The forces of justice had cast a long line to catch a big fish. All they could do was wait patiently for the right opportunity, and Bureau Chief Bao and the others had no idea when such an opportunity would finally arrive. Upright people could not play by the same rules as villains; their hands were inevitably tied, and every move had to thread carefully between the law and the moral line. They certainly could not simply throw the secret case-related videos Mai Yunliang had provided into the public arena and detonate public opinion.
That night, Linwan Taixing suffered a miserable home defeat to Guangzhou Hengzhong. Fans dragged their flags behind them and left with their heads down, leaving curses and trash scattered everywhere. The visiting players had already departed through the tunnel under a shield of security personnel and taken the team bus back to their hotel.
Only one visiting player had a home in the city. Bei Jiahong, the goal-scoring hero who had crushed the home side that night, did not return to the hotel. He quietly drove away alone, his car sliding into the misty, brilliantly lit night around Linwan Harbor.
Another inconspicuous, off-brand sedan painted a dark color followed quietly behind Bei Jiahong’s car. The driver had tucked his far-too-eye-catching long hair into the hood of his thin top so the sea wind would not blow it all over his face.
Ling He said softly to the person beside him, “Our people checked. Xiao Bei is heading to the high-rise apartment he owns in an upscale residential complex in Linwan New District. He transferred to a Guangzhou club. This apartment is in a convenient location and should command a good price, but he apparently has no intention of renting or selling it. He’s kept it all this time.”
Yan Xiaodao glanced at Ling He. “I thought Bei Jiahong would never want to come back here again. Even spending one night here must be hard for him.”
Ling He lifted an eyebrow and said meaningfully, “Maybe he kept it specifically because it’s convenient for meeting someone.”
Ling He was an excellent driver. He slipped through gaps and passed other cars whenever possible, yet kept the ride smooth and steady. Bei Jiahong, preoccupied with his own thoughts ahead of them, never noticed a thing…
High up in the apartment building, Bei Jiahong stepped inside and casually switched on a table lamp in the living room. Its small shade cast an orange glow. From far outside the building, even from the concealed place where Ling He and Yan Xiaodao had parked, they could see that soft cluster of light.
Bei Jiahong dragged his exhausted body into the shower. When he came out, his lean, powerful upper body was bare and water dripped unruly from his hair, running down his neck and the groove of his chest. He let out a long breath and fell backward onto the sofa. Only then did he seem to notice something moving in the apartment. He snapped his head up and saw a tower-like shadow slowly emerge from the bedroom.
The man was extremely tall. As he stepped out of the bedroom, the top of his head nearly brushed the doorframe. A tight crew-neck T-shirt outlined a powerfully built body that carried the aura of a combat athlete, and a short, thick, stiff ponytail was tied at the back of his head.
Bei Jiahong’s heart seemed to contract around a needle. He nearly sprang from the sofa and instantly armored himself from head to toe. “…What are you doing here?”
“Xiao Bei. Long time no see.” The ponytailed man’s expression was impossible to read, but he had no need to bare his teeth and claws the moment he appeared. His status and sheer presence were intimidating enough that he did not need vicious words. One corner of his mouth lifted. “You’ve been transferred for more than half a year. It’s not easy for your big brother to see you even once.”
That “big brother” made Bei Jiahong sick. All the damp warmth evaporated from his body. He stood rigidly in the middle of the living room and stared at the man. “If you’ve got nothing to say, get out.”
He switched on the bright ceiling lights in the living room and, in the same motion, turned off the orange lamp.
“Heh. Xiao Bei, don’t take the benefits and then act innocent!” The ponytailed man sat on the sofa without ceremony and crossed one leg broadly over the other. “The club owner put up a million-yuan bonus for this win. You scored the goals, so you alone pocket four hundred thousand. Aren’t you going to thank your brother?”
Bei Jiahong snorted. “Thank you?”
The visitor burst into a hearty laugh, and the force of it seemed to shake the room. His tight T-shirt looked ready to split across his chest. “I’ll tell you the truth! If our own goalkeeper and number-three center back hadn’t gone soft in front of goal, Xiao Bei, do you think you could’ve strolled through an empty defense and scored twice so easily? Heh. Both of them took my money. The market had Taixing winning narrowly at home today, so the match we ‘made’ was for Guangzhou to go one goal down and then come back to win. Xiao Bei, your brother really does treat you pretty damn well! Hahahaha…”
This was a key match affecting the year-end league standings, yet the way this man described it, victory and defeat were trivial matters decided in advance with a flick of the fingers.
“What the hell do you want?” Bei Jiahong’s expression shifted.
……
This mysterious figure, whose tail was rarely seen even when his head appeared, walked in and out of Bei Jiahong’s apartment as openly as he pleased.
Naturally, this lord had not entered honorably with a key. He had invited himself. Linwan Harbor was a heavily watched area, yet nobody imagined the number-one wanted man in the case would dare swagger directly under the police’s noses. He had become an even darker shadow slipping into the blind spot beneath the lamp, successfully concealing his true form.
Ling He and Yan Xiaodao had arrived one step too late. They were still wondering why the orange lamp behind the curtains had gone out and the bright ceiling lights had come on. Neither of them imagined Bei Jiahong’s apartment had already been occupied by a cuckoo in another bird’s nest.
Young Master Gu, Gu Yaoting, sat broad and imposing in Bei Jiahong’s apartment. His face made his age difficult to judge. Cured meat kept better than fresh meat. His dark beer-colored face and arms glowed with vigorous bronze light beneath the lamps, while his brows and eye sockets looked pitch-black and glossy. His presence seemed to seep from the edge of the sofa into every corner of the living room.
Gu Yaoting took out a cigar, held one beneath his nose and inhaled deeply, then casually offered another to Bei Jiahong.
Bei Jiahong did not take it. He stood on guard without moving, though in truth he badly wanted to pick up the table lamp and smash it over the man’s head.
Before seeing him, many people who had only heard the name would imagine a blue-faced demon with fangs. Meeting him in person revealed that he had neither blue skin nor fangs, but anyone capable of walking a road of darkness all the way to the point of reaching heaven with one hand could not possibly be an ordinary character. Gu Yaoting possessed a distinctly powerful, masculine kind of magnetism. Even seated on a sofa, he seemed to occupy more space than anyone else, like an immovable iron tower.
“We’re all on the same road making money together, so you could say we’re business partners, Xiao Bei. I need you too!” Whenever Gu Yaoting spoke, he showed a mouthful of white teeth. His eyes shone, and his smile looked a little □.
Elio’s Notes: The supplied Chinese source contains an unresolved □ in “笑得有点□人.” The missing character is preserved rather than guessed.
“Who the hell is your business partner? I’m not interested. I’m not doing it.” Bei Jiahong refused, already guessing why Lord Ting had come.
Gu Yaoting bit down on his cigar and strolled toward him. The two stood in shadow against the wall. “Three days from now, the home match in the final World Cup qualifying round. We’re making it a three-goal loss.”
“Are you fucking joking?!” Bei Jiahong stared at him in sudden shock.
“I’m serious, Xiao Bei. Lose by three.” Gu Yaoting stared straight back without avoiding his gaze.
“…I’m not doing it. Find someone else!” Bei Jiahong refused flatly and turned to leave, only for Gu Yaoting to plant an open palm against the wall and block his path.
“It has to be you. You’re the leading favorite for top scorer, so your odds are the lowest. But on the own-goal market, your odds are the highest… If you don’t do it, who will?” Gu Yaoting narrowed his eyes, golden lines creasing around them.
“…” Bei Jiahong stared at him. “You want me to score an own goal?!”
Of course. As the national team’s number-one striker, Bei Jiahong was also one of the hottest names on the scoring charts. Who could possibly predict in advance that Bei Jiahong would score into his own net? The bookmaker’s invisible hand quietly manipulated the market. If Bei Jiahong failed to become top scorer and instead produced the most spectacular own goal, all the fans who had poured money into their bets would lose. Only the tiny handful of insiders would sweep up the entire pool. That was how a fixed market worked.
After a moment of stunned silence, Bei Jiahong exploded. “This isn’t some meaningless league game, this is the final World Cup qualifying round! At home we can only win, we cannot lose. If we lose, everything’s finished! Have you even looked at who the opponent is? Is this a match we can afford to lose?!”
Three days later, in the final World Cup qualifying round, the national team would play at home in Linwan Harbor’s Mingliu Stadium against their longtime nemesis, South Korea. This match was their last stand. At home, victory was the only acceptable result. A loss would mean complete elimination.
Whoever conceded or let the goal through would become a sinner for the ages. Nobody could bear that humiliation.
“I can’t do it,” Bei Jiahong said decisively.
“Baby, do you have a choice?” Gu Yaoting raised one finger and pressed it against Bei Jiahong’s lips in a shushing gesture. “You used something as childish and stupid as a transfer to run away, and I couldn’t be bothered to argue with you. If someone above misses you and wants you back, they can order a club in Yandu to spend a fortune buying you back from Guangzhou tomorrow.”
“…You bastard.” Bei Jiahong was furious.
“Want to come back? You know more people in Yandu. The south gets lonely.” Gu Yaoting smiled without smiling, malice all through it.
Bei Jiahong’s Adam’s apple moved as he spat out a curse. His eyes reddened abruptly. He drove the elbow he had been holding defensively toward Gu Yaoting’s jaw, but the other man’s larger, stronger hand caught his arm and slammed it back. Within a few hard exchanges between two tall, powerful men, the room filled with rough, frightening breaths.
Gu Yaoting’s iron-tower body blocked almost all the light in front of Bei Jiahong. His punches and kicks were savage and fierce.
Gu Yaoting twisted Bei Jiahong’s elbow and pinned him into the corner. Bei Jiahong felt the man’s hot breath blast roughly against his ear. “You think I don’t know who you’re waiting for tonight? You ran away, but he’s still here and can’t run anywhere. When everyone gets together again, maybe we can put on another performance of ‘Five Beauties Offering Birthday Wishes’ for the old gentlemen. Heh.”
Bei Jiahong’s fingertips immediately began to tremble. The light in his eyes shattered under those words.
“Sunday’s match is up to you. Don’t disappoint me too badly.” Gu Yaoting had come to discuss a business deal with Xiao Bei, not to beat him badly enough that he could not take the field on Sunday. He believed the cooperation would succeed. With a cold laugh, he patted Bei Jiahong on the shoulder, turned, and strode away.
……
Young Master Gu, dressed in dark clothes, quickly disappeared into a black car and vanished into the night, bodyguards around him and no clue where he would go to ground.
Bei Jiahong collapsed onto the sofa, switched off the bright light, and turned the orange lamp back on, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness.
Many people had no idea what business Lord Ting actually conducted. In truth, if one lived off the mountain, one ate the mountain; if one lived by the water, one ate the water. With powerful patrons behind him, he scarcely needed to do anything. He moved among princes, nobles, titled men, and wealthy ladies, and with the “golden spear” beneath his waist he could live forever without exhausting the mountain he fed from. Yet everyone had strange tastes of one kind or another, and Gu Yaoting happened to enjoy this particular one. Behind the scenes, he personally manipulated the fates of more than twenty football clubs and over two hundred matches every year. He had started by issuing black-market loans at usurious interest; now he ran underground betting markets and fixed matches.
Who outside that world could have imagined that Gu Yaoting, for a reason like this and a single international match watched by millions, would leave the Yandu stronghold where he had hidden for years and risk appearing near Linwan?
Bei Jiahong struggled in thought for a long time, his fists clenched so tightly that his palms nearly bled. Without a word, he pulled up the numbers he had received a few days earlier and almost made the call.
The numbers belonged to Xue Qian and Bureau Chief Bao.
Both men had told him that if anything happened, he could call the police at any time.
If he made that call, the police were already sealing off the city and might be able to trace Gu Yaoting’s movements. The man had actually left Yandu and delivered himself to their door. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
But what if they failed to catch him? Any idiot could guess who had betrayed his whereabouts.
Even if Gu Yaoting were arrested this time, then what? What about the people behind him? Could Captain Xue and Bureau Chief Bao guarantee that Bei Jiahong would not simply be “bought” back to Yandu? With such a gulf in power between the two sides, whom could he trust? He might end up like Yi Han, his body swollen, his wounds bloated, floating several days later on the water off a Linwan Harbor pier after an “accidental death”…
The lock in the apartment door turned softly. Bei Jiahong went alert. This time it was the familiar sound of a key, and the familiar figure he had been waiting for slipped inside.
A slender frame matched an exquisitely handsome face. There was lipstick and foundation on his face, and his hair was still slicked with glossy styling product, clearly because he had not had time to remove his makeup. The person who had hurried over late at night from a television studio just to see Bei Jiahong was the satellite station’s star host, Brother Lu.
Earlier, Bei Jiahong had deliberately switched off the orange lamp in the living room. Lu Yilun’s car had been parked across the street, and from a distance he had seen the dark window and had not dared come inside.
Even after Xiao Bei transferred to the distant south, the two of them continued to meet privately in this apartment whenever they could, year after year, to speak their hearts.
“What happened?” Lu Yilun calmly took Bei Jiahong’s hand, which was slick with cold sweat.
“Gu Yaoting was just here. He said Sunday’s match has to be a three-goal loss… Fucking hell, I want to call the police!” Bei Jiahong gripped his phone while Xue Qian’s number flashed on the screen.
Lu Yilun had sharp eyes and spotted the number on the screen at once.
“Don’t call the police. Are you insane?!” Lu Yilun snatched the phone away and quickly deleted Xue Qian’s number, his heart pounding.
“…You don’t trust Xue Qian?” Bei Jiahong trusted Lu Yilun’s judgment on many things.
“I trust Officer Xue. That’s why I don’t want you getting him killed.” Lu Yilun’s words were absolute. He tore the last few words out through clenched teeth, his lips and Adam’s apple visibly moving as though he wanted to say more but stopped himself.
One Captain Lu had already died because of him. He could not drag Officer Xue into the same fate.
“Does calling the police even help? Would they dare arrest him? Could they catch him? And if they can’t, then what?…” Lu Yilun hugged Bei Jiahong as though he too were cold. They held one another in the dim entryway, yet seemed to be clinging together for warmth on a floe drifting through a dark river.
……
After that match, Bei Jiahong did not return to Guangzhou with the members of his club. Three days later the national team would face South Korea at home in Linwan in the final qualifying round, so he stayed in the city and joined up with the national squad to prepare for Sunday’s match.
Saturday was the open training day before the match, when fans and reporters were allowed into the stadium to watch.
The South Korean team, having traveled from afar, was scheduled to train first. The moment they appeared, they were greeted by an extremely unfriendly chorus of boos and a rain of plastic water bottles and soft packaging thrown from the stands.
They were the old nemesis the national team had failed to beat in an official match for years, losing every time they met South Korea.
The local fans were so agitated because that desire for revenge had been brewing for years. Four years after their last chance, the final qualifying round had finally brought the matchup again, this time at home. A win would let them hold their heads high and wash away the humiliation. If they lost, those players might as well throw themselves into boiling water and fire rather than come home.
The Korean players lowered their heads and gathered in a circle to shout their pre-match rallying cry, then arranged themselves into the shape of a taegeuk at the center of the pitch.
“The taiji is ours! You bastards stole our intangible cultural heritage again!” someone in the stands shouted.
“Hahahaha!” Another wave of heckling and applause rolled through the stadium.
The Korean players drifted toward the tunnel in a scattered formation like mountain goats dropping pellets all over the hillside, leaving in disgruntled disorder. Next to take the field for pre-match training were the elite members of the home national team.
Bei Jiahong appeared quietly among them, head slightly lowered, clearly hoping not to attract too much attention. But that handsome, attention-grabbing face and the number 11 on his training shirt marking his attacking position meant he was a huge moving target wherever he went, the focus of the entire stadium.
Fans surged toward the wire barrier, especially those who had come carrying flowers, gifts, and particular missions. They screamed wildly through the fence. Bei Jiahong raised his head and gave them a small wave, then quickly turned away, deep lines of pressure and worry pressed between his brows…
Two young, stylish, beautiful female fans had previously been sitting casually in a shaded corner of the stands, munching on giant pancakes and skewered octopus balls. Judging by how they ate, they had very much inherited their master’s devouring style and cared nothing about smearing lipstick or ruining their makeup. The moment they saw Xiao Bei appear, the two girls abandoned their snacks, burrowed into the fan crowd, locked onto their target on the field, waved plush bear toys, and began shrieking Xiao Bei’s name in full brainless-fangirl mode.
Bei Jiahong jogged with the team, then worked through simple two-man and three-man passing combinations with starters and substitutes mixed together. As the national team’s first-choice center forward, Bei Jiahong was certain to start on Sunday.
Toward the end of training, the head coach personally had Xiao Bei stay behind to practice direct free kicks and penalties for another full half hour.
When Bei Jiahong turned his head, sweat scattered from his hair and streamed down his temples. Several drops gathered on his thick, curled lashes, trembling for a long time before finally breaking free from their tips along with his mood…
The one thing he did not practice was the “own goal.” He did not know how to kick one.
How was a forward supposed to kick the ball into his own net? He had never seen anyone train for that.
Training ended, and it was time for the usual ritual of appeasing the fans.
The girls crowded around the stair railings, calling “Xiao Bei,” “Baby,” “Bei Bear,” and all kinds of syrupy nicknames. Bei Jiahong smiled, briefly revealing the dimple on his right cheek, and his mood seemed to lighten a little. Although he was soaked in sweat, he walked over to sign autographs and pose for photographs.
Catching a glimpse of a smile on that cool, aloof face was rare. In public, Bei Jiahong usually looked proud and distant. He seldom smiled, refused to appear on variety shows or commercial programs, and especially disliked interviews. Inside the industry, he was famously “difficult.”
Supposedly the only person at the television station capable of securing an interview with Xiao Bei was Lu Yilun. He ignored everyone else who asked. So everyone in the business said Xiao Bei and Brother Lu were extremely close, real brothers, without ever guessing the true reason their “friendship was so solid”…
The two particularly active beautiful fans squeezed into gaps at the railing. One girl said shyly, “Bei Bear, could you sign this for me? I’ve liked you for ages.”
Xiao Bei said nothing and did not look up, signing quickly and fluidly.
“Ah!” The girl was jostled by the surging crowd behind her and suddenly pitched forward straight into Xiao Bei’s arms, then blushed and apologized in a soft voice. Only then did Bei Jiahong glance at her.
It was a two-woman act. Liu Huizhen was responsible for asking for the autograph, while Mao Zhixiu, hidden behind her, seized the moment to shove her hard. The instant Bei Jiahong caught Liu Huizhen, Mao Zhixiu’s fingers slipped beneath the railing and tucked a tiny, exquisitely made listening device into the training bag hanging from his right shoulder.
Mao Zhixiu, that little waist-goblin with astonishing flexibility, did something nobody quite understood and suddenly somersaulted out from behind the railing and dropped beneath it.
If a camera had happened to catch the scene, Immortal Maiden Mao’s move would have looked like a high-difficulty front flip combined with free fall, a full 360-degree rotation ending with her slamming directly in front of Bei Jiahong. It was even more violent than Xiao Bei’s airborne flip during his bicycle kick a few days earlier.
She was really earning that extra’s boxed lunch.
The crowd screamed, thinking an accident had happened. Team medics came running with a stretcher. Bei Jiahong crouched anxiously beside Miss Mao, who was rolling on the ground with a face twisted in pain. “What happened? Are you all right?”
Liu Huizhen also used the confusion to run onto the training field. After the brief chaos, tiny listening devices had been quietly embedded in Xiao Bei’s handbag, backpack, and even his football boots resting by the bench.
Immortal Maiden Mao hissed “ow, ow” through clenched teeth as Liu Huizhen helped her out. The second they were out of everyone’s sight, she returned to normal, rolled her slim waist with swagger, and leaned toward the communicator at her collar. “Boss, done.”
“Beautiful.” Ling He stood at the highest, farthest point of the stadium stands, in the cool shadow beneath the roof, surveying and controlling the situation on the training ground below.
“Boss, do Huizhen and I get rewarded tonight with a five-course French dinner?” Mao Zhixiu shamelessly climbed the pole of her own achievement.
“Nice ‘Immortal Maiden Leaps the Wall.’ Tonight I’ll reward you with a boxed meal, two meat dishes and one vegetable. Go keep watch downstairs from Bei Jiahong’s apartment.” Ling He wore a baseball cap that shaded his striking eyes.
A chorus of dejected protest came through the communicator. “What kind of person is this?”
“That move was pretty underhanded. Did Captain Xue agree to you doing this?” Yan Xiaodao sighed. So this was what Ling He meant when he said he could get things done without knowing Xiao Bei personally.
Yan Xiaodao wrapped his arms around Ling He’s waist from behind and dragged him deeper into the hidden shadow beneath the awning. Instinctively, he wanted to hold tight and make sure the man in his arms could not slip away. Unease and uncertainty had begun creeping back into him, because Ling He was now in an unusually excited state, just as he had once sat perfectly calm in a wheelchair on Yan Xiaodao’s terrace, smiling at the harbor and the sky, coolly commenting on Mr. Mai’s life and death, then opening his arms without fear to meet a violent downpour.
Another storm was coming.
“I didn’t ask Xue Qian. Captain Xue has already asked every question they could ask and obtained every statement they could get. What else can we discuss with Bei Jiahong? He definitely won’t talk, but a listening device will make him volunteer the whole truth.” Ling He understood his own plan perfectly.
Every time he stepped onto the red line at the edge, Mr. Ling would choose without hesitation whatever method achieved the goal most efficiently. He never hesitated over rules or morality. Yan Xiaodao realized Ling He’s style in matters like this was quite similar to Xue Qian’s. The last time Captain Xue had ordered them to ram Guo Zhaobin’s car on the highway and even barged directly into Liang Tong’s stronghold without filing a report, the resemblance had already been obvious.
The police had separately invited Bei Jiahong and Lu Yilun in for tea. Because the reasons involved private matters, nothing had been made public. Both men had silently acknowledged that they were among the names in the Golden Brick Codex. As the list of people involved expanded one by one and rank by rank, the muddy pool only grew murkier. The decades-old silt and hidden tributaries beneath the surface were complicated enough to make anyone without an iron mind stop at the edge of the mire and retreat.
“Why are you only bugging and watching Xiao Bei while leaving Brother Lu alone?” Yan Xiaodao asked. Ling He seemed unusually interested in Bei Jiahong.
“Lu Yilun spends most of his time locally and rarely leaves Linwan. He has a wide social circle, so something could happen around him any day. Bei Jiahong is different. He rarely comes back. This time he’s forced to show himself at their Linwan home ground and remain here for a full week because of these two matches. He must hate it, but he has no choice. I imagine a great many people have been missing him terribly. They must be dying to see him!” Ling He said softly.
Yan Xiaodao’s awareness sharpened. “You think ‘those people’ might come all the way here to meet Bei Jiahong? That’s insanely bold.”
“No. Traveling somewhere else to bestow favor is exhausting. Summoning someone to receive favor is easier and more appropriate to their status.” Ling He laughed coldly, then changed direction. “But if we’re lucky, maybe that lapdog Young Master Gu will come.”
Ling He had been thinking constantly about the tall figure who emerged from Bei Jiahong’s apartment building the night before. They had hesitated and watched from a distance, and might have let such a crucial figure slip away through one moment of caution. Would the other man really dare be that brazen?…
That night, Bei Jiahong again left the national team’s training group and returned alone to his apartment to sleep.
That was the privilege of being the team’s top star. An ordinary player would never dare request such treatment, but a few senior stars did demand special exceptions, such as leaving camp the night before a match to sleep elsewhere. Everyone would assume they could no longer hold back and had gone to find a spouse, lover, or some other outlet.
A few pairs of eyes watched from below the apartment building. They did not see the wanted Young Master Gu, but they did see Brother Lu arrive.
Lu Yilun hid his hairstyle and most of his face beneath a wide-brimmed hat and hurried toward the apartment entrance with his head down. At the corner of the intersection, he accidentally collided with someone coming the other way and staggered.
A young man on a skateboard brushed past him. Lu Yilun did not see his face. The stranger wore a baseball cap, with a ponytail sticking through the opening at the back, and a white shirt fluttered in the night, making him look slightly eerie. Someone was still skateboarding through the streets at this hour?… Lu Yilun thought, then quickly slipped into the apartment building.
When Lu Yilun entered the apartment, travel-worn and carrying the faint chill of the harbor night on all ten fingers, the anxious man who had been waiting for him suddenly seized his lips.
Bei Jiahong poured all his irritation and anxiety into the kiss, hungrily sucking at the other man’s tongue and kissing along his teeth and throat, pinning Lu Yilun against the door while their bodies tangled and trembled. They held each other for a long time.
“Let’s go. Both of us. Completely. Leave this place forever!” Bei Jiahong stared into Lu Yilun’s eyes, breathless and pale.
“Where do you want to go? Can the two of us really get away?” Lu Yilun looked straight back at him.
“Abroad. Anywhere! I never want to come back. Now every time I walk into that stadium it feels like a nightmare. I fucking want to throw up! I can be playing on the field and still feel like puking!” Bei Jiahong’s throat tightened. He could not suppress the dry heaves rising from his stomach. Each time they came, the rims of his eyes turned wet and red.
Apparently Ling He was not the only one who suffered from psychogenic vomiting.
“Gu Yaoting may still be in Linwan. He probably hasn’t left at all. Tomorrow he’ll definitely be watching you the whole time. If you refuse to fix this match for him, you may suffer for it.” Lu Yilun forced himself to stay calm, his fingers stroking the hollow at the back of Bei Jiahong’s neck beneath his closely cropped hair.
“Lose this match?… This fucking game is impossible to play!” Bei Jiahong’s lips moved, anger and fear weaving patterns across his eyes.
“Let them score three and lose, then… then we’ll find a way out. Leave the country.” Lu Yilun suddenly hugged Bei Jiahong and stroked him soothingly. “Just lose this one. Don’t fight him, don’t worry about anyone else! I don’t want you hurt. If we lose, we lose…”
In the night illuminated by city lights, the young man on the skateboard made a circuit below the apartment building, curved toward a concealed black car at the roadside, tucked the skateboard away, and climbed in.
Yan Xiaodao sat in the driver’s seat, wolfing down the Western-style boxed dinner Mr. Ling had made. The handmade eel sushi and salmon sushi tasted excellent.
Mr. Yan, always protective of girls, had voluntarily given Zhixiu and Huizhen the night off and stayed on surveillance duty with Ling He himself.
Halfway through eating, he looked down and realized he had broken his own rule. Hadn’t he sworn never to eat Japanese food again? Fuck.
He cursed inwardly, but his lover’s cooking was too good to waste. Better to finish every bite.
He licked his fingers clean and admired Ling He’s handsome ponytailed profile. “You can skateboard too? Is there anything you can’t do?”
Ling He wiped a grain of cold rice from the corner of his mouth, licked it from his own finger, and smiled. “Back in high school and college, everyone rode skateboards to class.”
Yan Xiaodao raised an eyebrow. “Showing off?”
Ling He shot back, “I was already handsome. Why would I need to show off?”
Yan Xiaodao narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Tch. How many people chased you in college? A whole company?”
Ling He laughed coldly. “A company? You mean in elementary school?”
Yan Xiaodao said, “…Fuck. You were the school heartthrob at every level, weren’t you?”
Ling He wore the smug expression of someone for whom that conclusion was self-evident. He seemed to be deliberately fanning Yan Xiaodao’s jealousy, yet he pulled over the hand Xiao Dao had just licked clean and took that middle finger deep into his mouth.
Ling He’s tongue slowly worked along Yan Xiaodao’s middle finger, licking and sucking from the base to the tip, kissing the rough but warm, substantial calluses until every pore on Yan Xiaodao’s body opened and hot blood surged downward.
When he was finished, Ling He released the hand with pride and said nothing unnecessary.
He never spoke sentimental words, but the message was plain: Xiaodao, I love you this much. Why do you care how many people used to chase me?
Late at night, Yan Xiaodao sometimes let himself imagine impossible things. “Too bad I didn’t know you then. I’m an uneducated guy. If we’d met in school, it would’ve been nice to go to class and study with you.”
Something shifted in Ling He’s eyes. For once, he was speechless.
Yan Xiaodao had no idea what he had said wrong, but he saw Ling He’s eyes suddenly turn wet. He stroked Ling He’s back with one warm hand. Ling He quietly kissed his cheek in return, always using gestures like this to tell him: It’s fine. Don’t worry about me.
Ling He put on the headphones and activated the car’s listening equipment. After hearing only two sentences, he abruptly raised his head, surprise and excitement flashing through his eyes at the unexpected information.
Ling He’s voice came slightly short of breath. “Gu Yaoting may be in Linwan right now, and he came because of this match?
“Tomorrow’s match is being manipulated. They want a three-goal loss. Something could happen at the stadium!
“Xiaodao, call Bureau Chief Bao and Xue Qian immediately! We may have less than twenty-four hours. The man we’re looking for is very likely to appear at tomorrow’s China-South Korea match!”