Elio’s Notes: “White Tiger Hall” alludes to the famous Water Margin episode in which Lin Chong is deliberately lured into the forbidden White Tiger Hall while carrying a weapon, then framed. The expression later came to evoke being tricked into walking straight into someone else’s trap.
When Yan Xiaodao heard that Chairman Jian wanted him to come over for tea, he still had to show the proper courtesy to Jian Mingxun, the highly respected head of Jianyue Mingliu, so he excused himself and followed. Before leaving, he did not forget to summon Fengfeng and Kuanzi inside from outside the reception and tell them to look after Mr. Ling.
The manager led him through turn after turn, threading through several rooms in Red Square’s enormous maze of corridors until they reached a conference room at the very end, fitted with a heavy boxwood door.
Yan Xiaodao was already a little puzzled. Chairman Jian had come, yet he was not going out to greet the various guests and instead wanted to see Yan alone? An ordinary concert put on by the entertainment company was hardly something Jian Mingxun would personally oversee in every detail. There was no reason for him to appear here at all.
The manager led him into the brilliantly lit, imposing conference room. Yan Xiaodao raised his eyes and caught a flash of red. In an oval crystal-framed mirror on the wall was reflected the mature, glamorous face of a woman. Her graceful figure had its back to him as she reapplied lipstick in front of the mirror.
“…Ms. Zhao? Sorry, I came to the wrong room.” Yan Xiaodao’s heart tightened. Before he had even turned around, his right hand had already shot backward to seize the doorknob. His reactions were lightning-fast. He twisted it and heard a metallic click-clack as the locking mechanism caught against itself. Someone had locked the door from outside.
He clearly heard a scattering of hurried footsteps beyond the door. Whoever had been there had already slipped away.
Zhao Qifeng turned around, lipstick still pinched between her fingers. Her scarlet lips parted with the flawlessly trained rounded shape that showed them to their greatest advantage as she looked at him in surprise. “Oh, Mr. Yan. Late at night with no one else around—how did it turn out to be you?”
“My apologies, Ms. Zhao. Please have your people open the door.” Yan Xiaodao remained outwardly calm, one hand resting against the buttons of his suit jacket. With all his years of jianghu experience, he understood the moment he entered that this was a White Tiger Hall trap staged in the world of sex and entertainment. He had been careless tonight. How had he failed to anticipate something like this?!
Zhao Qifeng maintained dignified elegance in both speech and movement. With her status, she was naturally different from all those gaudy little creatures outside. She had no need to throw herself at a man like someone starving. She walked to the round conference table, planted both hands on it, and leaned forward in the posture best suited to displaying an aggressively magnificent cleavage. “Mr. Yan, our group headquarters happens to be planning a port project involving cooperation between Chinese and British companies. I understand Baoding also works with British partners. I wanted to see whether Mr. Yan might be interested in sitting down to discuss it. You’re acting on behalf of your Chairman Qi. If there’s money to be made, you and I can make it together.”
“Thank you for thinking so highly of me, Ms. Zhao. Why don’t we invite Chairman Jian over and discuss it together?” Yan Xiaodao’s face remained expressionless as he considered how he was going to get out tonight. If the woman in front of him had not been Chairman Jian’s lawful wife, he would already have taken the door apart.
“I’m coordinating and planning this project personally. If you want to do business with Jianyue, you can only discuss it with me. Please sit, Mr. Yan.” Zhao Qifeng shifted which high-heeled foot supported her weight, then seemingly by accident slipped one shoe off. The toes of that bare foot stroked lightly over the opposite ankle and slowly traced their way up her calf….
Ms. Zhao handled this routine with practiced elegance and complete ease. She never said anything outright, never forced the issue, never advanced or retreated—she simply refused to let him leave. Yan Xiaodao stayed pressed against the door without moving and silently swore at her. With this woman’s consummate performance, all needles hidden beneath softness and layers of implication concealed under the surface, how had no one ever crowned her Best Actress?!
An imitation-mink throw covered the oval table. Beneath the lights, the fabric showed a deep purplish-red color woven through with lavish, suggestive undertones. The implication embedded in the entire scene made him nauseous.
*
Ling He sensed something was wrong only a few minutes after Yan Xiaodao left.
He had been too busy verbally tearing into that surgically enhanced little demon earlier. Now that he thought about it carefully, if Jianyue’s big boss had really arrived, why would he hide instead of greeting and drinking with the distinguished guests present? Yan Xiaodao was not Baoding Group’s number-one or number-two figure in rank. Was there any reason the great Chairman Jian needed to mysteriously summon him alone?
“I’m going to the restroom.” Ling He turned his wheelchair and headed straight out of the reception.
Yang Xifeng and Zhao Kuan immediately trotted along behind him to attend the great lord while he “undressed.” Only then did Ling He realize that assigning these two bodyguards to him was truly inconvenient. They got in the way whenever he wanted to do anything. Did he actually need anyone to care for or protect him? Rather than looking after him, Yan Xiaodao had basically sent two men to monitor him.
The reception lighting was very dim. To Ling He, the demons dancing before his eyes were nothing more than shadows that could be brushed aside with a wave of his hand. As his wheelchair glided past You Haodong, he snatched the phone from beneath the hand of the influencer accompanying Young Master You just as she finished scrolling through her social feed. Before the screen had even had time to lock, he fluently punched in a number.
Inside the large restroom stall, Ling He put his lips close to the phone microphone, barely moving them. “Cat, go see what’s happening for me.
“I’m guessing it’s that woman Zhao. Find which room Yan Xiaodao is in. She may have detained him, or she may be planning to drug him, take advantage of him while he’s drunk, then forcibly photograph something she can use against him. He really did drink quite a lot tonight.”
A crisp, efficient, and distinctly androgynous voice answered through the phone. “Mr. Ling, what about all the people here? What do we do with them? We’re just leaving it like this?”
Ling He gave the order without hesitation. “That’s enough for tonight. Tell everyone to withdraw.”
The clear and androgynous voice was plainly unwilling, and its owner had quite a temper, cutting him off to argue. “Young Master, when we sent out the tickets, we never expected this many of them would actually show up tonight. Now they’re all here and you’re telling us to withdraw? At least grab one or two before we leave. Any one of them would make an excellent point of entry.”
Ling He gave a contemptuous little laugh. “So what if they’re all here? Should I open another gambling table and invite all my old acquaintances to sit down together? Withdraw. There’ll be plenty of chances later. I’ll think it over again.”
When he said he would think it over, what was clearly occupying his mind was the magnificent Steinway that had just been delivered to the house—the gift that had struck directly into his heart at a moment he had never anticipated. He wanted to play that piano. He wanted to teach Xiaodao a piece and stay beside Yan Xiaodao for several more days. Plans, schemes, everything else suddenly mattered less than that. For now, he could throw all of it aside.
“It’s time to go home.” Two icy rivers suddenly passed through Ling He’s eyes, gleaming coldly as his voice sharpened over the phone. “Go fish Yan Xiaodao out. And while you’re at it, cut a few extra lines into Ms. Zhao’s face for me and rub some salt into them.”
When Ling He ended the call, he did not even realize how much force he was using. He nearly crushed the decorative rhinestone on the phone beneath his fingertip. A vicious fire was burning inside him, demanding that Zhao Qifeng be torn apart.
He erased the call record and leisurely wheeled himself back into the reception. While Young Master You’s companion bent down to look for her phone beneath the coffee table, Ling He casually tossed the thing into the intimate gap between the woman’s backside and the sofa.
*
The exceptionally patient Ms. Zhao soon discovered that Mr. Yan was even more patient than she was. He did not panic, jump around, strike anyone, or curse.
He could not get out and could not leave, yet he simply refused to let her get anywhere near him.
Zhao Qifeng’s constant stroking of her calf had not produced the desired effect. It was becoming a joke. Privately, she was beginning to feel as though her toenail might rub a hole straight through her stockings.
Beneath the bright crystal chandeliers of the conference room, Yan Xiaodao looked extraordinarily handsome, his physique beneath the suit nearly perfect. Somehow he was even more compelling than he had been when she encountered him on the expressway that day. A toy like Mai Yunliang, available whenever one reached for him, inspired no particular desire. The more impossible something was to obtain, the more it occupied the mind…. Ms. Zhao maintained the standardized smile of a professional female libertine, but uncertainty was beginning to creep into her heart, while an inexplicable fire burned so fiercely inside her that she almost felt ready to combust. Was tonight’s performance really going to lose money after all?
Yan Xiaodao swept his eyes over the sturdy windows and estimated what floor they were on. A conference room designed for this degree of privacy would be climate-controlled all year, so there was no point exhausting himself against completely sealed windows. His peripheral vision moved toward the wooden door, landing on a box-shaped safety device set into the wall—something most people would never notice.
Neither spoke it aloud, but both obviously understood what the other was thinking. Zhao Qifeng shook her head with a helpless smile and walked elegantly toward him. “I suppose Mr. Yan doesn’t have much confidence in this project. But I truly don’t want Chairman Jian to have to come over personally and persuade you to accept it. Nor do I want to do business with Master Qi. I’m interested only in working with you, Mr. Yan. I sincerely hope to help you profit and climb higher—far higher than where you stand today.”
“I appreciate the goodwill, Ms. Zhao. I sincerely have no interest in your offer of cooperation, and I never will.” Yan Xiaodao looked directly at her.
I will never consider joining hands with people like you, wallowing in the same filth. Who do you take me for—Jian Mingjue? Mai Yunliang?
“You’ve misjudged me, Ms. Zhao.”
Yan Xiaodao said it plainly.
“Oh? Then my eye for people failed me? I was wrong about you?”
Zhao Qifeng raised an eyebrow.
At that moment, Yan Xiaodao appeared to casually reach toward the safety device on the wall. He opened the cover and used the faint green indicator light to confirm that it was functioning normally. Without the slightest hesitation, he pressed the red fire-alarm button. The instant the alarm began shrieking, he flipped open another cover and triggered the security alarm connected directly to Red Square’s security personnel.
Zhao Qifeng instinctively took two steps backward. The piercing, fantastical duet of two different alarms stunned her enough for genuine surprise to appear on her face for a moment, though she did not panic. She had not expected Yan Xiaodao to pull this move. She became so angry she actually laughed.
Tonight really had been a loss for her. Yet she found herself admiring Yan Xiaodao even more because of it. She did not feel like physically clinging to him and forcing him to stay. If he did not want it, then so be it. Let him leave. Encountering a man this difficult was rare enough to be interesting….
The alerted security staff would reach the conference room very soon.
Baoding Group’s headquarters had similar alarms installed. They might even have been made by the same manufacturer; they looked familiar. Yan Xiaodao knew security would arrive soon and did not waste time. The movement of the front of his suit was so fast that Zhao Qifeng saw none of it clearly.
His hand rose and the blade fell. Cutting downward from above, an extremely fine blade slipped into the gap around the door. The first strike failed to open it. The second flicked the spring mechanism inside the lock aside, and the door opened.
The door was open, but the lock had not been completely destroyed. The tip of the blade had merely gouged the mechanism enough to cripple it.
“Excuse me for leaving early tonight, Ms. Zhao. Take care of yourself.”
Under Zhao Qifeng’s complicated and distinctly reluctant gaze, Yan Xiaodao withdrew with perfect composure.
He even closed the conference-room door for her again, flicking the lock back into the locked position at the instant it shut. He had shown restraint so neither side would have to tear away all pretenses. If this had been the violent-tempered Yan Xiaodao of his younger years, he might genuinely have carved up her face.
The moment he turned to leave, he picked out another sound beneath the chaos of the wailing alarms: a brief series of dull impacts from fists, feet, and close-quarters fighting around the darkened corner of the corridor, followed by noises like several sacks of rotten potatoes hitting the floor. Then everything around him dropped back into darkness and silence.
Yan Xiaodao slid his right hand beneath the left side of his suit jacket and moved calmly along the wall. He reached the corner and looked around it.
Two people were lying on the floor. They had been knocked unconscious but were still alive. One of them was the “manager” who had tricked him into coming here.
Beside the man lay a smashed camera. Clearly, he had intended to wait outside the door for the “auspicious moment” and complete their filthy scheme, but someone had stopped him before he got the chance.
Something stirred inside Yan Xiaodao. He quickly picked up the camera and checked the memory card, only to discover that the card had already been crushed and destroyed.
The next second, Yan Xiaodao dropped the camera and sprinted down Red Square’s long corridor in pursuit. The person ahead could not have gotten far. Those footsteps were clearly no more than fifty meters away. The problem was that the place contained far too many passages and rooms. When programs were being recorded, it housed small theaters, makeup rooms, costume rooms, conference rooms, recording studios—there were hiding places everywhere.
Yan Xiaodao had long legs and tremendous stamina. His face did not change color and his breathing barely quickened as he pursued the person relentlessly.
After being followed for days, his nerves were beginning to fray. Although this particular stalker seemed to have automatically chosen Yan’s side and was apparently helping him, Yan still wanted to know who the hell they were.
Yan Xiaodao did not know Red Square’s layout. Strangely enough, the person ahead seemed to know it even less. They took one wrong turn after another, circling around like they had been trapped by ghosts. Two directionally challenged idiots without GPS might have completed several laps through the enormous, mostly deserted venue beneath the night.
At two different corners, Yan Xiaodao managed to catch sight of the person.
The figure was slender and long-limbed, with long arms and legs. A baseball cap and sunglasses obscured most identifying features. The person was not as tall as Yan had imagined. In that fleeting glimpse, Yan could not even tell whether this was a man or a woman. Either seemed possible.
The person was astonishingly fast, practically capable of scaling walls and flying over rooftops. When Yan Xiaodao nearly trapped them inside a costume-and-prop room, the figure launched onto a table and dove directly toward the window.
“Hey!” Yan Xiaodao called. He remembered the killers who had jumped into the sea aboard the Cloudtop. He had no intention of forcing this one to leap out of a building.
Fortunately, this happened to be a second-floor room extremely convenient for escaping through a window.
The person finally got away, landing as gracefully and lightly as a cat. Yan Xiaodao even heard a relaxed, delighted laugh from the darkness. Still moving away with their back turned, the figure raised a middle finger toward the upstairs window, mocking the old man for running too slowly.
Yan Xiaodao: “…”
*
The fire alarms frightened everyone out of the reception and brought guests scattered throughout Red Square pouring toward the exits in confused evacuation.
Sure enough, Yan spotted his two loyal younger brothers, Fengfeng and Kuanzi, in the crowd, one on either side of Mr. Ling.
Fengfeng and Kuanzi both looked frantic, ready to go searching for their boss despite there being no trace of smoke or fire anywhere nearby. Mr. Ling, however, sat as steadily as a fisherman on his platform and absolutely refused to let the two fools go looking. In a leisurely voice he told them, “Stop fussing. Your boss slipped off to a dressing room to have an affair. Once he pulls his trousers back up, he’ll come out by himself.”
Sure enough, Yan Xiaodao emerged a short while later. He was completely unharmed, merely a little tired from running after someone. His chest rose and fell visibly, and there was obvious sweat at his temples.
“Boss, y-you’re okay? You heard the fire alarm just now, right?” Fengfeng had actually begun believing Young Master Ling’s stream of nonsense. With their boss’s shirt collar pulled open, sweat on his skin, and slightly heavy breathing, he really did look like a man who had hurriedly rolled around in bed with a woman.
“I’m fine. Let’s go home.” Yan Xiaodao had no intention of explaining.
A curve appeared at Ling He’s lips as he smiled at Mr. Yan. “Look at all that sweat. Who did you battle for three hundred rounds?”
Yan Xiaodao ignored him. He stared at that handsome face and could not resist reaching out to pinch Ling He’s mouth and chin. The pressure carried clear dissatisfaction at that troublesome tongue, yet was unmistakably mixed with indulgence and intimacy. He could not bear to squeeze hard.
Lord Ling gave an irritated snort. He was clearly still dissatisfied. From Yan Xiaodao’s perfectly calm expression, he could tell Ms. Zhao had not had her face carved up after all. Disappointing.
As he put Ling He into the car, Yan Xiaodao’s eyes flickered unpredictably. Suddenly he pulled Yang Xifeng behind the vehicle and spoke from an angle where no one else could even read his lips. “Mr. Ling didn’t leave you at any point just now?”
Yang Xifeng said, “No. Why?”
Yan Xiaodao’s expression hardened. “You watched him the whole time? Never left his side?”
Yang Xifeng looked baffled. “We were watching him the whole time…. He went to the restroom once, but both of us waited outside. It was only a few minutes. There’s absolutely no way he could’ve gone anywhere.”
Yan Xiaodao felt that perhaps his paranoia had become excessive. It was not a good thing. Yet some instinctive suspicions were impossible for him to suppress.
He thought about it and decided it really was impossible. Setting aside whether Ling He could somehow fly out of a wheelchair, the person he had chased was an entire size smaller than him. Ling He was also tall and slim, with long arms and legs, so their silhouettes were somewhat similar, but a man standing 184 centimeters tall was conspicuous in any crowd. Yan had measured that height with his own eyes. No false reporting, no hidden lifts.
The drive out and the journey home were both perfectly smooth and peaceful. No tail appeared.
Inside the car, Yan Xiaodao remarked to Ling He as though the thought had only just occurred to him, “Every time I take you out, I keep expecting somebody to try something against you. Then it turns out all that worrying was pointless. We don’t even see anyone following us.”
He watched Ling He’s completely unruffled expression, not the least bit frightened by the probing question. Ling He shrugged and smiled. “I’ve already been settled in Linwan for days under the protection of Master Qi and Mr. Yan. Who would dare touch me? The more people who see me, the safer I am, because fewer people dare make a move. Everyone knows I’m staying in Linwan now, and they’re all watching each other. If I suddenly drop dead in an ‘accident,’ there’ll be an obvious grievance and an obvious debtor.”
Yan Xiaodao had suddenly realized that every time he went out with Ling He, all his worries proved unnecessary. As long as Ling He remained within his sight, everything was perfectly calm. But each time Ling He left his sight and Yan went somewhere alone, some elusive little tail interested in his movements would appear.
Fortunately, whoever it was did not seem interested in harming him.
*