-leave-it attitude, these voyages were obviously not intended to recoup costs or make a profit. They were an extravagant form of upper-class networking, a carnival for the wealthy held out at sea.
The difference in status became obvious from the moment one reached the expressway exit leading toward the harbor. A dedicated lane split away from the sea of cars clogged with ordinary tourists. The overhead road signs deliberately displayed neither the cruise company nor the route name, only an emblem resembling an auspicious cloud sailing out to sea. One expensive car after another, their license plates gleaming ostentatiously, swept into the private lane and then entered a several-kilometer underground passage lined with two rows of dim wall lamps. When they finally emerged from below ground, they were heading straight toward the Cloudtop, quietly moored in the deep harbor beneath the blue sea and sky.
At every checkpoint along the way, a guest would extend one hand through the car window and present a leather cruise passport embossed with the auspicious-cloud-at-sea emblem, an anti-counterfeit mark, and a unique barcode. First the code was scanned, then the face. Inside this exclusive club, everyone was either rich or powerful, or both. Put plainly, they were a collection of young people sitting on unimaginable mountains of wealth who had run out of ideas for how to play or what outrageous thing to do next. If they didn’t get taken out to sea, somebody would have to send them into space.
Duty-free luxury boutiques lined both sides of the pier in the special port zone. Most of these people looked down on them and would never bother shopping here. But some guests were busy figures from the business or entertainment industries who had flown in at the last minute and could not even be bothered to bring luggage, so they casually picked up private necessities for the trip along the way.
A dark-skinned man in brown-tinted sunglasses, seasoned and worldly in his manner, strolled discreetly through several shops with a young female companion. He bought an exquisite Hermès leather case, then casually pointed out several tropical-island-style haute couture dresses without even glancing at the price tags, each costing roughly twenty thousand. His companion beamed like a flower. They had not even boarded the ship and gotten down to the real business yet, and already she felt the trip had been worthwhile.
Jian Mingjue watched them from some distance behind for a while, then hurried over in a few long strides and greeted him with a low laugh. “President You, you came too.”
The dark-skinned man in sunglasses turned his head and glanced at him. He was not particularly showy or loud, merely nodding. “Mm.” Jian Mingjue’s whole face wrinkled into a smile, his long rectangular donkey-like chin jutting conspicuously up and down with it.
The man being called “President You” was not necessarily the president of anything. But in a setting like this, if you wanted to flatter someone and build a connection, you could hardly open your mouth and call him “Teacher,” could you?
“Teacher, I’ve got a fresh seventeen-year-old here, 36D, untouched. She can do ‘Two Dragons Emerging from the Water.’ I’ll offer her up for you to try something new…” What kind of way was that to talk?
President You’s actual name was You Haodong. He was no company president, merely a spoiled second-generation heir living off his father’s protection, muddying the waters between government and business, setting up empty-shell investment companies, and making something out of nothing. His father was currently the most powerful figure with real authority in Linwan New District, a deputy leader at the municipal level. Whenever this man wanted to make a little money to spend, countless people would stand outside his family’s door day and night clutching cash, still worried they might not have the right excuse to get themselves through the door.
Jian Mingjue eagerly scanned the crowd and discovered that most of the guests were Red aristocrats and nouveaux riches from Yandu. He could not ingratiate himself with them at all; they simply ignored him! The only person he knew was the You family’s young master, so he hurried over and latched on.
The children of powerful provincial officials were comparatively restrained in public. They did not bark orders or make a spectacle of themselves and always kept their guard up. You Haodong silently browsed an intimate-goods boutique filled with an ambiguously strange incense fragrance. Jian Mingjue sidled up beside the counter with a grin. “President You, none of this stuff has any kick. I brought the latest toys over from Japan. I’ve been secretly saving them for you.”
You Haodong glanced at him through the brown lenses. Naturally, he was interested.
Jian Mingjue unzipped his men’s leather bag halfway, revealing several oddly shaped objects inside, and smiled suggestively. “President You, depends what you personally like. I guarantee they’ll make the young lady beside you unable to stop…”
The young woman beside President You twisted coyly. “You’re awful~~~”
Jian Mingjue recognized the escort as a rising young actress who had appeared frequently in recent historical dramas. She often played the second or third female lead, but the starring role was always snatched away by someone else. Her backing was not strong enough, which was exactly why she had come to an event like Blue Sea Cloudtop—to make use of her own advantages and find herself a stronger source of patronage.
Jian Mingjue then pulled over his own companion, a female livestreamer who had gone viral online and received over a million in tips, and signaled with his eyes. “Get acquainted with President You later. He’s really big—and really impressive!”
It was an outrageously blatant thing to say, but with people like these, it worked almost every time.
The cluster of pretty men and glamorous women understood one another perfectly. After introductions like these, once they boarded the ship and stripped off their clothes, they became beasts without any concept of chastity or shame. One person’s female companion would not necessarily remain exclusively theirs. That was what the Blue Sea Cloudtop feast called its “one-pot free-for-all.”
“See, I fucking told you to come with me, and you just had to keep making excuses!” In the upscale men’s clothing and underwear shop next door, another spoiled rich heir was booming into his phone, apparently terrified that anyone nearby might fail to notice either how much money he had or how loud his voice was.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got a pass! I can bring you aboard! Xiaodao, just be my… you know, my ‘companion’!” Liang Youhui laughed shamelessly.
“Where are you? You seriously can’t make it? The ship’s leaving soon. This is the last sailing of the spring season, and the next one won’t be until winter. What a damn shame, Xiaodao. Your bro just wants to take you out and broaden your horizons!” Young Master Liang, the wastrel son of one of Yandu’s newly rich and powerful families, was cheerfully trying to pimp out the man he personally considered a close underworld buddy.
A steady, magnetic baritone came through the phone. “Hmph. Go have fun by yourself. Why the hell would I be anyone’s companion? Are you even worthy?”
Liang Youhui laughed without the slightest shame. “Hey, I don’t care. You can bring me instead if that makes you happy. I’ll play the man or the woman—whatever you want, Master Xiaodao!”
“You’re fucking shameless,” the man on the phone cursed.
“If I had any shame, I wouldn’t be able to talk to you.” Liang Youhui genuinely had an excellent temper where Yan Xiaodao was concerned.
Jian Mingjue and You Haodong, emerging from the neighboring shop, both happened to overhear that much. Young Master Liang’s voice was simply too damn loud.
Jian Mingjue lifted his long chin as he calculated inwardly. Don’t tell me that Yan Xiaodao is coming too? Yan Xiaodao’s actually willing to sell himself and name a price? Zhao Qifeng is going to regret this to death. Serves that woman right for putting on airs as the proper lady of the house and refusing to come aboard with me.
Behind You Haodong’s brown lenses, his narrow eyes tightened and his heart sank. Why the hell is Yan Xiaodao coming? What a pain… At least it isn’t the even more troublesome Qi Baoshan himself…
After hanging up, Liang Youhui suddenly felt a prickle at the back of his head. Inspiration flashed through him, and he abruptly turned to sweep his gaze across the shoppers around him.
At the edge of his blurry peripheral vision, he seemed to isolate a familiar silhouette in the distance: tall, long-legged, there for only an instant before it vanished. For a moment, he wondered whether his eyes had fooled him. Yan Xiaodao didn’t actually come, did he?
＊
Yan Xiaodao stood hidden in the shadowed corner of the upper level overlooking the entrance every VIP had to pass, clearly examining each distinguished guest who stepped leisurely onto the deck of the Cloudtop. His gaze sifted through the crowd one person at a time, the occupational habits of his rough old trade driving him to search patiently for his target.
Inside the luxurious hall and across the broad deck accompanied by violin music, clusters of elegantly dressed guests flowed in continuously, beautiful men and women everywhere.
Naturally, he had not boarded with those guests. Nobody had noticed his movements. He had gotten onto the ship earlier by another route.
The Cloudtop was enormous, a superliner with thirteen decks. Ten Chinese and Western restaurants catering to different palates, along with luxurious ballrooms, swimming pools, and theaters, occupied three decks between them. The remaining ten decks were entirely guest accommodations, with the rooms becoming more exclusive the higher one went. Since the route existed specifically for pampered elites, there were no cheap, cramped interior cabins for poor bastards. Every room was a spacious ocean-view cabin starting at eighty square meters.
Yan Xiaodao had his habits. Since he was here to find someone and carry out a job aboard this ship, he refused to overlook even the smallest detail. His first move was to try to survey every room, turning every possible route over in his head until the ship’s layout and the position of every cabin were completely clear to him. Otherwise, he would not feel at ease.
He had brought only one subordinate with him: Yang Xifeng, who frequently followed him around.
Master Qi had asked whether he wanted to bring a woman along to keep up appearances. What about those “female confidantes” of his from the demimonde? Why not make use of such a perfect opportunity?
Yan Xiaodao thought it over and still decided against it. Who knew what kind of difficult situation he might run into? Why drag some innocent, uninformed woman into danger and implicate her for no reason?
He was a single man with no attachments in the first place. Why pretend to have women hanging off both arms and drag an entire entourage around just to look impressive?
At first, he took Yang Xifeng along while surveying the ship, but eventually decided the kid was too slow and simply sent Fengfeng back to the cabin to sleep.
As Yang Xifeng was shoved back into the room, he muttered to himself in embarrassment, “Bro, what the hell can you remember after looking once? By the time I see the rooms in back, I’ve forgotten the ones in front. Every damn cabin looks the same!”
Yan Xiaodao worked fast, his hands and feet quick and his eyes taking in everything around him. He swept through at a glance and silently committed it all to memory, guessing which cabins housed important people on the other side and which contained useless bystanders who could be ignored.
The top two decks, with the best views on the entire liner, contained duplex ocean-view suites with private balconies and hot tubs. There were only ten of them, reserved for the most distinguished guests. Yan Xiaodao glanced at the assortment of liquor in one suite’s minibar and resisted the itch to drink a bottle before leaving.
He himself had not booked a duplex ocean-view suite, not because he could not afford one, but because it would attract too much attention. There were only ten platinum-exclusive suites in total, and every guest staying in one was a prominent name in business circles. On the card attached to the welcome gift in one of those duplex suites, he happened to spot the words “Mr. Liang Youhui.”
Carrying the very height of prestige and extravagance, the Cloudtop broke through the waves and headed out to sea, white foam blooming at its bow.
Only then did Yan Xiaodao realize that among every guest aboard the cruise—including crew members and service staff—he had not found his target. Nor had he seen any party boarding with luggage large enough to fit a living person inside.
The moment you see that person, you’ll know it’s him.
Yan Xiaodao closed his eyes slightly and replayed every face he had seen aboard the ship. His instincts told him that not a single one deserved a description like that. Could Ling Huang’s son simply not be aboard the Cloudtop? Had he never come?
Or… was he already dead?
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