In Huima Town near the provincial border stood a Christian church somewhat out of place amid the rustic atmosphere of the distant countryside. It was also a well-preserved old church, built with solid, plain stone walls and a clock tower rising sharply above them.
Even after repairs, faint traces of smoke and fire could still be distinguished on the church’s exterior walls, silently recounting the disasters this place had endured. After surviving repeated anti-foreign-religion movements and revolutionary cultural campaigns over the course of more than a century, it was remarkable that the building still stood at all. In the new era, it had finally secured the firm status of a provincial-level protected cultural landmark and had also become a sacred spot where ordinary people from villages for miles around came to seek God, worship the Lord, and find a little spiritual comfort.
Quite a few cars were parked outside, competing for space with three-wheeled motorcycles, electric scooters, and vegetable stalls. Middle-aged women from nearby had just finished a lively yangge folk dance in the square and were packing away their gongs, drums, and red silk before entering in groups of two and three. All of it gave the church scenery a curious mixed rhythm of China and the West, sophistication and country life.
Sunday was the congregation’s day of worship, and identification was checked before people were allowed inside.
Ling He had not expected a certain company boss to genuinely have proper credentials. When the gatekeeper asked Ling for his identification, Yan Xiaodao took the opportunistic route and casually said, “He’s my relative.”
Leaning on a crutch with one hand while Mr. Yan supported him with the other, Ling He curled his lip faintly. “I’m your relative, Mr. Yan? Has your family started paying me my monthly allowance and pocket money?”
Yan Xiaodao sneered. “What, do you need a red envelope from the head of the family too, kid?”
Ling He shot back, “New Year’s already passed. I’ll permit you to owe me this year.”
Yan Xiaodao said, “Next New Year, I’ll make it up to you, Young Master.”
Would there even be a next year?
Days like these—each one they had was one more day gained.
No one could quite define what kind of life or relationship this had become. At the very least, in Yan Xiaodao’s reports to Qi Baoshan, Ling He was currently supposed to be locked in the basement of Yan’s villa, not being installed like an honored ancestor in the master bedroom.
Yan Xiaodao was not particularly worried that bringing the man outside would inspire Ling He to rebel and seize an opportunity to escape.
Somewhere in his subconscious, Yan Xiaodao had already given Ling He countless opportunities to “run away.”
If Ling He understood the situation and simply fled for his life instead of staying with Yan, that would actually be the greatest relief and the easiest possible solution. If questioned afterward, Yan Xiaodao could openly kneel in front of Qi Baoshan, admit his failure, and let his godfather slash him twice to vent his anger. That would still be better than having those blades fall on Ling He….
Yet this man showed no intention of running at all. He seemed perfectly content to remain exactly where he was.
Inside the vast, solemn church, a pastor in black with a kindly face delivered that week’s sermon from the front. Brothers and sisters of the congregation filled the seats in a dark mass, quiet and devout. Some believers knelt with their elbows resting against the backs of the chairs in front of them, eyes closed in prayer.
The two younger men quietly found seats in the back. Ling He also discovered that Mr. Yan had little interest in listening to the Gospel or the prayers, but both men respectfully observed the rules and sat with their backs straight.
Ling He could not resist whispering, “Where’s your mother sitting?”
Yan Xiaodao closed his eyes. “Second row from the front, third seat from the left. She sits there every time.”
Ling He could vaguely make out the back of a woman kneeling devoutly in prayer. Yan Xiaodao evidently came here to accompany her often.
He leaned his head slightly closer again. “You don’t believe?”
Yan Xiaodao shook his head with the smallest possible movement, then explained in a low voice, “She’s never forced me to believe. She lets me decide for myself. But I’m not going to make some dramatic point of telling her to her face that I don’t believe in it either.
“Being ‘filial’ comes down to one thing in the end: making things easy for her. If her heart feels comfortable and she’s happy, that’s enough.”
Yan Xiaodao casually expounded his own version of the Classic of Filial Piety, making Ling He glance at him several times from the corner of his eye. Every day, Mr. Yan seemed capable of teaching him something new worth understanding….
Once the hymns and Amens had ended, the congregation rose and filed forward. The pastor touched a few drops of holy water to their foreheads and hands as a blessing for peace before everyone gradually cleared the aisles and left. The good son, Mr. Yan, stood tall and striking at the aisle entrance, watching a kindly faced woman whose gaze had completely enveloped him from the moment she turned around, despite the distance between them. Yan stepped forward, and mother and son shared a solid embrace filled with contagious warmth.
Before Yan Xiaodao could even speak, Mrs. Yan rubbed the last bit of moisture left on her fingers onto his forehead. “Let me put a little holy water on you. Brings blessings!”
Yan Xiaodao smiled handsomely and produced a purple coat from behind his back. “Mom, bought this for you a few days ago.”
His mother took one look. “Oh—this is so bright. I’d be embarrassed wearing it. Give it to someone else….”
Yan Xiaodao laughed. “There isn’t another lady to give it to.”
His mother suddenly asked, “Have you lost weight?”
“No! Got darker in the south, so I look thinner!” In front of a certain person behind him who knew the truth, Yan Xiaodao said casually, “I went to South Island on a business trip last week, so I couldn’t come spend the weekend with you. I only just got back. This is a friend of mine. He came along to visit you.”
The “trophy” Mr. Yan had won on a gambling table during his business trip spoke with perfect courtesy. “Hello, Auntie. My name is Ling He.”
…
Life in a small place was simple and ordinary, and everyone knew their neighbors. Greetings and conversations drifted through the car windows again and again amid clouds of yellow dust kicked up by the wheels. Driving home, Mr. Yan had to stop twice so acquaintances along the roadside could exchange several rounds of conversation with his mother through the window. Along the way, they somehow also acquired several bottles of baijiu, two wrapped cakes of tea, and a handful of allegedly pure organic homemade loofah scrubbers produced in somebody’s family workshop…. All of it made Yan Xiaodao and Ling He feel as though the life before their eyes and the memories intruding across it belonged to another lifetime. It was almost impossible to imagine how the “business trip” they had taken the previous week had actually happened.
These were two parallel worlds that did not intersect.
Yet the world itself was made from countless such layers of boundaries. There was the beautiful human world, and there were also dark, constricted paths of ghosts and realms of demons. Everyone hid in the corner that belonged to them, occasionally crossing paths, each carrying a fate of their own.
Yan Xiaodao did not forget the several brothers they had long since left behind. He sent them a few packs of cigarettes and two bottles of alcohol and told them to entertain themselves at the billiards hall and restaurant near the village entrance.
From the moment they got into the car to head home, Mr. Ling became the target of Mr. Yan’s esteemed mother’s formidable art of endless maternal chatter.
“This—Xiao Ling, our place really is poor and out of the way. It’s so, so far from the city. You went to all this trouble coming all this way to visit….”
“Xiao Ling, the road was hard to travel, wasn’t it? Mainly the road—it’s bad, so all the bumps must have been uncomfortable. I’m terribly sorry….”
“Child, do you work at his company? Or… have you graduated from university yet?”
Ling He’s smile gradually deepened. “Auntie, I’m taking the college entrance exam this year.”
Yan Xiaodao finally could not bear it. “Mom, stop listening to him. Not one sentence out of his mouth is true!”
Mr. Ling genuinely had an unusually youthful face. Mrs. Yan remained half convinced and found it entirely plausible that this handsome young man might be sitting the college entrance exam that year.
Ling He, however, understood the concern she could not bring herself to voice. The moment they stepped out of the church into the sunlight, Mrs. Yan had seen at a glance the lower half of his body, the crutches he needed, and the slow, unsteady way he moved. She never asked about it directly, yet seemed to feel genuine pain and sympathy for him, almost guilty on his behalf. Wanting to care for him, she had unconsciously begun radiating the full brilliance of maternal love.
That warm glow of motherly affection continued to envelop the entire house until noon and ultimately transformed itself into a dining table overflowing with stewed fish, roast duck, soy-braised pork knuckle, scrambled eggs with Chinese toon, marinated Indian-aster greens with dried tofu, cornmeal griddle cakes, huge steamed buns stuffed with vegetables and meat—and an entire pile of sweet sugar-roasted chestnuts peeled especially for Ling He. Mr. Yan reached the table, picked up his chopsticks, and stared. “Whoa, Mom. You actually peeled chestnuts for him?”
His mother looked as though it were the most natural thing in the world. “Xiao Ling’s hands look delicate. I didn’t want him hurting them. Your hands are hard… Hey, if you want some, I can peel yours too.”
Yan Xiaodao hurriedly waved his chopsticks. “No need. I like chewing the shells.”
His mother asked again, “What kind of business trip was it? That—that godfather of yours sent you specially?”
Yan Xiaodao lowered his head and bit into a cornmeal cake, nodding. “Mm. Went to inspect an out-of-town company and came straight back. Company-paid vacation, basically. Lots of business dinners.”
It really had been a company-paid “vacation,” complete with every sort of expensive dinner, drinking, gambling, prostitution, and entertainment. Technically, he was not lying to his esteemed mother.
His mother pursued the matter. “Why did he send you again? Doesn’t he have anyone else?… Everything went smoothly? Nothing happened this time?”
Yan Xiaodao looked completely at ease. “Nothing happened. Nothing ever happens to me!”
His mother stared at the two of them eating so intently that she forgot to move her own chopsticks. Naturally, most of her attention was still on her son. Ling He thought there were too many emotions mixed into that gaze to identify clearly: worry, concern, reluctance, helplessness, and even a quiet accumulation of guilt built up over many years.
When Mrs. Yan carried the griddle pan back toward the kitchen and passed softly behind Yan Xiaodao, the look in her eyes abruptly changed, plainly revealing a sharp, scrutinizing anxiety. She forced herself to swallow whatever she wanted to say. She had already remained silent and allowed this life to continue for so many years. What good would saying anything do now?
In the end, she still wrapped an arm around Xiaodao’s shoulders and thoughtfully kneaded him from shoulder to waist, patted and thumped him several times, almost reluctant to let him go….
“Mom… how about I give you a massage later instead?” Yan Xiaodao said helplessly, quietly knitting his brows.
“Auntie, I think the stuffed tofu in your steamer is ready. I’d help you bring it over, but unfortunately I’m not much use. Sorry to trouble you, Auntie.” Ling He was sharp-eyed and quick-tongued enough to rescue Yan Xiaodao immediately. He had already noticed that several of his mother’s well-intentioned squeezes had happened to land directly on the injury in Yan’s right arm, forcing a layer of cold sweat onto his forehead beneath the suit.
“If you don’t have to go on business trips, then don’t. So far away…. Next time, ask that godfather of yours to show some mercy. Tell him we don’t want to go anymore….” Mrs. Yan occasionally avoided Yan’s eyes, speaking almost to herself.
Yan Xiaodao answered calmly. “Mom, I work for him. I have to do something if I’m going to take his money. Otherwise the company’s just supporting an idle man for free.”
“That’s true. People can’t be expected to ‘support us for free.’” His mother’s expression suddenly dimmed, strong regret and self-reproach appearing at the corners of her brows and eyes. “It’s my fault for burdening you all these years. The family had no money, no land, no relatives who could help. I wasn’t capable either. Never managed to find a man who could really support the household. I couldn’t give you a good life, and in the end the entire family became your burden. Back then… there really wasn’t any other choice except accepting things the way they were.”
Yan Xiaodao’s face turned serious. “Mom, what are you saying?”
His mother continued peeling chestnuts. The downward curve of her lips trembled with bitterness as she muttered quietly, “Now all I hope is that you stay safe. You were so beautiful when you were little, even better-looking than you are now. I always imagined your mother must have been a beautiful, elegant woman too, probably some young lady from a distinguished family—certainly much better than a poor household like ours! I’m the one who didn’t take proper care of you. Even the Heavenly Father won’t forgive me….”
Yan Xiaodao was struck speechless. He did not even have time to comfort her before guiltily darting a quick glance at Ling He.
By coincidence, Ling He glanced at him just as quickly. His eyes clearly showed surprise because he had never known any of this, yet the light flowing through those pale-green irises remained extraordinarily smooth and calm. Mr. Ling could stand in a shark pool and verbally fight an entire crowd without losing color or momentum. Why would he be unable to handle one little scene like this? He continued enthusiastically attacking the pot of stewed fish in front of him and produced his invincible, devastatingly handsome smile. “Really, Auntie? Mr. Yan was beautiful when he was little? Even better-looking than he is now? You absolutely have to find a photograph and show me.”
Mrs. Yan covered her smile. “Oh, not as pretty as you! Young man, you really are handsome. I’ve never seen anyone this handsome in all the villages around here!”
Ling He pointed toward a neatly stacked bundle of handmade black cloth shoes on top of a cabinet and changed the subject again. “So this is where Mr. Yan gets those wonderfully comfortable cloth shoes he likes to show off in. You can’t buy anything like them outside. Auntie, could I ask you to make me a pair too?”
“Of course. I’ve never made them for other people before. If you like them, I’ll make you a pair!” Mrs. Yan brightened again. There were still traces of the beauty of her younger days in her smiling features. Her eyebrows and eyeliner were both carefully drawn, and one look told you she was a capable, efficient woman.
“We love them!” Ling He put down his chopsticks. “I’m also packing a bag of these cornmeal cakes for Mr. Yan to take home. He can eat them for a midnight snack instead of gnawing cold steamed buns again.”
Still glowing beneath her halo of motherly love, Mrs. Yan looked Xiao Ling up and down repeatedly. She was only one step away from asking the lovable handsome boy whether he also needed clothes, trousers, hats, and scarves, and whether he liked sesame-and-pepper flatbreads, jujube sponge cake, or donkey-meat flatbreads.
Yan Xiaodao discovered that whenever Ling He actually chose to be sensible, polite, and considerate of human feelings, he could be extraordinarily sensible, extraordinarily polite, and extraordinarily considerate. Yan’s old heart, hardened through years in the jianghu, softened into something as warm, sweet, and tender as the inside of those chestnuts.
After lunch they went outside for a walk to aid digestion. As Yan Xiaodao stepped through the door, he flicked his long coat open behind him, smiling, his entire tall figure somehow looking even more handsome.
An uncle sitting outside the neighboring house called to him cheerfully. “Hey, Boss Yan, back to visit your mother? Your mom’s really blessed. Come over for dinner sometime.” Yan Xiaodao agreed, then childishly took off his coat and joined several neighborhood children playing hopscotch.
He hopped around on one leg among the children with tremendous high spirits. His mood truly was excellent….
Mrs. Yan lived in what looked like the newest and grandest house in the village, a two-story white building with its own private courtyard. Naturally, her capable son had paid for it as an act of filial devotion. On top of that, the asphalt road connecting the village to town and the newly replaced irrigation canal had both been built six years earlier with money Mr. Yan paid to hire construction crews.
Yan Xiaodao drove Ling He around the countryside and stopped at the edge of an open field, pointing toward a coal-black hill in the distance. “When I was little, there was a privately operated illegal coal mine over there. It’s still an illegally operated coal mine now.”
The coal hill gleamed beneath the sunlight with a spectacular metallic sheen. Brown smoke poured upward from the surrounding factory buildings like rolling waves at the mouth of a river. Beneath that magnificent landscape, no one knew how many nameless, humble, gaunt bones and unspoken old afflictions had been buried.
“I used to mine coal in that mountain when I was a kid,” Yan Xiaodao said.
Ling He completely assumed the man was talking nonsense to tease him and sneered. “If mining coal can produce Mr. Yan’s current abilities, talent, and impressive appearance, I should never have gone overseas as a fake foreigner when I was young. I should’ve followed you down there to dig shafts and mine coal!”
“I’m serious,” Yan Xiaodao said frankly.
Ling He stared at Xiaodao in astonishment, momentarily speechless. Remembering Mrs. Yan’s heartfelt muttering at the dinner table—I couldn’t give you a good life; I didn’t take proper care of you—left him even less able to speak.
Yan Xiaodao, on the other hand, became even more enthusiastic. “Ever ridden in an excavator?”
It was rare in Ling He’s life for events to escape his predictions completely. What the hell was an excavator supposed to be? He had never studied at Lanxiang and certainly had never played with an excavator. Beside the coal hill stood an enormous machine whose operator was currently taking a midday break, its long iron arm extended outward with a massive claw capable of gouging a huge hole out of the earth with ease. Yan Xiaodao walked over, slipped the driver a pack of cigarettes, and then dragged Ling He over without allowing any argument.
Elio’s Notes: Lanxiang refers to a vocational school that became famous in Chinese popular culture for training students to operate excavators and other heavy machinery. “Have you studied excavators at Lanxiang?” became a long-running internet joke.
Ling He finally understood. “Mr. Yan, you’ve driven one of these things before too.”
The excavator’s driver seat was extremely high. Yan Xiaodao practically had to kneel and lift Ling He upward into the cab. He settled Ling into the seat against the backrest, then tried to squeeze himself into the remaining space in front and show off how to operate the excavator.
The seat immediately became far too cramped. The moment Yan Xiaodao squeezed in, the man behind him let out an irritated grunt. Ling He was already exercising enormous restraint by not erupting in venom, though his words still carried another meaning. “Mr. Yan, do you genuinely think I’m a minor who hasn’t even finished high school? I’m not exactly that ‘small’ either….”
Yan Xiaodao was cramped too. His was the sort of body that occupied a great deal of space, and the front of his trousers was already pressing against the controls.
Yan Xiaodao twisted his head around and frowned. “Move farther back.”
Ling He said, “There’s nowhere left. You move forward.”
Yan Xiaodao said, “I don’t have anywhere either. Move farther back!”
Ling He said, “Sit on my legs.”
Yan Xiaodao seriously considered it. “I’m too heavy. I’m afraid I’ll damage your legs.”
Ling He gave him a contemptuous roll of the eyes. “Am I made of porcelain? With that little weight of yours? Sit.”
When Yan Xiaodao sat on Ling He’s thighs, he felt as though he could hear Ling He’s overlapping heartbeat directly against his back. The other man’s heart was beating even faster than his own, more unable than Yan’s to suppress the anticipation and pleasure deliberately diluted and hidden in some deep abyss. That heart had once stopped abruptly before Yan Xiaodao’s eyes. He had fought against fate and pressed frantically on that chest to bring it back. Now the heartbeat sounded astonishingly vivid and alive, as though pouring out the joy buried at the deepest part of Ling He’s heart directly into him….
For a little while, the two of them had found themselves adrift in the mortal world, and every breath made them want to hold on.
That night, the two men lay side by side beneath the same quilt on a bed upstairs in the Yan family’s white house, with the entire map of the stars visible through the window. Whenever the wind scattered the haze, a brilliant river of stars appeared across the night sky.
Neither man felt sleepy. They lay beneath one quilt talking, and somehow that alone felt completely satisfying. The brilliant starry sky revolved in Ling He’s eyes as he said softly, almost as though reciting a line, “My mother died when I was six years old, during my first year of primary school.”
Yan Xiaodao turned his face and calmly looked at the man beside him, while emotion surged violently inside. He understood why Ling He had chosen this topic. Rather than directly asking about the private story between Yan and his mother, Ling He had chosen retreat as a way forward and volunteered his own family history first.
“My father loved my mother very much. They were childhood sweethearts from the time they attended an elite private secondary school. My memories probably aren’t very clear anymore, but I remember my mother was very beautiful. She liked to pin up her long, fine curls and leave one lock hanging down over her chest. She looked like a fairy. Every night she held a book and told me stories in English. In my memory, her voice was as beautiful and lilting as a nightingale. Even now, I still often dream about that heavenly voice telling me stories. But later her health deteriorated. She was sick for two years, and even all the achievements of modern medicine couldn’t save her. It was probably some fatal hereditary immune-system disorder and blood disease. She died from it.”
“My father never… never married again. He loved only my mother for the rest of his life, until the day he died.”
Ling He closed his eyes, seemingly sinking into a distant memory. Something buried beneath years of dust had been touched, and he suddenly fell into a sadness he could neither control nor escape. Yet because Ling He possessed such an exceptionally powerful, stable mind, that grief was forcibly suppressed before it could erupt. No violent emotion escaped him; only several short, broken catches of breath and faint spasms could be heard in his throat and chest.
Yan Xiaodao considerately remained silent at exactly the right moment, waiting until all that sorrow finally settled back into stillness and left no trace.
A man so devoted that he never remarried?
Was this really that notorious old coffin-stuffer with the vile reputation throughout business circles? Was this the same Ling Huang whom Ling He himself had once described as “irredeemably wicked, his crimes piled beyond counting,” and whom his own son had told to “crawl out of the grave dragging that rotten flesh back here to explain himself”? Yan Xiaodao felt an inexplicable trace of confusion. The role of “father” in Ling He’s stories contradicted itself. He could not tell which version was the man’s genuine feeling.
Ling He naturally turned his eyes toward Yan Xiaodao. The look plainly said it was his turn.
The story was too long, and Yan Xiaodao had to think about where to begin. There was not much worth being shy or secretive about. “According to my mom, she was riding on a flatbed cart on the way into the city to the provincial hospital. Her… how do I put this, her second husband was pulling the cart. With them were their son, who had been born disabled, and her first husband, who was already completely paralyzed. They found me beside the road. Supposedly I’d been wandering around within about a kilometer of that place for three months, eating scraps for three months and getting chased by dogs, almost starving to death. Then she, her husband, and her first husband stopped the cart beside the road and argued—or discussed it—for an hour, because the family literally didn’t have enough spare food for another mouth. If they brought in one more person, they’d have to draw lots to decide which bedridden invalid to drown first…. Both her men objected, but in the end she ignored them and dragged me onto the flatbed cart anyway.”
Even the extraordinarily gifted Mr. Ling was deeply stunned by those two sentences, whose amount of information was enormous but which had somehow seized the central truth of a person’s entire life with ruthless precision. He needed time to digest them.
Ling He stared at Yan Xiaodao. Meanwhile, the thoughts racing wildly through his mind seemed to pierce through the clothing and flesh of the man before him, hurtle backward through more than twenty years of obstacles and old events, then roar forward again and gather between Yan Xiaodao’s brows. In that instant, Ling He felt as though he finally understood where everything had come from….
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