Chapter 23#

Fu Jinchi coughed for a good while before stopping — then laughed. “What makes you think I’d have anything on him?”

Yan Zishu leaned back against the sofa and regarded him quietly, eyes as still as water catching the light — like a lake scattered with moonlight.

He returned an equally inscrutable smile. “Didn’t you just say you wanted to see them all suffer?”

It had been an impulsive question, in truth — arising spontaneously from that line about unfortunate that it still hasn’t come true. Li Chang’an might have the Li surname, but there was Fu blood in his veins. Close enough.

Fu Jinchi considered it. “There’s something to that.”

Yan Zishu pressed: “So — do you?”

Fu Jinchi said: “Nothing on hand right now.”

Nothing on hand now — which meant there was the possibility of looking.

Fu Jinchi, however, named his price: “This kind of request is worth considerably more than a single kiss. You’d have to offer something of yourself.”

Yan Zishu smiled lightly: “In that case, I’d be overpaying. He’s not worth that much.”

Their eyes met. Something passed between them — an unspoken and mutually understood signal.

Then Fu Jinchi said: “Your tie clip is crooked.”

Yan Zishu looked down by reflex.

And Fu Jinchi kissed him, in a sudden ambush.

He moved fast enough that Yan Zishu didn’t catch how he managed to cover the distance so quickly — only felt a rush of air, and the next moment he was held fast. Fu Jinchi had one knee on the wide armrest and the other leg pressed between Yan Zishu’s knees, his tall frame tilting forward and casting a deep shadow, enclosing him in a small, close, private space.

Like an absolute domain sealed from the outside world, where all that existed was each other’s breathing.

Fu Jinchi’s expression was shadowed — one hand braced against the sofa back, the other fixed at the nape of Yan Zishu’s neck. There was nowhere to retreat. He had no choice but to part his lips and allow it. Mouths moved together in searching, unfamiliar exploration, tentative in the way of a first approach — and yet unexpectedly, entirely tender.

He let his eyes close. The taste of alcohol spread through his mouth.

The pendulum of the floor clock swung back and forth, marking time with a steady tick.

Fu Jinchi began to move downward by degrees, hands beginning to trace the outline of him.

Men’s wanting was always this direct and incremental, not knowing what restraint looked like.

Yan Zishu’s hand tightened instinctively on Fu Jinchi’s sleeve. Before anything could go further, he pressed Fu Jinchi’s hand still.

He turned his face away. Air returned to his lungs, carrying the warm woody note of men’s cologne.

Yan Zishu shifted Fu Jinchi back slightly and looked up at him with a level gaze. “That’s enough.”

He was a person of two faces. Behind the composed and self-contained exterior, he knew his own appeal well, and was not without experience in the languid art of flirtation.

This was not a transaction. This was flirtation.

Flirtation was a human instinct.

It indicated a kind of permission for physical closeness — but not permission to seek a serious relationship.

What he had permitted today ended here.

No further.

Fu Jinchi looked at him for a moment, then gave a quiet, sardonic exhale. “Fine — mutually willing is better, I suppose.”

He settled back in his own seat. The glass on the table returned to his hand. He swirled it without drinking.

Yan Zishu sat across from him — yet it felt as though he stood quietly on the far side of a deep ravine, visible, and only visible.

A clear demarcation lay between them.

Fu Jinchi smiled, brow slightly furrowed: “Whenever you feel like coming to my side — name your salary.”

“I’m not considering it at the moment,” Yan Zishu replied. “Besides, I’m not inclined toward office romances.”

What his mouth offered was not inclined toward office romances. What Fu Jinchi’s mind had already done was remove the suit jacket, right here in this office.

Or any of the hotel rooms conveniently available in this very building.

But this weekend was evidently not going to be the weekend he’d been hoping for.

*

On Monday, everyone went back to work.

The weekly meeting required a progress report on the week prior.

This was the second such report, and the progress bar on the slide had not moved. Zhang Yan took the opportunity to level criticism at Yan Zishu, pointing out that Dongyun Bank’s response to the partnership proposal had been deeply unsatisfactory. Ben, mercifully, was only a project manager’s assistant, and wasn’t required to present — his job was to sit there with a notebook and pen, taking notes when others held forth, and drawing turtles when they sparred.

Li Chang’an had made a deliberate point of attending this meeting, and sat with his chin in his hand, adopting a tone of querulous authority: “Your project team doesn’t seem to have found its footing.”

Before Yan Zishu could respond, Zhang Yan cut in: “Director Li — victory and defeat are part of any endeavor. We’ll keep working at it.”

Li Chang’an gave a patronizing laugh. “Getting somewhere by maneuvering your way in is useless if the ability isn’t there. If the ability falls short, say so directly — don’t make excuses.”

Zhang Yan performed earnest solidarity: “Director Yan’s abilities are something we can all attest to. The fault lies mainly with me for not doing enough.”

Li Chang’an pressed on: “Anyone can talk a big game. The trouble is when the hot air runs out and you’re just spinning in place. I’ll say plainly — and don’t mind if it’s not what you want to hear — I don’t like this project’s odds with the current rate of progress. If the delays keep stacking up and nothing changes, the right thing to do is make way for someone more capable.”

He had apparently gone to the trouble of learning a specific four-character idiom in order to sound more measured.

Yan Zishu offered a few explanations, but in too gentle a register to hold ground against Li Chang’an. And the fact of the project’s stagnation was undeniable.

In the end, even Fu Weishan seemed uncertain and faintly disappointed: “All right — hold where it is for now. Yan Zishu, continue following up. Zhang Yan has more experience; if there’s anything to raise, he can come to me directly. Let’s move to the next item.”

Going directly to the CEO, bypassing the lead — this effectively raised Zhang Yan to a parallel authority.

Ben looked up at Yan Zishu.

Yan Zishu stole a glance at his phone.

The notification light was blinking. A new message from Fu Jinchi — a photograph.

Having shared Fu Jinchi’s birthday cake the other week, Yan Zishu had sent a Montblanc ink pen as a belated gift — the kind of thing that was always appropriate as a business gift, ordered directly from the brand’s website with no personal appearance required, which did admittedly have a slightly perfunctory quality to it.

So Fu Jinchi had dipped the pen and, with deliberate calligraphic flourish, written Yan Zishu’s name on a magazine. The magazine’s background, however, was a traffic-manufactured celebrity with an over-refined face, his expression vague and vacant, his surgically adjusted chest on aggressive, bare display.

Opening the photo, Yan Zishu found his own name written squarely across the man’s chest.

As though the sender were making a petulant, puerile point.

Puerile as it was, it was only another layer of performance.

Yan Zishu let the corner of his mouth curve, briefly, without quite smiling. Then he blocked Fu Jinchi’s WeChat without sentiment.

The meeting ran until Ben had filled an entire page with small turtles before it concluded.

Afterward, Ben tore out the page and disposed of it with practiced efficiency. Yan Zishu had already deleted the photograph.

Other members of the project team had been filling pages with flowers and houses and abstract shapes. The overall morale of the group was not high.

This was because Dongyun Bank’s project lead, Qu Jianmin, was like a stone at the bottom of an outhouse — immovable, and malodorous with it. Everyone in the layers beneath him had caught the same attitude: imperious, dismissive, and impossible to have a productive conversation with. Cooperation was proceeding at glacial speed.

Yan Zishu could hardly call up Qin Maosheng specifically to file a complaint about this.

Senior management decided the strategy and set the direction. Implementation was handled by the people below, and there was enormous room for things to go sideways in the middle.

Besides, inept complaining was the last resort of someone willing to admit they had no other options.

As for the unconventional approaches Yan Zishu was turning over — Ben could arrive at the same conclusions independently.

So the question was: was there anything to be found on Li Chang’an?

There almost certainly was. The problem was that everything within reach was completely untouchable.

Even Fu Weishan, at the level he occupied, turned a blind eye. Some cancers had taken root too deep.

Take the kickbacks from minor private collectors, the collusion with the appraisal team in the verification department, the manipulation of the auction consignment process, the padding of substandard lots to inflate their apparent quality — the inherent uncertainty and subjectivity of art authentication meant that a certain proportion of errors and falsifications by “expert appraisers” and official certification bodies was practically an open secret in the industry. And Li Chang’an was far from the only party in the company playing this game.

It was an interlocked network of shared interests. Anyone who touched it came away contaminated.

Tilting at windmills was a bad idea at the best of times. Going after one particular individual in isolation was even more futile.

Ben was muttering under his breath as he followed Yan Zishu through the door of the CEO’s suite.

The moment he registered the presence of a living person at the chief assistant’s desk, an alarm of some acuity went off in his head.

Three people, face to face. All of them took a moment to take stock.

Fu Weishan was not in the office. His pet, however, was.

Ji Chen scrambled up from Yan Zishu’s workstation and then, realizing his reaction was somewhat excessive, scratched his head in embarrassment. “Oh, Assistant Yan, you’re here — sorry, CEO Fu asked me to work on some documents that were saved on your computer, said it would be easier to edit them directly…”

To be fair, Yan Zishu’s internal system login and password were not entirely secret.

They were only known to those in the secretarial office who had been granted partial access permissions.

And even so, the normal courtesy was to inform him in advance when someone needed to use them — out of basic respect, and to avoid any confusion if something went wrong afterward.

Ben couldn’t decide whether to stand with Yan Zishu in outrage or to stand back and enjoy the spectacle, and ultimately chose to wait and see what happened.

Yan Zishu nodded, with an expression of apparent indifference: “If CEO Fu asked for it, go ahead and finish.”

“You’re not angry that I touched your computer without warning?” Ji Chen said quickly.

“Don’t worry about it. Carry on.” Yan Zishu picked up a pen from the desk.

And then, calmly, he walked away with Ben to the small meeting room adjacent to the secretarial office.

Later, over lunch in the canteen, the junior secretary Amy came to apologize, fumbling over her words: “I’m sorry, Assistant Yan — before I gave Ji Chen your login details, I should have messaged you first. It was a bit busy and I didn’t think…”

Yan Zishu was more than gracious about it, and said nothing to hold it against her.

After all, Fu Weishan’s fondness for his pet was plain to everyone at this point.

Attaching oneself to the powerful and acting accordingly was fairly universal human wisdom.

It deserved understanding.

The person who actually came off worst in all of this was, in truth, Ben — because afterward, Yan Zishu had him go through every single document Ji Chen had touched and check it again, word by word. Ben felt this was genuinely excessive, and could not understand why, in the end, it was always him who ended up suffering.

*

Despite the current difficulties on the work front, Yan Zishu had lately found himself with somewhat more leisure — even, on one occasion, cutting out early and wandering around a shopping mall.

Maya Department Store: a long-established commercial district, with a famous branded street behind it, lined end to end with luxury labels.

Mid-Autumn Festival was approaching, and the marketing atmosphere was correspondingly heavier than usual, with seasonal décor installed throughout.

Ben still privately believed Yan Zishu must be up to something. There was no way the stated reason — you’ve been working hard lately, this is a treat — was the whole story. If he had any real conscience, he wouldn’t have forced Ben to proofread documents until midnight in the first place. And two grown men wandering around a shopping mall together — how exactly was that supposed to look?

To be clear: Ben came across as somewhat fastidious in his preferences, but he was in fact thoroughly heterosexual.

Yan Zishu appeared to be doing nothing more than browsing with genuine idleness, going from one end of the branded street to the other, occasionally stepping in to ask prices.

Until, finally, they drifted — with an air of having nothing particular in mind — into a venerable old jewelry establishment.

The moment they came through the revolving door, Ben was screaming internally: See? I knew it wasn’t that simple.

At the most prominent display counter in the shop, Li Chang’an stood with the distracted air of someone doing a reluctant duty, accompanying a woman adorned with considerable amounts of gold and jade, comparing two white jade Guanyin carvings that looked, by their bearing alone, capable of making a serious dent in someone’s bank account. The comparison was being facilitated by a very attentive sales associate.

Something — perhaps the weight of two pairs of eyes from the entrance — prompted both of them to look around.