Throughout the whole process, Mr. Ling served as a cold-faced, god-tier ATM, paying the emergency surgical fees for the two students, while Mr. Yan played the warm, understanding big brother dispensing every brand of chicken soup for the soul free of charge. Yan Xiaodao’s handsome face genuinely appealed to old and young alike. His eyes always held a trace of warmth, whether he was looking at someone familiar or a stranger. The calmness and lived-in experience of a man who had weathered years of joy and sorrow also made his words convincing to impulsive, inexperienced young people. It was easy to trust him.
Qi Yanxuan could not hold his liquor and vomited in the emergency room, pale-faced as he leaned against his boyfriend’s shoulder.
Chen Jin, meanwhile, was obviously wary of Mr. Ling. He avoided looking directly at him, yet seemed willing to sit beside Yan Xiaodao and unconsciously let their shoulders touch. The kid was well built. Judging by the height and breadth of his shoulders, he was already comparable to Yan Xiaodao.
Gauze covered the cut on Chen Jin’s brow as he lifted his head without servility or arrogance and said to Yan Xiaodao, “I know why you came looking for me; plenty of people want to make trouble for me, and it’s all because of Chen Kuian, isn’t it?
“He never gave me or my mom a single good day while he was alive, and even after dying he won’t let the family live in peace. No matter where I run, I can’t get away from him. People chasing debts, people chasing lives. What are you here to collect from me?
“I don’t have money. I don’t even have a mother anymore. My mom carried shoulder poles on Rongzheng Street just to put food in my mouth. She got a tumor, collapsed in the street, and had no money for treatment. Nobody gave a damn whether she lived or died. In the end she died from it. I’ve got nothing left. What else do you want to ask?
“I’ve got nothing to say about Chen Kuian. I heard somebody hacked him to death back then… Good! He deserved it!!”
For a twenty-year-old young man to speak of his biological father so directly and say, “He deserved it,” there had to be twenty years of the deepest grief and coldness buried beneath that indifference and cruelty. After saying it, Chen Jin lowered his eyes and trembled slightly himself. A father was supposed to stand tall enough to hold up a family, the figure a child looked up to as an idol. For Chen Jin, however, his father had always been the source of shame that made him unable to raise his head. Yan Xiaodao understood that kind of feeling.
Yan Xiaodao asked with concern, “Do you know what actually happened back then? Who harmed your father? Was it somebody he knew?”
Chen Jin said coldly, “What kind of people could he have known? Drinking buddies, gambling buddies.”
Yan Xiaodao asked, “Did you know any of them?”
Chen Jin rejected the question flatly. “No. And I don’t want to remember!”
“You rich young masters are fucking unbelievable.” Chen Jin suddenly erupted, his Adam’s apple trembling as he spoke. “You’re not even a cop. Are you asking because you’ve got nothing better to do? Digging up graves and tearing open somebody else’s scars kills without drawing blood. Can you stop coming in front of me over and over just to remind me that Chen Kuian was my father, and my father was a notorious murderer who did every evil thing under the sun?!”
“…”
“My dad is a murderer too.”
Yan Xiaodao remained silent for only half a second before speaking, slowly and with as much calm as he could manage, the truth he had been suppressing for months. Chen Jin looked up at him in surprise.
My godfather might be a murderer too. There are things I understand perfectly well, but I don’t want to think too hard about them or dig into truths that make me sick.
Not only might his godfather be a murderer, he might have been one of the people who hacked Chen Jiu to death and robbed him of the money, taking a fortune that would have tempted almost anyone. That money could originally have belonged to Chen Jin. With better luck, the Chen family might have been the wealthy ones today. Even without the full fifteen million, half a million would have been enough for Student Chen to stand tall among his classmates and date whatever caliber of handsome boyfriend he wanted. Yet someone else had cut in and stolen the fortune before it ever reached him. Chen Jin’s family had been cast into the lowest abyss of fate. And that same half-million in dirty money had landed squarely on Yan Xiaodao, redeeming his life, allowing him to rise alongside the culprit, and carrying everyone around him upward too.
Elio’s Notes: The source uses the idiom “when one person attains the Dao, even his chickens and dogs ascend to heaven,” meaning that when one person rises in status, those around him benefit as well.
The son of Chen Jiu and the son raised by Qi Baoshan sat side by side on the corridor bench outside the emergency room late at night, talking closely while each carried complicated thoughts he could not confess.
Life and fate could be absurd, yet somewhere in the dark there seemed to be an exquisite design to it all. People emerged from different corners and ultimately converged, following the faint, serpentine traces hidden in the remnants of the past, then standing at the central station where tracks from four directions crossed and choosing once again which road they wanted to follow.
“I want to forget everything from before completely. Go north to work, or head south. Find someplace where nobody knows me or asks about me. I want to start over too…” Chen Jin bent forward, hiding the damp flush on his face in shadow while rubbing his eyes hard with one palm.
Student Chen still had a very good chance of escaping the shadow of childhood completely. Once the case was solved and a year or so passed, no one would keep bringing it up. Yan Xiaodao felt a wave of sorrow. The person who might never have a chance to begin again was himself.
If your biological father wronged you, you could say you no longer recognized him as your father, and that was that.
But what about the godfather who had thrown down a sack of cash to buy back your life and then spent more than ten years showering you with favor and affection? Could you simply say you no longer recognized him? A dog raised without blood ties for that many years would still know to protect its master. Could Yan Xiaodao be worse than a dog?
The case was tightening by the day, its heavy rhythm striking his shoulders again and again. Where could he possibly take his godfather and run to escape this disaster?
Once you entered the jianghu, you could never fully choose your own path.
……
Ling He strolled over. Chen Jin instinctively shifted away, as though the cold Mr. Ling had grown a row of icicles capable of stabbing him.
Qi Yanxuan felt sick again. Resting his head against Chen Jin’s chest, he was helped toward the restroom.
Yan Xiaodao sat straight-backed in the hospital corridor. His face had not crumbled, but there were two patches of red beneath his eyes. In those rare moments when he felt lost and helpless, even he wanted someone to lean on, someone who would hold his head against their chest and say one or two gentle things.
He tilted his head slightly, and his face suddenly sank into an embrace that was not particularly soft but radiated living warmth. It was the place around Mr. Ling’s waist and ribs.
The emergency corridor was still crowded in the middle of the night, patients coming and going without pause. Ling He did nothing theatrically tender. Yet he had always understood Yan Xiaodao without words and noticed the smallest details. At exactly the right moment, he reached down and cupped the back of Xiaodao’s head, allowing him, in a gesture subtle enough that others could barely read it, to bury his face against Ling He’s waist.
Yan Xiaodao felt Ling He’s fingers stroke his hair and the back of his neck, even lightly pinch his earlobe, as though Ling He were telling him without a sound: There is someone here who cherishes you, who has been beside you all along and never left.
Every time, Yan Xiaodao chewed his thoughts to pieces, ground them down, then compressed his heart layer upon hard layer like plywood pressed in a factory, piling it heavy and solid so no outsider could glimpse his weakness.
Ling He’s methods this time were indeed more ruthless than aboard the Cloudtop or at the little farmhouse in the countryside. First he had cut Xiaodao’s foot and severed his escape route so he could not return to Master Qi’s side. Then, slowly and methodically, he began cutting flesh and draining blood, shaking the beliefs and convictions Xiaodao had stubbornly defended for years and corroding the father-son bond he had shared with Qi Baoshan for more than a decade.
Looking at the dispirited young man called Chen Jin, who seemed to possess nothing at all, Yan Xiaodao felt deeply guilty. Chen Jiu had certainly been no good man, but what happened back then had plainly been criminals devouring criminals, a contest to see who could strike harder and act darker. In the end, the most ruthless group escaped into freedom and transformed their fate with a single turn.
Mao Zhixiu had been wandering the corridor in a pointless honeycomb pattern, her distinctive bun appearing and disappearing between the gaps in a stream of ordinary heads.
Suddenly Mao Zhixiu pushed through the crowd and bounced back toward them. “That kid’s been vomiting for this long? Chen Jin didn’t run, did he?”
She reached them and froze, instantly regretting her timing. So what if Chen Jin had run? Let the brat run! Yan Xiaodao’s emotions were difficult to read because most of his face was buried against Ling He’s waist. One tall man stood while the other sat, Ling He holding Xiaodao’s head against himself. Even frozen in silence, the gesture carried such powerful emotional tension that everything around them seemed to vanish. All the vulgar noise and disputes of the world became nothing more than a hollow background.
Mao Zhixiu dragged Yan Xiaodao back from his daze. He moved his face away, but Ling He’s hand lingered at the back of his neck for a long moment before reluctantly slipping away. He seemed distracted by everything else as he slowly said, “Chen Jin ran?”
At the restroom around the far corner of the corridor, Qi Yanxuan sat alone on the toilet, dejected and disappointed, yet forcing his mouth into a stubborn line.
Mao Zhixiu barged straight into the men’s room and shoved several bewildered male visitors back out the door without ceremony. “Xiao Qi, where’s your boyfriend?”
Qi Yanxuan looked up at her. “He said he doesn’t want to talk to you anymore or remember any of it, and that he’s leaving for a while.”
Mao Zhixiu stared. “Giving him twenty-four hours to cool down, think, and then explain himself honestly was already generous enough, and now he isn’t leaving for a day but for a while?!”
Yan Xiaodao raised a hand to stop Mao Zhixiu. “Xiao Qi, does Chen Jin have something weighing on him? Somewhere he might go? You know, don’t you? …You must.”
Qi Yanxuan’s expression flickered. He said quietly, “He’s always wanted to go south and find work.
“His mother is buried at Fushan Cemetery north of the city. It isn’t very far. If he’s leaving Fanjiang, he’ll definitely go see his mother before he goes.”
Ling He said, “Judging from the map, Fushan Cemetery looks like a high-end burial ground. It can’t have been cheap.”
Qi Yanxuan nodded painfully. “That’s just how he is; my dad has supported his living expenses while he studied these past few years, but Chen Jin scrimps and saves instead of spending it, and he used those savings to buy his mother a burial plot.”
……
The railway station sat where the three cities of the Three Rivers region met and was the largest rail hub in this entire south-central area. Trains departed constantly every day, and great armies of travelers flowed through it. They seemed to emerge suddenly from every crack and corner of the land, gather inside this station, then scatter like busy ants along rails stretching in every direction toward their own destinations.
That morning, as always, vendors occupied every open space near key intersections and turns. Middle-aged women traveling with whole families balanced shoulder poles and swollen luggage bags with astonishing strength.
A densely packed place teeming with every kind of person could easily leave an outsider unfamiliar with the local character dizzy and disoriented, ready to tumble into traps laid by predatory vendors and illegal cab drivers. But among all those bewildered travelers waiting to be carved up like fish on a chopping block, one certainly did not count the ever-wise, formidable, jianghu-seasoned Captain Xue.
Xue Qian carried only a small waist pack to save both effort and space. A fitted T-shirt and pale blue-green faded jeans hugged his lean, powerful build. Sunglasses concealed the conspicuous whites of his eyes, leaving only his forehead and face browned by the sun.
A bottle of mineral water in his left hand and a bag of bread in his right. That was breakfast for a criminal-investigation captain who spent years working in the field. It was not an easy job.
Xue Qian leaned against a thick pillar and spoke quietly into his phone. “Chief, I know. You’re getting naggy in your old age! I’ll go back today. Just let me watch the kid a little longer and see if anything turns up.
“He came to the station because he’s running, but I don’t know where he’s going or whether somebody’s waiting for him there.
“I understand. Don’t worry. I need whatever evidence he may be holding too, and I need to pry his mouth open.”
Captain Xue had come to Fanjiang as one of the members assisting the interprovincial task force and was supposed to attend a local review meeting. With Xue Qian’s temperament, what fucking review meeting? The case was not even solved. They had already held seven or eight rounds of meetings, wasting his damned time. Did cases get solved by sitting around talking?
Naturally, the local officers had already interviewed every relevant witness more than once. But Xue Qian simply did not trust anyone else’s route completely. Even though he was an outsider on a business trip in unfamiliar territory, he insisted on retracing everything according to his own reasoning. During the days he spent in Fanjiang, while senior leaders droned on in meeting rooms, his mind never stopped searching for and sketching the chain of evidence he needed.
Chen Jin carried an enormous schoolbag on one shoulder and crept at a turtle’s pace through the ticketing and inspection queues. His lowered face occasionally darted left and right. The burden of worry on his mind seemed almost too heavy for even those hard brow bones to hold up.
Naturally, the bag on his shoulder did not contain postgraduate-exam study guides. He had just come from Fushan Cemetery and had taken with him several things he considered meaningful and important.
Chen Jin looked up at the huge departure board, bewildered by the dense lines of tiny text. He had not actually decided where to go. Eventually, he hesitated over the next train bound for the capital of southern G Province. A lonely, stubborn, rebellious temperament cultivated since childhood had driven him to sneak away from the hospital. Ointment and gauze still covered his brow. He hated being controlled, and he hated dealing with strangers. He distrusted kindness from anyone. In many situations, the coldness and rudeness he showed were merely disguises for the fear and vulnerability underneath.
He could not actually bear to leave Qi Yanxuan behind. But Xiao Xuan fussed too much and would be troublesome to bring along. Junior year was approaching summer break, when everyone was looking for internships. Chen Jin planned to go south first, get settled and find work, then contact Xiao Xuan.
Ten meters away, at the excellent observation angle of forty-five degrees behind Student Chen’s left ear, Captain Xue pinched his own earlobe and chewed gum out of boredom.
Xue Qian had years of investigative experience. Lu Qingyang had fed him false information the day before and wasted two or three hours of his time, but Captain Xue corrected course quickly and circled back toward the right track from another direction, finding the same key point. He was not the sort to be tricked without holding a grudge. He had immediately spoken to colleagues in the local department. “That Youersi English tutoring school in your city isn’t exactly clean, is it? Does it even have proper educational licensing? Nobody investigates? Nobody regulates it? They’re damn good at swindling parents out of their hard-earned money. When you get a chance, go inspect them a few times. Shut that scam school down and clear it out!”
Xue Qian had followed them quietly the previous night and watched Mr. Yan take Chen Jin to the hospital to have his injuries dressed. Captain Xue, the old imperial cat of the yamen, had shadowed a whole group of suspects so stealthily that even Yan Xiaodao failed to notice that this time the big wolf tail behind them belonged to the authorities, waiting for its own chance to cut in and seize the prize.
Staring at the back of Chen Jin’s ear, Xue Qian thought, Don’t startle the snake yet. I’ll let you buy your ticket first and see where you’re going, see whether you’ve got anyone you know out of town. Once you’re about to board, then I’ll grab you.