The villa had electronically controlled gates at both the front and back, high walls on all four sides, steep terrain, and overlapping surveillance from cameras and alarm systems. Yan Xiaodao was perfectly comfortable leaving Ling He at home alone. Seven or eight capable men were constantly coming and going through the house, and there were also two bear-like creatures keeping an alert watch over the property. Ordinary people would not dare break in casually.
Elio’s Notes: The title 君子之交 evokes the traditional expression “the friendship between gentlemen is as pure as water”: a sincere, principled relationship that does not rely on flattery or self-interest. The chapter later explicitly describes Yan Xiaodao as a 君子—a gentleman in the moral sense.
The closer they were to home territory, the more soundly they could sleep. Qi Baoshan did not dare spill blood and start some enormous conflict here, and neither did anyone else. Everyone had too much to lose and was afraid of stirring up serious trouble. This might not literally be beneath the Son of Heaven’s feet at the root of the imperial city, but it was still well within the reach of imperial authority. That hand could stretch over here with very little effort and seize all you kings of hell and little ghosts. Things were tightly controlled.
Once Yan Xiaodao entered the house, he could barely take a step beneath the combined assault of that shameless dog couple. He dodged the pair’s indiscriminate licking and paw-slapping and headed upstairs. The instant Master Bear and Third Lady saw where he was going, they shot ahead of him, raced straight to the sitting-room door, and barked twice in warning before staring expectantly at Yan Xiaodao to see how he would deal with the situation.
The spot where the sitting-room lamp met the sofa had already been occupied. Naturally, it was Mr. Ling, sitting beneath the light and leafing through a book.
Ling He held his head slightly to one side. The longer side of his hair half veiled his face, the ends falling across the book. Beneath the lamplight his expression was calm yet luminous, his eyelashes looking almost as though two beautiful semicircular rainbows had been painted across them. It was the sort of natural beauty that made it impossible to look away no matter where or when you encountered it.
With their tails standing straight up, Master Bear and Third Lady seemed vividly to be saying: Boss, that male fox spirit has occupied your throne! What are our forces supposed to do?!
Yan Xiaodao could not help laughing. He reached out and stroked their fur one after the other. “All right. You two get back to your beds and rest too. Quit getting underfoot.”
Master Bear and Third Lady were, after all, guard dogs that had been raised here for years. They possessed an instinctive vigilance and sense of duty. Even though they had already accepted Ling He as a long-term guest with an exceptionally powerful presence, the master bedroom was still the throne where their lord read and slept. No outsider was permitted to invade that territory. The tiger had left the mountain for the day, and the fox spirit had seized the throne!
Yan Xiaodao used his knee to herd the two bear-things away and shut them directly outside the master-bedroom door.
The instant the bedroom door closed in front of their faces, Master Bear and Third Lady were stunned. They howled resentfully for quite a while and even tried ramming the door. A great cauldron of jealousy was now boiling furiously between those two ancestors. Their status as the favored concubines who accompanied their lord in the master bedroom was in danger overnight. That bastard Ling posed the greatest threat in years to the supposedly indestructible iron triangle of one man and two dogs!
Mr. Ling was amused by the racket of scratching and banging against the door. He curled his lip, considering whether he should spray venom at the two stupid dogs first or at the stupid owner of the dogs.
Yan Xiaodao casually removed his suit jacket in the comfortable manner of someone at home, then paused apologetically. “Oh. Forgot to shake the cigarette smell off outside. I reek of smoke.”
A gleam appeared in Ling He’s eyes, the satisfied light of someone who had been waiting for exactly this moment. With apparent consideration, as though he had already calculated everything, he said, “Mr. Yan has certainly had a hard day. Your mouth is dry and your eyes hurt this badly. Are the people under you really that useless? You spent too long staying up late reading documents. Eyes aren’t microscopes; you can’t keep staring through them forever.”
Yan Xiaodao’s face remained perfectly still, but something went thump inside him. “…How did you know my eyes hurt from reading documents?”
Ling He’s smile deepened. “Mr. Yan, your eyes are full of burst blood vessels. Redness caused by excessive eye strain and nerve fatigue, redness caused by anger and violent emotions, and redness caused purely by drinking yourself half blind all have different colors and different patterns of capillary congestion.”
Yan Xiaodao had no argument. Secretly startled, he nodded in acknowledgment. He walked over and flipped through the pile of books Ling He had been reading. The man had moved on to skimming 1587, A Year of No Significance and Founding Generals at extraordinary speed. His train of thought was remarkably broad and prone to sudden leaps.
“You’re that interested in these books?” Yan Xiaodao asked, raising an eyebrow.
Ling He shook his head. “Not particularly. You don’t have anything else to read here, Mr. Yan.”
Yan Xiaodao said, “Order a batch online. Have them delivered here.”
Ling He smiled slyly and refused to appreciate the gesture. “Forget it. I’d like to buy a few easy-to-read romance novels suitable for someone of my age, sophistication, and level of knowledge. I’m only afraid that if I pile them up in your house, Mr. Yan will think I’m vulgar, offensive to the eye, and too tasteless to deserve this sofa of yours.”
That mouth of his, always making people want to tear at it….
By now, Yan Xiaodao had actually begun to enjoy listening to Ling He shoot little arrows at him. Every day after finishing his business, this tiny stretch of relaxed, pleasant bickering was all he had, yet somehow life suddenly felt different because of it. He did not believe for a second that Student Ling liked romance novels. Every sentence that came out of this kid’s mouth had to be broken apart, kneaded thoroughly, and sifted several times to filter out the misdirection and unidentified impurities before you could pick out which individual word, if any, was trustworthy.
As Yan Xiaodao approached the sofa, he happened to notice the wheelchair and crutches beside it. His eyes flicked over them once, then swept rapidly around the room. “You went outside today? Onto the terrace?”
Ling He’s expression remained calm. “Oh. Yes. Wanted some air.”
Beside his second-floor master bedroom was a spacious, brightly lit room without a door or built-in cabinets. In the layout of a detached villa, it would normally have been used as the owner’s study. Its owner, however, had never used it as a proper study. Instead, it served simultaneously as a practice room, billiards room, temporary guest room, and whatever else was needed. Beyond it, facing the direction of the port, was a large wooden second-floor terrace with an unobstructed view of the sea.
Eyes capable of identifying blade-tip marks on decades-old human bones were bound to be sharp. Yan Xiaodao had noticed a fleck of yellow paint stuck to the bottom of one crutch and a tiny serrated fragment of a maple leaf clinging to one wheel of the chair—barely the size of a pinhead.
The terrace had indeed been coated in semitransparent paint of exactly that shade, and a tall maple beside it scattered sparse branches and leaves along the edge of the railing….
As though the idea had only just occurred to him, Yan Xiaodao said casually, “I know one or two very famous orthopedic specialists around here, both Chinese- and Western-medicine doctors. They treat practically anything. When we have time, how about I take you to see them? Maybe your legs can still be treated.”
“How famous is ‘very famous’? They can treat anything?” Ling He’s face turned cold in an instant. “Are they more famous than Massachusetts General Hospital, the Mayo Clinic, or Johns Hopkins?”
Yan Xiaodao did not understand all the foreign names, but he could roughly guess they were three particularly famous hospitals abroad.
“I’ve seen enough doctors since I was a child to last me a lifetime. I genuinely have no interest in seeing another one.” Ling He gave him no face whatsoever. “I’m allergic to disinfectant, formalin, and doctors in white coats!”
“You really do have an impressive number of allergens. Life must be difficult.” Yan Xiaodao looked at him mockingly.
“Does Mr. Yan intend to force me?” Ling He glanced at him faintly. His voice was soft, but a sharp, guarded light flashed through his green eyes.
The two men looked at each other, their gazes locked, flickering only occasionally. Each had his own thoughts, yet each carefully weighed the risks between them and the affection that had begun seeping drop by drop into the heart. Neither wanted to destroy the peaceful atmosphere by forcing the other into something he did not want.
If he doesn’t want his legs looked at, then forget it. Why force him? Yan Xiaodao thought.
If Ling He had not been paralyzed, Heaven knew how outrageously arrogant he might have become. Covered in thorns from head to toe, the two of them probably would never have had the chance to sit together on the same sofa talking late at night…. Yan Xiaodao also harbored a private desire he could not properly explain. Ling He’s dependence on him greatly satisfied his instinct to protect. It made him pity Ling He while also making him enjoy this state of affairs far too much to let go. That selfish desire had even begun to outweigh his sympathy for the man’s disability.
Yan Xiaodao touched his collar and said easily, “All right. Get some rest. I’ll carry you to bed.”
Instead of carrying Ling He to the guest room where he had been staying, he strode straight into the master bedroom and placed him on the large bed!
Ling He was secretly startled. As Yan lifted him and moved, Ling He found himself pressed close, looking up at Yan Xiaodao from only inches away, close enough to distinguish every breath. One arm came up instinctively across his chest in a guarded position. His entire body tensed, sharp with vigilance, ready to react at the slightest movement.
Yan Xiaodao said gently, “I know you like flipping through these books. No need to keep moving back and forth. You stay in this room. I’ll sleep in the guest room.”
Ling He froze again. “Mr. Yan, you don’t need to be polite with me. I…”
Yan Xiaodao turned around, picked up a huge stack of more than twenty books, and piled them onto the empty half of the double bed where Ling could easily reach them. Then he headed directly toward the door, waving one hand without looking back. “I’m not being polite. I’m a rough man. Makes no difference where I sleep. Give me a flat patch of concrete and I can sleep there. Rest.”
The moment he opened the door, he was greeted by Master Bear and Third Lady’s excited furry heads. Then came the firm sound of the door closing, the whining commotion of one man and two dogs wrestling in the hall, and footsteps gradually receding into the distance….
The completely unexpected move left Ling He, normally so skilled at reading people, feeling profoundly defeated.
Ling He sat frozen beneath the light. In the vast master bedroom, the cold, cutting mask he wore, the full suit of armor wrapped around his body, and the carefully arranged defensive lines he had constructed for both attack and retreat all began collapsing with sounds only he could hear—clatter, clatter—piece after piece falling away. Something strange and effortless had broken straight through them and dismantled everything with overwhelming force. From inside that supposedly impenetrable armor, a hand even stretched out uncontrollably, wanting to catch the retreating figure who had never once looked back and make that person return.
Xiaodao…
Ling He lowered his eyes. The line of his lips could no longer suppress its urge to curl upward, and his chest trembled faintly. A sweetness, warmth, and bitterness he had never tasted before rose within him, a sensation absent from every memory since the deliberately blurred years of his youth. He had never met someone like this. He had never known a man he truly wanted to be close friends with, nor did he seem to remember ever being cherished and treated as precious by anyone…. He had certainly met plenty of beasts dressed as men and people lower than pigs and dogs.
Yan Xiaodao was a gentleman.
A gentleman who made Ling He instinctively look up to him, whom he could not bear to profane, whom he did not know how to treat—and against whom he could not even figure out where to begin.
…
The fact that a new master now occupied the big bed in the master bedroom was quickly discovered not only by those two canine ancestors but by all the brothers downstairs as well.
Yan Xiaodao genuinely did not care. He neither considered it some favor he had bestowed nor felt wronged or humiliated. The two dog ancestors, however, remained thoroughly dissatisfied. Once they entered the guest room and discovered that the huge soft double bed had transformed into a narrow bachelor’s bed, they threw an absolute fit, jumping all over the place as they attempted to squeeze out enough room on the 1.2-meter-wide mattress for both of themselves.
If both guardian dogs took the bed, where was Yan Xiaodao supposed to sleep?
He could not kick them off no matter how hard he tried. In the end, Yan Xiaodao completely lost patience, rolled off the bed together with his blanket, and did not even bother arranging anything. He simply wrapped himself up, lay flat on his back on the floor, and went to sleep.
The shameless dog couple curled together and occupied the narrow bed side by side, drooling as they enjoyed their night of bliss.
In the middle of the night, Yan Xiaodao crawled out of his blanket cocoon on the floor because he was hungry and went downstairs to rummage through the kitchen. He found several fried glutinous-rice cakes. Cold sticky-rice food was not particularly pleasant, and after eating them his stomach began to ache a little.
Sometimes he really did think that this entire den of bachelors had no wives and lived far too roughly. Yan Xiaodao had been accustomed since childhood to looking after himself. There had never been someone at his side taking care of him. His godfather treated him well, but his godfather was still a man too. Yet Yan Xiaodao had never felt that powerful need for any particular woman—the desire to lean against one another and seek warmth, comfort, and romantic affection. He simply had not.
In the morning, Kuanzi returned from outside with breakfast.
Kuanzi’s full name was Zhao Kuan. He was another of Mr. Yan’s closest and most dependable brothers, as well as the most diligent person in the house. Every morning, Kuanzi went on a three-kilometer training run, ran all the way to the stalls beside the imported-goods market to buy breakfast for the entire house, then carried two enormous stacks of takeaway food as steadily as if he were weight training and ran all the way back. The fried flatbreads and soy milk were still hot when he arrived.
Yan Xiaodao came over, rummaged through the two enormous stacks, and pulled out a box of piping-hot fried glutinous-rice cakes, a container of savory tofu pudding, and a bag of freshly ground soy milk. He set them aside separately so no one else could grab them.
Kuanzi chuckled. “Boss, don’t you like sugared fried flatbread?”
Yan Xiaodao said, “Mm.”
Kuanzi grinned. “Then who’s that whole big box of fried cakes for?”
Yan Xiaodao snorted. “Saving them for some pig with a huge stomach.”
Two or three people beside him immediately jeered in unison. “Quit pretending, Boss! There isn’t a pig in the world that good-looking!”
The younger brothers in the living room had progressed from exchanging suggestive looks, to whispering gossip, to openly teasing him right to his face. Even Yang Xifeng was thinking, Fuck, we completely misread things before. We thought it was that way! Turns out it’s this way! Straight or bent no longer mattered. The important thing was that Boss really had excellent taste!
Yan Xiaodao stripped off his undershirt, picked up a basin of cold water, and headed out the front door, not forgetting to turn around and curse them. “Pack of little bastards. Quit making things up when there’s nothing there.”
Yang Xifeng bit into his fried flatbread and said with unusual seriousness and insight, “Boss, you’ve never brought a partner home before. This is the first time you’ve brought an actual living person back with you. This one’s different. We all understand.”
Yan Xiaodao pretended not to hear and offered no opinion. He went into the courtyard to practice.
There were more people in the front courtyard and it was especially noisy, so Yan Xiaodao did not notice Ling He until long after he had rinsed himself with cold water, soaked his hands, and rolled the blades across his palms as part of his practice. When he finally looked back, he discovered Ling He sitting inside the living room.
More precisely, Ling He was seated at the foot of the stairs, directly facing the front door. From that exact position, he could see Xiaodao in the courtyard.
No one had been in the living room earlier, but Ling He had wanted to come downstairs anyway. Supporting himself with one crutch in one hand and the banister in the other, he had made his own way down, sweating through the back of his clothes in the process. Now he sat at the foot of the stairs in a daze, enjoying the spring sunlight.
Ling He thought the effort had been entirely worthwhile, though naturally he would never casually reveal his reason or purpose.
Yan Xiaodao was a man who had slept beside him in the same bed without even taking off his clothes. Early morning was the only opportunity Ling He had to see him undressed.
Xiaodao wore nothing but calf-length practice trousers, their waistband tied so low that they exposed his taut, well-proportioned waist and the shape of his hip bones framed by two sharp V-lines. Old injuries had left pale scars across his broad back, alongside several small newly split wounds, while his long legs were solid and straight. No matter how one judged a man’s body, this one was perfect.
From the shallow hollow where the hairline ended at the nape of his neck, all the way down along the spine toward the tailbone and the faint beginning of the rounded curve below, there was an indescribable mixture of sexuality and masculine strength before everything finally disappeared beneath the waistband.
Ling He stared at a certain person’s back and backside for a very long time.
Let time stop here. The two of us—neither of us should keep moving forward.
…
That day also happened to be the weekend. Yan Xiaodao came downstairs dressed in a suit, manhandling his two guardian dogs in farewell before leaving, only to hesitate—and even feel a trace of apology—when he tried to say goodbye to Mr. Ling.
Ling He had just been listening to storytelling and singing with several of the younger brothers, everyone getting along happily. The moment he opened his mouth to sing, several of them heckled him for getting both the Peking-opera vocal style and phrasing wrong, somehow turning a passage from the Yan-school The Empty City Stratagem into something delivered with a London accent. Ling He threw his head back and laughed, shaking his long hair loose with carefree elegance. He did not become embarrassed or lose his temper either. Instead, he humbly learned a short local tune from Kuanzi and had already mastered eight lines within minutes, enough to form a complete passage.
Ling He turned and spotted Mr. Yan. He seemed to know immediately what Yan intended to do. “It’s fine. Go have fun. Your brothers clearly haven’t lost enough these past few days, haven’t had enough excitement, and still aren’t convinced I’m better than they are. Today I plan to make them lose their cigarette and alcohol money for the second half of the year, their food money, their property deeds, and finally their parents and women to me!”
Ling He laughed at his own words, rolling three mahjong tiles around in one hand like walnuts.
Yan Xiaodao came over, picked up three mahjong tiles of his own, tossed them idly, and lowered his eyes. “Not going out to play. It’s Sunday. I’m going to spend time with my mom.”
Ling He’s fingers immediately stopped turning the tiles. “Oh. Going by yourself?”
Yan Xiaodao said, “Bringing this whole noisy pack along would be too much. I don’t take them.”
Something flickered in Ling He’s eyes. “Oh…. True. Older people like peace and quiet. She only wants to see her son, not a crowd of other people.”
Yan Xiaodao said, “…”
Ling He said, “…”
Ling He thought, Stop playing with fire and moving forward. I should stay here and play cards with this pack of gluttons.
Yan Xiaodao thought, Better to go alone. This whole thing is unclear and inexplicable. If I brought him in front of Mom, what would I even say?
Yet while Ling He pinched the tiles between his fingers, what actually came out of his mouth was, “I know taking me anywhere is a huge burden. You have to carry me on your back or in your arms. Mr. Yan can go out alone much more freely—and conveniently hold one candied hawthorn skewer in each hand and alternate bites!” Yan Xiaodao laughed and blurted out, “Never thought of you as a burden. I can carry you, and then you can hold the candied hawthorn!”
Every time their gazes lingered one moment too long, another layer of tenderness seemed to settle over the heart.
There was no more unnecessary talk. Yan Xiaodao hurried upstairs, brought down a presentable set of casual clothes, changed Ling He into them, lifted him horizontally, carried him outside, and put him into the car….
To be cautious, even after getting into the car he called four younger brothers and ordered them to follow in another vehicle as an escort. In truth, they were guarding Ling He. Yan Xiaodao himself did not need a procession around him.
They drove from the port into the city, then toward the outskirts, traveled for a stretch along an interprovincial expressway, exited from one ramp, and finally transferred onto a bumpy village road full of rustic character. Eventually they reached a small town on the border between the municipality and the neighboring province, called Huima Town.
Ling He had obviously never been anywhere this novel before and could not stop looking through the open window. One moment, a three-wheeled motorcycle carrying chickens, ducks, and geese rattled past his eyes amid a chorus of quacking and honking; the next, several skinny milk goats were herded close enough to brush the car door. Their sedan became trapped amid electric scooters, flocks of sheep, dogs, vegetable vendors, and layers of villagers heading to market, wrapped inside a dark tide and slowly drifting forward….
Yan Xiaodao drove while occasionally introducing the local terrain, customs, and everyday life to a certain foreign-educated student who had never experienced the countryside. He kept glancing at Ling He until his eyes actually began to ache from it, so he quietly adjusted the angle of the right-side rearview mirror until Mr. Ling’s large face, poking eagerly toward the window, was perfectly reflected in it. Ling He looked almost excessively excited, as though he might crawl out through the window at any moment to tease dogs and herd sheep.
Yan Xiaodao checked the time. “We’re still late. Forget going home first. Let’s go straight to church!”
Just as he mentioned being late, Yan Xiaodao spotted a three-wheeled cart beside the market road selling candied hawthorn skewers. An enormous rack held fifty or sixty of them stuck into it like spines on a hedgehog, an efficient and space-saving arrangement, with every flavor looking extremely tempting. Both men saw it.
Ling He glanced at him and offered a timely reminder. “Filial son, you’re already going to be late.”
Yan Xiaodao took aim through the window. “Looks a little dirty. Afraid of eating grit?”
Ling He shook his head immediately and ordered without the slightest politeness, “Get me the biggest one with the fillings.”
A handsome smile appeared at the corner of Yan Xiaodao’s mouth, silently agreeing. The road was too narrow and contained far too many miraculous forms of life for their car to squeeze over. They could not even open the door. Yan Xiaodao lowered the window, stretched his left arm outside to grip the edge of the roof, and with one spectacularly smooth movement hauled himself straight out of the car, swinging his legs over in two quick motions….
When the car started moving again, Ling He had gained a deluxe giant candied hawthorn skewer. Red hawthorn berries alternated with local preserved fruit, sesame candy, and orange segments, all sealed beneath a shell of sugar—and a fine dusting of smog and roadside grit—perfectly blending the local soil, water, and culture into one delicacy. Yan Xiaodao had only just started to ask, “Good?” when Mr. Ling, displaying absolutely none of his aristocratic refinement, had already stripped several fruits and sweets off the skewer in rapid succession, crunching happily through a mouthful of sugar shards before nodding furiously and passing the good thing over for Yan to share.
Yan Xiaodao burst out laughing. It felt as though it had been a very, very long time since being with another person had been this pleasant. Whether they spoke or remained silent, it was equally enjoyable, and somewhere in his heart it seemed that this person before him simply understood him—and was understood in return….
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