Yan Xiaodao did not accept Ling He’s suggestion that they meet.
Instead, he personally drove as Qi Baoshan’s bodyguard that evening, taking Master Qi from the teahouse on Guyi Street back to his villa in the city.
Every nook and corner around the Qi residence seemed to have sprouted unfamiliar, obscure faces from cracks in overfertilized soil. None of these people looked like neighbors or tourists. The harder they tried to appear relaxed and leisurely, the more obviously false it seemed that they had nothing better to do than wander around someone else’s home all day.
Some of them had to be plainclothes officers Captain Xue had assigned to surveillance. There might also be Ling He’s eyes among them. Qi Baoshan was already trapped inside a giant urn. Even if he wanted to flee the country now, he would never make it through customs. The slightest movement would bring people from every side down upon him. Surrendering might truly be his only route to self-preservation…
Father and son did not sleep all night. Fully dressed, they lay crosswise on the same bed, one with his head where the other’s feet were, talking beneath lamplight that seemed to sway in the wind and rain. Neither knew how many more chances they would have to spend an entire night speaking heart-to-heart like this.
“Why didn’t you think about running two months ago, before all this happened, and simply disappearing?” Yan Xiaodao was not exactly fanning the flames and encouraging his godfather to flee, but now that everything had reached this point, he could not help feeling reluctant. His elbow could hardly bend outward toward strangers.
“Pei Yi has been watching things for me in the south. I told him to make arrangements, so I could go hide in the Special Administrative Region anytime I wanted. But if I ran off, I’d be alone. Who would I have left?” With one sentence, Qi Baoshan revealed what had kept him here.
Whatever subtle thoughts had been working inside him, Qi Baoshan simply had not left. It was almost as though he had been waiting for one heroic declaration of loyalty from his godson: If you’re willing to surrender, I’ll go with you. If you go to prison, I’ll stand beside you. I won’t run.
To outsiders, the greatest fortune Master Qi had accumulated over more than ten years was Baoding Group, an enterprise worth tens of billions.
But perhaps in Qi Baoshan’s own eyes, the thing he valued most after all those years was the effort and affection he had poured into raising one young man.
Yan Xiaodao leaned against the foot of the bed with his eyes half closed.
Suddenly he opened them and leaned forward urgently. “Where exactly is Zhang Tingqiang now? He was the principal offender. If we can identify him, he should bear the responsibility!”
Qi Baoshan stopped Xiaodao’s impulsiveness with a look and shook his head. “You’re still naive. Don’t get clever and go looking for that man. I’m telling you this for your sake and for that little lover of yours too. You two wet-behind-the-ears brats had better take care of yourselves. Don’t think having a few skills means you’re omnipotent.
“You’re the godson of an ordinary commoner like me, Qi Baoshan. What background does our family have? Who exactly do you think you’re going to accuse? Principal offender, accomplice, what difference does it make? When have you ever seen imperial relatives and powerful nobles take the blame for ordinary people?”
“Who are the ‘imperial relatives and powerful nobles’?” Yan Xiaodao asked, confused.
Qi Baoshan did not answer.
Master Qi had always possessed something of the cynical temperament of an old jianghu man. Proud and aloof all his life, he despised every kind of ugliness and found very few people worthy of his respect. Yan Xiaodao had listened to his godfather speak this way since childhood. Years of teaching by word and example had inevitably influenced him too.
Qi Baoshan mocked himself. “Xiaodao, if I go surrender and identify the real villain behind everything, I’ll end up exactly where You Jinglian is today.”
Yan Xiaodao asked, “His delirium and stroke still haven’t improved?”
An owl on the roof suddenly beat its wings with a flap-flap and skimmed over the treetops, its call strangely echoing the hoarse voice inside the room.
Qi Baoshan sighed and metaphorically burned a stick of incense for the old acquaintance he had never particularly liked. “You still don’t know? Word came through internal channels, but nobody dared announce it publicly. You Jinglian is dead.”
……
The endings awaiting this group of old Linwan acquaintances after everything they had endured were each thought-provoking in their own way.
Several months later, the turmoil online had gradually died down. Few people mentioned Mai Yunliang anymore. The entertainment industry replaced one generation with another mercilessly. If a major celebrity stopped filming dramas, issuing press releases, and paying marketing accounts for a few months, the tea would already be cold by the time he returned. Mai Yunliang was gone forever. Who had enough idle time to remain immersed in grief every day, mourning an idol who had disappeared from the world?
Yet paying money could not erase every disaster. Whether someone escaped responsibility depended entirely on a glance or malicious thought from whichever powerful figure they had offended.
That second good-for-nothing son of the Jian family had spent years chasing flowers, fooling around, and behaving recklessly. The fact that nothing serious had happened before was nothing more than good luck. The people he had slept with in the past simply had not possessed enough status. This time, he had finally caused himself a disaster. According to rumor, two nights before Jian Mingjue planned to leave the country after escaping criminal charges, a group of black-clad men of unknown origin abducted him directly outside the main gate of the Jian family estate.
Several Jian family bodyguards and household retainers encountered opponents who actually knew what they were doing and instantly revealed themselves as useless sacks of wine and rice. They were disarmed within moments, tied up, and stuffed into the basement.
Those black-clad men didn’t go anywhere else. They dragged the bound Jian Mingjue straight into the mansion, making no effort to avoid the cameras. There, in the Jian family’s own living room, they subjected him to a group sexual assault.
It was an openly staged act of revenge and punishment. Nothing was concealed, and the attackers had clearly calculated that the Jian family would never dare publicize what had happened or report it to police.
Jian Mingjue’s screams echoed through the enormous living room and pierced all the way toward the second-floor ceiling. At that moment, he could have cried out to heaven and earth and received no answer. All the filthy, shameless things he had done over half a lifetime seemed to return to him in a single night. Faced with such retribution, one could almost squeeze out a few sympathetic tears.
Chairman Jian was staying at a sanatorium because he was sick, or perhaps simply lying low, and had not come home. He was lucky enough to avoid the attack. Jian Mingjue, meanwhile, was left severely injured and bleeding, collapsed on the floor, sobbing and begging for mercy, promising he would never dare do such things again…
When Chairman Jian learned of the unbearably humiliating incident, he indeed did not report it the following day.
Jian Mingxun seemed to know full well where the group that struck his family had come from. Faced with such hard men, he did not dare make a sound. The Jian family secretly sent Second Brother Jian for emergency surgery and treatment. A few days later they hurriedly put him on a flight to the US for “recuperation,” and to this day he had not dared set foot back on the mainland.
There was clearly something strange behind the incident. Yet no matter how vividly the gossip circulated within their social circle, nobody could determine what the real secret was.
The Jian family’s share price had plunged and its board was fractured, but a starving camel was still larger than a horse. The family continued propping up the shell of a wealthy clan and was not going to collapse overnight. They had swallowed such an enormous loss without daring to call the police. Even when Captain Xue heard the rumors and came personally to ask questions, Jian Mingxun concealed everything and refused to reveal the inside story. Every surveillance recording from the villa was deleted rather than handed over to investigators. Whoever the Jian family had offended was clearly no ordinary person.
Chairman Jian, disabled as he was, and Ms. Zhao, notorious for her many scandals and affairs, still had no intention of divorcing.
Zhao Qifeng’s birth family possessed status and influence of its own. More importantly, she and Chairman Jian were an original husband-and-wife team who had built their fortune from nothing. After so many years together, passion had long disappeared. What remained was an alliance between two families’ interests. Among the truly wealthy, a powerful union of interests could sometimes bind people far more tightly than romantic love, family affection, or even children. It could not be pried apart. Being cuckolded could therefore be endured by pretending not to hear or see. Affairs, kept lovers, or handsome playthings outside the marriage had become commonplace. Divorce alone remained the last option, considered only when absolutely unavoidable.
Chairman Jian demonstrated the broad tolerance expected of a great man, swallowed the filthy humiliation, and continued performing the role of a model business couple with Ms. Zhao despite their emotional estrangement. Zhao Qifeng lost her position on the board but soon received other Jian family assets as emotional compensation. She continued appearing glamorously in high society, the thickness of her skin truly worthy of admiration.
The family quietly digested all its unspeakable filth behind closed doors. At least they were no longer harming outsiders, which made the outcome rather satisfying.
Former Secretary You Jinglian ultimately died inside an intensive-care ward. The cause of death was unclear.
There were security guards on every floor of the hospital and police officers rotating shifts outside his room for both surveillance and protection. But anyone determined to interfere would eventually find a brief opening if given enough time. Captain Xue had gone on assignment to the Three Rivers region and uncovered several faint clues there. Just as he prepared to return and pry open Lord You’s mouth again, the man abruptly died in his hospital bed.
Captain Xue’s investigation of the old case in the Three Rivers region was no secret. It must have made plenty of people restless, people eager either to trip up the police investigation or seal You Jinglian’s mouth permanently.
Qi Baoshan had been cleaner than You Jinglian, which was probably why he had survived longer. You Jinglian undoubtedly knew plenty of interesting things Master Qi did not, so there was little injustice in his death.
A nurse making rounds in the middle of the night noticed something wrong. You Jinglian had fallen face-down onto the hard floor beside his bed. Both his feeding tube and IV line had been torn free. Two streaks of blood had run respectively from his nose and the corner of his mouth and were already dry when he was discovered.
The old bastard had finally been released. He simply withered away and died. He had made an enormous, dramatic appearance in this grand revenge play, yet failed to survive until the curtain fell, ending his life midway through in complete silence and miserable desolation. Considering the horrifying roles Lord You had played before this, it might have been the best ending he could have hoped for. You Jinglian never sat before a court and had every layer of his crimes publicly stripped away. At least some tiny scrap of reputation survived him, although the fig leaf covering that reputation had long been ragged and riddled with holes. With the corrupt official dead, the inspection team’s case against him eventually faded without resolution.
No one was more furious about this than Captain Xue. When he returned from the Three Rivers region and learned the news, he practically spat blood from rage and exploded. His beautiful plan to squeeze a list of the powerful figures behind everything out of Lord You had failed. Another living witness had died. How could he not be furious?
Xue Qian hoisted a chair over one shoulder and smashed the glass top of his office desk on the spot.
He cursed every young officer under him until they practically shrank into their uniforms and nearly started kicking people before the ever-composed Bureau Chief Bao stopped him. “Watch yourself. Rein in that rotten temper. What kind of working attitude is this?”
The surveillance footage showed only the back of someone wearing a white coat before the figure disappeared. The loose, snow-white doctor’s uniform concealed the person’s major physical features. Whoever it was had acted cleanly and efficiently, choosing a simple, precise route out and slipping neatly past the cameras without leaving so much as one clear frame of their face. Their counter-surveillance awareness was impressive.
Xue Qian repeatedly studied the figure’s back in the recordings. A sudden flash of inspiration struck him, and he immediately called the criminal-investigation team in Fanjiang City. “When someone took a shot at me at the railway station in the Three Rivers region, the surveillance footage caught the side and back of one suspect. Send that video to me now… Yes, right now. I found him.”
Captain Xue had realized something else too. The bullet fired at him inside the Three Rivers railway station had never been an accident.
He had one blacklist in his hands and was racing against time to investigate every name on it. The other side, however, probably possessed a more complete blacklist and was racing directly against the police, even deliberately provoking each stage of their investigation while silencing one insider after another. Behind all those bizarre, disconnected fragments, one increasingly clear thread had begun to emerge. Everything was connected, and the hidden hand controlling that thread was trying to cover the entire sky with one palm.
……
Yan Xiaodao had not slept all night, and his godfather apparently had not either. The two talked in a half-dazed state until the night somehow passed pleasantly away, and pale mauve dawn began staining the windows.
From time to time, Qi Baoshan reached over from his end of the bed, patted Yan Xiaodao’s leg, and through the blanket took hold of the ankle that had once been injured, checking whether it really had recovered completely. Yan Xiaodao instinctively drew his foot out of his godfather’s reach. Qi Baoshan did nothing further. His hand had remained over the blanket the entire time, and his expression was completely open.
Qi Baoshan looked disdainful. “Stop hiding. I’m not going to eat you.”
“Xiaodao, you don’t need to spend every day guarding against me either. You’re worrying for nothing.” Qi Baoshan smiled faintly. “If I get bored sitting around at home, I’ll keep a tank of fish and raise a few more birds. A bird would be much more obedient than raising you. At least it wouldn’t make me angry!”
“Not necessarily. A bird can’t keep you entertained by doing a crosstalk routine with you.” Yan Xiaodao felt ashamed.
The suspicions he had entertained about his godfather before now seemed completely groundless. Master Qi would never harm the Yan family. There was no reason to. Doing that would mean personally destroying more than ten years of father-and-son affection. Master Qi was far too calculating to make such a losing deal simply because he had panicked.
Qi Baoshan noticed the new accessory on his godson’s left wrist. It was unusual and nothing like Xiaodao’s normal taste.
Qi Baoshan stripped the strand of agarwood beads directly from his wrist and put it on his own without asking. “Not bad. Top-grade sinking agarwood. Expensive, isn’t it? Let your godfather wear it for a few days and season it with my hands.”
This time Yan Xiaodao was genuinely embarrassed. He refused as tactfully as possible. “Godfather… someone gave that to me.”
“Hmph. I knew it!” Qi Baoshan could not even be bothered exposing the secret he had already guessed. He tossed the bracelet back.
Yan Xiaodao ate breakfast at Master Qi’s home that morning. His godfather personally went into the kitchen and made sugar-filled steamed triangles and savory tofu pudding.
As he prepared to leave, Yan Xiaodao said, “Godfather, I’ll come back here tonight. You’ll still have a bowl of dinner for me, right?”
“There’ll be food. Come whenever you want.” Qi Baoshan nodded mildly.
Father and son understood one another without needing to explain much. Yan Xiaodao did not need to spell out why he had suddenly stayed overnight at the Qi residence, and Qi Baoshan did not ask why the brat had abruptly become so attentive and filial, running over to stay with his old man and refusing to leave. Neither mentioned the unfamiliar faces loitering outside on surveillance. Master Qi listened to crosstalk playing from his antique radio while slowly eating tofu pudding with a little aluminum spoon. Every urgent sign of the storm gathering outside dissolved beneath the gentle swing of his crossed leg into leisurely calm. He truly had the composure of a veteran general who had weathered countless battles.
Yan Xiaodao considered himself dependable. He would not abandon his godfather, nor would he hide in some corner merely to preserve his own life. He had failed to persuade Qi Baoshan to surrender today, so he would find another opportunity tomorrow. No matter what happened, he would not allow Master Qi to meet the same miserable end as You Jinglian.
Yan Xiaodao left the house, ignored every watching gaze around him, and climbed into his car with perfect composure before heading to his company to finally show his face.
He had not appeared at the office for several months. Every matter had been thrown onto the vice president and a group of managers to handle while tearing their hair out. The company’s recent performance was probably a disaster beyond description. The fact that his godfather had not even become angry or mentioned the pile of messes there already counted as extraordinary generosity and tolerance.
Mr. Yan’s handsome figure emerged from the elevator and strode into the office area. The young men and women working under him were so excited they nearly cried.
Secretary Yao’s eyes actually became damp. She reached out and squeezed Yan Xiaodao’s shoulders, arms, and waist in turn. “Mr. Yan, you really are okay? You haven’t lost an arm or a leg?”
“What kind of thing is that to say? How could anything happen to me? What ridiculous rumors did you hear?” Yan Xiaodao glanced at her. “Put those tears away. Is this really necessary?”
The moisture on Secretary Yao’s lashes disappeared almost instantly, replaced by a mischievous grin. “We thought something had happened to you. Or maybe the company had gone bankrupt from debt and you’d run away and abandoned the rest of us.”
“Nonsense.” Yan Xiaodao looked amused. “I still have to support this whole pack of troublesome little demons. How would I dare go bankrupt?”
Secretary Yao pouted. “Then did you disappear because you were trying to escape giving me a wedding red envelope? My wedding is in three days. Are you coming or not?”
Yan Xiaodao said, “You think I’d cheat you out of a red envelope?”
Secretary Yao immediately began pestering him about something else. “Then could you be one of the groomsmen while you’re at it? The one we originally arranged suddenly had a whirlwind marriage and ran off on his honeymoon, leaving me stranded. Please, save me!”
“I had a whirlwind marriage too.” Yan Xiaodao bent over his paperwork and signed his name with sweeping strokes without even raising his eyelids.
A bolt of lightning struck the entire office.
The number-one diamond bachelor within a two-kilometer radius of Linwan’s CBD had mysteriously disappeared for months because he had secretly gone off and gotten married? Men and women sprinted from every direction at hundred-meter speed to claim the empty spaces around their boss’s desk. Yan Xiaodao coughed awkwardly. “What are all of you doing? Stop making a fuss.”
People in love were all the same. Once something wonderful was tucked away inside the heart, smug happiness inevitably leaked from the brows and eyes. Even Mr. Yan could not escape it. No matter how deliberately stern Yan Xiaodao made his face, he could not hide the tenderness that kept tugging at the corner of his mouth, softening his normally rugged profile. He finally used one restrained sentence to shut down the office gossip. “I just have someone now. When the day comes that I marry my wife, I’ll throw the doors open and let all of you stare as much as you want.”
Yan Xiaodao left the office after work wearing an easy smile, his stride brisk and powerful.
The elevator doors slowly closed behind him. The smile faded, and his worries returned to fill the deep lines between his brows.
Joking casually with the young people in the office and enjoying such a relaxed, comfortable life was a luxury. He had no idea when some sudden upheaval would arrive and completely shatter the peaceful surface of the water…
Yan Xiaodao rested one elbow on the car window, lit a cigarette, and dialed the number he knew by heart.
The other side picked up after the first ring with almost indecent eagerness, as though someone had spent the entire day with nothing to do except crouch beside a window waiting for his call. The thought made Yan Xiaodao smile involuntarily. A certain person’s deep voice greeted him. “Xiaodao.”
“Mr. Ling.” Yan Xiaodao hesitated for half a second. Instead of using nauseatingly sweet names like “baby” or “Xiao He,” he stiffly switched into an absurdly proper tone. “Mm… I’m off work. Want to meet?”
Even Yan Xiaodao thought he sounded hypocritical. These days, asking Ling He “Want to meet?” was practically the same as directly asking him, “Want to do it?”
Mr. Ling smiled. “Sure. Let’s do it.”
The word do sent a shiver straight through Yan Xiaodao. Even telepathy should not have been this accurate. This was no longer two hearts thinking alike. Ling He had simply stolen his heart.
The two arranged a meeting place with admirable efficiency. In the bright evening light, Yan Xiaodao lowered his car window and allowed cool air to pour inside, fresh enough to fill his lungs.
He happened to encounter Ling He again on the open road leading toward the outskirts. They came from different directions and met halfway along the same route.
A beautiful profile appeared behind the wheel of a familiar car in the neighboring lane. Both men turned at almost the same instant. Their gazes collided lightly, then clung together, and the air around them suddenly became thick.
This was hardly the first time they had encountered each other halfway along a road. The atmosphere today, however, was vastly more harmonious than before. Ling He did not violently change lanes and speed away, nor would he irrationally smash Mr. Yan’s side mirror and force him off a bridge.
At a red light, both stopped in perfect unspoken agreement. When the light turned green, each deliberately matched the other’s pace before starting again. Ignoring the cars speeding past and the increasingly impatient horns behind them, they drove leisurely side by side, neither willing to pull ahead. Every so often, one sent the other a knowing smile across the space between their windows…
Ling He rolled down his window to see Xiaodao’s profile more clearly, still turning over the emotions of the previous night in his mind.
Yan Xiaodao immediately extinguished the cigarette between his fingers, afraid that the poisonous haze he exhaled would drift through Ling He’s open window.
One after the other, the two cars entered a parking lot at the foot of a mountain. Above a flowerbed stood a long stone slab engraved in elegant calligraphy: “Linwan Tianshou Fuyuan Cemetery.” Solemn pines and cypresses covered the mountainside around the graveyard.
Yan Xiaodao got out first as naturally as ever, only remembering afterward that Ling He had not been sitting in his passenger seat. He therefore had to circle deliberately around to the driver’s side of the other car and open the door for the young master, who was taking his time straightening his collar and putting on airs.
Ling He remained seated. He only released his seat belt, freeing his body so he could move more easily and do whatever he intended.
Yan Xiaodao gestured: Are you getting out or not?
Ling He crooked a finger at him.
Yan Xiaodao bent down, drawn helplessly toward the smiling Mr. Ling as though by a piece of enchanted jade. Before he could react, Ling He caught him by the collar and pulled him inside the car.
Ling He kissed him, thoughtfully placing his right hand between the top of Yan Xiaodao’s head and the edge of the car roof so he would not hit it.
Following each other’s taste, they gradually deepened the kiss. Ling He had become almost addicted to Yan Xiaodao’s scent: the faint smokiness of nicotine, clean soap, and the pinewood base note of his cologne blending perfectly together. Greedy for more, Ling He pulled Xiaodao closer by the collar and continued until he had kissed Yan’s upper lip for a long time, letting his own lip brush the tiny mole at the tip of Yan’s nose.
After a long, delicate exchange of small bites and kisses, the guilt mixed with possessiveness inside Ling He finally found a measure of satisfaction.
A place like this was hardly suitable for taking intimacy too far. Reluctantly, Ling He released him and asked, “Why did you bring me here?”
Yan Xiaodao caught Ling He by the wrist and pulled him from the car. “A while ago, you caught me and kept me locked up for two whole months without letting me come home. I missed Qingming and the memorial day. That really was your fault. Today you’re coming with me to sweep a grave. That isn’t asking too much, is it?”