The next day, Mr. Yan left for work before dawn with wind beneath his feet, leaving none of his usual lively presence behind for the younger brothers to joke with or splash water at. He had even had enough time to buy breakfast for everyone and leave two enormous stacks of takeout containers on the living-room table.
As always, he set aside two boxes of Ling He’s favorite food. When he left, the whole pack of lazy bastards still had not gotten out of bed.
He was the only person at the company. Yan Xiaodao had never heard of a boss being the earliest person to arrive in the entire workplace. Standing more than ten floors above the ground before a floor-to-ceiling window, he opened his mind to the view as the city pushed apart the thick fog and revealed its first dim light, watching the grandeur of dawn while remembering the years behind him.
He had liked someone for the first time in his life. He had acted with a clear conscience and regretted nothing. He would not look down on himself, and he would not resent the other person.
By the time regular working hours began, Mr. Yan had even made a cameo appearance as the receptionist. Tall and striking behind the counter at the main entrance, he lowered his eyes and pretended to type, then looked up to scan each employee’s card and say, “Morning.”
His appearance startled Secretary Yao and several other women who had clustered together and come in chattering. The fried pastry clenched between someone’s teeth went flying onto the document desk. The bun in Secretary Yao’s hand gave a wet psht and squirted oily broth across her own face, from the mascara on her lashes to the contour on her nose, all the way down to the full red lips painted with the newest limited-edition Yves Saint Laurent lipstick, ruining a perfectly meticulous face of makeup.
Secretary Yao, usually an actress who loved clowning around, surprisingly did not burst into tears, throw herself around Mr. Yan’s leg, and demand compensation for her ruined makeup. She did not even care that she was parading around the office with a greasy face. Instead, she quietly slipped into the boss’s office, pursed her red lips, and stood in front of Yan Xiaodao’s desk.
Yan Xiaodao looked up. “The quarterly bonus already went out. What else do you want?”
Secretary Yao shook her head, smiling with absolutely no reserve, smug and mysterious. Suddenly she thrust out her left hand.
A happy young woman wore a platinum diamond ring on the middle finger of her left hand. It was not exactly a pigeon egg, but for an ordinary salaried worker it showed considerable sincerity, glittering proudly on her slender hand.
Yan Xiaodao froze for a moment, then said sincerely, “Congratulations, beautiful. What man got that lucky?”
“Thank you, Mr. Yan.” Secretary Yao smiled, lips pressed together. “Mm, he proposed last night. I even pretended to hesitate for a while…. Mr. Yan, even if we invite absolutely nobody else to the wedding, we’re definitely inviting you!”
Yan Xiaodao snorted. “Do you actually want to invite me, or are you waiting for the red envelope so you can dump that wreck of a car and buy a new one? Fine. I’ll prepare the big red envelope in advance.”
“Thank you, Boss! A big red envelope is absolutely mandatory!” Secretary Yao was practically blossoming with happiness. “I actually wanted you to be the chief groomsman, but you’re too handsome. You look like a celebrity. If you make my husband look worse, that wouldn’t be appropriate!”
Yan Xiaodao’s smile quietly disappeared into the corner of his mouth the instant Secretary Yao clicked away in her heels and closed the office door behind her. His expression gradually blurred into the same restrained, minimalist tones as the office around him.
He could not resist opening his own hands and studying them for a long time, turning them palm up, then palm down.
He had never worn rings. He had no interest in the jade rings rich men used to flaunt wealth, and nobody had ever given him a matching couple’s ring or a diamond one. Hands covered in hard skin and scars like his perhaps were simply not hands suited for rings. He was a rough man. Nobody would exchange rings with him.
He had been used to it since childhood. It seemed nobody had ever held him in their palms and cherished him, so he had never expected anyone’s tenderness either.
*
By evening, everyone clocked out as usual. Yan Xiaodao had already thrown on his coat and stepped into the elevator, so he did not hear Secretary Yao’s shocked cry from the office area when she finally made it to the end of the workday and could shamelessly slack off for a few minutes scrolling entertainment gossip.
Secretary Yao went pale. The diamond on her left hand flashed so brightly it almost blinded the computer screen as she turned woodenly toward her coworkers. “Oh my god. Oh my god, come look. People online are saying that guy died. Is it real?… The one who came here just a few days ago and took pictures with us. He died?!…”
The company was not far from home. Administratively, both belonged to the port’s new district.
Yan Xiaodao was receiving Liang Youhui’s call at the exact moment he once again spotted that ghostlike gray car behind him.
The gray car never did anything except chase him and map his movements. It did not ram him, challenge him to a fight, or actually do anything harmful. But Mr. Yan’s mood today was not particularly smooth.
He connected the headset. “Hello, Youhui?”
Liang Youhui’s voice came through broken and intermittent, like chaotic static from some ancient car stereo on the brink of collapsing and being retired. He sounded as though he were driving too. “Xiaodao, Xiaodao, where are you?”
Yan Xiaodao said, “On my way home from work. What’s wrong? Why does your voice sound like that?!”
Even as he spoke, his peripheral vision skimmed the rearview mirror. Grinding his teeth coldly, he suddenly swerved onto the side lane, catching the little gray car behind him completely unprepared and forcing it ahead. Yan immediately dropped down from the lane and began chasing the gray car from behind.
The stalked became the stalker in the blink of an eye.
Liang Youhui continued in a voice like malfunctioning radio waves, trembling through the static. “X-X-Xiaodao, c-can I come find you? I’m a little scared. Something happened….”
“Then tell me what happened!” Yan Xiaodao hated people who fucking dragged out their words. He knew Young Master Liang had remained in the new district for the past several days and was currently searching for a hotel or apartment where he could stay long-term. In the serpent formation of rush-hour traffic, Yan suddenly slammed the accelerator and bore down on the vehicle ahead, then hit the brakes at the last instant before smashing into its rear, roughly tapping its bumper.
“Xiaodao, I-I… our family—no, no, the hotel room I’m staying in. I think somebody died in there….” Liang Youhui’s voice was swallowed by the impact.
“What?! I can’t hear you! What did you say?!” Yan Xiaodao could have pulled the handbrake, gotten out, and yanked whoever was in the gray car into the open, lifting the brim of their cap and sunglasses to finally see their face. Some strange sixth sense kept making him suspect a certain someone…. But useless Young Master Liang, this idiot who never understood timing, could trip him from miles away at precisely the worst moment. Yan hesitated only briefly before he could get out, and unfortunately the traffic ahead abruptly cleared. The gray car stamped the accelerator and escaped.
The nameless fire in Yan Xiaodao’s stomach eased slightly. He refused to admit that the diamond on Secretary Yao’s hand had gotten to him today. He wanted to give someone one too. Give it to whom? Who would cherish him once?
He slowed down and drove toward his villa district. “Youhui, what did you say just now? I didn’t hear you.”
Liang Youhui was breathing heavily while speaking very quietly, still dazed and avoiding the important part. “Can I come to your place? I’m already inside your neighborhood. Which building is yours? I don’t have anywhere to stay anymore. In my room… I think someone died….”
Liang Youhui said several more things, but to Yan Xiaodao the voice seemed like an antique jukebox grinding an old record into the scratchy texture of another era. None of the words felt real.
Yan Xiaodao’s eyes remained fixed on the road as their color changed inch by inch. The green boulevard around him suddenly contracted inside his black pupils, then violently enlarged and spun.
“Youhui, what did you say?”
“Who died?!”
*
Yan Xiaodao drove through the electronically controlled gate of his house. Liang Youhui was waiting beside the tree-lined drive and had already waved his taxi away.
Liang Youhui lowered his head and trotted after Yan Xiaodao’s car into the yard, utterly lost. His hair was an uncombed bird’s nest. He was clearly wearing yesterday’s clothes again today, and the fabric had been crushed into wrinkled layers by a lazy night’s sleep. All his usual glossy rich-kid magnificence was gone.
Yan Xiaodao inexplicably asked, “Where’s your car?”
Liang Youhui looked miserable and spread his hands. “The car’s gone too. I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell happened. I don’t know anything….”
Yan Xiaodao snapped, his emotions trembling. “What exactly happened? What did you see?”
Liang Youhui stared blankly at him. Only after finding his “trusted big brother” and “protector” did he seem to settle and recover his mind. “I didn’t go back to the hotel last night. I went out to have fun and slept until noon. I only went back this afternoon, just now. Before I even got inside I heard the cleaner screaming. There was blood everywhere in the room. All over the bed, the walls, the floor. I was losing my mind…. I saw the guy’s eyes were still open. It looked just like something out of a movie. It was terrifying….”
Eyes still open. He had died without closing them.
The two stood in front of the villa in the front yard, one burning with urgency and the other drifting completely off course. Liang Youhui no longer needed to ramble because several of Mr. Yan’s brothers were coming out now too, all wearing expressions that said they had something important and alarming to report.
Fengfeng and Kuanzi had accompanied Mr. Yan to the Red Square reception. “Boss, isn’t this the singer who gave that concert a couple of days ago and invited us?” Yang Xifeng handed him his phone, rapidly opening page after page from different websites that were nearly collapsing under traffic.
Yan Xiaodao lowered his head and silently read the reports with a grim expression, saying nothing.
The internet had completely overturned the dimensions of ordinary life. It always transformed things into overwhelming chaos before anyone could react, always ran far ahead of the spectators’ capacity to process what they were seeing, endlessly taking huge strides past the point where keyboard warriors could still be excited. But in incidents like this, that excitement looked cruel. Before any official account had released a single official statement, rumors from every possible channel were already raging. Reduced to one line: Mai Yunliang, the major celebrity who had just held a concert locally a few days ago, had died suddenly and unexpectedly.
Yan Xiaodao’s Adam’s apple trembled.
More details emerged through scattered claims from supposed insiders, perhaps hotel employees who had witnessed something and were desperate to ride the trending topic. “I’m only saying what I personally saw. Mai Yunliang died in a luxury six-star hotel, and he died naked. He wasn’t wearing any clothes.”
“The wealthy businessman’s identity is unknown. Nobody knows who did it. Judging from the scene, it looked like they played too hard and killed him.”
“Oh my god, Mai Yunliang never had a public girlfriend. So he might actually have been gay—and into that kind of thing? My image of him is destroyed!”
“Exactly. The room supposedly looked like some kind of hardcore playroom from a movie. Lots of terrifying weird toys. They say it was worse than erotic asphyxiation because there was so much blood. Looks like he bled to death after somebody went too far. Rich people are terrifying.”
*
Yan Xiaodao’s eyes hurt terribly. He had to blink repeatedly just to make out the tiny words on the screen. Waves of leaks and sensationalized speculation crashed against his defenses, though nobody beside him could see it. He held up the expression on his face with mountainlike endurance while inside something was being torn apart, grabbed, twisted, and churned until it hurt unbearably.
Nobody else knew that he had seen Mai Yunliang just yesterday evening and that they had spoken about things of enormous importance.
His memory was excellent. At this moment, that excellent memory became a heavy burden. Every sentence Mai Yunliang had spoken, every old event he had described, tangled and echoed together beside the sharpest and cruelest words in the online rumors, impossible to erase.
*
Yan Xiaodao stood in a completely different position from all the gossip armies waving their banners. He was awake and informed, standing on the threshold between inside and outside this game. In the wind, he suddenly looked up at Liang Youhui. “Did you call the police?”
Liang Youhui shook his head blankly. “I was scared out of my mind. I wanted to ask you what I should do.”
“The hotel would’ve called as soon as they saw it. You didn’t need to.” Yan Xiaodao quickly answered his own question, then frowned and studied Young Master Liang. “Who’s the rich businessman they’re talking about online? Who else stayed in your room? Tell me the truth.”
Liang Youhui shook his head. “Nobody. Just me. But I didn’t do anything!”
What a fucking pig brain.
Yan Xiaodao wanted to slap this young master awake on behalf of his biological father. “A person died in your room, Youhui. Why did you run to my house? You shouldn’t have left the scene at all.”
He could even see faint blood traces on Liang Youhui’s trouser hems and the toes of his shoes. Those were also Mai Yunliang’s blood. The man had carried it onto the grass in Yan’s front yard. Even a tiny washed trace could still produce a biochemical reaction under testing.
Liang Youhui’s handsome face filled with disappointment and dejection, his eyes following Yan Xiaodao as the other man paced. “Xiaodao, are you not going to help me? Something happens and you—you’re like this. You even yell at me….”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t help. I’m saying you shouldn’t have left the scene and run around. Something simple has now become you acting guilty and fleeing the crime scene, and you even fled to my house!” Yan Xiaodao shook his head helplessly. Talking to someone with such a severe difference in IQ was exhausting. The thought immediately sent Ling He’s figure flashing through his mind. Talking to Mr. Ling was never exhausting. Not one wasted sentence—Ling He’s still at home, right?
Young Master Liang blew his reddened nose and clutched the tail of Yan Xiaodao’s coat, following him into the house like a heavy weight that would not come off. It was as though holding onto Xiaodao was the only way he could feel safe. The Linwan New District was not his home territory. His best friend and the person he trusted most here really was Yan Xiaodao. So when something happened, aside from calling his father for help, he naturally ran to his friend nearby for refuge. Young Master Liang had not thought through questions like whether he should or should not come. First, he was frightened and needed a solid shoulder to lean on, so he wanted Yan Xiaodao. Second, he had nowhere to live and therefore needed Yan Xiaodao even more. Those were the only two things his brain considered important. Who the dead man was and how he died required more processing capacity than he possessed. He was an enormous baby utterly lacking the strong mind and self-sufficiency needed in a crisis.
Yan Xiaodao, meanwhile, was exactly the sort of person who gave others a powerful sense of security. He had always been dependable.
If Yan Xiaodao had been the cop handling the case, the first person he would have eliminated as a suspect was Young Master Liang. Liang Youhui did not need to run at all. With his fundamentally kind, weak, softhearted temperament, the man could not even kill a cat. No matter how promiscuous and undisciplined he normally was, he would not kill someone.
Yan Xiaodao dumped the giant baby onto the sofa and tossed him two bags of snacks. “Youhui, rest here. Watch the clock yourself. In less than half an hour, the municipal criminal-investigation team will knock on my door and invite you in for questioning. Sit right here and wait. Don’t wash your face or change clothes in my house either. Sit there and don’t move! Stop spreading your biological traces all over my home!”
The giant baby clearly sensed Lord Yan’s disgust and dissatisfaction and finally became quiet. At least he did not dare ask an idiotic question like “How would the criminal-investigation team find me here so quickly?” Yet the pitiful innocence on his face looked one step away from clutching his shirt hem and chewing his fingers.
Yan Xiaodao had no mental energy left for disgust. Two things tangled and magnified inside his mind: the dead man was Mr. Mai. How had this happened so suddenly? How had he died, and who had harmed him?
Before going upstairs, Yan Xiaodao passed Yang Xifeng and indicated upstairs with his eyes.
Fengfeng leaned close and whispered, “He’s been upstairs the entire time. Never came down. I took lunch up to him too. He didn’t eat much. Maybe his stomach’s off?”
Yan Xiaodao had not eaten much at the company that afternoon either. His mood had ruined his appetite. He felt even more guilty toward Ling He.
Thinking carefully about last night, he felt Ling He had suddenly gone completely rigid and furious precisely when Yan slipped a hand into his trousers, touched him almost recklessly in his abandon, and grabbed the soft but firm flesh of his backside. He had seemed ready to leap off the bed as though his legs suddenly worked, and probably would have if Yan had not pinned him down so firmly…. Maybe I really did go too far. Maybe I was too rough.
The translucent curtains of the sitting room floated in the wind. Nobody was on the piano bench or sofa. The man in the wheelchair sat on the terrace against a background of a tall, brilliantly colored maple tree, his long-haired silhouette beautiful as he leisurely gazed over the magnificent panorama of sea and sky beyond the port.
The lively gray-and-white Third Lady bounced around the terrace, periodically rubbing her neck affectionately against Mr. Ling’s leg.
Third Lady was eating something from the ground.
“Don’t eat random things!” Yan Xiaodao barked and suddenly strode onto the wooden terrace. His heavy steps squeezed a hoarse creak from the planks and startled the dog. Without hesitation, Yan Xiaodao forcibly dug whatever Third Lady had been chewing halfway out of her mouth. His fingers were ruthless and did not fear her teeth. He pried her jaws open and reached almost to her throat, making Third Lady howl indignantly.
Ling He looked up at him with slight surprise. Between his fingers was half a cold steamed bun, apparently left over from lunch.
Yan Xiaodao forcibly extracted the other half. Third Lady expressed enormous grievance and outrage. Wriggling her hips, she gave a protesting woof, furious at such authoritarian centralized tyranny.
Yan Xiaodao supplied a stiff explanation. “I never let these two eat random things. I’m afraid somebody might feed them something they shouldn’t.”
Ling He’s mouth moved faintly. “I only gave her half a bun. Isn’t this bun supposedly called Goubuli? I wanted to see whether the dog would ignore it or not.”
Elio’s Notes: Goubuli is a famous Tianjin steamed-bun brand. The name is commonly read literally as “dogs ignore it,” which is the joke Ling He is making here.
“Looks like Third Lady isn’t a dog. She’s cultivated into a spirit already.” Ling He rolled his eyes at him.
Yan Xiaodao’s explanation was also true. He had trained Master Bear and Third Lady to eat only food given by him, Fengfeng, or Kuanzi. The three rotated feeding duty morning and evening, ensuring everything the dogs ate was absolutely trustworthy. These were guard dogs protecting his villa, and Yan was cautious even in how he managed them.
Put plainly, what if somebody tossed a bun over the wall after lacing it with drugs or poison?
Yan Xiaodao was not deliberately guarding against any particular person. He had simply been surrounded and battered by too many things he could not explain and had become oversensitive….
Ling He asked directly, “Something happened to Mr. Mai, didn’t it? I heard you talking downstairs.”
Ling He’s brows were drawn tight. Under the evening breeze, his black brows and pale face stood out even more starkly. His eyes were deep, caught in some kind of thought, and he appeared equally confused and troubled by what had happened to Mai Yunliang. His balanced upper body was wrapped in Mr. Yan’s linen-colored shirt, a large blanket covered his legs, and his long, bony hands rested thoughtfully over it. Gazing into the distance like this, the entire man somehow seemed more mature and imposing than usual, his features deep and impossible to measure—or perhaps it was merely an illusion of perception….
Both intelligent men refused to mention last night. They were adults. If they had rolled around in bed, then they had. If nothing ultimately happened, then nothing happened. It was over. There was no need to manufacture trouble or excessively harass the other person, much less cling desperately.
Yan Xiaodao studied Ling He sitting there so calmly and narrowed his eyes. “Who do you think did it?”
Ling He stared at him in surprise. “How could I say? All I know is that it definitely wasn’t that stupid young master downstairs. Instead of giving a statement and proving his alibi, he runs here to hide. Ridiculous.”
Yan Xiaodao said with difficulty, “From the descriptions, it sounds like things went too far in the hotel and somebody tortured him to death.”
Ling He’s tone was indifferent and bored. He did not even look at Yan. “He had so many intimate guests. Eliminate them one by one. Dozens of people. Which of them isn’t a suspect?”
Yan Xiaodao’s heart abruptly tightened, yet he could not refute the ugly statement. Whenever Ling He mentioned Mai Yunliang, his attitude had always been contemptuous and disdainful. Even after hearing the news of the man’s death, he showed none of his former hostility softening into pity or empathy. Yet now that Yan vaguely suspected some hidden history between them, he could not tell whether he was supposed to “understand” Mr. Ling’s attitude or feel saddened by it.
“I speak directly. Don’t mind me, Mr. Yan. I’m only stating facts.” Ling He sensed that he was unhappy and casually dropped another thunderbolt. “For example, suppose I had unfortunately been the person who died in bed last night, and someone killed me through that kind of particularly violent, stimulating, heavy sexual play. Then almost the only suspect would be Mr. Yan, who appears extremely interested in me. Once bodies have touched, there will inevitably be connections that are difficult to explain. Why don’t you sort through Mr. Mai’s list for him? See whether you can assemble a mahjong hand one tile away from ready and figure out which tile wins.”
*
Dark clouds packed the harbor. A storm was coming. The whole sky suddenly seemed to change expression in rage, exposing the old soot and grime hidden beneath its polished, spotless surface.
Yan Xiaodao opened his eyes wide, unwilling to believe the Ling He in front of him at this moment. That city-toppling face still made his heart move, yet every sentence from that mouth was a knife cutting into his heart. If the first cut did not draw blood, Ling He mercilessly added another.
Yan Xiaodao said nothing and turned away from the terrace.
Ling He’s beautiful dark-green pupils reflected Xiaodao’s back. With enough force to grind his own molars to pieces, he suppressed the deepest desire in his heart—to crawl across all the thorns and ravines between them, cross mountains and ridges, drag Xiaodao back, and beg him to stay. Instead he allowed that disappointed, desolate figure to disappear beyond the doorway.
Ling He turned his face away and lifted his chin to watch the bloodred, demonic sun finally sink into the ocean. He let himself return to the face he ought to wear, the same one he had worn aboard the Cloudtop when they first met.
Everything was over.
Everything was also beginning.
Perhaps they could no longer maintain that tender intimacy of two hearts understanding one another. Perhaps there was no need for gentle warmth performed beneath false pretenses either. Yet when the violent storm arrived wrapped in hail, why did the Eight of Characters tile secretly clenched inside his palm—its edges nearly worn smooth by his fingerprints—still manage to cut his hand and slice open his heart?