The ship’s dedicated medical staff finally arrived, taking their sweet time. At this level of efficiency, anyone suffering from a severe allergic reaction should already have suffocated to death.
A large dose of antiallergic medication was injected into a vein in Ling He’s arm, followed by an IV drip. His complexion began steadily returning to normal. Only the sweat-soaked clothes across his chest and back still revealed that the man had just struggled violently at the edge of death.
When an oxygen mask was placed over Ling He’s face and blocked his razor-sharp mouth, his expression looked distinctly unwilling, as though someone had deprived him of the strongest and most reliable weapon he carried.
Yan Xiaodao remained at one side of the stretcher bed, still unconsciously maintaining his solemn one-kneed posture. Sweat lightly covered his face. Even under such pressure, amusement managed to surface in his eyes. He gestured toward his own face, mimicking the transparent mask, his expression openly probing and teasing.
Despite having met by chance and known each other only briefly, the two had no difficulty understanding one another without words. Ling He immediately understood. A razor-edged glare shot from the corners of his eyes toward Yan Xiaodao, and he nearly refused the oxygen altogether. Yan was clearly mocking him for being too clever for his own good and ending up in the same sorry state as that old thief Watanabe—breathing oxygen while being carried away by a crowd of medical staff!
Seeing Ling He arguing through exaggerated mouth movements so furiously that he looked ready to blow the oxygen mask toward the ceiling, Yan Xiaodao smiled and magnanimously raised one apologetic finger, politely begging Mr. Ling to keep his mouth shut for the moment. He bent closer and said, “Focus on circulating your inner energy. Once you’re back to full HP, you can come cast your spells at me again.”
Ling He gave him a glance so threatening it was impossible to tell whether he wanted to laugh or get angry.
When Liang Youhui finally crawled out of the box clutching his badly frightened heart, nearly everyone around them had already dispersed. He watched Yan Xiaodao carry Ling He upstairs toward the room, with the little follower jogging eagerly beside them holding Young Master Ling’s IV bottle high overhead… Yan Xiaodao truly had never taken Liang Youhui seriously. He had not even remembered to come back and check whether Liang was alive. Young Master Liang felt deeply wounded.
Then he remembered Ling He’s face and body. Possessing an extremely Ah Q–like talent for comforting himself, Young Master Liang immediately made peace with the situation and even felt thoroughly convinced. Picking splinters out of his hair as he headed upstairs, he muttered to himself, “Xiaodao, now this is what they mean when they say even a hero can’t get past a beauty!”
Elio’s Notes: “Ah Q mentality” alludes to the protagonist of Lu Xun’s The True Story of Ah Q, famous for turning defeats and humiliations into imagined “spiritual victories” in order to console himself.
Among the guests gathered around the scene, Jian Mingjue, apparently burning with excitement, pulled out his phone and called his lover in the bedroom, Zhao Qifeng.
“Baby, there’s actually something I still haven’t told you. That Yan Xiaodao you wanted to meet? He’s on this ship too. Regret not coming now, don’t you? Serves you right!… But what I really wanted to tell you is, I found an absolute beauty. Extremely handsome, with that indescribable kind of presence. Definitely a male fox spirit. Completely different class from all those crooked flowers and withered willows we’ve seen before! Damn, this ‘big fish’—even calling him a beauty who makes fish sink, geese fall, the moon hide, and flowers blush wouldn’t be an exaggeration… Though he might not be your type.”
Deputy Director Zhao was busy working in her office and sounded faintly impatient over the phone. “If he isn’t my type, why are you telling me?”
Jian Mingjue hurried to amuse his great goddess of wealth. “Ah, the one who is your type… I think he’s fallen for that stunning male fox spirit! Those two have definitely slept together. They’ve been inseparable these past two days. You’d better stop thinking about him.”
On the other side of the crowd, behind a mass of gaudy men and women dressed like pheasant tails, stood another person quietly observing the aftermath: Young Master You. You Haodong’s face was equally dark as he spoke into his phone. “Dad, something just happened. Somebody apparently tried to ambush and kill Ling He!
“It wasn’t me, Dad. Our people didn’t interfere at all. The scene was bloody. I don’t know who got hurt. Yan Xiao might’ve been hurt too. I couldn’t even tell which side did it.”
“Who exactly made the move?” The rustling voice on the other end struggled to suppress enormous alarm. You Jinglian involuntarily fell back into his neurotic, repetitive worrying. “Could it be Qi—no, no, that doesn’t make sense. His man was already there. Then who did it…”
“Who was so impatient that they had to eliminate Ling He, silence the only surviving witness, and then make me the next one…” Certain thoughts struck directly into You Jinglian’s nerves, making the fingers gripping his recliner tremble slightly. Years of anxiety had left him suffering from chronic nervous exhaustion, insomnia, and trembling hands. Because of the blade that had hung above his head for more than a decade, he lived as though it might fall at any moment and cut off his head.
“Dad? What do you mean, you’re next?” You Haodong could not understand at all. His father was such a powerful, capable man. Who did the You family need to fear? Whose expression did they need to watch—Qi Baoshan’s?
Yan Xiaodao carefully laid Ling He sideways across the large bed. In that single instant, the pain in his right arm became bone-deep.
The act of setting Ling down had been the final effort of a spent bow. The moment Yan finally relaxed, pain swept through his whole body and began gnawing into every joint. He refused to let anyone see anything unusual, however. His left hand braced against the bed while his right arm could no longer lift itself.
Ling He lay on his back watching him. With remarkable consideration, he slowly and painfully moved his own legs apart so that Yan Xiaodao had enough room to pull his arm free.
“Xiaodao, you…” Ling He’s voice came muffled through the oxygen mask, mixed with rough breathing and slightly distorted.
The two were very close, their gazes brushing and meeting. After only two words, Ling He’s eyes flickered and avoided his for an instant before he abruptly changed his address. “Mr. Yan, you should get that injury treated. It’s too serious.”
Every tiny, nearly invisible shift in expression fell into Yan Xiaodao’s eyes, including that muffled but unmistakable “Xiaodao” that had slipped between someone’s thin lips. Given Ling He’s intelligence and emotional acuity, changing the form of address this way was remarkably blatant, stiff, and transparently awkward. It was stupid. Yet Yan Xiaodao’s heart softened anyway. Once again, that same weak spot was touched, and quiet ripples slowly spread across still water.
Yan Xiaodao shook his head and rejected the suggestion. He was not leaving.
Ling He smiled faintly, pointed at the IV bottle, then at his own chest, indicating that he was fine now.
Yan Xiaodao lightly tapped the frightening needle punctures between Ling He’s collarbones.
Ling He shook his head, then pointed behind Yan in the direction of the ship’s emergency clinic, telling him to go get his injury treated and stop wasting time.
Yan Xiaodao shook his head again. He still was not comfortable leaving.
Ling He smiled and pointed at Yang Xifeng.
Yan Xiaodao shrugged, plainly indicating that the idiot was unreliable and he did not trust him.
The thickheaded Yang Xifeng was standing beside the bed holding the IV bottle, looking for all the world like a human IV pole. He had not noticed that the two men had just conducted an entire silent conversation.
Yan Xiaodao profoundly agreed that as long as Mr. Ling’s mouth was sealed and he did not speak, he was actually a fairly lovely and even adorable person most of the time. Of course, the moment he opened his mouth, there was a ninety-percent chance he would destroy the atmosphere and beauty of their interaction, and whatever goodwill they had painstakingly accumulated would immediately disappear.
Ling He really should have been mute. The man did not need to speak anyway. Those eyes could talk. When their corners swept outward like faint ink-washed mountains beneath clouds, or when they calmly watched the red sunset along the horizon, those beautiful eyes alone could make a man without much ink in his belly imagine all sorts of lovely phrases: morning stars and a bright moon, autumn waters rippling sideways…
Yan Xiaodao removed his jacket and shut himself inside the bathroom. He ordered Yang Xifeng to go to the clinic and bring back gauze, bandages, anti-inflammatory medicine, and medicated liniment.
His right elbow joint had been kicked during the vicious fight, aggravating the previous injury. The swelling and discoloration had become almost unbearable to look at.
Performing chest compressions on Ling He and acting as a human pacemaker had worsened it again. In that moment, Yan had completely forgotten that the arm was injured, as though it no longer belonged to him. So Ling He’s chest had ultimately not caved in; instead, Yan’s own arm was nearly broken.
The outside of his suit still looked respectable, but the lining was splattered with blood that had dried nearly black in mottled patches. Yan Xiaodao slowly and carefully peeled off his shirt, avoiding the injured arm as much as possible, revealing a bare, lean, powerful torso and a row of blades around his waist.
He performed all of this with practiced ease, simply because he had been injured so many times before.
Hidden inside the bathroom, he pried open a bottle of liquor with his teeth, flicked out the stopper with his thumb, and used it to clean his wound while also taking a drink to quench his thirst and exhaustion. He found a small container on the counter, mixed medicinal powder with warm water, applied antibiotic anti-inflammatory powder to the split wound, then wrapped layer after layer of bandage around the arm to stabilize the muscles. His right arm could now only remain slightly bent. He did not dare exert force through it.
An injury like this simply needed a month or two to heal. It was not a major problem, except that right now he happened to have no time or opportunity to recuperate.
Still hiding in the bathroom, he dialed Master Qi’s number. “Godfather.”
“Godfather, Ling He and I were both attacked. There’s another group trying to kill him. It happened aboard the ship about an hour ago.”
“…” On the other end of the phone, Qi Baoshan shut off the little folk tune playing in his room with a sharp click. Even the myna bird under the veranda went quiet. His very first words revealed tense severity. “Where’s Ling He? Is he dead?!”
Yan Xiaodao said, “No. He almost died, but I brought him back. He should be all right now.”
Whether Qi Baoshan was relieved or disappointed was impossible to tell. He remained silent for quite a while. “Oh… you brought him back.”
Yan Xiaodao finally could not hold it in. “Godfather, who made the move?”
Qi Baoshan instead asked him, “Who do you think made the move?”
Yan Xiaodao was momentarily speechless. “…I don’t know them at all. They looked like outside mercenaries. Once they failed, they jumped into the sea. Clearly they had no intention of letting anyone identify them or capture them alive.”
Qi Baoshan fell silent once again. Then, abruptly, he added a stiff word of concern. “Xiaodao, are you all right? Were you hurt?”
Yan Xiaodao’s expression remained calm. “Just some broken skin. Nothing serious. Don’t worry.”
Even Master Qi’s expression of concern sounded unusually stiff, almost like a perfunctory attempt to keep Yan reassured. His attention had been entirely focused on whether Ling He was dead.
“All right. I understand.” In the silence of the late night, Qi Baoshan drifted into a detached monologue. “Whether Ling He dies or lives, someone will always want to cut away this old, festering tumor. Sooner or later, someone will become too impatient and expose themselves by making a move. Let them toss themselves around. We might as well remain still and watch the show… Xiaodao, take care of yourself.”
Yan Xiaodao obediently acknowledged him. When the call ended, disappointment and suspicion remained impossible to hide beneath his grave expression…
An enemy from some business feud more than ten years ago? Yan had always believed Qi Baoshan had not told him the entire truth—or perhaps had never spoken a single truthful sentence. Still, there were things he had no right to pry into. What did any of it really have to do with him?…
The first half of the night remained lively. Because of the unexpected bloody incident, the cruise ship’s security personnel went from room to room questioning and speaking with guests, partly investigating and partly reassuring them.
When they knocked on the door of the duplex VIP suite, the broad, heavily built security men in black uniforms remained quite polite. Naturally, their questions produced no real details. Anyone involved would hardly admit it. The two suspects who had started the violence had jumped directly into the sea. Crew members made a show of tossing lifebuoys and rope nets over the side for a while, found nothing but a vast expanse of pitch-black, violently surging ocean, and quickly gave up.
Drops of blood remained in the theater box and corridor, but the blood belonged to the missing suspects, so there was still no direct evidence that could accuse anyone else of wrongdoing.
The ship did not even drop anchor. It simply traveled several more nautical miles through the night, while everyone silently agreed to let the matter disappear.
Had anyone died? Who had seen it?
If word really spread that people had died aboard this ship, tickets for the Blue Sea Cloudtop cruise route would stop selling.
During the second half of the night, the cruise ship entered a calm stretch of steady travel. The pleasure venues emptied considerably, and the corridors became silent.
At last, the medical staff removed the ugly equipment—the IV bottle, oxygen mask, and everything else—and left the room. Now nothing stood between Young Master Ling and the freedom to exercise that remarkable mouth of his, settling grudges to his heart’s content without paying a cent for the privilege.
Yan Xiaodao thought Ling He had fallen asleep. But when he quietly bent over to cover the man with a blanket, Ling He turned onto his side and let one arm fall across Yan’s waist with perfect accuracy.
Neither spoke in the dim light. Their heights were already similar enough for them to stand eye to eye, and now, lying on the same level, they looked directly into each other’s eyes across the pillows.
Yan Xiaodao still carried an instinctive layer of caution. With his temperament, he was simply not accustomed to outsiders getting close enough to touch or embrace him. Even his bed partners and longtime female companions had complained before: Xiaodao, why won’t you ever take your clothes off in bed?
Naturally, the reason he kept his clothes on had nothing to do with shyness.
He only slept with people he had known for years and whose backgrounds he thoroughly understood. He never slept with unfamiliar faces and would never allow himself to be trapped through something like that.
Ling He looked at him. “Mr. Yan, do you always sleep fully dressed? That must be hard on you. Four little knives under your right arm. I assume there are four under the left too. Don’t they dig into you? And where do you hide that broad knife you use to slaughter pigs and cattle? Can I touch your suit jacket?”
Yan Xiaodao was frequently astonished by how clever and meticulous the man in front of him was, as though everything had already been calculated inside his head, yet he still could not resist stating those conclusions in the most cutting, direct way possible, specifically to test Yan’s patience.
Whenever Mr. Ling opened his mouth, he had unquestionably come prepared—and he never came with good intentions.
Ling He’s hand at Yan’s waist was not expressing intimacy or seduction. With that one movement, his fingers silently brushed over the handles of four willow-leaf knives of different lengths hidden along Yan’s right ribs, feeling out both their positions and angles. Yan Xiaodao did not knock his hand away, which was already the greatest tolerance he could offer such outrageous behavior.
A purplish bruise from the IV remained on the back of Ling He’s hand. Yan felt sorry for him and could not bring himself to swat that hand aside.
Yan Xiaodao said, “The lining of the suit is covered in blood. Better not touch it.”
Ling He smiled. “Hangzhou silk lining, and a designer brand too. What a waste. Next time, Mr. Yan, you really don’t need to go to the trouble of saving me.”
Yan Xiaodao studied his eyes. “Someone entrusted me to keep you alive until we reach the mainland. I’m being paid to do a job. There’s no question of trouble or no trouble.”
A streak of white like an icy river crossed those pale irises, as though it were the only lamp illuminating the truth in the darkness. Ling He gave a miserable laugh. “Paid by whom? Your godfather, Qi Baoshan. He told you to capture me and take me back so he could deal with me personally. Unfortunately, circumstances have changed. Apparently someone can’t even wait until I get back to interrogate me anymore. Heh! After all, if they make their move on your doorstep and I die within your Linwan Port territory, none of you could explain it. But if I die aboard the Cloudtop and get fed to the fish until not even scraps remain, that would be the perfect ending.”
Yan Xiaodao frowned. “If you get fed to fish aboard this ship, it has nothing to do with Master Qi.”
Ling He’s smile looked drifting and unsupported, yet his eyes dissected the truth with the sharpest possible cruelty, almost laughing at the fool before him. “Mr. Yan, you might as well stop saving me. Sooner or later you’ll have to cut me down yourself after saving me anyway. Then what? Save me again? Cut me again? Keep slicing me back and forth like that? My wounds hurt too. I’m made of flesh and blood. I can feel pain, needle punctures, tearing, skinning, and bone being scraped away. You might as well give me one clean blade and be done with it!”
Yan Xiaodao’s expression slowly changed. His pupils contracted as he stared directly into Ling He’s eyes.
His mind was packed with questions, but he had kept every one locked inside, unwilling to speak them. Thinking wildly on his own was one thing. Having Ling He peel the matter apart thread by thread and expose those questions aloud was something else entirely.
What exactly was Master Qi hiding about what happened more than ten years ago?
Master Qi and Ling He were separated by an entire generation in age. What kind of hatred could possibly exist between them?
When Master Qi said he would “deal with” Ling He, exactly how had he intended to deal with him?…
Why had the two killers not used guns? Why had they avoided using outright lethal attacks against Yan Xiaodao himself, instead seeming constrained at every turn?
How many people knew that Ling He was allergic to nicotine? Injecting a dose of nicotine into him was almost equivalent to throwing him into an Auschwitz gas chamber.
The killers plainly had not been sent by You Haodong. Then who else could it be? Who had bought off Watanabe Yangshan and arranged the attack aboard the ship tonight?
…
Some questions could not be turned over endlessly in the mind. Once they took root, they became like a malformed tumor growing inside the brain. A tumor would not digest itself. It would only grow larger and heavier, pressing against his nerves and disturbing his judgment.
Yang Xifeng was asleep on the long sofa downstairs in the suite. The two men upstairs could hear the idiot’s carefree snores rising and falling.
Ling He silently pointed downstairs.
Yan Xiaodao said, “What are you trying to say?”
Ling He’s expression turned strange, caught somewhere between indignation and bitter unwillingness. Looking directly at Yan Xiaodao’s face, he spoke word by word, each one aimed at the heart. “Back in the box, you kicked my wheelchair into the corridor to protect me. It spun around out there. Plenty of people saw it. That yellow-haired Terminator simply walked right up, grabbed my hair and shoulder, dragged me onto the floor, then pulled me all the way into the neighboring box.
“I was only one wall away from you, right inside the box next door. Someone must have seen what happened. They obviously knew I was in danger, knew someone was going to hurt me, but nobody told you that I was right next door, barely ten steps away. Mr. Yan, you almost arrived one step too late. Just one step. Unfortunately for them, you came too early and ruined somebody’s plan…
“Mr. Yan, why didn’t someone at your side tell you that I was dying right next door?”
…
At that instant, scarlet surged into Yan Xiaodao’s eyes like wildfire racing across dry grass. Even the old scar hidden beneath his hairline flushed dark red.
He violently threw Ling He’s arm away from his waist and stared at him.
That mouth truly was poisonous. The man was practically made of snakes and scorpions.
Only an hour ago, Ling He had been so weak he had nearly suffocated to death. There had been no pretending about that. He had barely regained the ability to breathe! A thick puncture mark still showed between his collarbones, while his chest remained darkly bruised from forceful compressions. His breathing was obviously still weak, yet every word drilled into Yan’s heart. His HP had barely begun recovering, and he was already launching attacks again!
Yan Xiaodao was furious beyond endurance. He had already been harboring suspicions about Qi Baoshan and refusing to acknowledge them, and now pressure built painfully inside his chest. Their gazes tangled together in the dark until sparks seemed to crackle between them. He seized Ling He’s chin and squeezed viciously, distorting the man’s face beneath his grip. “Finished? Anything else? Spit it all out.”
Ling He stared stubbornly back at him. His extremely thin lips had lost all color, their very shape suggesting the sharpness of every argument that came from them.
Yan Xiaodao pressed him. “That yellow-haired killer—did he speak to you back then?… What did he say?”
Red gradually seeped into Ling He’s eyes as well. “If I tell you what he said, and who sent him, would you believe me?”
Yan Xiaodao’s face remained cold and unreadable. “Say it. Let me hear what else you can come up with.”
Ling He sneered. “What else can I say? One more sentence and I’ll lose my life. You might as well go dredge a corpse out of the sea and ask him yourself.”
After a long moment, Yan Xiaodao nodded. “Then don’t say anything. Shut that mouth of yours. One more word and I’ll rip out your tongue.”
Ling He showed no fear whatsoever. His face remained equally proud, refusing to weaken or yield at such a moment. If he showed the slightest softness, guilt, hesitation, fear, or ingratiating attempt to please, Yan Xiaodao was intelligent enough to see straight through it, rip out his tongue, and cut open his true face.
His hands had moved on reflex as well, catching two of Yan Xiaodao’s fingers with the same speed he had used earlier, almost unable to restrain himself from applying brutal force. Xiaodao was practically pinching through his face. The pressure ground his gums against the lining of his mouth until they bled, hurting far more than the needle puncture had.
In the end, he gave up. He did not snap Yan Xiaodao’s fingers the way he had snapped the needle. Slowly, he loosened his grip…
When Yan Xiaodao suddenly brought his face close and delivered his threat word by word, Ling He did not even hear exactly what he was saying. Yan’s handsome lips distracted him completely. The memory from an hour earlier was still vivid enough to strike directly between his brows. A trace of blood remained caught in the center of both their lips, still not washed away.
Tonight, both men had been willing to risk their lives in the critical moment, and both had unleashed their strongest moves—one severing an arm, the other striking directly at the heart.
In the darkness, neither man could be bothered with the other. Their uncanny understanding of each other was hardly an advantage during an argument. When words failed them, they could not throw tantrums or wrestle around like children, so they simply fought with barbed gazes instead, lashing the person opposite through seven or eight silent rounds. Each wanted to force the other into submission, and neither succeeded. Yet they were still all in the same boat—and still sleeping in the same bed.
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