After the kiss, both men were breathing a little hard.
Night had fallen completely. Qin Siyu lit the kerosene lamp, its glow dim.
It had been so long since Aston had seen one of these; he’d only used one as a child at the family’s country estate. He looked at the lamp, then at Qin Siyu.
Qin Siyu smiled. ‘We still don’t have electric lights at home. The shops downstairs and the hallway do, but none of the apartments seem to. That thing in books, where someone comes home, switches on the lights, and the whole place is suddenly bright… I’ve never experienced that. You know how poor I am.’
The kerosene lamp offered very little light. When he returned home, the apartment brightened only faintly because he was there, an almost imperceptible glow illuminating the tabletop while darkness remained all around. No lights sprang on for his sake.
The apartment he had moved into near the university the previous September did have electricity. But he lived in the living room, and it was the cheapest apartment imaginable, so even there the light was dim.
In those days, living rooms commonly had floor lamps rather than ceiling fixtures. Qin Siyu’s floor lamp was old and stood in a corner. Its already meager light was dimmer still.
Aston gazed at him.
‘Back to the blind date. My parents were indulging in wishful thinking.’ Qin Siyu put away the matchbox and returned it to the bookshelf. ‘I went today to turn her down. Zhou Yun is lovely, but—’
He turned toward Aston and repeated something Aston himself had said moments earlier. ‘Could I really take a body like this on a blind date?’
Aston went up to him and extended his tongue. Fascinated, Qin Siyu extended his too, letting their tongues play and coil together. At last he said, ‘I can’t anymore.’
He’d been changed into this.
By a man.
Aston asked quietly, ‘Then the sachet in her hand?’
Qin Siyu thought back and suddenly understood. ‘She bought it herself. It just happens to look like mine. I only made one.’
He continued, ‘Hers was actually a little rough. Whoever sewed it must have been in a hurry. The stitches weren’t particularly close together. But yours…’
Lowering his eyes, Qin Siyu opened the box and took out the sachet. ‘Every stitch was done painstakingly, so carefully that even powdered mugwort leaves can’t leak out.’
‘And another thing.’ Qin Siyu hung the sachet from the base of his middle finger and lifted it beside his eye on the side nearest the kerosene lamp, turning to look at its embroidery. ‘The pattern on yours is red beans. Hers has red flowers. They aren’t quite the same. Red beans are… symbols of longing for someone.’
Their eyes lifted from the sachet and met. Qin Siyu still held it as he embraced Aston, winding his other hand into the golden hair. They kissed again.
This time the kiss was slow, lingering, and long.
With the lamp lit, Aston looked around the room.
The room was very small, yet a bookshelf still divided it in two. Behind it was a narrow bed, probably where Qin Siyu’s maternal grandmother slept. She was staying with his uncle lately. Outside the bookshelf stood another, extremely narrow bed, likely made by a carpenter, or even built by Qin Siyu’s parents. Apart from those, there was only a table.
Qin Siyu smiled. ‘When I was little, my bed was a door laid across two wooden chests, with a mattress on top. When I got bigger I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I pestered my parents for a real bed, weeping and looking miserable. Dad didn’t want to agree, but Mom felt sorry for me. She asked an uncle she knew to build two beds for this room, then sold Grandma’s old bed for two dollars and fifty cents. What a fuss that was!’
On that childhood ‘bed,’ he couldn’t move. A tiny shift would dislodge the door, and the whole thing would crash to the ground. Sometimes the head fell; sometimes the foot. He would land on the floor in the middle of the night, jolted awake and dazed, then miserably put the bed back together and climb onto it. He assembled it as quietly as possible so he wouldn’t wake Grandma. Eventually he wrapped himself in his quilt to soften the fall, even in midsummer, sweating all over.
His remarkably peaceful sleeping posture now had been trained into him as a child.
Aston continued surveying his room.
On the table lay Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.
During the Great Depression, Hemingway’s works were popular across America. The image of the tough, unyielding man had captured the public imagination; readers saw themselves in these characters with their resilience and indomitable spirits.
But beneath the novel lay a volume of poetry.
There was another book beside the pillow.
Aston read the title: Master Qigong in Thirty Days. It was a Chinese book, but an English line was printed beneath the title.
Aston: ‘…………’
Remembering Qin Siyu’s earlier introduction to The Legend of the Swordsmen of the Mountains of Shu, he praised him. ‘You really do want to become a sword-wielding immortal.’
‘…’ Qin Siyu glanced at the book. ‘The room is too small, so all I can practice is inner cultivation.’ To exercise and hopefully live a long life.
Aston continued his praise. ‘An American tough guy who practices qigong.’
Qin Siyu retorted, ‘You’re really asking to be beaten up.’
He just wanted to exercise!
He had practiced qigong for a while, but hadn’t noticed any effect, or any particular improvement in his health.
Qin Siyu valued efficiency. There had been a period when one professor’s lectures were unbearably dull, and worse, the man understood his students well enough to forbid them from reading anything else during class. He knew no one would listen otherwise.
So Qin Siyu decided to practice his exercises.
He was determined not to waste the time.
At each lecture, he sat at the very back, feet shoulder-width apart on the ground, knees bent so his thighs and shins formed right angles, as did his thighs and torso. He sat on only the front third of the chair, arms hanging by his sides, head upright, gaze unfocused, tongue resting lightly against the roof of his mouth.
He’d thought the posture wasn’t that outlandish, not too different from anyone else’s. Surely nobody would notice. Yet after two classes the old professor walked down to him, bent forward, stared at his face, and asked, ‘What. Are. You. Doing?’
At the time Qin Siyu had replied, ‘…Nothing.’
The divine technique was never mastered; the sword immortal fell. Truly a tragedy for all who heard it.
There was also a calendar on the desk. It was lying open. Aston glanced at it and stopped.
July 15, the day they’d kissed while drunk, was circled.
July 29, the day they’d kissed through the library window, was circled too.
‘…’ Aston picked it up and glanced at Qin Siyu.
Qin Siyu: ‘Uh.’
Aston flipped back through the calendar.
The day they kissed in the darkness at Cliff’s house was circled as well.
So was the day they encountered and killed the bear in Yosemite.
And there were others—
Qin Siyu took the calendar, closed its cover, and laid it face down on the table. Looking at Aston, he said, ‘I know I’ll remember roughly when things happened, but I’m not sure I’ll remember every exact date. So I put a little circle around them. I didn’t write explanations. We… can’t write explanations.’
Aston looked at him deeply. ‘I understand.’
Of course he understood.
Every date circled on the calendar concerned him.
He could feel the special regard, the preference he had wanted so desperately to possess.
Qin Siyu loved many people. But he loved Aston most. Everyone else put together couldn’t make up even one of those circles on the calendar.
They kissed for the fourth time in a short span.
Aston cradled the back of Qin Siyu’s head, licked his lips, and curled his tongue around Qin Siyu’s. After only a handful of kisses, it was almost an addiction. The moment they stopped, their lips and tongues felt empty and their senses went numb. Only kissing could awaken them again, bring them to life and give them some sense of purpose.
From outside the room, Qin Siyu’s parents called them to dinner.
Lin Xiangmei called in Cantonese, ‘Ah Yu!’
Aston looked at Qin Siyu and repeated it, ‘Ah Yu?’
‘My childhood nickname,’ Qin Siyu explained.
Aston paused for a few seconds. ‘It sounds lovely.’
Qin Siyu: ‘…………’
What was that supposed to mean?
They ate in the front room.
Lin Xiangmei had set up the table and laid out the dishes.
The family had two rooms. Qin Siyu’s parents slept in the front room overlooking the street, while he slept in the dark rear room. There was only one kitchen per floor, shared by four families, but the Qin family’s front room had a kerosene stove for brewing tea.
Lin Xiangmei made a pot of tea. Her English wasn’t good, and she seemed ill at ease.
Qin Siyu had brought classmates home before, such as Wu Xintong, but those classmates seemed to belong to his world. This guest, however, sat so properly he seemed like a star or a moon from the heavens. Even his posture was incomparably graceful.
How on earth did they know each other?
Qin Siyu assumed Aston would find the tea unpalatable, but Aston drained it in a few sips.
Qin Sanfu entered the room too, laughed amiably with his son’s classmate, and said, ‘Hello, hello,’ before asking Qin Siyu in Cantonese, ‘Why can’t we bring up the idea of you marrying into her family again?’
Knowing he meant Zhou Yun, Qin Siyu said, ‘We have a guest!’
‘Oh, just tell me briefly!’ Qin Sanfu punched him lightly. ‘Don’t speak so absolutely.’
Qin Siyu dodged to take the force out of the blow. ‘I told her you two were indulging in wishful thinking.’
‘!!!’ Qin Sanfu punched him again, disappointed. ‘How could you say something so final!’
Qin Siyu dodged again. ‘What else was I supposed to say?’
‘You truly didn’t feel anything for her? Well, feelings aren’t that important anyway. It doesn’t matter much whom you marry. You should look at their circumstances—’
Aston gave a short laugh at first, but as Qin Sanfu kept lecturing, he understood what they were discussing. His expression stayed indifferent, though beneath the table the toe of his leather shoe gently stepped on Qin Siyu’s toes.
A tingling shot through Qin Siyu’s toes. His eyes caught Aston’s.
He told his father, ‘Anyway, we really aren’t the sort of people who could like each other. Stop imagining things. We have a guest. Let’s talk tomorrow.’
‘But—’
For a family like theirs, entertaining a guest meant piling as much rice as possible into the bowl.
Lin Xiangmei was enthusiastic. She scooped out a full bowl of rice and pressed it firmly down with a wooden rice paddle. Then she added more up to the rim, packed it down again, and added still more.
She had stir-fried greens, simmered tofu, put some leftover fish heads from the shop downstairs into the soup, and spent quite a bit of money on a few pieces of char siu.
Qin Siyu expected Aston wouldn’t like the food. Then his parents would do what Chinese parents everywhere did, sighing and lamenting, ‘Why are you eating so little?’ ‘You’re so grown up and still can’t eat properly!’
Lin Xiangmei might even launch into a lecture on health, saying, ‘Why are you eating so little? There’s a Chinese medicine shop next door. We can buy some dujiaojin to stimulate your appetite! Add a little when making soup. It enters the stomach meridian and opens up your appetite.’
When Qin Siyu was a child and had trouble eating, Lin Xiangmei had added dujiaojin to his meals, grudgingly using only a stalk or two each time. He thought its effects were probably only psychological.
But Aston didn’t complain about the flavors. He ate one bite after another, wielding his chopsticks perfectly well to pick up greens and spoon up tofu soup, looking as though he were tasting something delicious and was very happy about it.
For a moment Qin Siyu felt dazed.
A neighbor came to borrow something, drawing Qin Sanfu and Lin Xiangmei to the doorway. Qin Siyu nudged Aston with an elbow. ‘If you can’t finish your rice, give me some.’
Aston looked at him. ‘If they come back and discover your bowl has more rice than before, it’ll look suspicious.’
Qin Siyu fetched a fresh pair of chopsticks, scooped a large portion from the far side of Aston’s bowl into his own, added two spoonfuls of tofu soup, stirred the rice loose, slurped it all down, set down his bowl, and looked at Aston.
Aston praised him. ‘Impressive.’
After dinner, Aston suddenly asked Qin Siyu whether he wanted to go to his house.
Qin Siyu: ‘Huh?’
Aston said, ‘My parents have both returned to New York. We also have an estate in Hillsborough, as you know. Tonight… I’d like to show it to you.’
Qin Siyu: ‘Huh?’
To celebrate Qixi?
But Aston wanted him to see it, and Qin Siyu was happy to indulge him.
He lied to Qin Sanfu and Lin Xiangmei, saying he had something to do, and slipped out. Naturally, neither parent suspected anything.
First they went to collect a car. Qin Siyu discovered that Aston even had his own parking space downtown.
They walked to a club, where the attendant invited them inside to wait five minutes. Aston didn’t go in. He merely asked the valet to bring the car out. A few minutes later, he took the keys and called to Qin Siyu, ‘Get in.’
‘Oh.’
So these elegant luxury clubs would park wealthy people’s cars whenever they wanted.
The car was around six meters long, actually quite difficult to drive, but Aston’s hands were perfectly steady.
They talked along the way. Qin Siyu grew curious. ‘Why are we going there?’
Aston only replied, ‘You’ll find out soon.’
When the conversation returned to Qin Siyu’s arranged meeting, he told Aston about the major tongs and their complicated histories. Aston listened quietly, even asking questions from time to time.
The journey lasted forty minutes. Qin Siyu had just finished the tong histories when they arrived.
The car drove straight into the grounds, rounded a reflecting pool, and finally stopped in front of the private residence.
At the sight of the house, Qin Siyu was stunned.
It was practically a palace. The house alone had to cover more than an acre, almost the size of a football field.
‘Um,’ Qin Siyu asked, ‘just how big is the house?’
‘One and a half acres,’ Aston said.
Qin Siyu: ‘…’ Exactly a football field, then.
‘Come have a look.’
‘All right.’
Aston had probably given advance notice; there were hardly any people inside.
Openwork patterns adorned the outer doors. Looking closely, Qin Siyu could see that at the center of each circle was a stylized English ‘AA’, the initials of Alexander Aston. Beautiful, certainly, though already a hint of Alexander Aston’s character showed through.
Beyond the main entrance stood an enormous foyer. The columns and walls were made of expensive natural stone and kept so clean that people were probably forbidden to touch them.
A long gallery extended to the left and another to the right.
Both corridors were extraordinarily broad, with skylights. One side contained reception rooms, living rooms, tearooms, dining rooms, and more. The dining room was like something from a movie, with high crystal chandeliers and a long, magnificent table. Kitchen staff normally used separate doors and corridors. There was even a servants’ shoe room where their shoes had to be left rather than at the front entrance. A connecting passage from kitchen to dining room was reserved for carrying food, not for servants to walk through otherwise. Outside the kitchen stood rooms for storing vegetables and meat. Inside was a dumbwaiter with a little bell beside it, used to send food up to the second floor.
There was another curious device on that side.
An entire wall was covered in lights, so many of them.
Aston explained, ‘Every room has a bell connected by wires. If someone presses the bell, the corresponding light on this wall comes on.’
Qin Siyu understood. ‘I see!’
He’d imagined that when ‘masters’ wanted something, they’d have to telephone for it themselves. But apparently all they needed was to press a bell, move one finger, and a ‘servant’ would come upstairs to hear the request in person.
The master didn’t even need to waste time explaining what they wanted over the telephone, unless it was urgent.
The other side contained a library, music hall, ballroom, cinema, recreation room, gymnasium, meditation room, dressing rooms, and more. Some of these had enormous stages, crystal chandeliers, and red curtains hanging behind them.
Everything glittered with gold. The lower walls were metallic in color, perhaps even gilded, and covered in intricate raised ornamentation. Above were red panels patterned in gold. Murals hung everywhere, and huge, elaborate candelabra stood in the rooms.
Qin Siyu paused when he saw an exquisite piano. He remembered the day he’d first met Aston.
He also noticed that many of the table and chair legs were carved as angels. The angels looked up, arms raised to support the furniture; many were kneeling. Their masters could sit on a chair with angels for legs. This, too, spoke volumes about Alex Aston’s character.
Some chandeliers were enormous and ornate, while the ceiling reliefs showed cherubs holding them in their mouths. The chandeliers’ cords hung from between the little angels’ lips, their wings outspread as they furnished light for Alex Aston.
What Qin Siyu loved most on this side was the library.
It was a vast, lofty space crowded with books. The library had two levels, but the upper story consisted only of inward-facing balconies with elegant railings. The center was open, giving the whole room a magnificent sense of space.
There was also a Chinese Room, filled with Chinese art: furniture, folding screens, and carvings with traditional Chinese flowers and birds.
The whole thing struck Qin Siyu as surreal. Rich people always claimed to love Chinese art, yet discriminated against actual Chinese people. What a contradiction.
At a turn, they entered a perpendicular gallery, and the scenery changed again.
This corridor was even wider, almost an exhibition hall.
The gallery leading toward Alex Aston’s study was filled with weapons, clearly all historical artifacts.
The ceiling rose high above them. Its paintings copied scenes from Genesis and other works, bordered and ornamented with intricate metalwork.
Several immense suits of knight’s armor stood beside the entrance, complete with mounted cavalry and horses. They were slightly larger than life, assembled into poses and standing motionless.
And in seemingly endless rows of huge glass cases were weapons.
The first seven or eight cases contained nothing but swords.
Some cases had two levels. Two suits of armor stood below, while the upper display board tilted outward at forty-five degrees so viewers could admire everything behind the glass. Against a black board, thirteen swords spread in a fan, their sharp points converging at the same place, the center of the board’s lower edge. Their blades gleamed.
The middle case in this section was clearly designed as a centerpiece.
Candelabra on both sides illuminated an enormous wall of dark-green marble. Golden borders divided it into sections. The central border formed a circle around an elaborate stone relief depicting a biblical battle in which God was angered. Two projecting stands high on either side bore cavalry armor, with two further reliefs below.
Beneath them, the same dark-green marble framed a glass case containing another thirteen swords. Armor stood guard in the cases on either side.
Beyond the swords came spears.
The central display there was different.
The spears were too long for cabinets, so six hung on the wall in three crossed pairs. Below them was a glass display holding a soldier’s armor, and below that a supporting column encircled by little angels bearing up its weight. Armor cases flanked the arrangement once more.
Then came daggers.
After them, bows and crossbows.
In the main display there, dozens of arrows pointed toward a sun at the center. This time the angels beside the supporting column rode wild beasts.
Next came shields.
Then rifles, and finally pistols.
Guns of every kind.
More than a thousand meters of vast corridors and hundreds of enormous cases were filled with deadly weapons.
Aston spoke quietly. ‘Many of these suits of armor and weapons… belonged to figures known to history, people who fought in great battles. Quite a few were heroes, warriors, or formidable commanders.’
Qin Siyu: ‘…’
He wondered: What sort of man was Alex Aston?
So many suits of armor and weapons, many of them once owned by heroes and brave warriors. Now they stood displayed inside this mansion, subject to Alex Aston’s command.
Just before the gallery’s exit stood a huge stone sculpture of Athena.
Yet the goddess of war bowed her head a little. Her spear pointed toward the ground at one side, a posture of submission, as though she were guarding the gate and respectfully seeing them out.
Even the gods seemed like accessories.
Alex Aston could always make violence and power appear justified. He incorporated even the gods into his order.
Beyond lay Alex Aston’s hunting trophy room.
The walls were covered with mounted animal heads: brown bears, lions, tigers…
Beneath them were complete animal pelts.
From the ceiling hung the entire skeleton of a whale.
Alex Aston… Qin Siyu thought. With a father like this, obsessed with war and killing, Kingsley must have suffered terribly as a child.
They never actually entered Alex Aston’s study. Instead they turned back and walked down the other gallery. Alex’s study stood at one far end; the couple’s bedroom at the other.
This other exhibition area consisted entirely of family portraits.
There were portraits of Kingsley Aston, his parents, his grandparents, and his great-grandparents.
Qin Siyu stopped for a long time in front of a portrait of Kingsley at eighteen.
The handsome young man in the painting was impeccably dressed and sat with perfect posture. But Qin Siyu asked, ‘Did something happen that day? Why don’t you look very happy in the painting?’
Aston glanced at him, his chest tightening.
That was the day he came of age. He should have been free from then on. Yet neither father nor mother offered a word of congratulations. They spoke only of the family and of responsibility, binding him even tighter.
He’d been unhappy, and the portrait had hung here ever since. Time had gone by. Yet it wasn’t until tonight that someone noticed his feelings for the very first time.
They didn’t enter the two enormous dressing rooms or the master bedroom. Aston explained, ‘Downstairs there are an indoor swimming pool, indoor courts, and other facilities. Outside is a covered loggia. Upstairs are the guest bedrooms and bathrooms.’
Qin Siyu asked, ‘How many guest bedrooms?’
‘Twenty-five,’ Aston said.
Qin Siyu: ‘…………’
He shouldn’t have asked.
After leaving the main residence, Qin Siyu asked, ‘Kingsley, where is your room?’
‘I live in another building,’ Aston said. ‘The West Building. I live in the West Building myself; the servants live in the East Building.’
‘Oh.’
‘Let’s take a look over there first.’ Aston stepped onto a tree-lined path. ‘Would you rather walk or drive? The estate covers twenty-five acres.’
‘Let’s walk.’
‘All right.’
Two people approached and greeted him, ‘Master.’
Aston merely inclined his head.
After they passed, Aston explained, ‘Those two are nutritionists for the horses.’
Qin Siyu repeated blankly, ‘Nutritionists… for horses?’ Could those two words really go together?
‘Mm.’
He asked, still expressionless, ‘Does every living thing in your household have its own nutritionist?’
Aston laughed. ‘More or less. Some horses are special and have individual nutritionists.’
Qin Siyu: ‘…’
The estate had everything.
Woodlands, gardens, sports courts, swimming pools, stables, pastures, and a hunting preserve.
As they walked, Aston turned on lights along the way.
Before entering the woods, he switched on the forest lights, making the area suddenly bright.
The woods had several landscaped sections. In a corner rose an immense stand of coast redwoods, towering over everything. Aston said they were all over two hundred years old, and some in the middle were three hundred. The grove had been here before the estate was developed.
‘Is two hundred years that much?’ Qin Siyu asked. ‘National parks have plenty of trees more than two thousand years old.’
‘Outside the national parks they’re actually very rare.’ Aston seemed to be in a particularly good mood. ‘They were cut down during the railroad-building years. A single tree like this is enough to be a selling point for an estate.’
‘Oh.’
Qin Siyu didn’t find this extraordinarily impressive. After all, anyone could enter a national park.
A stream ran through the woods, with a walking path alongside it. The watercourse was probably natural, but Alex and Victoria Aston seemed such control enthusiasts that they’d adjusted even the shape of its bends to make them perfect.
‘In the middle of the lawn behind the house is a California oak over five hundred years old,’ Aston said. ‘Its trunk is more than three meters in diameter. It’s the estate’s landmark. We’ll circle back to it later.’
‘Okay~’
The other woodland sections contained exactly what one might expect: trees Alex and Victoria Aston had brought in from other continents. European and Asian trees, including olive, Japanese maple, and cherry, all clearly requiring meticulous care.
Before entering the gardens, Aston turned on the garden lights.
The center held a rose garden with all sorts and colors of roses encircling a fountain.
Elsewhere Qin Siyu once again sensed the couple’s need for control.
The gardens were divided into European, Asian, American, and other sections. The Asian garden was especially elaborate. At its entrance, long wisteria vines hung from a trellis over the path. Lotus flowers bloomed on an artificial pond with a pavilion, rockery, and ornamental pines at its center; camellias filled the flowerbeds. The European section centered on a white pavilion with columns and arches, surrounded by fields of lavender and tulips, their vivid colors interwoven.
At the edge of the woods stood a remarkably beautiful building. Qin Siyu asked, ‘What’s that? May I ask?’
Aston glanced toward it. ‘A chapel.’
‘A chapel.’ Qin Siyu asked numbly, ‘Your family has its own chapel?’
‘Mm,’ Aston said calmly.
Qin Siyu thought this was exactly the place to bring Qin Sanfu. His father could brag about it back in Chinatown for the rest of his life.
They didn’t enter the hunting preserve.
An ordinary estate might stock deer or perhaps wild boar at most, but Qin Siyu couldn’t imagine what Alex Aston kept there, and didn’t quite dare go in.
Instead they went around to the stables.
Beside them lay the pasture, filled with livestock, including prize-winning Ayrshire cattle. The family ate produce raised on its own land.
At the stables, Aston led out a horse, entirely black, unusually large and beautiful, powerfully muscled, with a saddle and bridle in gold and crimson.
‘Go ahead and get on. He’s my horse.’ Aston patted its back. ‘Need a hand?’
‘I don’t need help.’ Qin Siyu considered for a moment. ‘But he looks rather temperamental. Will he agree?’
‘He will.’ Aston narrowed his eyes and stroked the horse’s neck, as though speaking to it, introducing Qin Siyu, or perhaps giving an order.
‘All right.’ Qin Siyu swung himself onto the horse. He tried to place his other foot in the stirrup, but missed the first time. Aston’s legs were too long. Qin Siyu apparently needed to lower his leg and grip more tightly.
Aston went to that side to help, gently taking Qin Siyu’s ankle.
The stimulation was so intense that Qin Siyu instinctively jerked his foot away, but Aston caught it firmly.
They exchanged a silent look. Suddenly the whole estate seemed quiet.
Several seconds later, Aston placed Qin Siyu’s foot in the stirrup and settled him properly in the saddle. Then he took the reins and walked ahead.
Qin Siyu lowered his head and rode step by step along the woodland path.
Aston led the horse, taking Qin Siyu for a stroll. Suddenly he turned his head and smiled.
Qin Siyu’s lips curved too.
‘Sean, did you know,’ Aston remarked almost casually, ‘that allowing another person to ride your horse is quite a serious matter?’
‘Why?’ Qin Siyu asked.
Still walking ahead, Aston said, ‘It means giving that person control of your horse. Letting the horse recognize another master.’
In the moonlight their gazes twined gently. Qin Siyu looked down and stroked the horse’s neck. Its coat felt sleek under his hand, and even its mane was beautiful.
‘Thank you, Kingsley,’ Qin Siyu said. ‘I’m very glad to meet him.’
‘He’s glad to meet you too, Sean.’ Aston stepped back, drew Qin Siyu’s calf close, and rubbed the golden hair at his temple affectionately against the side of Qin Siyu’s leg several times.
Qin Siyu lowered a hand and stroked the back of Aston’s head.
They walked on, turning on lights everywhere they went.
Something puzzled Qin Siyu: every time they left a place, Aston didn’t turn its lights off. Even after they had gone far away, when Qin Siyu glanced back he could still see patches of warm yellow light.
At last they returned to the lawn in front of the house. Qin Siyu dismounted. Aston said something to the horse, and it left on its own.
‘He knows the way back to the stable,’ Aston explained. ‘Sean, look up. Look all around you.’
‘Mm?’ Qin Siyu didn’t understand, but raised his head anyway.
In an instant he froze.
Suddenly, one by one, all the lights across the lawn were coming on.
First the lights lining the reflecting pool before the mansion.
The long mirror pool stretched hundreds of meters in front of the house, shallow and narrow, cutting across the lawn toward a fountain. As the lights came on, the statues, hedges, and magnificent building at its far end were reflected in the water.
Next came the lights at the fountain’s base.
The lofty central sculpture emerged from the darkness, glowing softly in the illumination.
Then the lawn lights and driveway lights, followed by the floodlights on the building’s facade. Columns and walls came into view, every detail of their reliefs revealed.
Finally, the lights inside the mansion.
Floor after floor lit up in dazzling splendor.
Through the windows Qin Siyu could see that chandeliers, sconces, and ceiling lamps were all switched on. Even the stage lights in the ballroom blazed.
In the distance, the East and West Buildings were doing the same.
Qin Siyu was stunned.
The lights were so bright. Never in his life had he seen anything so grand and brilliant.
Light surged across the entire estate in a tide of gold. Radiant, shimmering, dazzling, as bright as day, overwhelmingly magnificent.
‘You…’ Qin Siyu stammered. ‘Kingsley, you…’
‘You said earlier,’ Aston replied calmly, ‘that your family has always used a kerosene lamp, faint and dim, and never once had a bright light come on especially for you.’
‘…Mm.’ He’d actually said it casually.
Though it was true. The lights at school and the hospital came on and went off according to schedule. There had never been a space brightened for his sake, not even a single square foot.
‘Sean, now every one of these lights has come on because of you.’ Aston smiled. ‘Welcome home.’
Qin Siyu loved those lights Aston had switched on for him alone.
He greedily committed the sight before him to memory. ‘Thank you, Kingsley. Thank you. I’ll remember this glorious, radiant sight tonight for the rest of my life.’
Before this evening, never had a bright lamp been lit especially for him. Tonight a thousand electric lights had dispelled the darkness at once for his sake, piercing the night sky.
After asking the steward in the equipment room to switch the lights off and return the estate to normal, the two went to see the oak.
Its trunk measured three meters across, and its crown was immense and dense, its twisted, powerful branches entwining.
Their first deep kiss had been under an oak. Now here they were beneath another.
Both wanted to kiss again.
But this was the landmark of Aston’s family estate, so they couldn’t do that here.
Walking on, they came to the West Building, which belonged entirely to Kingsley Aston.
Its decoration was much the same, but it contained an enormous fitness area.
Treadmills, rowing machines, barbells, dumbbells, a boxing ring, and a great number of punching bags.
Alex and Victoria Aston had been extremely concerned with cultivating their son’s masculinity.
From childhood he’d been made to fight and struggle in a steel cage.
Thinking about how determined they’d been to cultivate his masculine qualities, when now he was fascinated by another man’s reproductive organ, Aston suddenly felt a surge of satisfaction.
‘Boxing?’ Qin Siyu said. ‘I don’t know how to do that.’
‘I know,’ Aston answered. ‘You practice qigong.’
‘Could you shut up?’ Qin Siyu said.
Aston raised an index finger, moved it from one corner of his mouth to the other in a zipping motion a few inches from his lips, and indicated that his mouth was shut.
Zippers had begun to grow popular in the past few years and were being used in both men’s and women’s clothes.
‘Still,’ Qin Siyu continued several seconds later, ‘when I was young, my parents wanted me to make a living in Cantonese opera. I did learn a little staff work and weapon handling. You know how I met Professor Brown at the opera theater.’
‘I know.’
During the years when he was being trained for a future in Cantonese opera, Qin Siyu had to sing, dance, and learn bowed-string instruments, all the way until the end of tenth grade. Even now, when bored, he could single-handedly put on an entire performance by himself, with precisely zero spectators.
There was a wall of mirrors in the gym. Qin Siyu asked, ‘What are these mirrors for?’
Aston replied, ‘Checking that your posture is correct, and—’
‘And?’
‘Seeing which parts of your body need more exercise, among other things.’
Aston drew Qin Siyu in front of him and held him around the waist before the mirror. ‘You can study yourself here. Decide which muscles need work.’
Qin Siyu was noticeably slimmer than Aston. ‘…Forget it. Discussing this with you is pointless and a waste of time. Asians don’t easily bulk up the way you Westerners do.’
Aston didn’t release him. He kept him before the mirror, his grip on Qin Siyu’s waist peculiar: his thumbs separated from the other four fingers to grasp the front and back of his waist, his thumbs pressing into the hollows of his lower back. ‘Why not?’
They held each other’s eyes in the mirror. Qin Siyu said, ‘I don’t know. I’d need to look up the literature and study it.’ His whole pelvis was tingling again.
Only after a long exchange of glances did Aston release him.
Finally, they entered Aston’s bedroom.
The only bedroom they entered that night.
After the oak tree and the lighting of the estate, they kissed passionately the moment they stepped inside.
They didn’t turn on a single light.
Earlier that evening in Qin Siyu’s home, they could still say, ‘We were only confused for a moment. We’re not homosexuals.’ What about now?
Had they once again been ‘confused for a moment’?
But the darkness could shelter them.
As though that meant they could go on deceiving themselves.
For someone leaping from a cliff into the abyss, there must be some difference between jumping with one’s eyes open and jumping with them shut.
Qin Siyu was pressed against the wall, passively receiving Aston’s tongue.
But soon his own tongue wrapped around it.
Their tongues swept and pushed against each other. Qin Siyu seemed to learn instinctively. Sometimes he pushed back, trying to take control, only to be forced backward, pinned and pressed as Aston taught him a lesson. Sometimes he hooked Aston’s tongue and drew it back, wanting him to reach deeper.
They fit each other too perfectly, body and soul. Even kissing brought a sensation of extraordinary pleasure in both.
While their tongues curled together, Aston took Qin Siyu’s hand and placed his palm against his own chest muscles.
He held Qin Siyu’s hand there firmly, making him feel the muscle beneath. He released his mouth, breathing hard, and said in beautiful English, ‘In front of the mirror you said you wanted to “study it,” didn’t you?’
Qin Siyu’s palm prickled. Instinctively he tried to jerk away, but Aston held him fast. Qin Siyu’s fingers curled automatically, feeling the yielding firmness of muscle. It felt wonderful.
‘Don’t—’ Qin Siyu said.
Aston kissed him again, fixed his palm against Aston’s chest, and guided it.
His palm felt as if it were on fire, rubbing up and down.
Under his fingers was the rough texture of cloth. Sometimes the fabric rode up as his fingers traveled over it, and he had to cross the folds. Qin Siyu disliked that barrier terribly, so he pressed harder, keeping his fingers tightly against Aston’s chest and pushing every wrinkle upward, unwilling to leave the smallest space between them.
His fingertips seemed to burn, fierce and hot, as though his hand were—
After a while, Qin Siyu couldn’t bear it any longer. He drew back his fingers and embraced Aston around the waist.
After the kiss ended, Qin Siyu suddenly felt weightless. His feet left the floor. A few steps later, his back met a mattress, soft yet firm.
Aston’s voice sounded above him. ‘Rather than studying references, I prefer to do my own research.’
With difficulty Qin Siyu asked, ‘Research what?’
But immediately he remembered their conversation before the mirror.
‘Research the differences between bodies.’ Sure enough, Aston pressed two fingers against a patch of fabric over the left side of Qin Siyu’s chest, spread them apart to stretch the cloth taut, and leaned closer. A faint sound of sniffing filled the air.
Qin Siyu was about to lose his mind. He covered his eyes with an arm. ‘Don’t do that. I don’t smell of anything!’
‘Is that so?’ Aston’s voice was still deep, now colored by desire, as he parted his lips.
Warmth spread over the left side of Qin Siyu’s chest. It felt as though the fabric might split. His waist jerked upward. ‘You—’
As though fascinated, Aston extended his tongue again.
The shirt over his chest had become almost translucent.
Aston even reached out with a fingertip to study him further.
But on the other side Aston merely placed two fingertips a little apart, rubbing the cloth above and below the right side with a gap of two inches between them. He wouldn’t touch the center.
Qin Siyu hesitated. ‘Kingsley.’
‘Mm?’
Qin Siyu was nearly frantic. ‘The other side!’
‘As you command,’ Aston replied.
His mouth moved closer.
There was a small, wet smacking sound.
After more than ten minutes of helpless twisting and lifting his waist on the bed, both sides of Qin Siyu’s chest had finally gone numb.
They tingled, his blood surging as though something might burst.
They kissed again, lips and tongues entangled.
His eyes had adjusted to the darkness. Qin Siyu noticed a candlestick on the bedside table.
Driven by a powerful impulse, he crawled over and felt across the table. He found a thin box of matches, drew one out, struck it, and lit the candle. Lifting the candlestick beside Aston’s face, he let the flame illuminate him.
Darkness might be safer, but suddenly he wanted desperately to see Aston.
Aston watched him silently.
In the flickering candlelight Qin Siyu could finally make out Aston’s slightly disheveled hair, eyes darkened with desire, sweat-dampened nose, and reddened lips.
By candlelight Aston’s dark pupils looked larger, more shadowy and profound, almost deep blue. A yellow flame glimmered in his pupils, and within it Qin Siyu could see himself.
He looked for a long time. Then suddenly he blew out the candle, tossed it aside, embraced Aston, and they kissed passionately again.