Elio’s Notes: “Deceiving the Heavens to Cross the Sea” is the first of the traditional Thirty-Six Stratagems. It describes concealing an extraordinary move inside something that appears ordinary or routine, which fits Master Qi’s quiet preparations and his trick of getting Xiaodao aboard before revealing that the ship is already underway.
That same morning, at roughly the same time, a car sped into a tree-lined villa district in the city, its brakes screeching with an inexplicably anxious edge.
The car stopped crookedly at the intersection before it had even fully settled. Yan Xiaodao jumped out and strode toward the front gate of the Qi residence. Walking beneath the dense shade of a row of plane trees, he did not need to look back to sense the shadowy figures behind him, people of uncertain affiliation persistently watching his every move.
He held on to one thin hope: that he had arrived before the police carrying an arrest warrant.
Yan Xiaodao ignored the silent threat behind him and could not be bothered with it. But just as he opened the gate and stepped into the front courtyard, the phone in his hand gave a faint vibration. He lowered his eyes and saw a message: 【Leave now. Meet on the boat at the old home.】
The number was unfamiliar, but both the wording and the tone were unmistakably his godfather’s.
Yan Xiaodao stood motionless, his sharp ears catching every sound behind him. Sunlight slipped through gaps around the leaves and scattered restless, mottled patterns over his shoulders and across the courtyard. At a glance, the entire ground seemed covered in complicated lines impossible to read.
He looked up toward the villa’s porch and immediately noticed something different from usual. No old friend greeted him with the familiar call of “Dao~~~ye.” Master Qi’s pet myna and its cage were gone.
In place of the birdcage, a flag hung beneath the porch, turning in the wind. Red and blue, it stood out sharply against the white exterior wall.
The people of uncertain origin outside the courtyard probably had no idea what the message on that flag meant. It was meant for their own people.
In a matter of seconds, Yan Xiaodao abruptly turned and ran. He did not leave through the front gate. Instead, he spun around, took several long strides, and went straight over the wall.
His foot had completely recovered, and his movements were no worse than before. He cleared the wall cleanly. Behind him, a burst of crimson fire erupted as something like a bullet shattered the second-floor bedroom window. The next second another flash came with a violent explosion, blasting every window across the front of the villa to pieces.
The blast had come from something disguised as a courier parcel near the front entrance. It ignited the pile of split firewood beneath the corridor, and flames surged up at once.
Yan Xiaodao was certain Master Qi was no longer inside. He had fled and avoided this attack.
Qi Baoshan must already have heard about Liang Tong’s predicament in Yandu and moved ahead of time.
Yan Xiaodao had grown up around Linwan’s harbor, following Qi Baoshan across the waterfront when he was young, familiar with cargo boats and fishing vessels of every kind. That red-and-blue flag was a common maritime signal: dangerous cargo aboard, keep clear.
Yan Xiaodao broke away at once and drove through the city’s winding streets at speed.
He looped through one complicated intersection after another, calmly shaking off each vehicle that tried to follow him.
What did “old home” mean? The two of them had been ordinary men from poor backgrounds. What other home did they have? This was the old home. Their home was Linwan New District’s coastline stretching for more than a hundred kilometers, the beach winding north beneath blue sea, blue sky, and a red sun on the horizon.
Sure enough, not long after Yan Xiaodao lost all the trailing cars, a familiar person called him.
This time Xue Qian had no trace of joking in his voice. He went straight to the point. “Mr. Yan, let’s cooperate. You know we’ve been watching Qi Baoshan. We also know he’s fled toward some part of the harbor. We need you to cooperate sincerely with the police and tell us where he is. We have to find him immediately.”
Yan Xiaodao was silent for half a second. “Captain Xue, give me one more day.”
Xue Qian said sternly, “Mr. Yan, I’ve already given you several days. I’ve been waiting for Qi Baoshan to surrender himself to us.”
“I understand.” Yan Xiaodao pleaded, “Give me twenty-four more hours.”
Xue Qian’s voice sharpened. “Is twenty-four hours enough? Tan Shao’an is already in custody. He’ll tell us everything in exchange for leniency. Personally, I understand what you’re feeling. Officially, based on my judgment, what you’re hoping for simply won’t happen. I also don’t want to order a forced assault and have people get hurt. I want you to cooperate.”
Yan Xiaodao said, “If I can’t make it work, I’ll turn myself in after twenty-four hours.”
With that, he shut the phone off completely, letting its signal vanish from the satellite tracking map so no one could locate him through it.
But on his left wrist he was still wearing the token Ling He had given him as a pledge of love.
It was now the only positioning device that could expose his location.
Near Linwan harbor, well over a hundred ten-thousand-ton cargo ships lay quietly within the marked deep-water berths. Flags and gulls competed in the air while sea and sky fused into one grand horizon.
People moved constantly around the docks. Passenger and cargo channels operated separately, and the roar of engines and turbines mixed with workers’ shouts and footsteps into a deafening din, more than enough to hide anyone trying to conceal their movements.
Yan Xiaodao passed through narrow lanes between cargo warehouses and deliberately made several loops to lose any possible tail. He knew Captain Xue’s people were searching somewhere around the harbor. He might not even have the twenty-four hours he had asked for. But now that the moment had arrived, he could not bear it and still refused to give up.
With the phone switched off and no need for any message or direction, he found the freighter he was looking for.
He jumped onto the deck, crossed planks damp with the salty smell of the sea, and descended a narrow stairway into the ship’s interior. This could no longer be called some mystical connection between hearts. It was simply the tacit understanding of father and son built over many years. He really had once sailed with his godfather. Only now Qi Baoshan was the chairman of a business group and no longer needed to work personally through wind and rain, while Yan Xiaodao had long since moved into an office and leisurely directed his own men.
In the low-ceilinged cabin, lights swayed with the ship. Yan Xiaodao found his godfather in the round conference room behind the captain’s quarters.
Under the corridor outside the conference-room door hung Master Qi’s little pet. The clever myna hopped excitedly in its cage, completely oblivious to the danger, enthusiastically showing the godson the way. “Dao~~ye~~”
Qi Baoshan sat at the far end of the long oval table in the captain’s place of honor. His neck tilted slightly back, eyes closed as if resting, and he said leisurely, “Son, you came?”
Two portions of breakfast sat before Master Qi, fried flatbread and tofu pudding specially prepared for himself and his godson. He had been patiently waiting for Xiaodao to arrive.
Qi Baoshan opened his eyes. Father and son looked at each other across the long table, neither able to describe the mixture of emotions inside them. Yan Xiaodao had no appetite for the breakfast his godfather had prepared. Hoarsely he said, “Godfather, come with me.”
Qi Baoshan drew out the words in a leisurely question. “And where exactly am I supposed to go with you?”
Yan Xiaodao said, “Captain Xue is right around the harbor waiting for us. I’ve already spoken to him… Godfather, surrender yourself.”
Yan Xiaodao urged him again with complete sincerity, his tone resolute. “Godfather, before dawn today someone tried to manufacture a traffic accident in broad daylight to kill Tan Shao’an. Deputy Director Tan was rescued and survived by luck. He has already surrendered. This morning your house was bombed too. We escaped this time, but what about the second time? The third? Are you going to hide on this ship forever? How long can you hide? Godfather, accept it. This is the only road left.”
Qi Baoshan did not interrupt him. He waited calmly until Yan finished and then asked, “Xiaodao, when in my life have you ever seen me accept fate?”
Yan Xiaodao: “…”
“Accept fate?” Qi Baoshan sneered. “If I’d been willing to accept fate, ten or twenty years ago I was a petty trader selling shoes and cloth, and today I’d still be a penniless trader selling shoes and cloth. And you, Xiaodao, fifteen years ago you were digging coal under that mine. Fifteen years later you might already have turned into a pile of white bones mixed into the coal ash, waiting for someone to dig you up. Would you have what you have today? …You want to accept fate? You think I’m going to bow my head and admit defeat?!”
Yan Xiaodao swallowed painfully. “Godfather.”
Qi Baoshan waved a hand. “Xiaodao, don’t be afraid. I’m not going to drag you down. None of the old business had anything to do with you. You didn’t have a choice back then.”
“But I have a choice now,” Yan Xiaodao said seriously. “There’s no reason for you to take the blame for the people behind you all the way to the end. Cooperate with the police. Serve a few years and you can still come out.”
“You want me locked in the same cage with Zhang Tingqiang, Liang Tong, and that pack of rotten scum? Are they worthy of sharing one with me?!” Qi Baoshan’s face turned as cold and immovable as a mountain, completely rejecting Xiaodao’s hope. “I won’t go to prison. I’ve spent my entire life refusing to compromise with other people. I don’t intend to cooperate with cops either.”
…
Ling He sat quietly in a car not far from the harbor, having deliberately lowered the seat until he could nap.
Mao Zhixiu had treated the wound on his head earlier. The blood had already dried into a scab. A large patch of hair had come away, and the pain had become numb.
Impatient Captain Mao finally could not resist waking the dozing man. “Mr. Ling, you still aren’t calling the police?”
On the vehicle’s satellite positioning screen, a red dot kept flashing. It had barely moved for a long time and showed Yan Xiaodao’s position inside the freighter with perfect clarity.
Ling He glanced at the slowly moving red point, almost able to imagine the heavy, conflicted steps of the person it represented. He shook his head. “Don’t call them.”
Mao Zhixiu looked baffled. “Mr. Ling, have you gone soft, or are you keeping another move in reserve so you can take everyone at once?”
Ling He said, “I’ve gone soft.”
Mao Zhixiu: “…”
Ling He lowered his dark lashes. “I don’t want him hurt. Whatever he wants to do, let him do it.”
Mao Zhixiu slapped her forehead, half laughing and half helpless, then raised both hands and feet in wholehearted support. “Agreed.”
Ling He himself was unused to this indecision and sentimental attachment. He had once believed such qualities belonged only to weak, useless men or to women. Now he had begun to understand that the belief itself had been narrow and extreme, proof that he had never understood tolerance or compromise.
Ling He looked out toward the harbor. “Master Qi was never truly of one road with Zhang, You, Liang Tong, and that crowd. Looking at it now, I even admire him a little. All these years Qi Baoshan never chose to join those people completely, and he almost never set foot in Yandu. He kept some blood and pride of his own. No wonder he’s Xiaodao’s godfather. Would Xiaodao have chosen just anybody for that role?”
Mao Zhixiu stuck out her tongue and kept quiet. Tsk. He could even make peace with Qi Baoshan now. This was clearly the affection of loving the house and therefore loving the crow perched on its roof. Apart from Mr. Yan, there probably was no second person alive who could cast this much radiance over the earth in Mr. Ling’s eyes.
…
Inside the ship, the two men remained locked in a long, silent standoff.
One side of the conference room lay against the hull. Daylight entered through a narrow window, and Yan Xiaodao watched the sun’s position shift slowly through the sky. Captain Xue would find this ship soon. He could almost picture every move that would follow.
The police would surround the freighter.
SWAT officers would rush onto the deck and block every exit.
There would be shouted demands to surrender, snipers taking position, a forced assault, gunfire…
Yan Xiaodao was deeply miserable. He had no idea how much longer he could delay.
Qi Baoshan was stubborn. A man who had spent decades making his name in the jianghu had a face and dignity he refused to abandon, a fortress and kingdom he wanted to defend. Timid sparrows and mice never climbed this far.
This place was the work of many years of his life. Xiaodao was part of that work too. Perhaps the most important work of all had been Xiaodao.
Qi Baoshan abruptly changed the subject. “Xiaodao, today you should come with me instead.”
Yan Xiaodao stared. “We’re surrounded on every side. There’s already a police warrant. Captain Xue is blocking the harbor. Where do you think you can go?”
Qi Baoshan said slowly, “Xiaodao, I arranged everything. Our family assets have been transferred overseas in batches over the past several years. I also handed Bao Zhengwei and Captain Xue the statements and materials they wanted. That’s enough.”
Yan Xiaodao did not understand.
Qi Baoshan’s eyes struck straight into him. “Xiaodao, if you’re willing, father and son can leave right now and go far away. Once we reach another place, we can still stay together, establish ourselves again, and rebuild from the ground up. The two of us together can go anywhere. No one else will hold us back, and we won’t have to swallow anyone’s filthy humiliation. I won’t go to prison. You won’t go to prison either. Son, come with me.”
Yan Xiaodao: “…”
The plan Qi Baoshan revealed spread slowly like a vast net. Only now did the net open fully and expose its true purpose, dropping from above to trap Yan Xiaodao beneath it.
Yan Xiaodao had never imagined that during all these quiet days, while Master Qi seemed carefree and detached, spending his time watching chess, walking his bird, occasionally attending opera, and waving all worldly disturbance outside the door, the man had already been secretly laying an escape road for himself.
Yan Xiaodao did not hesitate. He shook his head. “Godfather, I’m not leaving.”
Qi Baoshan had expected the answer. Regretfully, he closed his eyes. “You say you won’t leave. Do you think it’s still in time?”
Yan Xiaodao looked up in shock. Only then did he turn toward the small porthole and realize that the scenery along the shore was moving.
The vibration and roar of the turbines left no room for doubt. The ship had started. It had already pulled away from the berth and was gliding slowly toward deeper, darker water, entering the vast blue surface with no visible end.
“Meet on the boat at the old home.”
Yan Xiaodao had never imagined his godfather had used that sentence to trick him aboard and force him into escaping together.
Both men leaped onto the long oval table. Their eyes met, anger burning in both faces. Each wanted to seize the other and shake the other awake. For the first time in their lives, father and son stood sword-drawn and irreconcilable. The crack between them had first appeared after the voyage on the Cloudtop. In places neither could see, it had worn and torn wider until the gap finally deepened into a ravine, dividing the road before them into two unmistakable sides.
Qi Baoshan’s voice was hoarse. “Xiaodao, I wanted to leave all that money and property to you. If you won’t go with me, then I’m truly alone. You’re too ruthless, Xiaodao.”
Yan Xiaodao’s heart trembled. Light shattered in his eyes. “You can’t leave today. Give it up.”
Qi Baoshan lifted his head proudly. “You can abandon me and walk away. I will never lay down my weapon and surrender.”
Yan Xiaodao closed his eyes in pain and sighed toward the sky.
When he opened them again, he pulled his shirt from his shoulders and threw it to the floor, exposing the black fitted tank top and strong body beneath.
…
Ling He and Mao Zhixiu noticed at the same time that the red point on the tracking screen had begun to move. Slowly, but in a strange direction, sliding toward deeper water inside the harbor.
Ling He got out of the car, stepped onto the hood to gain height, stared into the distance, and breathed, “The ship is moving.”
He really had been careless. He had never expected Qi Baoshan, with pursuers on every side, to continue resisting and try to flee out over the sea. He had underestimated the old fox, imagining that a fox with such deep calculation might somehow turn into a harmless rabbit.
Ling He immediately dialed. “Captain Xue, I know you’re at the harbor too. Qi Baoshan has taken Xiaodao hostage. They’re on the freighter that just departed from Berth Nineteen at Pier Three. He may try to leave the country by sea. Stop that ship immediately.”
“You knew he was at Nineteen and you didn’t fucking say so earlier?!” Xue Qian sounded breathless and hostile. He had already searched several docks the hard way and was nearly at the crucial area.
As Ling He spoke, the composure on his face slowly stiffened into uncertainty. The fragrant garden he depended on for survival seemed suddenly to sail away from his lonely island, leaving him behind as cold ice closed in from every side. A thought struck him without warning: Xiaodao might still leave with his godfather after all. They had more than ten years of father-son attachment between them.
The wound on Ling He’s head suddenly flared with sharp pain. No one was pulling at the injured scalp, yet the cut split again and began to bleed. He had received that wound saving Xiaodao.
Whether Qi Baoshan slipped through the net or not, Ling He did not care.
But Xiaodao was his. Xiaodao mattered.
If Xiaodao dared abandon him and leave, he would tear both father and son apart.
The harbor situation changed by the second. To prevent any repeat of the explosion at Pier Five two months earlier, the police sounded their sirens and temporarily locked down the docks. Every other vessel was ordered to remain inside the harbor and forbidden to put out to sea.
Numerous speedboats leaped onto the water like great white sharks, aggressive dorsal fins cutting across the surface as they carved one spectacular white wake after another through the rolling waves. Those lines converged toward the departing freighter.
Most of the speedboats screamed with sirens, the calls passing from one to another across the broad water. They were harbor patrol craft mobilized by Captain Xue.
Only one speedboat had joined the battle without authorization, bringing its own supplies and sounding no siren at all. Amid the clamor covering the sea, its silence made it more conspicuous. The man personally driving it stood into the wind at the bow, long black hair whipping wildly behind him.
…