After lunch, Mr. Yan wandered along the running track on Yanjing University’s athletic field with an unlit cigarette between his teeth, breathing in the harsh mingled smell of rubber and dust and spreading his arms wide to embrace the bright blue sky.
Yan Xiaodao ran into Chen Jin again on the field. The kid was shooting baskets by himself, bored and lonely.
With a full stomach and a somewhat better mood, Yan Xiaodao cheerfully called the Chen boy over to play.
The meetings and separations of life, its griefs and joys, were strange things. Sometimes, just when the road seemed darkest, the grievances of the previous generation could finally be brought to a quiet full stop. Chen Jiu had rotted away. Qi Baoshan had thrown himself into the sea. And now Yan Xiaodao was playing basketball with young Chen Jin on the Yanjing University court.
They called over several other young men to join them. Nobody knew anybody else, so they simply threw together two makeshift teams. Mr. Yan turned into the king of the kids, instantly ten years younger as he tore around the court with a bunch of half-grown boys until he was drenched in sweat.
Mr. Yan did not waste Chen Jin’s passes from the backcourt. He scored several layups and even rose for a forceful dunk.
Chen Jin still spoke in that cool, cocky way of his. “Brother Xiaodao, not bad. Still going strong in your old age!”
“Fuck, your Brother Dao isn’t old yet.” Yan Xiaodao pointed at Chen Jin without ceremony. “Don’t get cocky, kid.”
Chen Jin tilted his head and grinned. “Heh.”
As Yan Xiaodao walked back toward his own end of the court, the two casually slapped palms. Somehow they had turned into teammates with remarkably good chemistry.
Yan Xiaodao glanced toward Mr. Ling, who was sitting off the court watching. Coming to play?
Ling He stuck out one foot in a flip-flop.
Ling He would much rather sit at the edge of the court and admire the interesting scenery in front of him. Yan Xiaodao wore only a tight black tank top, the clean lines of his chest muscles visible while sweat streamed down his neck and the backs of his shoulders. He looked extremely sexy.
Ling He shuffled around in his sandals beneath the shade at the edge of the field, restless and distracted. At last his phone rang. He knew that at this point, whatever was coming would inevitably come.
He had always liked secretly monitoring Xiaodao’s movements, watching him, and exhausting himself trying to read the other man’s thoughts. It was a compulsive, paranoid habit he had developed in adolescence. Precisely because, at the same time, someone else had always been watching his every move without ever letting him out of sight. He had come to the Yanjing University campus today. The people behind him would certainly know by now.
“Xiaohe, you went to Yanjing University? Did you see Professor Ning Hengqian?” Ling Huang’s voice was hoarse over the phone with suppressed emotion, his tone excited. “The Professor Ning I used to tell you about, Yunzhou’s old adviser. He should know some things, and he thought very highly of your father! I brought people with me. We’re at Yanjing University’s east gate right now…”
“…No. I didn’t see him.” Ling He sounded distracted, his eyes repeatedly drifting toward the man moving so freely on the basketball court.
“Xiaohe, when are you going to see him? Right now. Go see Professor Ning and tell him the truth! You knew Professor Ning back then too. You were already acquainted, and you look so much like your father. The moment Professor Ning sees you, he’ll be overwhelmed and unable to hold back his grief. He’ll agree to the plan we present without hesitation. Tomorrow is the gathering where both Zhao father and son will appear. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Then we can…” Ling Huang’s voice climbed higher. The more excited he became, the more agitated and obsessive he sounded, enough to give anyone a headache.
“I don’t want to see him anymore,” Ling He refused quietly.
“…Xiaohe!” Ling Huang suddenly demanded in a shrill voice. “What do you mean, you don’t want to see him anymore? Ling He, what are you thinking? We’re already this close to the heart of the devil. We’ve torn these ugly, contemptible people bloody and ragged, and their vile true faces are about to be exposed to the entire world. You want to give up now? You don’t want to avenge Yunzhou, Xiaohe?!”
“How else am I supposed to take revenge? Am I supposed to go around killing people and setting fires?” Ling He murmured the question at him and at himself. Tree shadows trembled across the glaring ground, stabbing at his eyes. “I don’t want to drag him into it.”
Ling Huang understood perfectly well who that “him” meant.
Yan Xiaodao had already gone in Ling He’s place to face Gu Yaoting, confronted him, been injured, and now faced the real possibility of prosecution and imprisonment. Ling He did not want a repeat of that and did not want to implicate Yan Xiaodao again. Besides, Xiaodao’s current emotional state worried him deeply. He could not bear to leave his side.
“Xiaohe, you disappoint me. You disappoint me so much. You’ve changed! I never imagined you would become this cowardly and defeated!” Ling Huang seemed to fall into uncontrollable rage, repeating himself in a relentless loop. “You and I depended on each other for all these years for this one purpose. Now you shrink back and think only of protecting yourself, throwing away everything we’ve worked for. How can you face your father?! Have you forgotten how Yunzhou died in agony right in front of you? Do you honestly think your surname is Ling? You’ve grown so used to the name Ling He that you want to lie down in your soft little love nest and forget your blood feud? You can throw that name on the ground right now without a second thought. Have you forgotten who you are?!”
Ling He’s shoulders trembled. His entire body felt wrong.
His left hand remained hidden in his trouser pocket, tightly clutching a wine-red velvet box, his heart aching with bitterness.
“Was I born just to live for revenge?” Ling He asked hoarsely. “Ling Huang, to you, the entire meaning of my existence is to stand in for Gu Yunzhou’s shadow in your heart, to be the pawn you send ahead in your grand campaign of revenge, the target you push onto the stage for the ghosts to watch. Can’t you let me go too? From now on, give me a road to live. Let me live quietly. Stop clinging to me.”
“…Despicable. Cowardly. Disappointing.” Ling Huang froze for a moment, then spat out the rebuke.
Ling He listened to those cruel words carving into his heart and silently moved the phone away from his ear. He did not hang up, but he no longer wanted to hear.
He himself had once been just as cutting, vicious, and relentless toward the people around him, unable to escape the same cycle.
He had heard words like these for years. This was the true relationship between him and Ling Huang as adoptive father and son, years upon years of mutual torment. The bond between them had been forcibly locked together by the two twisted, blood-soaked words: “take revenge.”
The grief bound to blood was something he could never escape for as long as he lived. It left him unable to breathe, tossing and turning late at night, waking drenched in cold sweat and choking. And Mr. Ling Huang, paralyzed and with nothing else left to live for, had long since gone completely mad on this road.
Ling He wavered between the warm human world and a cold ghost realm filled with drifting ice. By the time he finally climbed onto the sunlit shore and, after more than ten years of wandering, found the person his heart longed for, he truly had become more hesitant and timid, less driven and more willing to accept an ordinary life. He feared that the happiness before him might scatter with one gust of wind and prove to be nothing but an illusion mocking him. The one thing he wanted to hold on to with all his strength was Yan Xiaodao. He could not bear the thought of loss or separation. A faint crease between Xiaodao’s brows, the smallest expression or gesture, could tug his heart inside out.
“Fine. I don’t need you to do anything. I’m going to see Ning Hengqian myself right now,” Ling Huang said before hanging up.
“Go ahead. Do whatever you want,” Ling He answered coldly.
“Heh. You may betray Yunzhou, but I never will.” Ling Huang suddenly gave a cold laugh, sounding almost triumphantly pleased to have struck Ling He down.
“…” Ling He shuddered again, silently tasting a heart-rending pain.
He was the one who had personally lived through those three days and three nights, those seventy-two hours; he would remember them for the rest of his life and never truly be free of them.
Yan Xiaodao was, after all, a boss who spent most of his time behind a desk, and he was not as young as he used to be. After more than an hour of basketball, sweat steaming off his whole body and most of his strength spent, he finally waved at the younger men. That’s it, I’m done. Your brother’s finished.
Ling He’s attention had covered Xiaodao without the slightest gap. His timing was perfect. Just then he returned from the campus shop carrying two large cups of iced pomegranate juice. He handed one to Little Chen. For the other, Ling He personally tore open the straw wrapper and pushed the straw through the plastic lid.
Sweat clung to Yan Xiaodao’s brows and eyes. His summer-darkened face shone with it, and his mood was obviously much better than it had been that morning. For once, he seemed relaxed enough to forget his troubles.
Ling He handed him the drink, then slowly turned around and walked away without a word, calm and composed.
Yan Xiaodao did not even have time to thank him. He reached out to steady Ling He at the waist the way he usually did, but his hand caught nothing at all.
Yan Xiaodao was parched and badly needed water. He lowered his eyes and took several long pulls, draining half the iced pomegranate juice. The cup in his hand made the faintest clink. He focused and looked more closely. Beneath the dazzling sunlight, something even brighter was flashing.
A delicate platinum ring had been slipped around the straw of the drink.
Its understated, luxurious sheen scattered with every movement of the cup. The ring’s shadow fell through the pale-red juice, forming a graceful circle of floating light, delicate and beautiful.
Yan Xiaodao froze. His mind seemed to have been scorched blank by the blazing sun overhead, heat burning straight through him.
He looked up dazedly at Ling He. Mr. Ling had already walked dozens of meters away without once turning back.
Yan Xiaodao lowered his eyes to the ring again and carefully, almost reverently, slid it off the straw. For something like this to be thrown before him in such an unexpected moment and setting left him completely unprepared, struck senseless and swallowed whole by a surging wave.
Xiaohe.
Xiaohe…
“Ling He?” Yan Xiaodao called softly. Even his own voice sounded unfamiliar.
Ling He had already walked far ahead, heading toward the direction where the sunlight blazed like fire. He had decided where his life was going and had no intention of turning back toward the old road. He took the velvet box from his pocket and slipped the other ring onto the ring finger of his left hand.
That was enough.
He had imagined ten thousand passionate, romantic ways to do this, yet when the moment arrived he chose the dullest one. It felt as though they no longer needed any solemn, elaborate sense of ceremony. All he had done was cast the promise already wrapped around both their hearts into a small piece of metal with real weight, then place it on a finger.
He understood Xiaodao’s struggle better than anyone. Ling He himself had fought for more than ten years simply to keep living, and only after meeting Yan Xiaodao had he finally begun to calm those terrible emotions and loosen their hold on him. How could anyone expect Yan Xiaodao to walk out of his own pain in three or five days and pretend nothing had happened? Xiaodao’s suffering had to resemble the years Ling He himself had spent drifting through a dark, frozen river.
Everything he wanted to say and everything he wanted to do for Xiaodao was contained in those two rings.
When love has reached this point, I give you my whole life; you and I understand each other, so nothing needs to be said aloud.
My resolve to protect you for the rest of my life will never change, just as yours for me…
“Ling He, stop right there! Get back here!” Yan Xiaodao tried to call back the beautiful man fleeing ahead of him. Even the two legs he used to chase after Ling He no longer felt like his own. Sweat and emotion seemed to evaporate from his body, leaving nothing in his eyes or heart but Ling He.
Of course he understood why Ling He had given him the ring now. What had Yan Xiaodao been doing these past several days? He had been stumbling around like a wretched walking corpse, trapped in grief he could not escape, weak and self-pitying, deliberately withdrawing from the person closest to him because his pride had been so badly damaged.
The truth about his origins had dealt him a devastating emotional blow, destroying the composure and confidence he had carried for years. He was not as strong as he had believed. No matter how hard he crushed down his own pride and tried to be broad-minded and forgiving, there were things he simply could not accept or forgive. Ling He had endured even greater hardship from beginning to end, yet he had never complained.
Ling He had actually proposed to him.
That brat had beaten him to the proposal, which was absolutely outrageous!
This was supposed to have been Yan Xiaodao’s job. He had planned it long ago and had already secretly bought a pair of rings. While recuperating in the hospital with nothing to do, he had considered all kinds of ways to propose and had even planned a surprise trip overseas to make Ling He happy. Then the devastating blow about his past had struck, leaving the entire plan temporarily stranded.
“Xiaohe!…” Yan Xiaodao slipped the ring onto the ring finger of his left hand without the slightest hesitation. There was nothing to think about. He lengthened his stride and chased after Ling He.
Dusk was approaching. Ling He walked toward the falling sun, his back turned to the light so that a dark afterimage swayed across Yan Xiaodao’s vision. He could not make out the details, only the flutter of white clothing.
Traffic had begun thickening again around the west gate of the campus, clogging the road in a busy knot.
Ling He stepped out through the gate with a thousand thoughts in his head, letting the evening wind toss his hair as he released a breath. He had deliberately avoided the east gate because he did not want to run into Ling Huang. By sheer force of will, he pressed flat the emotions that had been twisting back and forth inside him until his true desire rose clearly from the bottom of his heart: he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Yan Xiaodao, and he wanted to return fully to the human world. That resolve was unshakable.
Outside the west gate, ordinary traffic crowded the road. Bicycles and electric scooters threaded through whatever gaps they could find, turning the scene into noisy chaos.
At that exact moment, as though the timing had been measured in advance, a black sedan suddenly lunged toward the curb and braked hard beside Ling He, stopping with unnerving precision. The door flew open with a bang and visibly struck him. Two heavily built men jumped from the car, grabbed Ling He, and tried to force him inside.
Ling He reacted instantly, retreating decisively to avoid being seized and tangled up.
He glared at them. “What the hell are you doing?!”
His flip-flops flew off almost immediately, leaving his bare feet on the rough pavement. He kicked one unidentified attacker away, and another rushed him at once.
Yan Xiaodao had in fact followed closely through the west gate and was less than twenty meters behind Ling He. He had expected nothing like this.
The moment Yan Xiaodao looked up and saw the danger, Ling He was already alone inside a ring of attackers. Shock tore through him. The blade beneath his ribs flashed instantly into his fingertips. He lunged from behind and slashed without hesitation toward the back of one attacker.
In broad daylight, right outside a university gate, someone was openly trying to abduct a man by car.
Every passerby was caught off guard. Some students and pedestrians hurried past with their heads lowered over their phones and might not even have noticed that anything had happened during those brief ten or twenty seconds.
The attackers had one clear target: Ling He. They had no intention of getting drawn into a prolonged fight and wanted only to take him alive. As Ling He kicked another man away, a small syringe darted toward the vulnerable hollow between his collarbones during an opening he could not cover. Transparent liquid sprayed from the metal needle. He managed to turn his vital area aside, but the needle still drove at an angle into the muscle of his chest.
Ling He wrenched himself free of the syringe, leaving the broken needle lodged in his chest as a thin streak of blood burst around it.
Yan Xiaodao roared in shock and pain.
He had already kicked one attacker down, but his hands still could not reach Ling He. Only a few steps away, he watched helplessly as Ling He suddenly staggered, nearly falling backward, his eyes visibly wrong. Then Ling He was hauled upright and brutally shoved into the car.
The black sedan took off the instant it had its target, wasting not even half a second and refusing to tangle with Yan Xiaodao. The kidnappers moved with the practiced efficiency of people who had done this kind of street abduction before. The car vanished in a cloud of exhaust and dust, leaving behind no usable plate number or identifying mark.
In that instant Yan Xiaodao was almost shattered by rage, shock, and despair. He could not control himself. Every drop of blood in his body seemed to turn cold.
Ling He had just proposed to him without saying a word.
Ling He had not even had time to leave him a single sentence.
The ring that promised them a lifetime together was still on the ring finger of his left hand, carrying the warmth they had shared. The agony of it was real, like a nightmare unfolding in the human world.
Bureau Chief Bao and Captain Xue quickly received Yan Xiaodao’s emergency call.
Bao Zhengwei was equally stunned and disbelieving. More than ten years later, Gu Yunzhou’s son had been abducted and disappeared just outside the west gate of Yanjing University, in the same place and in almost exactly the same manner as Gu Yunzhou had been taken all those years ago.
They had originally assigned people to watch over and protect Ling He, but after Gu Yaoting was successfully arrested, everyone had relaxed slightly. In the end they had overlooked the possibility that behind Gu Yaoting there were still people willing to trample openly over the most basic limits of public order.
The task force assembled at once. A convoy of police vehicles shot out of the municipal headquarters, sirens wailing through the blood-red light of Yandu at sunset.
A long, agonizing, sleepless night followed.
The next morning, the Western Hills stood beneath a clear sky, their green ridgelines stretching one after another. The bright heavens seemed entirely unaware of the human evil sheltered beneath them, or perhaps perfectly aware and simply choosing not to see.
Official cars converged from every direction outside the gates of the Zhao family villa in the Western Hills, bringing a gathering of distinguished and powerful guests. Most maintained their customary low-key appearance, dressed in formal black or gray and entering with bodyguards or security personnel at their sides. Yet the license plates on the cars, the location itself, and the dense pattern of sentries every few steps made the guests’ lofty status unmistakable.
Huge flower baskets filled the villa’s main hall, giving the place a festive, harmonious air. A red banner overhead carried wording such as “Commemorating the 120th Anniversary of Comrade Zhao Jixiu’s Birth.”
The Zhao father and son were hosting both the birthday commemoration and a tea gathering for older members of their circle at the villa that day, a chance for insiders to reminisce, talk about family matters, and renew old ties. Everyone present was a person of standing and seniority. Some shared old bonds of service, others were connected through family marriages, all of them woven into the same networks and speaking with much the same voice.
Zhao Shiyan had once overseen administrative affairs connected with research institutes under the Academy of Sciences, so several very senior academy figures had also been invited, including Professor Ning Hengqian. The two had known each other for many years and had once worked within the same institution. Ning Hengqian had been among the academicians promoted during Zhao Shiyan’s tenure in administration, and through him Zhao Shiyan had also known Ning Hengqian’s doctoral students.
Leaning on his cane, Ning Hengqian climbed the steps of the Western Hills villa alone.
The old professor had not brought his doctoral students to accompany him that day. He had even specifically told his driver to remain in the official car and rest rather than follow him inside.
Ning Hengqian entered the villa by himself. He stepped into the hall crowded with flowers while hollow, noisy greetings echoed around him. The brilliant colors of the giant banner and flower baskets blazed before everyone else, but against his eyes they seemed to drip blood, one drop after another, leaving vivid scarlet trails across the floor.
At the same time, somewhere else.
Ling He had slept unconscious through the entire night and also woke around dawn.
His mind was still sluggish and dizzy when he opened his eyes, and he knew it was the lingering effect of the drug. He slowly steadied his breathing, lifted his lashes, pushed past the blank gap in his recent memory, and recalled that he seemed to have just given Mr. Yan a platinum engagement ring.
The ring had been looped around the straw in the drink. Xiaodao was not blind. He must have seen it, right?
Ling He had been too embarrassed to confess and propose face-to-face, so he had turned and walked away. Sweet, sentimental declarations had never been his talent. Picking fights, insulting people, and spraying verbal poison were what he did best. These days the two of them got along too well for him even to do much of that. Faced with Yan Xiaodao, all his sharp talents had nowhere left to go except into bed.
The moment he moved his heavy, exhausted limbs, metal made an ugly sound. He realized his back was against a hard wall and he had been locked to it. Both arms were raised high on either side, fixed in place by iron shackles, and his feet were restrained in the same way.
The position was honestly laughable and childish.
So this was what those vicious bastards thought intimidation looked like? They believed this could frighten him out of his wits, crush his mind, wear down his will, and force him to submit? They had deliberately abducted him here for something this tedious, adding one last performance to their death throes before everything collapsed. Was that it?
The atmosphere of the room, and of the entire building, felt terribly familiar. More than a decade had passed, and the place had likely been remodeled inside and out more than once, but that familiar feeling could not be hidden. He had been here before, more than ten years ago, when he had been far younger and nowhere near as calm or formidable as he was now.
Several sets of footsteps sounded outside. The door opened, and the day’s leading actor hurried into Ling He’s line of sight, finally making his entrance.