The entire day remained a time for the distinguished guests aboard the ship to seek pleasure and amusement, and everyone minded their own business without incident. There was no shortage of entertainment aboard the Cloudtop or around the nearby port, so nobody noticed that a piece of cargo wrapped in black oilcloth had been unloaded along one side of the Cloudtop’s stern and left half submerged, half floating in the cold, deep-indigo seawater.
Liang Youhui had gone ashore for a meal with an attendant he had met the previous night. Attendants of this sort only worked at night; during the day, they accompanied guests on excursions to earn some extra money.
From the shadowed corner of a corridor, Yan Xiaodao peered out the window and spoke quietly into his phone. “Fengfeng, quit sleeping and get up. Time to work. Go down to the lowest machinery deck and make a round. Find out what exactly they’re towing behind the ship.”
Yang Xifeng’s room was at the other end of the corridor on the same floor as Yan Xiaodao’s, and the two of them were even pretending not to associate with each other. Unfortunately, his boss had not bought him any game tokens, had made no promise that prostitution expenses could be reimbursed from company funds, and a French restaurant was even further beyond hope. He had not brought a female companion either, so single-dog Yang Xifeng spent the whole day miserably holed up in his cabin gnawing on the cheapest pork-fillet burgers.
By the time the guests reboarded and the ship prepared to depart again, another group of distinguished passengers had joined them.
The new arrivals came in with the formation of an entire army group, entering the brilliantly lit VIP hall in a mighty procession. The group moved in neat ranks, heads lowered, taking small steps as they filed inside one after another. Their movements were so elegant they seemed almost theatrical, and they were exceedingly respectful and humble, smiling sweetly and bowing ninety degrees to every passenger they passed. Every man and woman wore a kimono and wooden geta.
The women wore full sets of kimono accessories, their faces made up somewhat like geisha, each graceful and pretty.
The middle-aged man at their head was even more relentlessly pleasant. From the moment he entered the hall, his back never seemed to straighten. He kept bending and bowing, almost as though he were crawling forward with his head thrust out as hard as he could. Whenever he met someone, he respectfully offered a business card, bowing so deeply his forehead nearly touched the gleaming tips of the young Red aristocrats’ leather shoes. Yan Xiaodao heard the Mandarin he spoke to those princelings and noticed a distinct accent from a certain central province.
The face was vaguely unfamiliar, and Yan Xiaodao had to think for quite a while before placing it. He rapped his temple hard twice with his middle finger, suddenly struck by a sense of crisis at the prospect of going senile before his time.
Naturally, there was no occasion where the Jian family’s second son failed to appear. Jian Mingjue practically rolled his way over to the newly arrived guest as well, launched into another round of animated conversation, and then privately exchanged profile cards for female performers, designed to resemble perfume cards.
Yan Xiaodao finally waited until they had finished talking, then took out a box of expensive Cuban cigars and walked straight over. In the dimmer end of the bar, he brushed past Jian Mingjue and handed him one.
Jian Mingjue raised a dark eyebrow and, with a smile that did not reach his eyes, let Yan Xiaodao light the cigar for him. He took a drag, blew out a smoke ring, and ostentatiously savored the rich flavor through his nose, as though he already knew what Xiaodao wanted to ask. “Watanabe Yangshan. Big boss of Watanabe Ocean Machinery Heavy Industries. He comes to our Linwan Deepwater Port all the time!”
Yan Xiaodao could not help rapping his temple again and mocked himself. “This brain of mine. Wine and women really do ruin the body.”
Jian Mingjue leaned his head close to Yan Xiaodao’s and spoke quietly. “Watanabe Yangshan—you know about him, right? He was obviously born and raised in our own country, just some country bumpkin with no roots and no backing. Then he went off to Japan for ten years and came back transformed into an islander! Now he can barely even speak Chinese properly!”
It wasn’t that Jian Mingjue had no guard up around Yan Xiaodao, but the man simply talked too much. If he stopped talking, the bastard might genuinely suffocate to death, and besides, he always needed everyone to know that he knew the most. It was an occupational disease of a veteran broker; his mouth was how he made his living.
Yan Xiaodao’s smile was deep enough to hide anything. His well-tailored suit gave him an easy, polished air. “Little brother, didn’t you say you had a deck of cards to show me? Hurry up. If you’ve got something good, don’t hide it away and enjoy it all by yourself.”
Jian Mingjue immediately perked up. As though performing a magic trick, he really did produce a deck of cards, complete with promotional photos and titles. High-end courtesans who circulated in elite society were the major cards, while internet-famous escorts and outside girls were the minor cards. With an extravagant flourish, he spread them across the bar for Xiaodao to admire.
Yan Xiaodao asked, “What’s Watanabe Yangshan doing aboard the ship?”
Jian Mingjue smiled lewdly. “Trading resources, what else? Look at the ‘goods’ he brought with him. Pretty damn good. There definitely won’t be any shortage of buyers. A lot of the big oceangoing heavy fleets at the port belong to him. Catch a whale, net a big fish… Hell, maybe this time he’s even going to offer us a ‘mermaid’…”
There was something probing in Jian Mingjue’s gaze. Yan Xiaodao’s nose lifted slightly with his smile, but he said nothing.
When he tried to leave, that bastard Jian Mingjue insisted that he draw from the deck. Yan Xiaodao ended up stuffing two cards into his pocket. Jian Mingjue laughed and said, “You little punk really have a good eye—you go straight for the big tits and big asses.” Yan Xiaodao had not actually looked at either the photos or the names.
The arrival of this wealthy Japanese patron was like suddenly throwing a huge handful of wriggling, delicious feed into a pond crowded with fish. At first, the fish startled and scattered in every direction, circling cautiously and watching. Soon enough, however, none of them could resist the temptation, and one after another they shot like arrows toward the prey that would satisfy their appetites….
That night, Watanabe Yangshan’s entire contingent stole the show, to the point that even Liang Youhui forcibly dragged Yan Xiaodao along to watch the spectacle.
Searchlights swept across the theater as a whole horde of little demons danced. At first, the male and female performers moved to deep drumbeats and elegant rhythms, presenting a Japanese-style drum performance. After midnight, however, the entire tone of the drumming abruptly changed. The women began stripping away the cumbersome layers of clothing as they danced, peeling off outer garments and then underwear until only bellybands remained. The handsome young men followed roughly the same routine, stripping down until they looked more or less dressed for sumo wrestling. It was not especially sexy. Mostly, it looked ridiculous.
Male or female, every performer had a name tag hanging from their private parts with a stage name written on it so guests could choose someone and take them away on the spot. There were names along the lines of Dick Junichiro, Red-Tip Kameguchi, Big-Tits Ball-Clamper, Toshita Mayumi… In any case, they were too awful to keep reading.
Even someone like Mr. Yan was shocked. A wave of disgust and nausea rolled through him. Fucking perverts.
Liang Youhui swallowed to moisten his dry throat, then glanced at Yan Xiaodao’s displeased expression. “These people are taking it way too far. I don’t like this stuff either.”
Yan Xiaodao straightened the front of his suit and rose from his seat. He wanted to stay farther away from these people. They were filthy.
Liang Youhui remarked casually, “That Yue Yangshan guy wasn’t into this kind of thing when we used to see him around the city. Isn’t he originally from that province? Back then he used to brag to us that he was descended from the Yue family going back dozens of generations.”
“Good thing he changed his name and surname. A piece of trash like that doesn’t deserve the surname Yue!” Yan Xiaodao’s expression changed, and he turned away coldly.
There was no way Yan Xiaodao could share the rest of what he was thinking with simple, sweet, clueless Young Master Liang.
In any case, Watanabe Yangshan, boss of Watanabe Ocean Machinery Heavy Industries, had used one of his own ships to transport some important person here and load that person onto the Cloudtop, bound for Yilu Island, though what they intended to do afterward remained unknown. Young Master You had known about the shipment in advance and had come to inspect the goods; Jian Mingjue had probably also heard rumors beforehand and come to watch the excitement. Watanabe Yangshan had commercial shipping dealings with numerous companies in their Linwan Economic New District, so he certainly knew the You family, who held real power in Linwan. These people were connected.
While the guests aboard the entire ship reveled through the night in a haze of vice, Yan Xiaodao quickly slipped back toward his room, the corridor lights chasing his long shadow.
The moment he stepped inside, he hauled Yang Xifeng out from behind the door, and the two of them shut it.
Yang Xifeng wore a baseball cap and dark, close-fitting clothes over his skinny arms and legs. He lowered his voice. “Boss, I found it. Take the western emergency passage downstairs, go through the staff access door that’s usually locked, and head down to the middle level of the lower decks—the one with the central galley and the logistics and utility rooms. Don’t go all the way to the bottom. That’s nothing but valves and turbines.”
Yan Xiaodao lowered his head with a cigarette between his teeth as he quickly stripped off his suit. “Get to the important part.”
Yang Xifeng wiped away some sweat and continued, “Once you reach the level I told you about, you need to get into the storage area behind the galley. There are a lot of workers coming and going nearby…
“That thing isn’t a shipping container. It’s really a fucking cage! And inside the cage, there’s someone.”
“Who?” Yan Xiaodao had always been brisk and impatient. This breathless style of reporting drove him crazy. Get to the point.
Yang Xifeng swallowed, his eyes darting around. “I-I couldn’t see clearly either. I was looking through a window, and it was pitch-black, so I didn’t dare keep staring! Jesus, what the hell is that thing? It’s like seeing a ghost. Why don’t you go look for yourself?”
“So the cage is still hanging outside, soaking in the sea? And there’s someone inside?” Yan Xiaodao found it almost impossible to believe.
Yang Xifeng nodded nervously and pointed in the direction of the route. “Boss, you better go take a look tonight. It should still be there. Wait until after tonight and the sharks might chew him clean. By tomorrow morning, all we’ll have left is a skeleton!”
The moment Yan Xiaodao heard that, he moved fast. He tucked the hems of his close-fitting clothes into his short boots and laced them tight, put together a simple disguise for his face, and slipped out of the room….
Yang Xifeng normally looked like a grinning monkey who never took anything seriously, but when it came time to work, he was quick and efficient, and the route he had reported was accurate.
The first lower deck housed the workers and attendants. Four people shared each cabin, and the rooms were packed densely together like pigeonholes, with a long, narrow passage down the middle cluttered with miscellaneous objects. Even aboard the same luxury cruise ship, the worlds above and below were two entirely different heavens, bluntly—even deliberately—displaying the hard barrier between social classes.
As Yan Xiaodao passed workers in the corridor, he casually pulled a half-dry white uniform from a nearby clothes rack….
The central galley was just as busy and lively. Tray after tray of miniature matcha cheesecakes and delicate sakura cheese cups emerged from the ovens, carrying the warm fragrance of freshly baked cream and pastry. Junior workers wheeled carts loaded with Western pastries and plum sake upstairs to the ballrooms. Today’s festivities were following this cheerful Japanese theme. Yan Xiaodao casually grabbed a cart piled with bowls, plates, and food waste, lowered his head, and pushed it through the galley passage.
The storage area was dim, cramped, and winding. He had already reached the deepest part of the ship’s lower decks, near the outer edge of the hull.
Yan Xiaodao checked one small window after another, judging that it should be somewhere in this direction.
A dark-faced worker with disheveled hair stood eating in front of one porthole facing the sea, holding a glass of champagne in one hand and a piece of cake in the other. The galley was full of such things; there was no cook or worker who did not sneak a little food.
The dark-skinned worker ate and chuckled at the same time, a heh-heh sound rumbling in his chest. As though teasing a cat or dog, he raised his glass toward whatever was outside the window.
Yan Xiaodao watched him silently for a moment, then slowly stepped out of the shadows and approached.
He gently elbowed aside the man, who was mumbling around a mouthful of cake, and, already mentally prepared, turned his head to look through the porthole….
The sea at night was melancholy and cold. The enormous body of water was violently churned by the turbines and propeller blades at the ship’s stern, smashing the surface into broken white foam that scattered through the low air. All of it became heaving waves that battered the iron cage hanging from a steel framework alongside the ship!
Two small lights at the stern happened to illuminate this direction, throwing down two intersecting beams from above. As the ship rocked, they created a horrifying play of moving light.
The shifting beams outlined the silhouette suspended in the dark seawater. The black oilcloth had torn open beneath the surface, its edges curling and flapping away, exposing the astonishing cruelty hidden inside. A man with a long, lean body, broad shoulders, and long arms had been restrained in something resembling the posture of Christ on the cross. His hands and feet were bound by chains that shook too violently to make out clearly, each connected to a corner of the iron cage, suspending him inside it.
In other words, he was suspended in the water.
The man was already close to drowning, close to being swallowed entirely.
The surging black water repeatedly slammed against the iron cage, tearing the split in the oilcloth wider and wider, everything shaking with terrifying violence. The cage hung at a height that was neither high nor low—perhaps deliberately and maliciously chosen. The water seemed to reach only the man’s waist, but the rolling waves had no heart and offered no mercy to the trapped person who had nowhere to escape. Every minute, every moment, they attacked him like an army bent on slaughter and encirclement. Water surged over his face, retreated, then came rushing back even more violently before abruptly scattering away again and lying in wait for the next overwhelming assault….
Lift the cage a little higher, and he would stop choking.
Lower it a little farther, and he could simply drown and be done with it.
Whenever the black waves came roaring toward him, the man in the water twisted his body and strained his neck upward. When the water finally slid away from his face, he coughed and choked in great gasps. His shadow wavered in the deep water as though it might be swallowed at any moment. A pair of long legs tangled among dark-green, seaweed-like plants, strikingly visible beneath the beams of light.
The man could not eat, and he could not sleep. Every minute and every second was torture. He could drown at any moment, or be eaten alive by some school of carnivorous fish that squeezed through the iron bars, or simply soak here for several more days until his body began to rot.
It was a prison of water torture ingeniously constructed with heaven and earth themselves as the trap. Whoever had devised something like this was vicious to the extreme.
“This is… way too cruel,” Yan Xiaodao murmured.
The rolling waves suddenly seemed to carry such immense force that they swept straight through Yan Xiaodao’s emotions. Even though he had prepared himself beforehand, it was not enough. He had shed blood and taken lives, but he still considered himself psychologically normal. He took no pleasure in torturing a person in some nearly perverse fashion like this. It would be better to cut him down with one knife. How much hatred did it take to do this to someone?
The dark-skinned worker quietly squeezed back over from the side, craning his head toward the window as though he could never get enough of the sight. Perhaps some people were simply like this: whenever their own lives were going badly, they delighted in discovering that somebody else had it even worse. Why would they want to see someone else doing well?
Yan Xiaodao asked softly, “He’s been hanging there like this the whole time?”
The worker eagerly spilled the gossip. “Been hanging there since noon, heh-heh-heh! Cargo belonging to the boss of that fishing ship. They asked our ship to tow it along the way!”
Yan Xiaodao asked, “Why was he captured and treated like this?”
The worker said, “Who the hell knows? Can’t be anything good! Probably pissed off some boss or owes gambling debts and they’re going to chop off his hands and feet.”
Yan Xiaodao’s voice remained completely flat. “Has he had anything to eat or drink?”
The worker said, “What? How’s he supposed to eat or drink? Drink seawater and eat raw dried fish, heh-heh…”
Watching that mouth chew cake made Yan Xiaodao think of someone feasting on a “human-blood bun.” The next second, before the worker even knew what was happening, Yan Xiaodao struck the back of his neck with the edge of his hand, and the man slowly slumped unconscious against the storage crates.
Elio’s Notes: “Human-blood bun” is famously associated with Lu Xun’s Medicine; in modern usage, it is a metaphor for exploiting or profiting from another person’s suffering.
There were certain basic principles of decency a person ought to observe. If you saw some old man fall by the roadside, even if you were not going to help him up, at least do not walk over and kick him again or piss in his face. If someone else had only soup while you had meat, you did not have to give him a piece, but at least do not stand in front of him noisily smacking your lips. That was simply how Yan Xiaodao believed a person should conduct himself.
Another enormous wave came crashing in. Yan Xiaodao instinctively lunged toward the porthole, only to be stopped by the immovable double-layered glass between him and the outside… He had forgotten the glass was there.
The huge wave swallowed the man from every direction. All Yan Xiaodao could see were the two iron chains attached to his arms jerking in a futile struggle. A long, long time passed before the water finally receded, and a spill of long black hair spread across the top of the white foam. Then a pair of narrow, elongated eyes was revealed between strands of hair swept aside by the water….
The beams of light carved out his contours, while the film of water and the light reflected against one another, forming arc after arc that circled the man’s face and eyelashes.
Set into that pale face was a pair of clear, striking brows and eyes that seemed sculpted by nature itself. His jade-like eyes were astonishingly vivid through the layers of watery mist. Against the black sea, they suddenly seized Yan Xiaodao’s gaze, and in that instant their eyes met. He could not look away.
On opposite sides of the dark porthole, they met on a narrow road with nowhere to evade each other.
For a moment, both men seemed to stop breathing. Time itself stopped as they stared at one another.
Yan Xiaodao watched the man in secret astonishment. There was not the slightest trace of weakness or humiliation in those soul-seizing eyes. He drifted with the waves in an almost uncanny posture amid the merciless, wordless, soundless sea. His head was clearly tilted upward to look at Yan Xiaodao, yet his gaze was disdainful and proud, carrying the faintly gathering weight of hatred and tragedy, as though he were the one standing above and looking down.
＊
Yan Xiaodao slowly dragged his gaze back from the porthole. In truth, he had also spent those moments carefully examining the structure of the cage imprisoning the captive.
The cage was suspended near the stern by heavy steel cables. Raising it would definitely require heavy machinery and lifting equipment; there was no possibility of forcing it up by brute strength alone. Yet the captive was submerged in the water, beyond Yan Xiaodao’s reach, so he could not get to the cage door to open it. The cruise ship sat high above the sea, and judging from this angle, there was still a considerable distance between the cage and the deck at the rail above.
The cargo belonged to Watanabe Yangshan, and there were far too many crew members and eyes aboard the ship. They were also out in international waters where people were acting as though no rules applied. Yan Xiaodao could not casually interfere with this shipment.
At around four in the morning, the ship had reached the hour when most people were sleeping most deeply. Aside from the crowd of little demons still fighting through the night in the ballrooms and massage pools, most guests had already gone to bed, and none of them would be getting up particularly early. The stern deck was completely deserted.
Yan Xiaodao had not slept all night.
Whenever he lay down and closed his eyes, the roaring, overflowing black seawater surged up from somewhere inside him and washed over his entire mind. It climbed across the ceiling of his room, rose higher and higher until it swallowed the whole cabin, forcing the air from his lungs. Again and again he wanted to struggle upright, break free from the cage, rush onto the deck, and gulp down a few breaths of salty, fishy sea air.
He sprang upright from the bed, silently dressed, and once again slipped out of the room….