The ancient road was steep and treacherous, and the journey ahead was fraught with hardship.
Beyond the towering mountains, following the river downstream, the landscape happened to unleash its full magnificence across this particular stretch. Sheer mountain ridges and deep, secluded gorges plunged decisively into the surging river. A landmark peak stood proudly above it all, gazing down upon that wild, unfettered current as waves shattered against the banks, displaying in full measure the fierce local character and unrestrained vitality for which the Three Rivers region had been known since ancient times.
This happened to be where three cities met, forming a fertile triangular delta rich in water and fish. All three city names contained the character for “river,” giving the area its famous nickname, the “Three Rivers region.” Over time, fewer and fewer people bothered naming the three cities individually. Simply saying someone came from the Three Rivers region was enough to evoke the forceful temperament for which its people were naturally known.
Amid beautiful mountains and waters, pressed against the outskirts of a magnificent new city, the old district enjoyed one final blaze of sunset glory before its complete redevelopment. Rongzheng Street was ancient and full of character, gathering and supporting some of the hardest-working, most resilient men and women from the surrounding three rivers and six provinces. Ordinary people bustled through its streets and alleys day after day, beginning work with the crowing of roosters and continuing long past sunset.
The southern weather had already impatiently rushed toward summer, and only after nightfall did the cool breeze finally begin pushing back the heat left by the day.
At a certain hour, scattered barbecue vendors seemed to arrive by silent agreement, springing from cracks in the damp ground like mushrooms after rain before gathering together in force. Tables, chairs, and benches quickly occupied every spare corner outside the storefronts lining Rongzheng Street. Charcoal-grilled aromas drifted everywhere along the narrow road, creating such a massive collective spectacle that even the city-management officers could only retreat before the principle that one could hardly punish everyone at once.
A black car stopped at the outermost entrance to Rongzheng Street. The night market had been packed solid by diners strolling while they ate. With tempting food everywhere, nobody intended to yield to anybody else, and vehicles could no longer move an inch.
The tall, handsome man who stepped out of the car rose onto his toes and looked ahead. He immediately frowned, closed his eyes in resignation, then turned back toward the person inside and said gently, “I originally wanted to bring you here to try something new, but it’s too crowded to get through. Shall we find a proper restaurant instead?”
The thoroughly masculine man inside knitted his dark brows. “Why can’t we get through? You telling me the two of us can’t squeeze past them?”
The handsome man wore his hair in a ponytail and was tall himself, yet he placed one hand against the roof and bent courteously as though welcoming some extraordinarily important person. “Mr. Yan, I’m concerned about you. I’m afraid it’ll be inconvenient for you to force your way through this crowd.”
“Enough. Put away that hindsight-style fake concern of yours!” Yan Xiaodao could not even be bothered wasting words and went straight to the matter he cared about most. “Which stall has the best food?”
Ling He looked deeply at Yan Xiaodao and offered him an arm, helping Xiaodao hop smoothly out of the car. The instant Yan Xiaodao placed a hand on Ling He’s wrist, however, he suddenly realized the brat had unmistakably assumed the pose of a palace attendant greeting an imperial dowager, practically saying, Blessings upon Your Majesty. We humbly invite the Old Buddha back to the palace. Realizing he had been toyed with, Yan Xiaodao badly wanted to kick the man while none of their companions were looking. Unfortunately, with one injured foot, it did not matter whether he kicked with the left or the right. Either way, he would fall over.
Yan Xiaodao turned back to retrieve a cane.
Ling He silently stepped forward instead, making his meaning obvious with one look: I am a cane.
Yan Xiaodao deliberately ignored this shameless offer of unnecessary physical contact.
Ling He whispered, “Want me to carry you?”
Yan Xiaodao snorted. “No. This lord can walk.”
When Yan Xiaodao called himself “lord,” it was certainly not some weak, breathless murmur. The final syllable rose with unmistakable arrogance.
The lenslike night sky seemed alive as it looked down upon the bustling crowd along Rongzheng Street. Lights transformed the densely packed, chaotically planned storefronts into colorful mosaics scattered along both sides of the long road. Two tall, striking men slowly made their way through the crowd, except one walked unsteadily and needed a cane for support…
Young Master Ling actually had no idea which stall was best either. When had he ever visited a place like this? He turned and asked the others behind him, “Brother Xiu, which place did Zhe recommend?”
Mao Zhixiu efficiently dialed the phone while weaving through the crowd along the quickest possible route. “Zhe, Mr. Ling wants to know exactly which place belongs to your aunt. It’s pitch-dark and we can’t find it!”
“My aunt’s fried stinky tofu and grilled squid are the best on all of Rongzheng Street, but I’m absolutely not telling you where it is. Hmph!” Su Zhe was still sulking furiously on the other end.
“We’re bringing money to support your aunt’s business, and you’re still unhappy about it?” Immortal Mao asked.
“You all went out to have fun without taking me. I’m miserable!” Poor Little Brother Su had been abandoned to guard the house alone in Luancheng. At this very moment, he was rolling shamelessly across the bed, hugging the unwashed pillow Mr. Yan had slept on to ease his lovesickness.
Yan Xiaodao had probably heard everything. With one glance, he plucked the phone away from Mao’s ear and coughed once into the receiver. “Zhe, your brother’s hungry. Where’s the place?”
A machine-gun stream of crisp words immediately erupted from Su Zhe. “Mr. Yan my aunt’s stall is four hundred meters down Rongzheng Street then you turn three corners and it’s number two hundred fifteen called ‘Sister-in-Law’s Barbecue’! The specialties are charcoal-grilled fresh squid snail-rice-noodle meat-sauce noodles fried stinky tofu fermented black beans fried in chicken fat and mung-bean glutinous rice cakes! And you absolutely must remember to order the rice wine and yellow-plum drink I love. Have a few extra cups for me. They’re super sweet~~~~”
Mr. Ling rolled his eyes dramatically. Immortal Mao laughed loudly beside him. “That lovesick disease of yours still needs treatment!”…
Their group crossed the impoverished maze of alleys pieced together like a mosaic and finally found the enormous sign for “Sister-in-Law’s Barbecue,” whereupon everyone immediately realized they had been conned.
What storefront? There was nothing but a barbecue stand, a temporary rain canopy, and a few round tables with benches. A film of greasy drainage water floated over the pavement. Even the normally fleet-footed Immortal Mao nearly slipped and sprawled flat on her back, scrambling gracelessly with every trace of immortal elegance gone.
A luxury car shoved and crawled through the crowd beside them, refusing to yield an inch. It forced a crooked path between pedestrians and somehow managed to park outside the expensive restaurant next door to Sister-in-Law’s Barbecue. Along the way, the car body inevitably made intimate contact with tables, chairs, and benches on both sides of the road, provoking one complaint and curse after another. The rich second-generation young master inside rolled down his window and hurled arrogant insults at anyone within range, while the poor laborers outside grabbed benches and shouted right back.
One of the luxury car’s tires nearly rolled over the only foot Yan Xiaodao could still use properly.
“Watch the car.” Ling He reacted instantly, wrapping an arm around Yan Xiaodao’s waist and drawing him safely into the shelter of his embrace.
Behind them, one of the stall owners suddenly hurled a large kitchen cleaver with all the thunderous ferocity of the Three Rivers region. The blade spun over Mr. Yan’s head before smashing into the departing luxury car’s bumper with a loud bang.
The sheer ferocity of the local street culture left even Yan Xiaodao, an expert with blades, staring in astonishment. He and Ling He looked at one another. What kind of place was this?
Yan Xiaodao could roughly guess why Ling He had brought everyone thousands of miles to this city. The supposed company reward, all-expenses-paid vacation, endless eating, and other excuses were crude smoke screens. There had to be something here Ling He wanted him to see, or someone he wanted him to meet.
…
Sister-in-Law’s Barbecue had only three tables altogether. If customers arrived late, they could kindly remain standing. At the table directly behind Mao Zhixiu sat two young men who looked like university students sharing a late-night meal. Their conversation disappeared beneath the smoky clamor of the night market.
Seen from behind, the taller student’s worn T-shirt stretched tightly across two firm shoulder blades, revealing a broad, powerful build. His face was equally distinctive. Both brow bones protruded strongly, as though permanently competing with the contours of the rest of his face, and his eyebrows were thick with pronounced arches. The young face possessed a hardness and angularity strangely out of step with both his age and the era, completely unlike the softer, more delicate masculine style currently fashionable. His eye sockets, however, were deeply set, quietly hiding more complicated thoughts in their shadows.
The young man ate from a huge bowl of noodles in enormous mouthfuls, swallowing almost as much as he chewed. His manner had the hearty roughness of a man born and raised in the Three Rivers region, causing the shy, delicate-looking companion beside him to steal several infatuated glances.
Qi Yanxuan had a particularly attractive smile. “That place you recommended really is good. It tastes great.”
Chen Jin stuffed his mouth with meat-sauce noodles and chewed. A tiny self-mocking expression flickered across his lips. “Mm… Actually, it’s just cheap. I couldn’t afford to take you anywhere expensive.”
Qi Yanxuan hurriedly said, “That’s fine. Where else do you want to eat? I’ll treat you next time.”
Chen Jin lowered his dark lashes and replied coolly, “No need. What kind of man makes his wife pay for dinner?”
Qi Yanxuan could find enough sweetness in a single crumb of sugar to sustain an entire chain of comforting associations. Beneath the table, he hooked his fingers around his boyfriend’s free left hand and secretly rubbed the two hard calluses on his palm. “Then I’ll treat you to a movie later.”
The two young men eating noodles beneath the night sky were third-year students at Fanjiang University, only three intersections away from Rongzheng Street. They studied different majors but had known one another since childhood. By that measure, they were childhood sweethearts who had eventually become lovers.
Between them, they polished off two bowls of noodles as well as fried fermented black beans, glutinous rice cakes, and fried stinky tofu. The total did not even reach thirty yuan. Where else could anyone find food this cheap? Chen Jin happily paid the bill for both of them.
Qi Yanxuan glanced at the price tag on the charcoal-grilled giant squid and saw that each skewer cost fifteen yuan, so he shook his head and said he did not like squid.
Chen Jin abruptly changed his mind, his brows pulling together slightly. “Forget the movie. Let’s just walk around. That course paper is driving me crazy.”
Qi Yanxuan nodded. “All right. We won’t take the bus. Want to walk back to campus?”
Qi Yanxuan usually treated his boyfriend with anxious care and constant consideration. He could tell that Chen Jin liked him too. They had known each other for years and understood each other thoroughly, and Chen Jin genuinely cared about him and had never behaved promiscuously outside their relationship. Yet Chen Jin’s temperament resembled the bank of rain clouds permanently gathered over Goddess Peak in the Three Rivers region. They never truly dispersed. All year long he remained neither completely sunny nor fully overcast, his moods rising and falling unpredictably, and no one knew when an unexpected burst of icy rain and hail might suddenly fall beneath a perfectly bright sun. His anger never arrived on a schedule.
When Chen Jin was happy, he treated Qi Yanxuan exceptionally well. When he was unhappy, he had hit him before.
…
The student couple had barely left when the neighboring table was immediately seized by several shirtless laborers wearing baggy shorts. They rearranged the long benches into a formation with all the grandeur of a Bagua array, planted their slippered feet on the seats, and enthusiastically ate charcoal-grilled squid with beer.
People eating and drinking at a night market naturally spent their time gossiping about everything under the sun. One man in a black athletic undershirt said, “Hey, you all saw the news, right? That unsolved armored-car case. They found the suspect’s bones. It really was Chen Jiu, the guy everyone suspected before.”
Another shirtless man had several folds of fat wrapping from his lower back around his belly. He tipped his head back and emptied a can of beer, his stomach bouncing as he spoke. “Saw it! The news said his household registration was right here in the Three Rivers region. What did the guy do?”
The man in black replied, “You didn’t know? Everyone always said he was from the Three Rivers region. Fifteen years ago his family lived right here on Rongzheng Street. He robbed a bank of fifteen million!”
The shirtless man exclaimed, “Damn, big stomach and black hands. Gotta admire the guy’s nerve! Though apparently somebody even bolder and more ruthless robbed Chen Jiu afterward!”
The man in black tore savagely at his squid skewer with his molars and cursed. “All the damn money in banks belongs to rich people anyway. Rob the rich to help the poor, uphold justice on heaven’s behalf. What’s wrong with that? Good for him. If I had the chance, I’d rob them too!”
Street gossip accumulated and fermented in the lowest hollows of society, wrapped in dust and coarse grit, carrying a faint smell of blood, a cold indifference and defiance that wandered along the edge of the red line, and the fierce courage inherited through generations. This entire table drank beer and talked with such passion that they looked ready to draw knives and go pull off a robbery themselves.
Yan Xiaodao listened in silence. He had already read the brief police notice earlier.
He had always had this strangely interesting experience. Every so often, he would discover some tiny trace in an official case announcement that had once passed through his own hands. Ordinarily, that knowledge left him secretly comfortable and proud, delighted that he possessed inside information no outsider could possibly know. Only this time did he feel deeply unsettled instead, filled with suspicion and shock. It was that case.
The bones of a suspect from fifteen years ago.
Fifteen million yuan.
Whoever got hold of that money would certainly have had enough to build a fortune. It was an enormous sum.
Yan Xiaodao’s suspicious nature was nearly going into overdrive. Were the men at the neighboring table actors Ling He had hired? Had that entire conversation been deliberately staged for him to hear? He was even beginning to wonder whether Bao Zhengwei was part of the same scheme and had intentionally allowed him to learn about the case early just to observe his reaction.
Yan Xiaodao abruptly looked straight at Ling He. “Did you know Director Bao from our municipal bureau from the very beginning?”
Ling He was chewing aggressively on a squid skewer. His expression became rather amusing as he tried not to laugh. “Do I look like someone acquainted with a mighty bureau director, or like somebody secretly colluding with the yamen police?”
Both men had questions they wanted to ask and things they wanted to conceal. They carved at each other with their eyes for a moment before silently allowing those doubts to settle into mutual understanding.
The absolute carnivore Mr. Ling had already swept away everything he liked best, leaving only the glutinous rice cakes on his plate. He chewed half of one and immediately looked wrong. Much like many Westerners in his dietary habits, Ling He clearly disliked sticky rice but was still stubbornly attempting to finish what remained.
“If you don’t like it, don’t force yourself.” Yan Xiaodao casually took the half-eaten glutinous rice cake directly from Ling He’s mouth, saliva and all, then cleaned the rest of the plate and stuffed everything into his own mouth without ceremony. A grown man eating food had no reason to fuss about such things.
…
Qi Yanxuan held onto the crook of his boyfriend’s arm. Chen Jin’s arm was hard-boned and threaded with visible blue veins as the two walked beyond the boundaries of Rongzheng Street.
A hunchbacked, one-armed elderly man carried two enormous sacks of goods through a narrow, dark alley, transporting merchandise toward the warehouses behind the street. More shoulder-pole laborers sat idly on thresholds nearby waiting for work. Chen Jin’s silent gaze swept over the old man’s deformed, hunched back. Sympathy gathered between his thick brows, yet his steps immediately quickened as though he wanted nothing more than to escape this bizarre, distorted neighborhood. If the snack stalls had not been so inexpensive, allowing him to afford a cheap ordinary date like this, he would never willingly have entered Rongzheng Street again.
Chen Jin had already walked some distance before stopping. Uncertain emotion twitched at the corner of his mouth. He hurried back, pushed the dozen or so yuan left from paying for the noodles into the old hunchback’s hand, and said, “You dropped this from your pocket just now.” Then, before the man’s cloudy gray-white eyes could fully register their surprise, Chen Jin wrapped an arm around Qi Yanxuan and quickly turned away.
Walking through the night wind, Chen Jin mocked himself. “Once I pay this month’s miscellaneous fees, dorm fees, and every other damn tax and levy they pile on us, my spending money is basically gone. For the rest of the month, every meal is gonna be me standing on the roof of our six-story dorm and eating wind.”
Qi Yanxuan did not care in the slightest about the enormous difference between their family finances. “Use mine. Every day after class, come downstairs around mealtime and wait for me. We’ll eat together.”
Chen Jin looked away and gave a cold laugh. “When I was little, I spent your dad’s money and let your dad support me. I’m already this old now. If I spend your money too and let you support me… I’d be pretty fucking pathetic.”
Qi Yanxuan carefully adjusted his tone. “You don’t have to think of it as spending my dad’s money. Just pretend Project Hope is sponsoring you. It only happens that you were matched one-on-one with us. My dad would’ve supported some student either way… There’s nothing shameful about borrowing money to study, get educated, and make something of yourself.”
Chen Jin had been born into a poor, broken family whose collapsing roof seemed destined to leak every time it rained. If the Three Rivers Civil Affairs Bureau had not once displayed unusual generosity by launching its grand, politically impressive-sounding “Three-City Civil Servant Educational Relief and Assistance Fund for School-Dropout Youth,” he probably would not even have survived through the end of compulsory junior-high education before leaving school and heading south for illegal labor. The desperately needed education grant he received made him one of the students marked out by unusual looks from everyone else on campus as a “charity case.” It was also through that opportunity that he met Qi Yanxuan, the son of the Qi family whose money helped keep him in school.
His fate, like that of certain other people, had unknowingly undergone the most important turning point of his life. Unfortunately, the ancestral grave of the Chen family must have occupied the wrong position and possessed terrible feng shui. Instead of escaping from the deepest bottom layer of society and rising into prosperity, they only sank lower and took worse turns until they fell into an enormous pit. What was never yours would never become yours. The only comfort Chen Jin had ever found in life was that Qi Yanxuan unexpectedly fell in love with him. They had known each other since adolescence, and affection had gradually grown through the years.
Once they returned to campus, they would have to enter their separate dormitories before the buildings locked and lights went out. They did not even live in the same dormitory building.
As they turned into a grove of low trees, Qi Yanxuan casually wrapped an arm around his boyfriend’s waist and felt the firm muscles of his abdomen beneath his hand.
Chen Jin didn’t say a word. His face was dark, but the heavy, hot breath he exhaled against Qi Yanxuan’s face could no longer hide the fierce, rampant desire raging inside his young, strong body. He pulled his boy deeper into the night-shrouded woods. In a particularly dark spot he suddenly yanked Qi Yanxuan to a halt, the force so brutal that anyone who saw it would have thought a robbery was happening in the pitch black.
Qi Yanxuan’s eyes were already unfocused. He had grown accustomed to Chen Jin’s recurring violence during intimacy. The heat of the moment did nothing to soften it. Chen forced him against a large tree in an awkward, painful position, and Qi only made a sound when the pain became too sharp.
Chen Jin couldn’t help himself. He genuinely liked Xiao Xuan, yet every single time he still couldn’t stop himself from hurting him this badly.
Halfway through, Chen Jin forced Qi Yanxuan into another painful, humiliating position, pressing him down hard enough that his knees were probably scraped raw against the dirt and gravel. The violence of the encounter left Xiao Xuan looking as though his bones might come apart.
In a deep alley off Rongzheng Street, where the night market’s noisy lights still flickered, a door full of holes couldn’t hide the most dilapidated household on the entire street. The eight-square-meter room, already stripped bare, could no longer withstand the chaos of smashed cups and bowls. Once again the family was shattered beyond repair by frenzied domestic violence. The drunken man brutalized the woman, ignoring her final scraps of tenderness and pleading. Years of abuse and humiliation were horrifying to witness. Her piercing screams had long since failed to wake the indifferent hearts on either side of the street, yet night after night they stabbed awake the boy trembling and sleepless behind the broken wooden boards…
Chen Jin’s eyes slowly flooded with a wash of crimson.
That crimson carried the same solitary, violent temperament. The stiff, gloomy restraint he wore in front of others would always, in private, suddenly peel away to reveal the rawest flesh and blood underneath.
He drew a deep, almost intoxicating psychological comfort and physical pleasure from inflicting this violence, taking satisfaction in Qi Yanxuan’s pain as the younger man weakened beneath it…
He remembered their first sexual encounter years earlier, in the home of Qi Yanxuan’s parents, both minor civil servants. In a reckless surge, Chen Jin had forced the encounter. Growing up squeezed into the filthy cracks at the bottom of society, all the cold stares, mockery, and bitter hardships he had endured found a warped sense of satisfaction in sexually dominating a rich man’s son. From that point on, the cruelty became a compulsion he could not easily stop…
The hidden violent streak that tore through his blood seemed to find an outlet in these encounters, subsiding temporarily once the physical release had passed.
Every time it was over, Chen Jin would be filled with regret and self-reproach. He would hurriedly gather Qi Yanxuan up from the ground, press several firm kisses to the sweat-damp skin behind his ear, and murmur, “Wife… let me walk you back to the dorm…”