Downstairs, Yan Xiaodao straightened the collar of his suit and opened the door. Standing outside was, unexpectedly, a graceful figure dressed in an ultra-short kimono that exposed two snow-white thighs. Judging by her outfit, she was a member of the Mount Fuji Song-and-Dance Troupe Watanabe’s people had brought aboard. Apparently, their boss lying in a hospital bed sucking oxygen from a tank did nothing to stop these people from going door to door picking up customers and making money.
Elio’s Notes: The chapter title, The Izu Dancer, alludes to Yasunari Kawabata’s famous novella of the same name, which centers on a traveling dancer in Izu.
The girl’s face was covered in kabuki makeup, whiter even than Cao Cao’s white face paint in Peking opera, making it impossible to tell what she actually looked like. She gave Mr. Yan a delicate ninety-degree bow, followed by a string of soft, coy greetings in Japanese.
Yan Xiaodao did not understand a single word. He made a cold gesture: Please turn right, leave, and knock on the door of the big boss next door instead.
Naturally, the dancer refused to leave. She twisted her waist and thighs as she spoke, gesturing along with her words: Mr. Yan had booked her time. At the same time, she shyly lifted the hem of her short skirt, revealing the name tag at her private parts: Toshita Mayumi.
Yan Xiaodao understood the body language, but declined her goodwill. “I never booked you.”
Miss Mayumi hurriedly produced her business card as well, a gaudily colored performer card featuring a sexy photograph together with an introduction to her preferred bed positions and special talents.
The card looked vaguely familiar. Yan Xiaodao instinctively reached into his suit pocket and pulled out the two “playing cards” Jian Mingjue had forcibly stuffed into his hand aboard the ship. Of the cards he had drawn at the time, one really was this very Toshita Mayumi!
Toshita Mayumi had come to keep the appointment.
Yan Xiaodao braced an elbow against the doorframe. His smile was gentlemanly but carried an unmistakable chill that kept people a thousand miles away. “I changed my mind. I don’t need the service anymore. Please go back, miss.”
Mayumi ignored him completely, stepped straight inside, and shut the door behind her.
“Mr. Yan, can I come in and keep you company?… I’ll only stay for an hour.”
Toshita Mayumi abruptly dropped the seductive come-hither act she had worn outside the door, as though someone had flipped a switch on her face. Her brows filled with worry and a plea for help as she signaled desperately to Yan Xiaodao with her eyes.
Yan Xiaodao understood from that single sentence. This was standard northern Mandarin, without even the distinctive accent of a foreigner imitating Chinese.
“You’re Chinese.” Yan Xiaodao watched her eyes.
A trace of shame seeped through Mayumi’s deathly white makeup. She lowered her gaze, silently admitting it.
Yan Xiaodao certainly was not going to interrogate a girl to her face with, “You’re young, pretty, and able-bodied—couldn’t you do anything else? Why are you doing this for Japanese devils?” His expression made his cool refusal clear, but he had never been the sort to humiliate or embarrass a woman. He pointed toward a single armchair in the living room. “Sit.”
A lavishly dressed dancer in full makeup sat inside the luxurious suite, yet the two people were separated by a good seven or eight meters, occupying two sofas nowhere near each other. The scene was absurd. On the Cloudtop, where every variety of vice flourished, they were probably unique. Even Miss Mayumi looked awkward; she had never served a guest like Mr. Yan before.
It was as though the words “sexually frigid” were written across Yan Xiaodao’s face.
There was also a man with limited mobility lying upstairs. Ling He could probably hear them talking, but it did not matter if he could.
“My mother took me to Japan with my stepfather when I was little, so…” Mayumi explained quietly, with no intention of excusing the path her life had taken.
Yan Xiaodao nodded to show that he understood. “Run into trouble?”
Mayumi quickly shook her head, fingers continuously smoothing the sash of her kimono. “Not really any trouble. Sorry to bother you, Mr. Yan.”
After enduring several minutes of awkward silence, Mayumi regained her composure and raised her voice slightly to ask gently, “May I pour myself a glass of Napoleon brandy?”
Yan Xiaodao indicated with his eyes that she should help herself.
Mayumi quickly went to the bar and poured half a glass of liquor, though she did not drink it. Holding the glass, she took careful little steps around behind Yan Xiaodao and came toward him from the rear. She was wearing wooden geta; to Yan Xiaodao’s ears, every step sounded like a pounding drum, without the slightest hint of stealth.
Yan Xiaodao had originally been sitting with his right ankle resting across his left knee, broad and imposing, with the kind of presence that usually made women hesitate to casually approach and tease him. He instinctively lowered his leg and turned to look. Mayumi slipped around him and sat directly on his thigh, staring straight into his eyes!
Yan Xiaodao raised an elbow horizontally between them, keeping the girl at a distance.
What a terrible move. Were the girls working these pleasure houses all this bad at their jobs nowadays?
As Mayumi wrapped her arms around him, she pressed cheek to cheek and rapidly whispered in a faint, trembling voice, “Mr. Yan, is it safe to talk here? I… have something to tell you.”
The girl’s eyes were cautious and slightly frightened, her chest rising and falling with tension. She was clearly afraid of being bugged. A delicate cherry blossom had been painted between her brows, growing even more vivid and lovely when she frowned. Yan Xiaodao’s knife-sharp gaze seemed to peel away the layer of makeup she wore as a disguise, making her increasingly flustered. She had already sat on his thigh, yet now she did not dare move, as though sitting on pins and needles.
Yan Xiaodao was neither flustered nor hurried. He had seen too much in his life to let himself be led around by a woman after only two sentences. Was Mayumi a scout Jian Mingjue had sent over, or an inside agent working for Watanabe Yangshan?
Just then, a sudden bang came from the floor upstairs. It sounded like a glass had fallen to the floor but, luckily, had not broken—as though it had made the noise purely to scare someone.
Mayumi jolted on Yan Xiaodao’s knee. Thinking her boss had discovered her, she stared at Mr. Yan with wide, almond-shaped eyes.
“It’s fine.” Yan Xiaodao looked faintly exasperated and complained inwardly about the troublesome Ling He. What are you throwing glasses around for? He stood, hauling Mayumi up along with him while she was still wrapped around his body. A man’s strength overwhelmingly surpassed a woman’s; under Mayumi’s startled and helpless gaze, Yan Xiaodao simply lifted her and strode away, practically dragging her with both feet off the floor. He headed straight for a corner of the living room, passed the bathroom without entering it, then took an unexpected turn into the coat closet, where there was barely room for two people to move.
The coat closet near the living room was intended for guests to hang their coats and leave their shoes upon entering.
It was narrow, dark, cramped, and smelled faintly of dust, but it was extremely safe. Nobody would install a listening device inside a place like this. In the darkness, Yan Xiaodao calmly met the girl’s eyes. “Talk.”
Mayumi’s frightened nerves gradually settled. By now, when she looked over Yan Xiaodao’s handsome face, her gaze held a full measure of trust and admiration. A blade of light slipped through the crack of the closet door like a tiny hand prying it open, faintly tinting the atmosphere.
Mayumi said, “Mr. Yan, someone may be planning to hurt you.
“A few hours ago, I boarded before most of the guests to prepare for tonight’s performance. I was in the dressing room behind the theater… The dressing-room door might be broken. There was a screen between us, but the people in the meeting room didn’t notice me. I accidentally overheard them from behind it… Mr. Watanabe and another man.”
Yan Xiaodao interrupted her. “The old man is aboard too?”
Mayumi nodded with certainty. “Of course. My boss—I mean, Mr. Watanabe—boarded a long time ago. His heart condition relapsed, and he came aboard in a wheelchair with an oxygen machine and cardiac pacing equipment, carried in by his men. He looked like he was barely hanging on.”
Yan Xiaodao went straight to the key point. “Who was the other man?”
This time, Mayumi shook her head. “I was hiding. How would I dare show my face? If they’d discovered me, I wouldn’t still be alive. I couldn’t see him, and I didn’t recognize the voice either. I’m not sure whether he’s someone familiar aboard the ship. They mentioned you. They said they would make their move tonight or tomorrow night and absolutely couldn’t let you get off the ship and return. They also mentioned the Mr. Ling who’s with you. They said they had to ‘eliminate you root and branch’ and ‘leave absolutely no one alive’…
“My boss probably accepted some promise of money from the other party. That man may have brought a great deal of money aboard to buy him off.
“I think… Mr. Yan, you should run. Or hide.”
“Hide where? Jump into the ocean?” A faint smile touched Yan Xiaodao’s lips. He did not seem particularly concerned.
Yan Xiaodao studied the girl, then suddenly asked, “Was that man Jian Mingjue?”
“Mr. Jian?” Mayumi’s face immediately revealed undisguised distaste. “He doesn’t speak in that sinister, frightening tone. It definitely wasn’t him.”
Yan Xiaodao asked, “Mr. You in the suite next door?”
Mayumi looked blank. “I’m not familiar with that Mr. You. He’s never booked me before. I couldn’t recognize…”
“Thanks.” Yan Xiaodao briefly closed his eyes. “How did you dare come here and tell me all this?”
A trace of embarrassment crossed Mayumi’s face. “While we were on the island, Mr. Jian told me you had drawn my card and ordered me to come serve you for an hour. He had already paid me in advance on your behalf and specifically assigned me to come. If he hadn’t sent me, I wouldn’t have dared come over.”
Yan Xiaodao understood. Second Jian really had a sense of humor. He had obviously sent this “playing card” over to probe Ling He, still thinking about getting his hands on Young Master Ling. Miss Mayumi, meanwhile, had plans of her own and could not resist coming to secretly warn him. If Watanabe discovered that she had betrayed her own side, she would probably end up locked inside one of that old bastard’s signature iron cages and thrown into the sea.
Mayumi returned to the sofa. Yan Xiaodao personally poured her a glass of liquor to calm her nerves. Mayumi simply hugged half a bottle of champagne to herself and drank from it, her eyes moist and red-rimmed.
Yan Xiaodao set an alarm on the little clock. “Stay in this room for two hours before you leave.”
Mayumi curled sideways on the sofa with her legs drawn up, hugging the bottle and watching him.
Yan Xiaodao made a dirty joke. “Can’t have Mr. Jian thinking I finish too fast. Two hours is already quicker than usual!”
Mayumi covered her mouth and smiled shyly. A cherry-blossom flush colored her face, making her quite lovely.
Just then, of all possible moments, another sound came from upstairs. A burst of barely suppressed pfft—hehehe laughter worked its way through layer after layer of bedding. It grew louder and louder, spiraling down around the staircase railing from upstairs and striking Yan Xiaodao’s eardrums with astonishing force. Once it began, it simply would not stop—full-throated, uninhibited laughter saturated with mockery and ridicule!
This time, it was Mr. Yan’s turn to awkwardly turn away, wondering how that irritating bastard managed to be everywhere at once. He suddenly understood, with deep sympathy, exactly how the old scumbag Watanabe had been infuriated by Ling He until his heart condition relapsed.
Golden sunset burned along the horizon. The last embers of the dying sun melted into the sea. Against that brilliant afterglow, the Cloudtop’s grandest carnival was about to begin—the final night of madness on the voyage home.
Mayumi had said tonight or tomorrow night, but Yan Xiaodao knew perfectly well that by tomorrow they would enter territorial waters. If someone intended to make a move, tonight was their best opportunity.
There was already movement and noise in the corridor outside. Guests emerged with companions and headed in different directions toward the restaurants, bars, theater, massage pools… The vivid, sensual nightlife was beginning again.
The alarm rang. When Miss Mayumi prepared to leave, she even showed obvious reluctance.
As Mayumi passed through the entryway, Yan Xiaodao suddenly reached out and stopped her. He tugged several strands loose from the back of her elaborate Japanese updo, knocked one hairpin askew, then pulled open the collar of her kimono slightly.
Leaning against the entryway wall, Yan Xiaodao wrapped an arm around the girl’s waist and, without the slightest politeness, bit down on the exposed back of Mayumi’s neck. His lips and teeth moved with practiced ease, working a visible hickey into the skin and leaving behind a faint imprint of teeth.
Then he released her and indicated with his eyes that she could go.
“Take care, Mr. Yan.” The corners of the girl’s eyes were flushed. Without saying anything else, she leaned forward and reverently kissed the side of Yan Xiaodao’s face. She did not dare ask for anything more and hurried away in quick little steps. She had noticed Mr. Yan aboard the ship even before going ashore and naturally had developed a fondness for him. But some men were born with the nature of wanderers. Like the wind at the edge of the world, they could stir a person’s heart, yet could never be touched or held. No woman could ever truly possess a heart like that.
Someone knocked again immediately afterward. This time there was no fuss. A server delivered an embossed invitation with gold lettering to every room, inviting the guests downstairs to the Moulin Rouge Theater to watch a kabuki performance together—the centerpiece of tonight’s carnival.
The invitation Yan Xiaodao received was addressed to Liang Youhui. The theater tickets included with the duplex suite were reserved box seats. The ticket attached to Yan’s own tiny cabin presumably only entitled him to an ordinary seat in the audience.
Liang Youhui called almost immediately.
Liang Youhui sounded utterly miserable. “Xiaodao, seriously? You took over my room, and now you’re taking over my theater box too?”
Yan Xiaodao answered cheerfully, “I’m not going to the theater. Take the ticket.”
Hearing that only made Liang Youhui unwilling to give up. “Xiaodao, come on, you have to go! The Shochikutei Revue aboard this ship is famous all over the Southeast Asian routes. A country bumpkin like you has definitely never seen anything like it. I’ll broaden your horizons. You won’t regret it… Want to sit together?”
Yan Xiaodao was considering how to brush him off when Liang Youhui continued, “What, you don’t even want me sitting in the same box as your lover? You dislike me that much? At least introduce us!”
Yan Xiaodao said, “I’m just not interested. I don’t like watching shows!”
Yan Xiaodao was not old, but he had lived through quite a lot. Over the years, he had seen more than enough spectacles, farces, melodramas, playacting, and all the grand scenes of joy, grief, desire, and every other human emotion. These days, he had no interest in putting on performances himself and was equally too lazy to watch other people perform in front of him.
Yan Xiaodao went upstairs and found that Ling He had already propped up his upper body, completely different from the man who had just been teasing and laughing at him from afar. Now he sat quietly and desolately against the headboard without a word, spine straight, eyes coldly fixed outside the window while violet sunset covered his handsome face.
Yan Xiaodao slowly walked over. Ling He turned his head and said with that silver tongue of his, “Go watch the show. The Shochikutei Revue really is famous. It would be a shame not to join the fun, Mr. Yan.”
Yan Xiaodao said, “I have to stay beside you tonight. After tonight, we’ll be back in domestic waters.”
Ling He gave an unconcerned sneer. “So what? Go out and enjoy yourself. Let those old bastards bring on whatever they’ve got.”
Yan Xiaodao shot back, “If I go out and have fun, can you manage alone in this room?”
“What exactly can’t I manage?” Ling He’s face abruptly darkened. His handsome features seemed to freeze over beneath ice and snow, turning cold and razor-sharp as he stared at Yan Xiaodao. Every invisible thorn on his body seemed to rise at once.
“I’m only mobility-impaired, aren’t I, Mr. Yan? If you walk out that door tonight, am I going to get hacked to death? Of course I am. If you don’t protect me, and if you happen not to come back tonight, then tomorrow morning I’ll never set foot on the Celestial Empire’s soil.
“When the night is deepest, while people are laughing and celebrating outside and fireworks are rising over the sea, I’ll be hacked to death right here on this bed. I won’t even be able to move a single step before they cut me into eight pieces…
“When you finally come back, all you’ll see will be my hands, my feet, and my head. Maybe there’ll still be a few scraps and pieces hanging by strings of flesh from the torso, with bloody fragments scattered everywhere. Heh. When that happens, I’ll have to trouble Mr. Yan to sew all my parts back on. Make it pretty. At least then today’s acquaintance between us won’t have been wasted.”
Yan Xiaodao listened in silence until he finished. The emotion swelling painfully inside his chest forced him forward in several strides. He climbed directly onto the bed and pinned down half of Ling He’s body.
Ling He quickly turned his face away and proudly raised his chin toward the last traces of blood-red sunset outside, as though tearing against heaven itself for that final sliver of light, refusing to bow his head.
Around those pale-green irises, however, a dark-red ring had appeared.
Yan Xiaodao braced himself in front of Ling He, caught his chin, and forced him to turn back. With genuine feeling, he said, “Mr. Ling, if they ever cut you into eight pieces, the first thing I’m sewing back on will definitely be your mouth.”
Ling He rolled his eyes haughtily. “You flatter me, Mr. Yan.”
Yan Xiaodao: “…”
At that moment, Yan Xiaodao thought, Ling He, just how stubborn, how hard, and how completely incapable of saying what you really mean can one person be?
Ling He, what are you trying to say?
Don’t you just want to tell me one thing? Don’t leave tonight. Stay with me. I can’t manage alone.
Did you really need to waste such a huge speech full of sharp, twisted words just to say that?
…
Something gouged hard into Yan Xiaodao’s heart. The intense dependence Ling He had accidentally revealed at the boundary between life and death struck the one soft spot no one had ever touched—the place he had hidden for years beneath his suit and behind a row of blades.
Every man had that fatal weak point. When someone trusted and depended on him completely, the desire to protect them rose naturally from somewhere deep inside. At that moment, taking a risk for the person in front of him suddenly seemed worthwhile. Yes. Aboard this Cloudtop, Yan Xiaodao was the only person Ling He could rely on. As long as Yan remained, Ling He remained. The man’s life was effectively hanging from him, unable to leave him even for a single step.
Yet the naturally stubborn Young Master Ling would not retreat even one step, nor would he ever utter a single soft word of flattery or pleading. Every sentence he threw out had to stab Yan’s nerves, gouge his heart, and ignite his temper.
Beneath that dazzling beauty lay a life buffeted by fate; above that fate remained an unbending backbone.
Like a stone dropping into a pond, faint ripples trembled outward, leaving behind only the lightest aftertaste. At the time, that final wake was shallow and quickly disappeared from the surface without a trace. Yet its force lingered for a very long time, buried deep beneath the green water, until much later—when Yan Xiaodao finally understood what that stirring of the heart had tasted like.
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