Chapter 16#
The Snow is Heavy Tonight#
The car became very quiet.
Quiet, with only the sound of wind and snow. The heavy vehicle body shielded everything, making it all seem distant, yet clamorous.
Clamorous as if the car were being swallowed by the snow.
Li Heng distinguished it for a few seconds before realizing that the wind sound loud enough to swallow an SUV was actually his own blood rushing.
He raised his hand and touched Ji Liandong’s eyes.
The thin mist inside was so cold.
Li Heng thought, of course he could make such a judgment, but it wasn’t Ji Liandong’s responsibility. A person who’d always stood in ice water felt like this when held.
He provoked Ji Liandong, kissing him knowing full well this truth.
He extended his warm hands, exerting gentle, careful force, excavating Ji Liandong from the wrapping of his down jacket. Such clothes designed to retain warmth could insulate against the cold, protect the heat generated within the body, yet couldn’t warm someone already consumed by wind and snow.
Li Heng pulled open his coat and wrapped Ji Liandong in it.
He looked at Ji Liandong’s eyes.
These eyes had been persuaded by wind and snow. Even at this distance, nothing had truly melted, nothing flowed from within, despite the curve being quite gentle.
Ji Liandong tilted his head back, his gaze very calm, with an almost tolerant attitude, patiently waiting for his questions.
That thin flush of color that briefly spread across his skin after the kiss quickly faded, returning to the paleness of ice hands. Even his breath on his hands had minimal effect.
This body hadn’t managed to warm up as hoped.
“I can’t think of anything,” Li Heng admitted truthfully.
A mass of snow crashed onto the front windshield.
Li Heng didn’t immediately turn on the wipers to clear it.
He said: “I can’t think of what to ask, Ji Liandong. I should seize this opportunity—you don’t get this kind of treatment every day, do you?”
He saw Ji Liandong’s eyes curve slightly. It had to be said, sometimes in the body of his witness, who he’d reunited with after all these years, there remained traces of the old temperament.
Li Heng of course knew that at fifteen, Ji Liandong had deepened those abuse wounds himself. An abuse veteran knows how to be discreet, how not to leave evidence, but Ji Liandong made them gruesome… to guide the well-meaning investigator not to probe further, to hastily categorize everything as “self-defense.”
That time Li Heng chose to cooperate with Ji Liandong, and thus he received his reward: over the next 15 months, direct evidence for 15 cases involving the sordid secrets of that circle mysteriously landed in his personal mailbox.
Li Heng used this to complete his initial accumulation of political achievements.
Ji Liandong never reneged on debts. He was quite fair.
This time was no different.
The movie star was very patient, waiting quietly. Li Heng lowered his head, thinking inopportunely that they probably wouldn’t see fireworks. With snow this heavy, no one would go outside to set them off.
In this weather, a warm home and a hot bowl of soup for dinner held far greater appeal than impractical, cold flames.
The snow pressed down overloaded tree branches until they snapped.
Their car was directly below. A broken branch crashed onto the roof, thick snow pressing against the glass. Li Heng instinctively pulled the person into his arms, completing the action before regaining awareness.
With such solid anti-blast armor, it shouldn’t fear mere blizzards.
Yet his embrace had tightened, his arms wrapping around the cold body. Li Heng simply reclined the seat, dimmed the lights. He let Ji Liandong rest on his arm, practicing in more places the techniques he’d observed in this new domain.
Ji Liandong’s pale body flushed with warmth again.
The steady pulse of the carotid artery, the hollow of the shoulder, collarbones sharp enough to cut, successive tremors like vortex after vortex spreading ripples across this ice water that had been perfectly still.
…Li Heng suddenly stopped.
He stopped, facing the glaring scars.
Li Heng pressed his hand against the skeletal chest, so fragile it felt like it might break with slight pressure.
Ji Liandong’s heartbeat was abnormally weak, his chest’s rise and fall very subtle. This body was covered in scars.
Already desiccated scars that would never disappear.
Li Heng wrapped the person in his coat, carefully arranging Ji Liandong’s slightly damp short hair, examining those eyes closely.
Li Heng said softly: “Ji Liandong.”
He grasped Ji Liandong’s hand.
Ji Liandong lay on his coat, heard him call his name, and his eyes moved slightly. The still ice water flowed, and he looked toward Li Heng.
Ji Liandong was conscious.
Waiting for Li Heng’s questions.
Li Heng looked out the window, continuing to gently stroke Ji Liandong’s hair, because he really didn’t want to stop this motion. He completely understood Ji Liandong’s reaction. No one could question it unless their own chest had been pierced and torn.
Li Heng thought of his question.
“I want to know,” Li Heng said.
He looked into Ji Liandong’s eyes amid the heartbeat sounds.
“Ji Liandong, the snow is very heavy tonight. Can I take you home?”
…
This was really a wasteful question—Li Heng had brought him out himself.
If Li Heng didn’t take him home, Ji Liandong had no way to walk back.
Ji Liandong needed to go home and take his medication.
Li Heng got out of the car to clear the snow. They’d stayed here too long. Wind swirled snow into drifts around the wheels. They needed to clear a path to drive.
Ji Liandong, wrapped up again in his down jacket and knit hat, leaned out the open car window, his arm dangling, swaying slightly in the wind.
With this kind of outfit and posture, under the car’s wavering lights, he seemed to have regressed to fifteen: “No.”
“Chief Li,” Ji Liandong picked up a bit of snow and let it fall into Li Heng’s collar. “No.”
“I won’t take medication anymore.”
Ji Liandong: “Plant me in the snow.”
Ji Liandong: “Chief Li.”
Ji Liandong: “Mushrooms will grow later.”
He rarely had the leisure to joke like this. The system was delighted beyond measure, spinning in the wind with snowflakes, scattering dog hair everywhere.
Li Heng stuck the folded shovel into the snow.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead, pushed the person who’d recklessly opened the window back inside, and at the same time leaned partway in to turn the warm air to the maximum setting: “Too late.”
Li Heng didn’t bother with reasoning: “Three-second rule.”
Not responding within three seconds counted as consent.
Within the three seconds of him asking this question, Ji Liandong gave no response.
“You’re being kidnapped by Chief Li of the investigation bureau,” Li Heng returned to the driver’s seat, closing Ji Liandong’s window. “This witness, for tonight’s snowy feast, instant noodles, self-heating hot pot, or convenience store sandwich—which?”
Ji Liandong was coughing, very lightly, his frost-tinged fingers buried in the puppy’s warm belly, his eyes faintly showing laughter.
Li Heng turned to look at him, infected by the smile. He turned on the car lights and honked the horn.
This wasn’t a question expecting an answer. Li Heng knew Ji Liandong couldn’t eat much. Ji Liandong knew he knew. Yet Ji Liandong remained in that inaccessible land of ice and snow. Li Heng knew that too.
But at least, relying on the affection from twelve years ago, he could occasionally still hold Ji Liandong’s hand. When that hand was willing to warm up a little, Ji Liandong’s whole being seemed to briefly resurrect traces of the boy he’d been.
They slowly drove the car back home.
Li Heng worked hard to find completely unrelated, lighthearted topics from all corners of the world.
Ji Liandong mostly listened quietly, occasionally throwing in a line or two when Chief Li ran out of words, occasionally distracted by the colorful neon signs outside the window.
Li Heng would wipe away the moisture on the window so he could see more clearly.
In the last kilometer, Ji Liandong became quieter and more silent. Li Heng held his hand dangling at his side and placed it on the puppy’s head. Ji Liandong came back to himself and smiled at him.
Li Heng knew Ji Liandong needed medication to suppress hallucinations. This unexpected snowstorm, and other unexpected changes, had slightly disrupted his medication schedule.
The snow-laden SUV pulled into the underground parking garage.
Li Heng jumped out of the car, circled to the other side to open the door, gently grasping Ji Liandong’s wrist. He shook his palm, waiting for Ji Liandong to refocus his attention.
A few seconds later, those eyes blinked softly.
Ji Liandong slowly came to, turning his head to look at him.
Ji Liandong was as if trapped in slow time. Li Heng tried again and again, carefully to gently lift him out: “What did you see?”
He just asked, not demanding an answer. Walking across the empty, echoing underground parking garage, the person he held spoke: “A dream.”
Li Heng casually asked: “A nightmare?”
Under the high-wattage lighting, Ji Liandong’s eyelashes cast shadows. Li Heng saw the curve of those eyes as if in apology.
Ji Liandong regained clarity and wanted to walk on his own, but Li Heng couldn’t overcome his own selfishness.
He tightened his arms, holding Ji Liandong closer.
But the answer came out differently: “A good dream.”
Ji Liandong said: “A very good dream.”
Ji Liandong described the hallucination, his voice very low, his articulation very slow. The puppy tugged at Li Heng’s pant leg, craning its neck, trying hard to reach the drooping hand.
“Chief Li,” Ji Liandong said. “I killed my father because of anger.”
Li Heng gripped that hand tightly.
Li Heng had always known about the anger trapped inside this body.
Ji Liandong had no way to express it, no way to vent it. His interior and exterior were completely disconnected. All emotions were trapped in fathomless depths with no outlet.
His unconscious mind, in self-preservation, fabricated hallucinations.
Hallucinations were the unconscious mind’s cutting, correcting, and remodeling of reality.
Li Heng’s appearance constantly awakened memories from twelve years ago, and thus Ji Liandong’s hallucinations were affected, branching out from age fifteen.
“I forgot to fake the wounds,” Ji Liandong described the dream in his hallucination. “You investigated the case thoroughly, and I was locked in a juvenile detention center, responsible for growing mushrooms.”
He caressed this hallucination: “I grew the mushrooms very well.”
“I wasn’t an adult yet, couldn’t stay in the detention center too long. They made me leave, but I didn’t want to go.”
Ji Liandong said: “I lived well here. Why would I leave? I had mushrooms, and… a puppy. I gave it a name—Pudding.”
“Every day I played frisbee with it, made it puppy food.”
“It ate a lot and grew quickly, this tall,” Ji Liandong gestured. “It would knock me down, and its fur was so soft and warm.”
“Years passed like this. I helped some people, and they didn’t hate me.”
“I loved some people.”
He stuck here. No matter how divorced from reality a hallucination was, it couldn’t fabricate what was completely unknown. And experience with this part only came from these few hours today.
Ji Liandong hesitated: “We… kissed.”
The involved party Li Heng finally couldn’t help himself: “You kissed that many people?”
This was clearly a joke. At this moment, Ji Liandong had the capacity to joke. His eyes curved as he shook his head: “With you.”
He insisted on walking on his own, so Li Heng slowly led him by the hand, walking into the elevator. Bright, warm light poured down. Li Heng discovered that, influenced by the hallucination, Ji Liandong’s expression even held a light, warm shyness.
“We met unexpectedly again,” Ji Liandong said. “My body was very healthy. Even in the snow, I’d walk Pudding out. When I was buying coffee, you were shoveling snow off your car.”
Ji Liandong held the puppy’s leash and continued the story: “The snow was very heavy, and it had gotten dark. You asked if you could come home with me.”
Li Heng was beginning to understand how terrifying hallucinations could be.
They could even splice and piece together the truth, making every image so real, so indisputable.
So… luring people into indulgence.
“I said yes,” Ji Liandong continued the story very lightly.
He told Li Heng: “But there was a reminder—be gentle, Guoguo is at home, she’s very small and sleeping.”
“She ran away from the hospital to find me.”
“She looked for me for a long time.”
Ji Liandong said: “She wanted to call me Dad. I thought that was too old. I was still young. We discussed it, and she decided to call me Big Mushroom.”
This was probably a joke that needed the audience’s cooperation. Li Heng struggled to twitch the corner of his mouth.
He suddenly didn’t dare to listen further.
Because the elevator had arrived at the designated floor. They exited the elevator, facing a heavy security door right ahead. And Ji Liandong was speaking exactly at this moment: “I changed the lights in the house.”
“Be careful, open the door, and light will pour out.”
“Orange-yellow, very bright, bright enough to dazzle your eyes.”
“Pudding was eager to get home but had to follow rules—first wipe your feet. The door is hard to open, the key doesn’t work well. Guoguo will rush out with the light and hug my leg. Very warm.”
Ji Liandong reached into his down jacket pocket and pulled out his keys.
Li Heng suddenly grasped his wrist.
“Ji Liandong,” Li Heng spoke these words, and they came out with some difficulty. “Wait a second, half a minute. Let me prepare—”
He saw those eyes curve gently.
The key turned. Because it was an expensive custom-made security door, it opened very smoothly. Li Heng had forgotten to close the balcony window when they left. After the door opened, cold wind poured out.
The room was empty and pitch black.
In the dim light, silent, only the outlines of furniture.
The puppy whimpered softly.
Ji Liandong was very calm, as if he’d known all along it was merely a hallucination, already accustomed to hallucinations shattering before his eyes. Li Heng failed to hold his hand.
Ji Liandong crouched down to wipe the puppy’s feet, change shoes, enter the room, open a special puppy cake, gently stroking a small puppy that wasn’t named Pudding as it wolfed down its food.
Ji Liandong walked to the table, swallowed a pill, and drank water.
Ji Liandong sat on the sofa.
Li Heng closed the window, turned on the lights, turned on the air conditioning’s warm air. He walked over, supported himself on the sofa back, and freed one hand to cradle Ji Liandong’s back of the head, pressing the person into his embrace.
“Ji Liandong,” Li Heng softened his voice, repeating his name over and over. “Ji Liandong.”
Li Heng held this quietly sitting person, lowered his head, and pressed against the thin, cold eyelids. He tightened his arms, staying motionless like this, close and pressed against, until it was proof enough that he was real.
He held Ji Liandong’s hand and placed it over his own heart. The rapid, violent heartbeat slowly awakened that hand. Ji Liandong forced himself to wake once more.
“I’m willing to cooperate,” Ji Liandong thought for a moment before adding. “Not because of the kissing, Chief Li. I’m sorry.”
He raised his hand and touched Li Heng’s prickly short hair, apologizing in a gentle voice for that reaction: “I shouldn’t have said it that way.”
Ice water voluntarily dissolving itself into moonlit ocean. Yet Li Heng shook his head instead. He grasped Ji Liandong’s hand. To restrain the excessive force, his hand was nearly trembling.
Yet Ji Liandong simply continued speaking.
“My biological father is film director Ji Yechen.”
“The abuse was only a trigger for the accident. He hit me for amusement. My mother hated me because I messed up something else.”
“My biological father’s business was overseas—luring newcomers out of the country, trading special services for screen opportunities. My mother was his broker. After he died, the business fell to my mother’s lover, Ji Ran’s father.”
“I wanted to take Ji Ran with me. I thought I could raise him. I released the people trapped in the basement.”
Li Heng’s voice was low and hoarse: “Did they thank you?”
Ji Liandong shook his head: “They hated me.”
So from the beginning, when Li Xingyun found him, the fallen Ji Liandong had been dealt with quite brutally, even thrown into crews full of humiliation.
No one wanted to help this person who’d messed up everything.
No one would provide evidence.
No one wanted to expose such sordid history.
Ji Liandong, that damned troublemaker, was despised and hated. Everything Li Xingyun heard and saw came from these people’s descriptions. They only wanted this self-righteous, arrogant bastard to also taste the pain of despair.
“I was too young,” Ji Liandong sat here, reflecting, summarizing, thinking. “Forgot to protect myself.”
He forgot to preserve usable evidence.
But today when playing with the camera, the logic Li Heng thought of was actually correct.
“You should find Ji Ran,” Ji Liandong thought for a moment. “He doesn’t want to be exposed because the initial capital he used to enter the entertainment industry came from his father…”
The rest of his words were swallowed by a new round of kissing.
This was fine too.
Ji Liandong indeed preferred kissing. It didn’t require thinking, didn’t require speaking, required less effort. Just close your eyes.
Asphyxiation seized his lungs, the out-of-control heartbeat bringing searing pain as if tearing open his chest. Ji Liandong tried to control his trembling hands and body, only to discover the tremor came from the other side.
“Li Heng.”
Ji Liandong opened his eyes. He was reclined on the sofa, being caressed by hands with thin calluses on them, touching his brow and eyes.
Li Heng was gazing at him, motionless.
Ji Liandong smiled helplessly: “Don’t be like this.”
“Don’t be like this,” Ji Liandong touched Li Heng’s cold face. “Chief Li, we’re just kissing.”
Li Heng had no reason to be so angry about his affairs. He could become a decent political achievement in Li Heng’s career, a rather interesting case file.
Become a silent, read-and-delete ambiguous interlude in a long, boring winter snow night. An impromptu nocturne.
Even Ji Liandong’s imagination hadn’t dared to dream this wild and uninhibited, even in hallucinations.
…Someone became angry because of him.
“I’m easy to placate,” Ji Liandong smiled. “If you do this, I’m going to cry.”