Young Master You’s car had not escaped very far when two more explosive bangs sounded behind it. The other two tires were blown out like toys. This time, embedded in the ruined rubber was a light throwing knife.
Forced to jump out of the car, You Haodong spun around for a glance. That single look sent his heart hammering. Behind the tea-colored lenses, his eyes betrayed how much of his outward ferocity was really bluster. He abandoned everyone else and plunged headlong into a tree-lined side path.
The man charging after him in a towering rage was Yan Xiaodao.
Young Master You ran blindly into the wooded hillside surrounding the villa district. The mountain path actually wound toward the seaside and was a shortcut used by nearby residents for morning runs. Kuanzi and the others took this route whenever they ran to the imported-goods market to buy breakfast, so Yan Xiaodao knew the terrain extremely well. Young Master You did not.
You Haodong was the classic sort of pampered young master with a first-rate temper, second-rate wealth, and third-rate ability.
His habitually arrogant, self-important way of doing things had been smashed head-on outside Yan’s villa. The sneak attack had failed utterly and cost him all dignity. Yet even now he had no idea who had struck back so decisively. Who had fired those two powerful, perfectly aimed shots?
Wasn’t that Ling bastard supposed to be a frail cripple with absolutely no ability to defend himself?
You Haodong’s feet could not keep pace with his hands, and his hands could not keep pace with his temper. Humiliated by the chase, he cursed loudly, “Yan Xiao, you bastard! You keep a male whore in your house just to fuck me over!… You son of a bitch!!”
On the jolting mountain path, with shadows shifting unpredictably beneath the trees, he could not aim his gun properly even if he tried. In some situations, a gun was less useful than a blade. A gun was too dangerous—either you missed, or you hit and killed someone, leaving behind an irreversible disaster.
When You Haodong stepped on a dead branch and was nearly at the end of the mountain path, Yan Xiaodao drew a cold, moon-bright gleam from beneath his arm with one hand. The slender knife flew lightly from his fingers, the weight of its hilt carrying it in a crescent arc through the air. It sliced diagonally through the back hem of Young Master You’s open coat and struck a thick pine trunk with a thunk.
You Haodong broke out in cold sweat, thinking he had been stabbed. He pitched forward and sprawled in a clumsy, miserable heap, his gun tumbling into the dead leaves and branches. Only then did he realize that nothing more than one corner of his coat had been pinned to the tree.
Enough.
Yan Xiaodao stopped. He stood fifteen meters away, perfectly straight, staring without expression. A second throwing knife was already clamped between the index and middle fingers of his right hand. Still want to fight?
You Haodong knew he had suffered a complete defeat today. Both face and substance were gone, yet his chest still burned with grief, anger, and unanswered injustice.
He tore his coat free, leaving the fabric ripped around the blade buried in the trunk. Rising in disgrace, eyes red, he shouted, “Yan Xiao, today I just want to curse your whole damn family! Go back and ask that little lover of yours why he framed me! Why did he secretly record that shit on the ship and put it online to destroy me?!… Why!!”
Yan Xiaodao could not answer that agonizing question for Ling He, but he could say something fair on Mai Yunliang’s behalf. “You Haodong, after what you did to Mr. Mai, whatever happens to you from now on is something you brought on yourself.”
*
Young Master You would never receive the answer he kept digging for. Perhaps he would die still unable to close his eyes. He assumed Ling He and that old bastard Watanabe were partners who had staged the entire affair on the ship simply to extort the You family’s wealth and power. In Young Master You’s mind, wealth and authority were naturally the highest ambitions of ordinary mortals beneath heaven. Surely countless people envied his family and wanted their share.
You Jinglian had failed to restrain his son from going into the city to provoke people and fire a gun. Knowing they were finished, he was too frightened to leave the temple.
The temple was the last fragile shell he could hide inside, a place where he could bury his head like an ostrich and wait for the final judgment to arrive.
The day before, he had spoken with Qi Baoshan by phone. Those men who had once spilled blood together, committed a heaven-shaking crime unseen by either men or gods, and made their fortunes side by side had gradually grown distant over the years. Whether intentionally or not, they had stopped speaking and seeing one another. Even their perfunctory holiday greetings now sounded increasingly insincere.
Whenever they wished an old brother “good health,” the unspoken meaning was plainly, Why aren’t you dead yet?
The feeling inside each man was as though he feared he might not live long enough to enjoy his fortune—and yet feared even more that the others might live too long. Each wished that the crime buried in darkness for so many years would simply be covered forever by the passage of time, by dwindling connections, by a shovelful of yellow earth. Better if no one in this world ever knew that, somewhere along the miraculous legendary ascent of an insignificant nobody who had become rich overnight, there had once been deeds that could never endure the light.
If all of you die, no one will know what I did…
On the phone, You Jinglian had asked, “Who’s scheming against us so desperately? The Ling family?”
Qi Baoshan answered, “Him. Ling Huang’s son. What happened on the ship was probably a trap meant to lure all of us in, but he didn’t get what he wanted back then. He was also the one who dug up Chen Jiu’s pile of bones and quietly tipped off the police.”
You Jinglian had raved, “Then why the hell was Ling He allowed to leave that ship alive? Why didn’t anyone throw him overboard? You even stopped my son from making a move!”
Qi Baoshan replied helplessly, “How was I supposed to know what you intended at the time? What exactly were you thinking? What did you want when you had him seized? And those killers who nearly finished Ling He on the ship—who dispatched them? Was it you?!”
You Jinglian protested, “Not me! I never sent anyone to kill him!”
After a long silence, Qi Baoshan said, “Whatever each of us intended, we should meet and talk. In a few days it’ll be the seventh again. We agreed that every year, on the seventh of this month, the four of us brothers would sit down together and reminisce. Who knows how many more years we’ll still be able to fill a mahjong table?”
“…”
The endless mutual suspicion, the caution and paranoia of scheming old men, and the distrust accumulated over many years had ultimately made allies block one another’s path. They had all missed the perfect opportunity. Now it was too late for regret or madness. The snake bent on revenge had already crawled ashore. Once its frozen body warmed back to life, it began biting without restraint.
The longer one walked at night, the more cowardly one became. Even wicked men were afraid of ghosts.
Only to realize that they were the ghosts. In that haunted rainy night of memory, beneath the dim lights of an old alley, inside a dilapidated inn room, the moment blades were raised and brought down together, blood spraying as killing intent flared amid crimson shadows and flashing steel—they too had once felt their hearts thunder, scrambling in terror like rats.
Secretary You was afraid he might not even survive until the gathering on the seventh. He would either be arrested or driven insane by fear before then.
When it came to Ling He, the reason You Jinglian had hesitated for so long was precisely because he did not trust the more ruthless members of those other three. If Ling He were silenced permanently, then he would certainly be the next one silenced. Once every accomplice who knew the old truth had been sealed in the earth forever, the last man behind the curtain would finally be safe.
Crash—!
The long reel of terrifying memories made his already weakened nerves even more unstable. The white porcelain Guanyin slipped from his hands. No one knew what vital point it happened to strike, but despite falling less than a foot, the pure white, dignified statue shattered completely.
A black shadow darted past the bedding. You Jinglian let out a shrill gasp of fright.
He snatched the defensive knife hidden beneath his pillow. In the murky light, his breathing went chaotic as he slashed wildly.
The rat, unfortunate enough to encounter a madman while making its nightly rounds, squealed and fled. You Jinglian, however, still held the knife high in both hands, point downward, stabbing obsessively at the shadow inside his mind. Whenever the storm inside him became uncontrollable, he revealed this old affliction from his youth. His manic nerves connected directly to his muscles, causing spasmodic movements. He raised the knife mechanically and stabbed. Again. Again. Again. Until the bedding was riddled with countless tiny holes.
*
When Young Master You finally picked up his gun and left, his back remained rigid with arrogance and pride, desperately preserving his domineering dignity. He would not bow his head easily.
Yan Xiaodao moved through the dense forest in silence and retrieved his willow-leaf knife. His thoughts were like the layers of damp leaves underfoot, stacked with layer upon layer of confusion, heavy enough that each step produced an anxious crunch, crunch.
His phone rang again. Only then did he answer and discover how many calls he had missed from Fengfeng.
Was all that really necessary? Could someone actually have taken over his home?
Yang Xifeng reported, “Boss, hurry back! Young Master Ling left!… He really walked away!”
At first, Yan Xiaodao did not understand the heavy emphasis on walked. “What do you mean, walked?”
Yang Xifeng’s brain had always been capable of looking ahead while forgetting everything behind him. Still, he did his best to deliver the message. The word carried both meanings at once. “Boss, Young Master Ling fired those two shots and chased that You bastard away, and now… he really walked out.”
Yan Xiaodao’s heart dropped straight through the forest floor into an endless wilderness. “Where did he go?”
He had long expected this ending, yet now that it had arrived, grief still constricted his throat so deeply he nearly lost control.
Ling He had not even intended to say goodbye. He had deliberately chosen to leave while Yan was away.
Unless last night’s kiss counted as goodbye…
Yang Xifeng said, “He just left. He walked out by himself! Boss, aren’t you going to stop him? You’re really letting him go?”
*
At the time, Ling He had made a single phone call. It was extremely brief—only two or three sentences, as though Boss Ling needed no more than a look or a word or two to make his subordinates understand him.
Ling He then walked slowly out through the front gate and left Yan Xiaodao’s home.
For the first time, he stood openly beneath this clear, bright sky with the villa behind him, blue heaven and daylight overhead, the lush green lawn and brilliantly blooming azaleas stretching across the front courtyard. Every little fragment of the good days they had spent here lingered around his footsteps, memories following like shadows. Sunlight traced the broad shoulders, narrow waist, and long legs of his retreating figure in metallic gold, making that silhouette look even taller and sharper. Yet against the beauty surrounding him, his sculptural figure carried an overwhelming sense of isolation, as though he had been abandoned outside the mortal world.
Once two people had warmed each other, leaving became difficult.
Before he went, Young Master Ling even turned back with one thoughtful reminder. “Fengfeng, there are a few shell casings outside the gate. Hurry and clean them up for your boss. The police may come asking questions.”
Within two minutes, a black car with its plates concealed pulled up outside the villa and swallowed Young Master Ling into its interior. At the same time, two other cars had been quietly waiting farther away, one on either side. They immediately moved into escort positions and protected the black car as it drove off. In the blink of an eye, they disappeared.
Those people had clearly been waiting for quite some time, ready to answer his call at any moment. Perhaps they had been faithfully stationed near Yan’s home throughout this entire period.
“Boss, if you drive after them now, you might still catch up!” Yang Xifeng was anxious. To him, this was just a lovers’ quarrel.
“…”
Yan Xiaodao leaned against the thick pine trunk. A strand of sunlight slipped through the branches and fell across his forehead, clearing his thoughts.
“Don’t stop him,” Yan Xiaodao said. “Let him go. No need to chase.”
Yang Xifeng: “…Boss.”
Even someone born as short a few brain cells as Fengfeng could hear it. This was heartbreak. This was reluctance to let go. This was a man who had been dumped.
Yan Xiaodao leaned his head back against the tree in the empty forest and let the bitter wind whirl dead leaves around him. He pressed his palms together with a willow-leaf knife trapped between them, allowing the edge to scrape his palm lines. If his hand hurt, perhaps his heart would hurt a little less.
He understood far too well why Ling He absolutely had to leave, so there was no possibility of clinging to him or trying to stop him.
The truth was that Yan Xiaodao himself had driven Ling He away, leaving him unable to hide anymore, nowhere to retreat.
With Ling He’s temperament, his thorns, his pride—if he were neither “crippled” nor “paralyzed,” how could a man like that ever have submitted himself to Yan Xiaodao’s side? He simply would not.
If Ling He had first appeared before him standing tall, sharp in bearing and highly skilled, with that same powerful, proud personality, then the two of them would have taken separate roads beneath the open sky, each wary of the other. They would never have come together at all.
Only while presenting himself as disabled could Ling He find, beneath the shadow of their families’ old enmity, a harmless excuse for the two of them. Only then could he openly live under another man’s roof and stay in Yan’s home.
Only by lying helplessly on a bed like a useless invalid could Ling He retreat in order to advance, covering himself in a frail shell as camouflage. Only then could both men lower their guards and gain the chance to know and understand each other without compromising the greater loyalties between them.
And only when Ling He’s legs “could not move” could he brazenly ask Yan to carry him, ask him to undress him, wash his hair, bathe him, and occasionally exploit being doted on enough to act spoiled…
Was Ling He truly “unwilling”?
If he had truly been unwilling, he would have gotten off his ass, used those two legs, and walked away long ago. Why stay for so long? Did he really care that much about the Steinway?
So Ling He had actually been “willing”?
Even after Yan had thrown him onto broken glass and bloodied his back, Ling He had still gritted his teeth and refused to admit the truth. He had wanted to keep pretending because he still wanted to remain beside him.
And then Yan Xiaodao had dislocated both his ankles.
Only today did Yan Xiaodao finally understand so many details of the emotional ties between them. He understood them too late.
He had acted impulsively and crossed Ling He’s deepest taboos once, then twice. There was no one else to blame. He had insisted on forcing Ling He to tear away his disguise, ripping apart that sensitive armor, yet had overlooked something simple: the Ling He who had spent those days alone with him, reading and playing piano and speaking heart-to-heart—wasn’t that also the face Yan himself most desperately wanted to preserve? Why had he personally shattered something so beautiful?
When Yan Xiaodao returned to the villa, there were two red patches beneath his eyes. He said nothing, merely took the rifle Ling He had used and stroked it for a long time. He carefully collected the two spent casings as though they were treasures.
Then he suddenly remembered something and rushed into the upstairs bedroom. He turned the bed, cabinets, sofa, and walk-in wardrobe completely upside down, searching like a madman.
Yang Xifeng and the others did not dare breathe too loudly. They peeked into the bedroom, probably all thinking, Boss, surely Young Master Ling didn’t steal our money.
After searching for quite a while without finding it, Yan Xiaodao finally exhaled. Joy and relief unexpectedly broke across his eyes and lips.
Yang Xifeng cautiously asked, “Bro, what were you looking for?”
Yan Xiaodao’s eyes reddened again. “He took the Eight of Characters tile I gave him.”
Not a single one of the men in the room, nor either of the two beloved dogs, understood what kind of story lay behind that “Eight of Characters.”
When affection reached this point, even with that person no longer beside him, every thought of him had already soaked into Yan Xiaodao’s entire consciousness, every muscle still capable of moving, every tiny gap between his bones, every strand of hair. There was no shaking it off. When Heaven has feeling, even Heaven grows old. Yan Xiaodao thought that saying was damn right. Recently he felt as though he himself had aged, his emotions becoming fragile and absurdly easy to stir. He had never been this way toward anyone before.
The Steinway stood quietly in the sitting room of the master bedroom, a huge black creature with a magnificent exterior that occupied an impressive amount of space. Ling He had not been able to take that monster with him.
Yan Xiaodao discovered that Ling He seemed to have taken two sets of his clothes. One was the shirt and riding trousers the two of them had both worn on Yilu Island. The other was a long cotton nightshirt Yan usually wore around the house. Both sets were already old, yet Ling He had swept them up like a junk collector and taken them away.
His phone chimed with a new text message from a completely unfamiliar number, but the words themselves reflected the most familiar face in the world: 【Thank you, Mr. Yan, for kindly taking me in all these days. Take good care of yourself.】
Without even thinking, Yan Xiaodao replied: 【You forgot the piano. Have someone come move it when you have time. Let each of us keep something to remember the other by.】
Ling He did not respond again. He remained silent.
Yan Xiaodao memorized the string of numbers and would not casually disturb him.
With his personality, Yan would never shamelessly chase after someone and beg. Nor could he ever accept the bargain Ling He had proposed that night, trading his body for Yan’s loyalty. A man’s ambitions stood between heaven and earth. Though he had failed the person he loved, he would keep that person carefully stored in his heart and refuse to parade those feelings before the world.