Just then, the scenery outside the window shifted dramatically and noise from people moving luggage sounded in the neighboring carriage. Ling He temporarily put away his thorns and spoke with his usual gentleness. “We’ve arrived. I imposed on Mr. Yan’s hospitality for quite a long time before. Now that I have the chance to return the favor, please honor my humble home with your presence for a few days.”
At that declaration, a long collective sigh of relief rose around them, like an army finally laying down its weapons. The two gentlemen had managed not to roll up their sleeves and start strangling each other again. The subordinates who had been listening with pricked ears could finally put away the imaginary buckets of water and ice they had been holding ready to extinguish the fire.
The moment Yan Xiaodao was carried off the train, he recognized that they had come to Luancheng, three provinces away by rail.
He traveled frequently for business and had seen a great deal of the world. There were few major cities he had never visited, and he was fairly familiar with the picturesque seaside resort city of Luancheng. What he had never expected was that Ling He possessed a residence here unknown to outsiders.
Luancheng enjoyed springlike weather throughout the year. Moist air that seemed to soothe the lungs blew inland from the white beaches along the sea. Ocean winds swept over the white walls and red-tiled roofs of churches and homes in the old city, creating tile-shaped ripples across the neat red roofs of those small, delicate houses. Lush green vegetation dotted the red rooftops. Their vehicle wound in loops along narrow roads curling over the hills, and looking down from halfway up the slope revealed a bright, vivid landscape worthy of a painting.
Mr. Ling’s residence turned out to be an old villa inside one of Luancheng’s recuperation and resort districts, which genuinely surprised the well-traveled Yan Xiaodao. These old buildings were not ordinary decaying homes awaiting demolition. They were high-end Western-style villas constructed during the Republican era, when the city had been divided into foreign concessions.
The taste and money required to buy a place like this were no worse than Master Qi’s.
Yan Xiaodao had barely managed to examine the building through the car window when Ling He opened the door and suddenly leaned in front of him.
Ling He meant to bend down and lift him, but noticed something wrong first. He dropped onto one knee and gently supported Yan Xiaodao’s ankle. Blood had seeped through the bandages. Yan Xiaodao said indifferently, “The road was rough. The shaking made it bleed a little. It’s nothing serious. Don’t bother.”
Ling He wasted no words. His strong arms slid beneath Yan Xiaodao’s armpits and the backs of his knees, and with little apparent effort, he lifted him horizontally into his arms.
He managed to lift him, but Ling He’s footing abruptly weakened and he pitched forward. Quick-eyed Mao Zhixiu caught Mr. Yan’s legs and quietly took part of the weight, preventing Ling He from stumbling completely.
Pain had shot through Ling He’s ankles. Carrying the combined weight of both bodies on his feet was genuinely difficult.
Yan Xiaodao was thoroughly unused to this. His brows twisted in embarrassment until he could endure no more. “Don’t carry me. Get a wheelchair.”
Ling He snorted without expression. “Why can’t I carry you?”
Yan Xiaodao said, “…There’s no need to exhaust yourself. I’m not used to being carried.”
Ling He’s tone sharpened with a trace of vindictive satisfaction. “I wasn’t used to being carried either, but you carried me back and forth for two months. You seemed pretty practiced at it.”
Yan Xiaodao placed one hand lightly against Ling He’s chest. Ling He lowered his head, and the fringe he had unintentionally allowed to grow longer fell across his face and brushed Yan Xiaodao’s cheek. It had nothing to do with their current cold war. Yan Xiaodao simply was not used to being placed in such a passive position beneath another person and could not psychologically accept being carried through the door like this. But moving made his chest and foot hurt, and he was incapable of resisting. Ling He did not care whether he liked it or not and carried him confidently into the villa.
Xiaodao, when you carried me like this before, I felt humiliated too. I had no choice but to lie low and submit myself to you.
Now it’s finally your turn to suffer, old man. Open your mind and learn how to enjoy being “taken care of” by someone else.
As master of the house, Mr. Ling settled his honored guest only briefly before rapidly disappearing, slipping off to some unknown corner indoors or outside to handle whatever secret business occupied him. Left by himself, Yan Xiaodao actually relaxed. As long as Ling He did not sit beside his ear dripping venom and saying things completely incompatible with his values, Yan Xiaodao’s natural temperament was broad-minded and easygoing enough to adapt to wherever he found himself.
Young Master Ling’s residence differed completely from the style Yan Xiaodao had imagined and even more drastically from his own home.
The Republican-era villa had naturally been renovated, with both exterior finishes and interior walls redone, yet the degree of restraint and simplicity shocked Yan Xiaodao. “Simple” was not even the right word. The place was practically colorless and empty. Ling He’s home looked “pale.” From the paint on the walls and staircase railings to the furniture and every decorative detail, the entire house was glaringly white, so clean and minimal that entering it made one uncomfortable, as though a single dirty footprint would destroy the deliberate whiteness.
The considerate Mao Zhixiu whispered behind him, “Go ahead and step on it. It’s fine. Somebody’ll clean it.”
Yan Xiaodao mocked, “The owner looks like he likes things clean. If I dirty the floor, I’m afraid he’ll chop off my other foot.”
Mao Zhixiu arched her willow-leaf brows and deliberately sucked in a horrified breath. “God! If I were an octopus, I still wouldn’t have enough legs for him to chop. Who cares?”
There was almost no furniture or decoration in the house, yet this was nothing like the Yan family’s impoverished rural home twenty years ago. The old villa itself was extremely valuable. Every detached Western-style house nearby had either been occupied by government departments, purchased and renovated by wealthy owners as private property, or opened as a tourist attraction. Not one was a poor family’s shack. Mr. Ling’s private residence was empty by deliberate choice despite his ability to afford anything he wanted. The enormous chandelier spanning two stories had plain frosted-white shades. The floors used the palest birchwood. The lights had no extravagant crystal tassels. The staircase lacked ornate carved rails. There were no priceless oil paintings on the walls and no novel little curios displayed on the tables.
Nor did the house possess any ordinary warmth of human life. There was no storytelling radio playing in the background, no crisp clatter of mahjong tiles. There was practically nothing at all, and the emptiness carried the cold detachment rooted deep inside its master.
Yan Xiaodao was hardly extravagant himself, but he had spent enough time in wealthy circles to see every form of luxury, decadence, and drunken excess. Ling He was once again an exception.
Yan Xiaodao commented softly, “Does Mr. Ling normally have no private hobbies at all? Does he just sit in his room every day admiring four white walls?”
Mao Zhixiu nodded. “Exactly. What hobbies could our illustrious president and young master possibly have? Every day all he thinks about is his grand plan to march an army north, advance into the Central Plains, and set beacon fires blazing everywhere. Nothing else! And naturally, the rest of us run around doing the work that makes his plans happen.”
In other words, there were few truly superhuman geniuses in the world. Everyone possessed roughly the same amount of space in their head. Only by skimming lightly over everything else and refusing to linger could someone concentrate every thought on a single great undertaking with absolute focus.
Yan Xiaodao probed, “How did you meet Ling He?”
Mao Zhixiu rolled her delicate pale eyelids and avoided the heart of the question. “Years ago, in America. I was an orphan from a welfare home who got sent to a foster family. He was an orphan with nobody to rely on either.”
Yan Xiaodao asked again, “What’s the story behind this building? Does it have a name?”
Mao Zhixiu said, “Apparently it used to belong to some major Republican-era literary figure. Mr. Ling bought it and turned it into this. There’s a plaque to the right of the front entrance. ‘Hanhai House.’”
Hanhai House?
One of Yan Xiaodao’s memories was instantly struck. Right. “Hanhai.” Another grand stroke from Mr. Ling. With Watanabe’s harbor and shipping operations as the foundation and the Jian Group’s enormous fortune as an added windfall, Ling He certainly had no shortage of money now. His momentum was at its height.
Several men carried Yan Xiaodao into a guest room that had clearly been prepared specially for him. This was probably the most completely furnished room in the entire villa. The modern white bedding set looked obviously brand-new.
“The furniture was just unpacked, sorry, Mr. Yan. Since yesterday we’ve had the exhaust fans and ventilators running one after another, but there’s still a little smell. Please bear with us!” said the young attendant helping reposition his foot and remove his outer clothes.
So the furniture really had been purchased last night. Ling He had calculated every step ahead of time and furnished the room overnight for Yan Xiaodao’s arrival.
Yan Xiaodao said, “Mr. Ling went to unnecessary trouble. I won’t be staying more than a few days. There was no reason to waste his money on me.”
“Still nowhere near as expensive as a Steinway!” Mr. Yan’s temporary personal attendant blurted cheerfully, his expression radiating suggestive understanding.
The attendant had never even visited Mr. Yan’s home or seen the Steinway, yet the romantic legend of Yan Xiaodao spending a fortune to buy Mr. Ling a piano had already become universally known gossip.
This attendant was another unforgettable character. His entire head was covered in carefully styled curls that must have required real effort, yet he was unquestionably male. His voice was soft and alluring, his hips swayed as he walked, and every so often he threw Yan Xiaodao a flirtatious glance beneath eyelids coated in eyeliner and shadow. Mr. Ling had certainly collected an unusual pool of talent around him.
The curly-haired young man’s surname was Su, and his full name was Su Zhe. Quick and efficient, he hummed a Taylor Swift country love song while gathering Mr. Yan’s discarded jacket, shirt, and underwear into a basket before carrying everything downstairs to wash.
Mao Zhixiu pushed open the door just in time to catch Su Zhe carrying the heavy laundry basket while twisting his neck to throw seductive glances at Mr. Yan, practically scattering eyeshadow powder across the floor.
Mao said, “A’Zhe, what the hell are you looking for? You’re going to twist your neck off. Go make us coffee!”
Su replied, “As you command, Immortal Maiden Mao!”
Mao said, “Get lost!”
Su said, “God, so fierce. No wonder nobody’ll marry you!”
Mao said, “Ha. You’re not fierce. Did someone marry you?”
Su said, “Hmph. My husband is tender young grass. He’s still in elementary school. I’m patiently waiting for him to grow up.”
Mao said, “…You’re insane!”
Mao Zhixiu was not the only one who shuddered. Even the worldly Yan Xiaodao felt goosebumps crawl down his spine.
The feeling was strange. To any observer, what had happened between him and Ling He should have counted as “turning against each other and fighting viciously” or “bloodshed ending in crippling injury.” Perhaps Yan Xiaodao had already prepared himself so thoroughly for the possibility that when the cruel, heartbreaking moment finally came, it actually removed the heaviest emotional burden from his shoulders and left him feeling strangely free. Ling He’s blade had cut away his road back, finally releasing him for a while from the agonizing multiple-choice question of which side to choose. Even Yan Xiaodao’s anger seemed blunted. He could calmly watch the younger members of Ling He’s household fooling around and trading jokes.
Fortunately, this bunch of clowns added a little color to the lifeless white house. Without them, living here would suffocate a person. The whole place looked as if it had been designed for someone with absolutely no sex drive.
Mr. Yan lay in bed recuperating with one foot suspended high in the air.
After a while, Su Zhe returned carrying a fruit plate with a few lonely pieces of fruit scattered over it. “Mr. Yan, pick whatever you like.”
Yan Xiaodao glanced down. Even Ling He’s tableware was pure white, without metal trim or decorative patterns. Against it, the loquats looked even more richly orange and the large cherries more vividly crimson.
And when they said “a few,” they truly meant only a few. Yan Xiaodao tossed two cherries into his mouth and could no longer find a third one on the plate. Su Zhe would not even let him have the dates or loquats afterward. He simply picked up the plate and carried it away.
Yan Xiaodao shook his head. “How does Mr. Ling live? He doesn’t buy furniture, and he won’t even let people eat a few extra pieces of fruit. Tch. Miser.”
Mao Zhixiu sat in a chair opposite the bed with one leg crossed over the other and nodded vigorously. “A terrible miser. Has money and doesn’t even know how to spend it!”
Yet a knowing smile appeared at the corners of Mao’s mouth, deep and mysterious, her expressive eyes seeming to contain an entire hidden argument.
Golden-red evening light spread over the treetops outside, and dinner was delivered directly to Mr. Yan’s bed.
Yan Xiaodao made no false show of politeness and immediately picked up his knife and fork. After being hacked into this condition, he certainly deserved several free meals from the Ling household. If he was going to be beaten to death, he could at least die with a full stomach. His breastbone still hurt too much for him to sit upright, leaving his body reclined at an obtuse angle of nearly one hundred fifty degrees, but that did nothing to slow his appetite.
It was a Western meal. Yan Xiaodao did not particularly care which country’s cuisine it represented, but the dishes arrived one by one in strict order: cold appetizer and salad, chilled soup and buttered pastry, a white-meat entrée, a red-meat entrée, then dessert and coffee.
Yan Xiaodao always ate with the bold manner of a man wielding a great saber on horseback. Even a refined Western meal had his knife, fork, glasses, and plates clattering merrily. He speared a large chunk of red meat, put it into his mouth, and it vanished almost instantly. He was genuinely starving, having endured cold, hunger, and heavy blood loss, and the food seemed unbelievably delicious. It probably felt something like the folk story of the Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, who once ate a humble bowl of “Pearl, Jade, and White Jade Soup” while destitute and wandering and declared it the finest delicacy under heaven.
Naturally, this meal was far more elaborate than Pearl, Jade, and White Jade Soup. Yan Xiaodao did not realize until the third course that every single dish somehow contained cherries.
The appetizer was olive-oil-roasted vegetables with goat cheese, pistachios, and cherry vinegar.
The soup was sweet watermelon purée with brandy-marinated cherries, duck-breast aspic, and foie gras.
The white-meat entrée was lemon-and-thyme pan-fried halibut with a thick cherry-wine reduction.
The red-meat entrée was pan-fried lamb chops with cherry sauce and cheese pastry.
The final dessert was cherry pie with dark-chocolate ice cream.
Five full courses, clearly requiring considerable effort. No wonder they had only let him eat two cherries earlier. The rest of the fruit had gone into dinner.
Yan Xiaodao wiped his mouth and praised it directly. “Not bad. Very good.”
“How could it not be? You couldn’t even buy this outside!” Mao Zhixiu held a small lamb chop between two long fingers and spoke while chewing. “We can’t compare with Mr. Yan’s company. Our master is a Grandet-class miser. We never see bonuses, allowances, company trips, any of that. But when we work hard, we do get rewards, like meal vouchers for some newly opened restaurant nearby. The highest first-place employee reward is a whole nine-course meal like this! You only got five courses today!”
Elio’s Notes: Grandet refers to the famously miserly Félix Grandet from Honoré de Balzac’s Eugénie Grandet. In Chinese, his name is commonly used as shorthand for an extreme miser.
Immortal Maiden Mao was obviously making half of it up as she went along, yet somehow delivered the story with perfect conviction.
Yan Xiaodao found the whole thing fascinating. “A’Zhe cooked this?”
“He can cook a Western meal like this?” Mao Zhixiu’s mouth formed an O of disdain. “That boy only knows how to make coffee. Otherwise some man would’ve married that bewitching creature and hauled him home ages ago.”
Speak of coffee and coffee appeared. Su Zhe entered carrying a cup. Yan Xiaodao looked at it and became even more surprised. “Iced soy-matcha latte. How did you know I like this?”
Su Zhe shrugged, his eyelids glittering with crystal stickers and eyeshadow. “How would I know what you like? Mr. Ling told me to make this flavor.”
“He still remembers I like it.” A faint, almost tasteless ache flowed through Yan Xiaodao’s heart.
Mao Zhixiu shook her head slightly and finally could not resist giving him the hint. “He was the one ordering the coffee for you.”
“…”
It had been Mr. Ling ordering his coffee all along.
Yan Xiaodao suddenly understood and forcibly suppressed his shock. The coffee shop that had opened several months ago downstairs from his company.
That cool-faced owner with an equally cool attitude had recommended the iced soy-matcha latte to him and claimed the shop was running a buy-one-get-one-free promotion.
So Ling He had been “ordering” his fancy coffee every day all along. The barista had merely been a conveyor belt. Buy one, get one free meant two cups, which the two of them could share.
The newly opened café was positioned directly beneath his company, watching him enter and leave every day and observing everyone he met.
Yan Xiaodao had encountered Mai Yunliang there and chased after him for a private conversation. Ling He had known everything before Yan Xiaodao even returned home that night. Then, overcome by impulse and crossing a line he should not have crossed, the two of them had quarreled and fought in bed.
Yan Xiaodao lowered his lashes, revealing the deep furrow between his brows. As a piece of fish already lying on someone else’s chopping block, he had nothing left to say.
Ling He… To be on good terms with a man like this truly felt like floating among the clouds of heaven, one of the most pleasant experiences imaginable. They understood one another with a glance, exchanged affection through their eyes, knew each other’s thoughts, and treated one another with exquisite care. But becoming his enemy would be a nightmare for anyone. Ling He calculated deeply, arranged every step in advance, and possessed a cold heart and ruthless hand. He lacked the ordinary empathy most people naturally carried. Perhaps even romantic attachment meant nothing to him.
Mao Zhixiu apparently did not care if she revealed one or two pieces Ling He had placed on the board. Her confident expression plainly said: Mr. Yan, stop thinking so hard. You’re already a turtle in the jar. Informants are everywhere around you. The cleaner, the courier, even the new employee interviewing at your company could be one of ours.
Yan Xiaodao smiled bitterly. “Don’t tell me he cooked this meal too.”
Mao Zhixiu’s face turned sincere and she nodded solemnly. “Yes. He made it specially for you.”
Yan Xiaodao said, “…”
Mao Zhixiu pursed her pink lips and offered one thoroughly unnecessary observation. “Mr. Ling is who he is. Don’t expect him to apologize nicely or say anything soft to you. He’s hopeless.”
Mao Zhixiu was obviously Ling He’s confidante and unquestionably loyal to him, yet the expression on her face somehow conveyed to Yan Xiaodao: We’ve been looking at that demon for long enough. Please, somebody powerful enough to subdue monsters, come take him away.
What Mao Zhixiu was actually thinking was: Mr. Yan, we genuinely don’t regard you as a prisoner under house arrest or even an honored guest. You are a male bodhisattva who has come to rescue all suffering beings! Our master is poisonous-tongued, ruthless, solitary, contrary, stubborn, and completely beyond saving. In all these years, he has never liked a second person. Can’t you see that? The people inside the game may be blind, but the rest of us understood ages ago!
The man himself did not appear all evening. Every few minutes, however, he would wander out from some corridor, deliberately pass Mr. Yan’s doorway, stick his head around the corner for a furtive glance, then silently turn around and disappear again.
Whenever the two met, a few mismatched words were enough to start another fight. Better not to see each other or speak at all.
Back in his own home, Ling He could finally wear his own clothes and reveal his genuine self instead of pretending to be an elegant, aristocratic young master. Even the colors and styles he chose were pale and boring.
If an outsider judged him solely by his clothing, Mr. Ling hardly looked like an overbearing CEO. He wore an extremely plain white crew-neck long-sleeved shirt and light-khaki tapered lounge trousers, both from the most ordinary inexpensive brands one might find beneath a “clearance sale” banner. He bought them by the dozen, saving himself even the mental effort of choosing clothes each day. The edges of the trousers had frayed from repeated washing, but he could not be bothered replacing them. A pair of flip-flops exposed the thin, pale, faintly blue bones of his feet.
Those pale, washed-out clothes wrapped an exceptional body and framed an astonishingly beautiful face, producing a strange and powerful contrast.
After taking his medicine, Yan Xiaodao closed his eyes to rest and recover. The occasional faint furrow of his brow and movement of his Adam’s apple betrayed the truth that he was nowhere near asleep. His thoughts remained chaotic and crowded.
As Mao Zhixiu left the room, Su Zhe pouted behind her. “Why make things this difficult? Honestly, if Mr. Yan liked me, I’d marry him tonight without another word. He could choose any of the hundred and eight positions he wanted as long as I kept him comfortable and satisfied. He’s so handsome and so manly!”
Mao Zhixiu nearly wanted to gouge out her own eyeballs and throw them at the little flirt. “Dream on. You think he’d be interested in you?”
“Of course he wouldn’t.” Little Brother Su placed a hand on his swaying waist and spread the other dramatically. “But what’s wrong with the person he is interested in? I think Mr. Yan is a good man. He’s this badly injured, yet he hasn’t cursed our young master or treated any of us nastily. Why make everything so painful?”
“What do you know?” Mao Zhixiu suddenly became solemn and sighed. “A man may be innocent; possessing a treasure makes him guilty.
Elio’s Notes: 懷璧其罪 comes from a line in the Zuo Zhuan: an ordinary man may be innocent, yet possessing precious jade brings him trouble. It means becoming a target because one possesses something valuable or coveted. Here, Yan Xiaodao’s own exceptional strength is the “treasure.”
“Mr. Yan really is a good man. From beginning to end, he hasn’t actually done anything wrong, yet he’s suffered the completely undeserved disaster of broken ribs and a ruined foot. A man like him is bound to be targeted precisely because he’s too strong, too formidable. His existence makes everyone wary and forces them to hold back. Anyone who wants to strike at Qi Baoshan has to dismantle his strongest arms first, and Yan Xiao would always be the first person they needed to eliminate. So did Mr. Ling do anything wrong? Absolutely not!
“What Mr. Ling wanted was to turn him into a discarded piece beside Qi Baoshan, something tasteless to eat but a pity to throw away, something that simply couldn’t be used anymore. Only then could he keep this man for himself.
“Yan Xiao can’t go back to Master Qi now. It’s just… the way Mr. Ling did it was too cruel. No matter how you look at it, it’s hard not to feel sorry for him.”
……