In the height of summer, the campus of Yanjing University lay beneath a blanket of scorching heat, its lake, trees, and shadows forming a handsome summer landscape.
Most of the students had already gone home for the break. Some had left for internships or part-time jobs, while others tutored for extra money. Even so, the campus was anything but deserted. Cars squeezed along the narrow roads between the teaching buildings, while bicycles threaded through every available gap. Crowds flowed everywhere, and the fruit stalls and campus supermarkets were bustling.
This was the most prestigious university in Yandu, a summer crossroads for talented students and scholars from all over the country. Students who normally had no chance of gaining admission or studying here long-term often traveled north during the summer just to spend some time on the campus, where the lake reflected the silhouette of the tower, broadening their horizons and seeing a little more of the world.
Their car stopped on the street outside the west gate. It could go no farther inside, so everyone got out and entered the campus on foot.
Chen Jin and Qi Yanxuan walked side by side in front. The crowds, scenery, and unfamiliar surroundings left the two young men looking everywhere at once. From time to time they exchanged quick glances, and the knuckles of their middle fingers occasionally brushed together in secret, both of them bright-eyed with the freshness and excitement of being somewhere new.
Chen Jin had a large duffel slung over one shoulder. Yan Xiaodao followed silently behind him, voluntarily carrying another piece of luggage. Yan had finally been released from his hospital room, though he was still required to remain available whenever the police summoned him. Strictly speaking, he was not supposed to stray far from home. Today was a special outing to get some sun and see people again.
Ling He walked beside Yan Xiaodao. He had driven to the railway station to pick up the two youngsters who had come from far away and bring them to campus.
After walking for a while, Qi Yanxuan turned around and said politely, “Brother Xiaodao, Brother Ling, thank you. You came all this way just to bring us over.”
Yan Xiaodao strode along with a faint smile. “What are you thanking us for? You two came all this way to a place you don’t know. How could we not come pick you up?”
Ling He asked, “You got the dorm sorted out? There are beds available?”
“All arranged!” Qi Yanxuan nodded obediently. “My classmate’s older brother is a top student here. He lent us beds to sleep in.”
“Sleep in a top student’s bed and maybe some of his straight-A aura will rub off on you two,” Ling He teased.
“Huh… really? Can it?” Qi Yanxuan turned around again. Something suddenly clicked in his head and he looked Yan Xiaodao up and down, clearly trying not to laugh. “Can you actually absorb top-student aura?”
Ling He glanced at Yan Xiaodao too.
Yan Xiaodao looked off to the side, his gaze visibly drifting and his attention elsewhere. “…”
Hardworking little Xiao Xuan had come to Yanjing University for summer cram courses. These programs sold themselves on the prestige of famous teachers and famous schools. Whether they were truly useful was hard to say, but for students desperate for any remedy, they at least offered psychological reassurance and a little borrowed prestige.
Dorm beds at Yanjing University were almost impossible to get during the summer. Without pulling strings through someone you knew, you might not even make the waiting list. The dorms were packed with students from out of town taking TOEFL classes and cram courses, all carrying hopes for their futures as they rushed themselves ragged through the stifling heat.
Ling He quietly took over the social burden of chatting and catching up, talking noticeably more than usual. “Xiao Xuan, you’ll be in classes. What is Chen Jin going to do all day?”
Chen Jin was still somewhat restrained around Mr. Ling. Only when directly addressed did he turn around and answer, “I came to keep him company! I found a part-time job too, just to make a little spending money.”
Qi Yanxuan asked, “If the job only takes half the day, what are you doing with the other half?”
Chen Jin answered as though it were obvious. “Keeping you company. You go to class, I’ll just play basketball at the courts.”
They happened to pass a newly opened student cafeteria. Qi Yanxuan shot Chen Jin a look that said, Want to try this place for lunch?
Chen Jin gave him an equally cool look in reply: Whatever my wife wants to eat, we eat. Don’t ask me.
After weathering enough storms and setbacks, a couple either split cleanly apart or settled into something steadier and more enduring. That was more or less how relationships went. Qi Yanxuan’s father had turned himself in and received a relatively light sentence because of his substantial cooperation. He would be out in another year or so. Taking the opportunity, Qi Yanxuan formally came out to his parents and relatives. There was a period of uproar, but eventually both sides ran out of energy for fighting. Faced with the realities of life, they settled into an uneasy acceptance, lowered their banners, and went on making their own choices.
Chen Jin seemed much easier-tempered now. The volatility and hostility that had once shadowed his face had quietly faded, leaving him more mature, and he had become surprisingly willing to follow Qi Yanxuan’s lead. The source of that urge to pick pointless fights with himself had finally been cut away at the root. Now that the two of them were building a life together, what was there left to rage about?
From behind, Ling He kept watching the two young men exchange glances and furtively brush hands and feet. Without warning, he mocked them, “Don’t start anything in the dorm tonight. Six people share one room. If you fool around, you’ll get thrown out.”
Xiao Xuan and Chen Jin both gave a tiny shiver, the very picture of guilty consciences paired with eager anticipation.
“No, we won’t…” Qi Yanxuan defended himself softly, the tips of his ears turning red.
Chen Jin did not blush at all and could barely be bothered to hide it. Won’t? When it came to turning dorm beds upside down, campus couples were battle-hardened, experienced, and entirely self-taught.
Mr. Yan remained silent almost the entire way, barely speaking. Within the group he was nearly invisible, completely unlike his usual open, talkative self. The sea of people before him blurred together, while the noise of traffic reached his ears as distant echoes that seemed to drift nearer and farther away.
Yan Xiaodao had visibly lost weight. In only a few days, he had thinned with alarming speed.
His back and build were still lean, strong, and hard, but those close to him could tell that his muscles had lost some fullness. The bones of his hands stood out more sharply than before, his cheeks and eye sockets were slightly hollow, and his eyes looked grave and heavy.
Ling He occasionally took hold of Xiaodao’s wrist and gently rubbed it with his palm, offering silent comfort.
The two of them spoke very little. Or rather, they knew each other too well to waste words on hollow consolation. When you are hurting, I know enough to stay calm and quiet.
Qi Yanxuan turned around and joked, “Brother Xiaodao has gotten so skinny lately! Brother Ling, you starved him!”
Ling He’s eyes were full of apology. “I did. I didn’t take good enough care of him. I let him get thin.”
Qi Yanxuan laughed. “Were you bullying Brother Xiaodao? You bullied him so badly he stopped talking!”
“Of course not.” Yan Xiaodao frowned and lowered his head to avoid the circle of curious looks, unwilling to let anyone see that anything had happened to him. When had Lord Dao ever had a problem?
Ling He looked at him tenderly. “The company’s been busy, and I haven’t been cooking properly at home lately. I starved you. My fault. I’ll take you to one of the best places in the city later.”
Since when did Ling He act like this? Chen Jin jerked his head around in alarm, almost convinced a counterfeit Mr. Ling had been walking behind them. Had Mr. Yan changed boyfriends? This sure as hell was not the same man he had met back in the Three Rivers region.
“No need…” Yan Xiaodao brushed aside Mr. Ling’s kindness with the faintest hint of an eye roll. Ling He was being so excessively gentle, considerate, and accommodating, even struggling to tell jokes in a way that did not come naturally to him just to cheer Yan up, that Yan found it unfamiliar and even uncomfortable. He did not want this kind of treatment. He had never been weak or fragile. He did not need anyone fussing over him, hovering around him with constant concern, or giving him the cheap attention woven out of pity and sympathy.
Men could become incredibly awkward when pride got involved, especially a man like Yan Xiaodao.
He had nowhere to go and act spoiled in front of outsiders. The only person he could sulk and make trouble with was Ling He.
In fact, his current state of mind was beginning to resemble Chen Jin’s from back then.
Perhaps Yan had always carried a subconscious sense of superiority in front of Ling He. He had immersed himself in the idea that he was broad-minded, chivalrous, and generous, using his imposing frame and solid shoulders to shelter Mr. Ling from wind and rain. Then one day his dignity and that sense of superiority had suddenly shattered, and he discovered that all that strength and solidity had been an illusion. It was indeed difficult to bear.
Yan Xiaodao rejected Captain Xue’s suggestion and firmly refused to let the police disturb his adoptive mother, Madam Yan. He wanted her to remain completely ignorant of everything. Those rotten old accounts could be treated like accidentally stepping in a pile of shit by the roadside. What was there to investigate? Did they really have to scrape that stinking mess open and turn it over again and again?
Once the police obtained his real-name records and matched them against photographs, blood type, DNA, and other biological evidence, sooner or later they would uncover Yan Xiaodao’s family background and neatly locate his biological parents for him. Yan rejected that suggestion just as sharply, tossing the Bureau Chief a cold, flat answer: “Don’t look for them for me. I don’t want to know who they are.”
He never wanted to know.
……
Sometimes Mr. Yan played the piano alone at home, practicing a few simple pieces. Losing himself in the music could quiet many of the thoughts disturbing him.
On several nights, Ling He deliberately moved to the guest room or stayed up working because he did not want to disturb Yan’s peace. For the moment, the two were sleeping apart.
Except Mr. Ling usually could not endure it for long. Late at night he would quietly sneak back to see him, and whenever Yan held his breath and pretended to be asleep, Ling would bend down to kiss his nose, slip a hand under the covers to grope him, and tickle his face with that unruly mess of hair.
After settling Chen Jin and Qi Yanxuan into the dormitory and helping the two students sort out their classes and accommodations, Yan and Ling came back outside and wandered around campus.
Hot summer wind brushed their faces. Willow branches hung over the lake, and Baoshan and the water tower rested in reflection on its surface while faint ripples trembled through the mirrored memories.
From time to time Ling He pointed things out to Xiaodao: which building was the library, which housed the famous school of business and management, which ones were Teaching Buildings One, Two, and Three, and which gymnasium often held weekend dances.
Yan Xiaodao had never attended university or, as the saying went, “drunk any scholarly ink.” Wandering through Yanjing University with nothing grander than his Lanxiang excavator operator’s license to his name, he sincerely admired Mr. Ling. “Did you study the map beforehand? How do you know where everything is?”
Elio’s Notes: Lanxiang is a well-known vocational school in China strongly associated in popular culture with excavator training, which is why Yan jokingly contrasts his practical “excavator license” with an elite university education.
Ling He nodded. “I did memorize the map.”
Yan Xiaodao asked casually, “Have you been here before?”
Ling He nodded again. “When I was little.”
Yan truly had asked without thinking, but the words when I was little made his already overloaded, oversensitive heart plunge so sharply that his chest hurt. When he was little? When exactly? Back when Ling He’s father had brought the family to Yandu?
Here, on the campus of Yanjing University?
Ling He pointed ahead. “Those buildings are the School of Humanities, and over there is the School of Life Sciences. Want to go take a look?”
Someone’s constant, habitual presence could make you forget how precious it was. Yan Xiaodao instinctively reached for Ling He’s hand and closed his fingers tightly around his wrist. A gust of hot air carrying exhaust and dust swept past and irritated his nose, and for one irrational instant he feared some evil wind might blow in from nowhere and carry away the best thing beside him. Ling He’s attentive companionship was the only comfort and support Yan could now cling to without reservation.
……
A crowd began gathering outside the School of Life Sciences. Students carrying notebooks converged in twos and threes and streamed into a large lecture hall. A red banner hung high above the entrance, bearing words along the lines of “Yanjing University Summer Distinguished Scholars Lecture Series.”
A campus shuttle bus was allowed inside only because it carried a faculty-office permit. It now eased to a stop beside the narrow road in front of the building, pressed close to a sprawling formation of bicycles. The door opened. A bamboo-and-wood walking cane appeared first, followed slowly by an elderly professor.
The “Summer Distinguished Scholars Lecture Series” invited three national-treasure-level, old-guard experts each week to give lectures and discussions, opening doors and answering questions for bright young students hungry for knowledge. Today’s guest was an elderly academician.
Professor Ning Hengqian’s back was slightly stooped. He was clearly well past retirement age and no longer appeared on campus often, yet the old man was vigorous and clear-eyed. He walked toward the entrance with a cane but without anyone supporting him, neither hurried nor short of breath. Two doctoral students followed behind, carrying his water cup and briefcase.
Ling He and Yan Xiaodao had just finished looking around the academic building and were coming out through the entrance.
Ling He smiled gently. “I’m guessing a lecture on ‘Genetics of Ancient Marine Organisms and Global Environmental Change’ won’t exactly hold your interest. Let’s go eat first and fatten you up.”
Yan Xiaodao mocked himself. “I’m interested. I just honestly wouldn’t understand it!”
Both men were handsome, tall, and strikingly graceful in bearing. Passing through a crowd of fresh-faced students, they were far too eye-catching to ignore.
Professor Ning Hengqian was slightly bent with age and habitually shifted to the side on the stairs to make room for others. True to the humility embedded in his name, he had retained a gracious, courteous manner even past seventy, and he actually stepped aside to let the younger men coming down pass first. Ling He and Yan Xiaodao were looking elsewhere, intent on lunch, and moved quickly down the steps.
Professor Ning’s clear eyes looked upward. His gaze traveled absently from the lower half of Mr. Ling’s figure until it reached Ling He’s face, seeing it fully and unmistakably.
Ning Hengqian’s upward gaze suddenly froze. Time seemed to fall away as his vision collided with a lost memory from long ago.
Ling He was looking downward, a dazzling smile briefly flowering at his lips, and he did not break stride. He simply failed to recognize the white-haired, aged Professor Ning, and the two passed each other on the stairs.
Professor Ning’s body suddenly jerked to the right. He leaned against the stair rail and instinctively clutched it hard just to keep his balance. The two doctoral students behind him hurried to support the old man, thinking perhaps the old man was having an ischemic spell after lunch and was about to faint.
Shock piled across Ning Hengqian’s face. The hand gripping his cane and both his shoulders began to tremble, yet even as he lost his balance he forced himself to turn and search the crowd for that figure. It was not difficult. Even seen only from behind, with long hair draped over his shoulders, Mr. Ling stood out brilliantly from everyone around him, his hair shining beneath the sunlight.
“…Yunzhou?” Ning Hengqian murmured in a desolate voice.
Ling He had loosely tied a section of hair at the crown behind his head, leaving a soft fall of strands while the rest hung casually over his shoulders. Because of the heat he had cut about two inches off, but he continued to ignore Yan Xiaodao’s occasional hopeful hints and stubbornly refused to cut it all short.
“That’s impossible… It isn’t him…” The impact struck Ning Hengqian like a huge wave smashing him against shore, leaving his whole body trembling. The students beside him were frightened enough to nearly call an ambulance, but the old man forced himself to stay calm, waved them off, refused emergency care, and simply sat down on the stairs. His eyes never left the young man’s back as it receded and finally disappeared into the crowd.
Ning Hengqian’s white shirt was spotless, carrying the clean, restrained elegance of an old-school scholar. He took out a fresh handkerchief and wiped the sweat and tears gathering at his forehead and the corners of his eyes, still unable to believe the painful memory that had struck him.
Ning Hengqian unconsciously pressed his right palm over his chest, covering the old ache he could never forget, almost unable to breathe.
That could not be Gu Yunzhou. His student Gu Yunzhou had disappeared more than ten years ago and was long gone from this world.
“Ethan?… Ethan Gu?” Ning Hengqian murmured, remembering a name that had grown blurred with time.
In his mind were the white walls and gray tiles of Yanjing University, heavy with the fragrance of wisteria.
In his mind was a graceful figure moving through boundless spring scenery, with lake light and tower shadows all around him.
A boy named Ethan had once come from far away with his father. He had walked beside the lake and stood before Ning Hengqian to bow politely in greeting. He had been an extraordinarily beautiful child, with a face no one could easily forget. The old professors in the department had all liked seeing the adorable boy. They would affectionately pat his head and call, “Morning, little Ethan…”
Ling He had already walked quite a distance when he suddenly turned around.
He thought he had heard someone call his name.
He looked back and scanned his surroundings warily, finding it hard to believe. Other than Ling Huang, that pervert who only seemed tougher with age and simply refused to die, who else still knew the name he had carried back then? Even Yan Xiaodao did not know what his real name had been.
The flowers on the walls and the shadows of the trees remained, but the people of those years were gone. Ling He looked around blankly and in the end saw nothing.
……
At Yandu Municipal Police Headquarters, the task force codenamed “Operation Golden Brick” held its routine meeting.
“Gu Yaoting, Liang Tong, and Jian Mingxun have now been arrested one after another. At this point we have basically reconstructed what happened from beginning to end. This is an extremely serious case, and the facts are appalling and deeply disturbing.” The senior official’s opening remarks already sounded like the rough outline of a closing report. His voice was subdued and heavy, and everyone present sat with complicated expressions.
“Victim Number One in the ‘Golden Brick’ case is Ling He. At first we did not know Number One’s true name or identity, so the investigation reached an impasse. We have now found a major lead in the video evidence.” Bureau Chief Bao Zhengwei folded his hands on the conference table. “The victim who was tortured to death in the video had a tattoo on his left ankle. After enlarging the image repeatedly, we were finally able to make out two lines of cursive lettering.”
The black tattoo read: 【Narcissus X Camellia】.
“At first glance they look like nothing more than the names of two flowers, but they were actually the English names of the male victim and his wife. He had both names tattooed on his ankle as a memorial to their relationship. Then, based on Gu Yaoting’s recent statement that Ling He’s mother died in the intensive care unit of a local hospital, we followed the trail and located a young foreign woman named Camellia Yun who died at that hospital that year. Her recorded cause of death was organ failure brought on by the worsening of a hereditary illness, but key portions of her medical records are badly incomplete.” Bao Zhengwei swept his gaze around the table. Everyone looked grave, silently studying the documents before them. “From there, we found the husband of Ms. Yun. His surname was Gu. His passport name was Narcissus Gu, and his Chinese name was Gu Yunzhou.”
The self-chosen Chinese name “Gu Yunzhou” never appeared in the electronic records, which was why it had been so difficult to trace.
Gu Yunzhou had incorporated his wife’s surname, Yun, into the middle of his Chinese name and tattooed both of their English flower names on his ankle as a symbol of lifelong love.
Bao Zhengwei continued, “This also gives us a clearer picture of Gu Yunzhou’s movements before he was killed. He was a scholar who had obtained a postdoctoral exchange position in paleogenetics at one of Yanjing University’s institutes. He was studying and conducting research at the university under Professor Ning Hengqian, his doctoral adviser, and at the time he was most likely living somewhere near campus.
“Gu Yunzhou was married and had brought his wife and child with him. Their son was six years old. His wife, Ms. Yun, unfortunately died in the hospital, which must have devastated him. But what happened next is even harder to imagine. One day soon afterward, Gu Yunzhou suddenly disappeared outside the west gate of Yanjing University. The surviving fragments of surveillance footage show someone inviting him into a black car with unidentified plates, or perhaps luring and abducting him directly from the street. His six-year-old son disappeared at the same time. The boy’s passport name was Ethan Gu. Father and son vanished without a trace. No one among the faculty or students knew where they had gone, and after an investigation that lasted for some time, the missing-person case eventually went cold.”
At the time, the faculty and students had speculated that Gu Yunzhou, overwhelmed by grief after his wife’s death, had taken his young son and left the country.
In reality, Gu Yunzhou was killed not long after he disappeared, erased without leaving a trace.
Ethan’s passport photograph was laid on the conference table beside the photograph of Ling He, Victim Number One in the “Golden Brick” case. In the eyes of the police, the two finally came together and completed the missing narrative of the case.
……
The painstaking effort to dig through every inch of the old case ultimately ran up against a wall with the arrest of Gu Yaoting.
Gu Yaoting, at least, was brazenly frank. Even in doing evil he had possessed a certain reckless nerve, and with death staring him in the face he made no attempt to hide his domineering arrogance. He confessed freely to the evil he had helped others commit over the years, showing no intention of shielding either himself or anyone else. Peel away as many layers as they liked; in the end, he had only one rotten life to lose.
The truth matched the old rumors from within that circle. The fiercely ambitious Gu Yaoting had indeed been the lover of Zhao family scion Zhao Huaifeng. At the same time, within the upper-class “grooming game” orchestrated for years by Zhao Huaifeng’s father, Zhao Shiyan, Gu Yaoting had also played the role of an abuser and willing accomplice, joining them in preying on those who lacked the will or power to resist.
Their underlings had fallen one after another. Anyone who could confess had confessed, and those who were supposed to answer to the law were already in detention, waiting for justice and judgment that had come far too late. Yet justice itself had a ceiling. The reach of the law seemed to stop at the very top of Gu Yaoting’s skull.
Bureau Chief Bao Zhengwei likewise kept his lips sealed. The explanation of the case stopped there, without touching the things that had never been written clearly in the files and remained deeply taboo. Everything beyond that was left to individual interpretation and inference. Inside the police force, everyone was furious and disgusted, yet powerless to go farther.
The next day, word had it that Zhao Shiyan would host a private gathering of old acquaintances at his Xishan villa, along with a memorial marking the 120th anniversary of the birth of the Zhao family’s deceased revolutionary elder. Both the old Zhao patriarch and his son would appear. At the uppermost reaches of the blue sea and clouds, everything remained bathed in golden light and peaceful weather, untouched by the black wind and cold rain of the human world or by the capture of all those demons and monsters.
Would they encounter the Zhao father and son at the gathering and memorial?
Even if they did meet them face to face, what could anyone actually do to them?