The sudden collapse of emotional restraint made Ling He seal Yan Xiaodao’s lips, taking control in a posture that permitted no resistance and gathering every part of him he could reach into his arms. For one instant, their colliding lips trembled in mutual uncertainty, like the most familiar strangers in the world searching excitedly yet cautiously for the one opening in the other person that was softest and yet strongest.
A place impregnable and inviolable to everyone else, opened without reservation only to each other….
Yan Xiaodao caught Ling He’s lips first, then was immediately overwhelmed and pressed back. Ling He had the advantage of position and bore down on him, sucking and grinding against his mouth, catching his lips and pulling his entire body forward.
Caught completely off guard, Yan Xiaodao went down onto his knees.
The balance of his forefeet pitched forward under the pull. His reddened eyes and breath of pleasure both fell into disarray, and he landed awkwardly on both knees in front of Ling He. Yet he could not bear to let go of that tiny point of sweetness. Every shred of consciousness the two possessed concentrated between their intoxicating lips and teeth.
Mr. Ling could hardly claim to possess any kissing technique. If there was still anything in this world he was not good at, he freely admitted that he was inept at every form of emotional expression. He was especially bad at expressing love and attachment in so intimate a manner. He had rarely—almost never—had any chance to practice, much less anyone to practice with.
Ling He imagined and deliberately imitated the way Xiaodao had kissed him that night, recreating in reality the method he had replayed so often in his mind that it had become familiar. He learned as he kissed, his lips flexibly pursuing and sucking Xiaodao’s tongue. They pressed their noses together so hard the cartilage hurt, yet neither was willing to stop, utterly intoxicated by the sweetness. A thread of saliva stretched between the corners of their mouths, and each intimately licked the moisture from the other’s lips…. The sensation made both men tremble from body to heart, drowning them in profound intoxication and sweetness, yet also aching with sorrow.
The violence of the kiss left Yan Xiaodao faintly startled and confused, depriving him of the certainty and sense of security he was used to. Ling He had come down upon him without warning and was not truly held under Yan’s control. He could release Yan’s mouth and withdraw at any moment, while Yan himself could only accept the kiss passively from his kneeling position….
Ling He bit his lips domineeringly.
Ling He patiently, meticulously ran his tongue over every one of his teeth.
Ling He bit the little black mole on the tip of his nose.
This did not feel like the kiss of two people about to step into a loving life together. It felt like a kiss that would have no tomorrow after tonight.
Ling He kissed him with too much concentration, too much obsession. Layer upon layer of unreadable light flickered in his eyes, while beneath those countless strata lay buried suppression and grief, and perhaps the fierceness and rebellion awakened by having his path obstructed.
They kissed until there was not enough air left to breathe, until their lungs seemed emptied.
Both had to summon considerable determination to wrench themselves away from the other. The parts of their bodies pressed together fit like two puzzle pieces that had finally found their matching shapes, every curve locking perfectly into place. Even when they reluctantly separated, they could still feel the violent fluctuations in each other’s arousal. If they kept holding and biting at each other, they would have to relocate before the fire spread beyond control.
This man is paralyzed?
The hell he is. Every part of him is vigorous, healthy, and solid. He is five years younger, after all!
Yan Xiaodao could clearly feel Ling He reacting to him. When Ling He slipped a hand beneath his suit to touch him, the physiological response was unmistakable.
Ling He finally released him, but remained unwilling to stop and bit hard at the pearl of Yan’s upper lip.
When they separated, Yan Xiaodao’s lips were broken and red. A bead of blood trembled between them as though placed there by the finishing touch of a divine brush, adding another trace of weathered roughness to his already injured face. Beneath that faint wash of blood, there was a taut, powerful masculine beauty.
Ling He simply refused to yield. If Master Qi can leave something on your face, Yan Xiaodao, then so can I.
After his breathing calmed, Ling He held his head high. For several moments his throat kept working, as though he too had made some enormous decision. He was forced to look away. His voice came out strained, because bargaining and pleading in such a subdued manner went completely against his nature. Even more unimaginable was the condition he was about to offer—something that ruthlessly crushed through a boundary he would never before have dreamed of crossing.
“Xiaodao, I want to ask you one thing today.”
“You understand as well as I do that I can’t remain beside you forever. We’re destined to be unable to go on living together like this as if nothing has happened.”
Ling He was the first to voice the plea. “Xiaodao, if… if I promise to give you what you wanted that night—everything you wanted from me, all of it—would you be willing, for my sake, to leave Qi Baoshan?”
Yan Xiaodao remained kneeling, but his expression slowly changed. Blood burned at his brow and lips. He silently pressed his lips together and swallowed the bead of blood.
Ling He rarely called him “Xiaodao” with such intimacy. For several days now, the two had practically ignored each other and had not exchanged a single kind word. Hearing such intimate words now was unbearably bittersweet. It was as though they had crossed ten thousand rivers and mountains, endured countless hardships, and finally reached each other—only to discover there was still one final chasm between them that neither could cross.
Ling He’s throat moved faintly, but his decision was firm and clear. “I mean leave him forever. You and your godfather go your separate ways. No matter what happens to him in the future—birth, aging, sickness, death, fortune, disaster, poverty, extravagance—no matter what ending awaits him, you separate from him and the two of us stay together. Would you do that, Xiaodao?”
He had already skipped automatically over every conflict between them concerning Mr. Mai. Mai Yunliang was no genuine obstacle between the two of them. It was easy to foresee that the case would soon end with much thunder and little rain. It was simply not worth mentioning.
Yan Xiaodao slowly stood. The bodies that had been intimately pressed together abruptly separated. “What are you planning?… What are you planning to do to Master Qi?”
“You won’t agree. Not even for me.” Ling He’s expression abruptly turned cold, though he did not look especially disappointed. Everything was exactly as expected.
Yan Xiaodao refuted him in one blunt sentence. “Ling He, would you give up everything you’re doing now and everything you’re preparing to do in the future—for me?… You wouldn’t either.”
Ling He, when you destroyed Watanabe Yangshan’s family business and swallowed up most of his wealth, was that really because your sense of justice suddenly overflowed and you wanted to teach some disgusting bastard a lesson? No. You would never have that kind of idle concern. You never meddle in things that have nothing to do with you. Watanabe’s assets must have represented a considerable amount of capital. You must have a use for that money, along with your own plans and ambitions. You’re just as single-minded and focused on your objective. Am I wrong?
Would you give up everything you want to do? Stop opposing Master Qi and everyone around him, abandon it all here, just for me?
You wouldn’t either.
Yan Xiaodao’s heart felt as though it were being cut apart.
Ling He looked up at him, his expression graver than Yan had ever seen. “Xiaodao, the godfather you respect, worship, and love most has hidden the truth from you for years because he never dared tell you. He is actually a criminal with blood on both hands, someone whose crimes are serious enough to warrant the death penalty. Even the five hundred thousand he used to ransom you back then was dirty money obtained unjustly—stolen money…. Will you reconsider what I just asked?”
Ling He gripped Xiaodao’s wrist, lingering over the powerful pulse beneath his fingers as though making one final desperate effort.
“Master Qi raised me. I ate his food for more than ten years. What do you expect me to choose?… Am I supposed to go to the police and report him?” Yan Xiaodao asked quietly.
Ling He: “…”
There was little expression left on Yan Xiaodao’s face. After a thousand sails had passed and everything had settled, only a faint layer of sadness remained. Or rather, he was neither stupid nor slow. The fragments Ling He had let slip over these past days had already allowed him to guess many possibilities. The old grievances pressed against him like a mountain and often made it hard to breathe; he simply never indulged in self-pity.
“Ling He, I understand what you want, but I can’t help you do those things.
“Betray the man I serve, forget loyalty for lust, turn around and bite the hand that fed me, repay kindness with treachery—I can’t do it.
“Even if I took out five million or fifty million now and paid it back, it could never cancel out the five hundred thousand my godfather spent to save my life. What do you expect me to do? If those five hundred thousand were dirty money, then heaven must have judged back then that my life was supposed to end. I should never have been ransomed in the first place. I’ve somehow lived fifteen extra years. At worst, I’ll give this life back to him.”
＊
Betray the man he served, forget loyalty for lust, turn around and bite the hand that fed him, repay kindness with treachery—Yan Xiaodao absolutely could not do those things.
If this man truly could do them—if he could hold his lover in his arms at this moment, burn with lust, and immediately turn against Qi Baoshan—then he would no longer be Yan Xiaodao. He would be Lü Bu, the infamous “slave of three surnames,” a man who repeatedly betrayed his lords. Nor would he be the man Ling He was now so hopelessly entangled with, unable to stop yearning to possess.
Elio’s Notes: Lü Bu, a famous warrior from the late Eastern Han period, was derided as a “slave of three surnames” for repeatedly changing allegiances and betraying those he had served.
Ling He was exceptionally clever and perceptive. That night in the second-floor room of Madam Yan’s house in Wuping Village, Huima Town, when the two of them had spoken heart-to-heart, he had already understood that nothing between him and Yan Xiaodao was possible. Since meeting Xiaodao, every minute, every look, every movement, every ounce of thought and calculation he had spent on this man had all been wasted.
No matter how much care Ling He gave Yan Xiaodao, it could only ever be a flower added to brocade after Yan had already become prosperous, a little romance enjoyed during peaceful years. That old bastard Qi Baoshan had delivered charcoal in the snow when Yan Xiaodao had reached the most desperate point of his life. That recognition and lifesaving favor was comparable to a Bole recognizing a fine horse, an expert eye recognizing a pearl. No amount of scheming could ever replace it—because, Mr. Ling, you came too late.
Qi Baoshan had bought the entire second half of Yan Xiaodao’s life for a mere five hundred thousand. The man’s eye was viciously sharp. He had made an extraordinary bargain.
This was what it meant to meet someone too late in life.
Why did he get to meet you first, while I came one step too late?
Even at his saddest, Ling He smiled lightly as though nothing mattered, treating the impassable barrier before him as though it weighed nothing. Yet his heart had gone cold, and invisibly his body and heart hardened all over again. In the end, perhaps the affection between them amounted only to this. However much Yan claimed to like him, however much he said he wanted him, momentary desire of the lower body could not defeat more than a decade of familial debt and attachment.
“Xiaodao, I owe you an apology too. About this matter, I fooled you from the beginning. I never told you the truth.” Ling He pointed at his own knees. No further explanation was needed between them.
“Xiaodao, you and I met by chance. We have no shared past, and it’s difficult to speak of any ‘future.’ We’ve already said more than people with such a shallow connection should. Today can count as our farewell. I’ll give you one last warning. The next time you see me, I definitely won’t still look this unlucky and miserable, helpless enough for anyone to humiliate. Whatever happens, don’t pity me. Don’t sympathize with me. And above all, never show mercy to someone like me.
“Yan Xiaodao, I asked you openly and honestly. Today, you were the one who rejected me. In the future, if I use some underhanded method to get you, don’t blame me for being ruthless…. Qi Baoshan won’t let go of you easily, and neither will I! Xiaodao, I absolutely will not let you go!”
When Young Master Ling smiled, his beauty was breathtaking. His dazzling, poisonous smile made it difficult to breathe, even as he spoke words of farewell.
Yan Xiaodao, I absolutely will not let you go.
Not one word of Qi Baoshan’s so-called bargain or bargaining chip can be trusted. If I treasure someone this much, wouldn’t Master Qi treasure him too? How could he possibly bear to trade him away? If you won’t play fair, don’t blame me for doing the same.
Blood still dampened Yan Xiaodao’s lips where Ling He had bitten him.
The heat of their shared breath from that eruption of genuine emotion still lingered on Ling He’s tongue.
The two stood within arm’s reach of each other, yet in the span of a moment it seemed as though a thousand mountains had risen between them. An impassable chasm split open, its gap widening visibly as a roaring flood filled the broad Chu–Han boundary between their hearts until everything within was drowned beneath an endless sea.
＊
That night, many people probably slept poorly.
Night stretched a colossal black curtain across heaven and earth, concealing every sordid transaction of the human world and allowing deeds that could not bear daylight to rush back and forth beneath it in frightened desperation, struggling one final time.
A luxurious black SUV roared away from an upscale residential district in the city center. For reasons unknown, it scraped the landscaping while turning, gouging two ugly, narrow marks through its glossy piano-black paint. The driver did not even stop to curse. Like a cornered beast fleeing a pack of wolves, the vehicle raced desperately toward the southwestern outskirts.
The SUV bounced along the uneven road. There was only one person inside. He had a shaved head, a golden-brown complexion, and—despite the darkness—still wore the same unchanging pair of tea-colored sunglasses, as though those thin, powerless lenses could hide certain truths about to be exposed.
The driver was none other than Young Master You Haodong, son of the city’s number-two official.
He was not exactly fleeing. In a crisis, the first person he thought of was simply the person he trusted most. The rural road led toward Tanju Temple, the most famous and prosperous temple within a hundred-li radius.
You Haodong abandoned his luxury vehicle outside the temple. Tanju Temple had long since closed its gates for the night. From behind the high walls, a massive old pine stretched outward through the darkness, several branches twisted into the shape of powerful claws as though reaching down to seize Young Master You and drag him inside.
You Haodong pounded rudely on the temple door. Too impatient to wait, he tried to climb the wall, but his martial skills were limited and he certainly did not know how to fly over roofs and walls. He had no choice but to wait until the narrow red-painted side door groaned open in the middle of the night. A sleepy-looking lay disciple poked his head out. “What are you doing here this late? Who are you?”
You Haodong shoved the narrow door open and barged inside….
Naturally, he had not suddenly rushed here in desperation to cling to Buddha’s feet and pray for protection. He had never believed in these gold-painted clay statues of gods and Buddhas. What fucking use were they? The mighty Young Master You believed in wealth, power, and money paving the road. What kind of people had the You family been in Linwan all these years? If gods blocked the way, kill the gods; if Buddhas blocked the way, kill the Buddhas. What did he have to fear?
What was he afraid of…?
He ran through the main hall, then through the side halls. Tanju Temple was enormous, with both front and rear courtyards, and he tore through nearly all of it looking for the living quarters where privileged lay guests could stay overnight.
“Where’s my dad? Which room is my father staying in?” Young Master You grabbed a man in gray robes at random, unable to tell whether he was a real monk or some fake hiding beneath his blankets to eat meat and entertain lovers.
“Your father?… Benefactor, do-do-do you mean the benefactor whose Dharma name is ‘Remnant’?”
Remnant, my ass! Smoke nearly rose from You Haodong’s shaved head, glowing in the darkness. He had always thought his father choosing such a godforsaken name was ridiculously unlucky. His father had eaten so much vegetarian food over the past few years that his brain must have been starved of oil; many of his words and actions had become bizarre and incomprehensible. Why choose such an awful Dharma name?
You Jinglian, patriarch of the You family, had barely returned home for months. It was as though from some particular day onward he had abruptly turned into a homeless dog with a home he dared not return to. He either lay drunk and senseless inside an expensive six-star hotel or hid in temples praying to Buddhas and gods. He dared not return to the official residence assigned to him, afraid of hearing rumors from political circles and afraid of seeing colleagues. Nor did he dare stay in his private villa, always feeling too burdened by sin and haunted by fear. Only a deep, ancient temple suited him now. With an oil lamp before the Buddha and the sound of wooden fish and bells, his terrified soul could obtain temporary comfort and peace.
According to reliable rumors in certain circles, many powerful officials awaiting punishment spent their final days in precisely this frightened, tail-between-the-legs state.
When You Haodong crossed the threshold of the room, his leather boots struck the cement floor without restraint. The person lying on a thin mattress in the darkness jolted upright with an “Ah!” For one instant he thought… thought he had finally run out of places to hide, that the police had come to cuff him, that the inspection team had come to arrest him.
“Dad, it’s me!” You Haodong growled softly.
The benefactor whose Dharma name was “Remnant” sat stiffly on his meditation mat. His thin, sallow face had lost every trace of its former brilliance. Nobody would have guessed that this was supposed to be an immensely powerful official who could command wind and rain throughout the port, a man who had no business sleeping in a temple cell.
In truth, such things were not uncommon inside government compounds. Everyone spent their days praising Marxist-Leninist materialism and carrying the Little Red Book of Mao Zedong Thought in their hearts, then treated every fraudulent “master” and feng-shui practitioner as honored guests at home, inviting them over constantly to guarantee safety. You Jinglian had eaten vegetarian food for years and claimed it was a method of maintaining his health. On the occasional banquet or social occasion he could not avoid, if he was forced to “form a karmic connection” with meat and eat it, he would return home afterward, burn incense, and chant prayers to deliver the meat he had eaten into the afterlife….
You Haodong thought his father had gone much too far lately. He practically ignored politics now, could not survive a day without seeing a Bodhisattva, and seemed to need to cling to Buddha’s feet even while sleeping. It was becoming pathological.
“Dad, I got into a little trouble outside. I need you to help me. Help me cover it up.” You Haodong sat cross-legged beside the bedding, then found the posture too uncomfortable and humiliating, so he stretched his legs out again in the style befitting a young master.
“Dad… have you heard about that Mai Yunliang case lately?” You Haodong lowered his eyes, full of frustration.
“Fuck. I must’ve been possessed that night. How was I supposed to know Mai Yunliang would just happen to show up at that hotel!”
You Jinglian: “Which hotel?”
You Haodong: “The one where you rented a long-term room and used to stay all the time.”
You Jinglian: “What did you do?”
You Haodong gritted his teeth, secretly guilty despite himself. “I did that guy that night. That celebrity. Then he died. The police are looking for whoever killed him.”
You Jinglian’s face changed. “…You killed that celebrity?!”
You Haodong exploded. “No! I didn’t! He was perfectly fine when I let him leave. Who the hell knows why he died later that same night!”
＊
Young Master You was not the sort of man to blame himself for his own sins. He felt deeply wronged too. He had only played with the man a little—why did Mai Yunliang have to die immediately afterward and smear him with the mess?
That six-star hotel in Linwan occupied a prime location near the harbor. You Jinglian maintained a long-term sea-view suite there. Such arrangements were normal for people like them; some officials habitually handled work and entertained guests from hotels. You Jinglian kept that suite for leisure and had another hotel room downtown for work. However, the registration used an alias and false identification rather than his real name, so when the police initially checked hotel guests and the “client list,” they had not immediately traced the room to the You family.
That night, Mr. Mai passed along one hotel corridor, turned away from the view of a surveillance camera, and vanished into a blind spot within the maze of hallways. Whether deliberately or accidentally, he disappeared for exactly twenty minutes without anyone knowing where he had gone before emerging again.
The direction Mai Yunliang had gone was toward the sea-view suite rented by You Jinglian.
Captain Xue had investigated cases in Linwan for years and might already have known the true identities behind certain hotel registrations. But without concrete evidence, Xue Qian would never risk his own official position by casually disturbing and interrogating the powerful superior presiding over the local yamen. Once evidence existed, however, the Night Yaksha Xue could openly pick up his stick and strike the snake—and he would show no mercy.
Afterward, You Haodong himself began wandering around like a restless ghost, filled with suspicion. Why had Mai Yunliang just happened to come to this particular hotel too? What terrible luck.
Young Master You had merely stopped by that night looking for his father and found the room empty. Already annoyed, he planned to take his sports car to the beach and clear his head. Instead, while striding furiously around a corridor corner, he collided head-on with Mai Yunliang….
The handsome superstar was dressed seductively that night. He even seemed to have applied light makeup—dark brows, handsome eyes, red lips, white teeth, glittering styling gel in his hair. One glance made it obvious he had come to a hotel to meet a lover….
If they had not met by chance, You Haodong would never have gone looking for him.
In his own perception, he had little interest in men. His sexual orientation was obviously straight. The several whining, troublesome girlfriends he already had were difficult enough to manage and had nearly emptied both his vitality and his wallet. As for Mr. Mai, previous entanglements and personal dislike, combined with Mai’s special status, had turned him in Young Master You’s mind into someone he could simply grab whenever he wanted as a convenient target for amusement and release. There was no psychological burden at all. He did not even have to pay.
A celebrity who appeared pure, aloof, and worshiped by crowds in public could be pinned beneath him behind closed doors and brutally used. That sharp contrast and reversal satisfied a certain perverse desire to torment and possess. That was how Young Master You understood it. It was also why celebrities commanded such high prices at private banquets. Wealthy bosses were paying to ride the famous faces ordinary people could only gaze at through screens without ever touching….
Young Master You pinned Mai Yunliang against the door and handled him roughly, repeatedly pressing him with questions.
“Dressed this fucking slutty—who did you come to meet? Who are you getting a room with?”
“Do you like that Yan guy?”
“I could tell at the reception. You were especially interested in Yan Xiao. Your eyes never left him. You like him?!”
“Did you sneak out tonight to meet him and fuck him? You were practically reluctant to part when you left!”
＊
There were no tears in Mai Yunliang’s eyes. Only the numbness of someone sunk so deeply into a swamp of despair that he could no longer react. He shook his head and did not answer.
You Haodong was not jealous. He did not love Mr. Mai. He was simply furious and stifled. The slightest suspicion that Mai Yunliang might like Yan Xiaodao stirred an intense desire to destroy something inside him. At that moment, the male urge to compete and prove dominance overwhelmed the composure and reason someone of his status should have possessed.
What he did was extremely foolish. He treated Mai Yunliang brutally, believing that by doing so he had thoroughly and satisfyingly taken revenge on Yan Xiaodao.
[INSERT 1]
This happened inside the suite rented by his father. Nobody else saw it, and none of You Haodong’s traces were left in the room where the later death occurred.
Unfortunately, when Young Master You finally allowed Mai Yunliang to dress and leave, he completely forgot to retrieve the crucial jade ring. Looking back on the circumstances, he probably could not have gotten it out anyway. It would have required a hospital.
You Jinglian stared at the pale mark around the base of his son’s right middle finger. It was empty. “Where is the ring? Where’s your ring?!”
He had prayed before the Buddha and obtained that consecrated jade for his precious son at considerable expense. You Haodong also wore an expensive jade Guanyin pendant around his neck. Both were meant to protect him.
You Haodong looked frustrated, his ears turning red. “The ring is probably at the police station. Xue Qian doesn’t respect gods or Buddhas, and neither soft nor hard tactics work on him. He’s always deliberately opposing our family! His temper is impossible. Even trying to find a private route and give him money doesn’t work—he won’t take it! I heard he’s about to summon me….”