Chapter 33#

Pitiable?

Not in the least.

In truth, Yan Zishu had not been entirely without a sense of what consequences he might have to face.

After all, according to the plot, anyone who dared to go after the protagonist’s love interest rarely came out of it well.

A lawsuit was fine — Fu Xiaoyu was a young master, and Yinghan Group’s legal team was not there to collect a paycheck without earning it. The more pressing problem, if he tried to take action himself, was a practical one he had to confront: in this world, if he got himself into trouble, there was no immediate family who could engage a lawyer on his behalf.

Just as Fu Jinchi had said: no power base of his own. Just himself.

Dangerous fortune was always waiting eagerly, hoping to push him into its trap.

Yet if he ever found himself in a genuinely desperate position, there was no one he could count on to pull him out.

Money could help, of course. Like certain people who had demonstrated amply — money made everything work smoothly, enabled one to operate in every direction, to make trouble wherever one pleased. That was a form of power in itself. This reminded Yan Zishu, at an inconvenient moment, of how Fu Jinchi had once arranged a project opportunity for him. Thinking of it now, rather than the irritation that the ulterior motive should have produced, he found himself regarding the salary increases and performance bonuses of recent months with something unexpectedly close to appreciation.

So he said, his mouth not entirely matching his heart: “Actually, the press release materials that went out — the intern had brought them to me for review, but I’ve been so busy lately I didn’t catch the detail that had gone wrong. Technically, that responsibility falls on me.”

He’d acknowledged fault. Fu Jinchi didn’t pick it up. “Third Uncle won’t move against you for now. I told him you’re my person.”

Yan Zishu paused. “That’s… not necessary.”

Fu Jinchi gave a derisive sound. “Yan Zishu, you’re not stupid. Are you saying you didn’t understand, or you’re playing at not understanding?”

The composed expression Yan Zishu normally maintained was having some difficulty holding.

“Why is it unnecessary?” Fu Jinchi asked. “What do you mean by unnecessary?”

Yan Zishu couldn’t answer.

He shifted, uncomfortable. He felt like a marionette with stiff joints.

Fu Jinchi ran a hand through his hair. “Every time it’s me coming to you, me taking the initiative to pass you information. You keep your mouth shut tight, and I’ve never said a word about it. What — you can’t even accept one sentence? Rushing to draw a line and keep your distance?”

Yan Zishu looked away without speaking, eyes settling on the glass on the tea table.

Fu Jinchi’s voice cooled: “I know you want to use me. Fine — as it happens, I think mutual use is the most durable kind of arrangement. If you want it consensual on both sides, that’s also fine. But since you got on this ship, we’re bound together. You’re not still expecting to be able to step off whenever you please, are you?”

Outside, the neon signs weren’t flashing tonight. The darkness was thick and unbroken.

The room had only a ring of small accent lamps switched on, their soft warm-yellow glow like an insufficiently protective barrier, unable to stop the danger pressing in from the darkness outside. Fu Jinchi like this — the sharp bridge of the nose, the strong brow — had eyes like some variety of nocturnal predator.

The faint, ever-present mask of affability had been removed. What showed through was the genuine ferocity beneath.

Yan Zishu felt, without quite knowing why, a cold small fear. He pushed Fu Jinchi’s elbow aside and moved to sit up.

Like a needle bursting a balloon — every carefully tended small calculation and private motive was suddenly completely exposed.

Fu Jinchi shifted position. “Why have you gone quiet?”

Yan Zishu returned the volley: “You clearly already know everything.”

He pushed his scattered hair back with one hand. Behind the lenses, his gaze drew inward slightly.

Fu Jinchi — he both coveted the composure and resented the coolness. Like pressing warmth against ice that simply would not warm.

Fu Jinchi’s tone softened a fraction: “What are you afraid of? I haven’t done anything to you.”

Yan Zishu let his own posture ease, but said: “Since we’re speaking plainly — what is it you want from me?”

Fu Jinchi took his hand, and brought it to his lips: “Zishu. Be my lover. Properly.”

Yan Zishu was silent. The kiss landing on the back of his hand was as light as a feather, and weighed everything.

Fu Jinchi was quite sincere in his persuasion: “Is there anything wrong with it? I’ll treat you very well.”

I’ll treat you very well.

…

After a long moment, Yan Zishu said: “All right.”

He said it the way one might agree to something entirely ordinary — could I borrow your umbrella or could you pass me that dish — showing not the least sign of having just made a dangerous arrangement. He even remembered to get up and go turn off the water that had boiled.

The devil always scatters bait first, and makes promises first. Ordinary people see the danger and cannot stop themselves from being drawn in anyway. One principle above all is worth remembering: if you must sell your soul, make sure the buyer can afford the price.

Yan Zishu held the kettle in one hand and reached for cups with the other: “Speaking of which — what would you like to drink? I actually have tea this time.”

Just ordinary cheap teabags. He’d noticed them at the supermarket checkout last time, remembered there was nothing in the apartment for guests, and thrown them in the basket. They’d sat there ever since, and he was only now finally thinking to open the cellophane.

Fu Jinchi watched those pale fingers, and felt something stir and swell inside him, like a barometer responding to a change in the air. As someone once said — Hemingway, yes — in the daytime, it’s very easy to feel nothing at all; but at night, it is another matter entirely.

He heard himself say: “Oh, anything is fine.”

Fu Jinchi stayed the night again — this time in the new capacity of lover.

This seemed like an abrupt shift, and yet also, unexpectedly, like something entirely logical. Not so difficult to absorb, once it had happened.

For Yan Zishu, it was like that. For the other party, it had been a long time in the making.

*

Near midnight, Yan Zishu had wrapped himself in an outer layer and gone to stand on the balcony, an unlit cigarette between his lips.

Fu Jinchi opened his eyes, reached over and found the bed empty, and came to find him. “Why aren’t you lighting it?”

“I quit. Just something to hold.” Yan Zishu said. “I keep a pack around the house out of habit.”

He then preemptively cut off what he sensed was going to be a lengthy psychological analysis of oral fixation.

In the end Fu Jinchi only said: “Quitting is probably for the best. When did you start?”

“After graduating from university. Never smoked before. Started after I entered the workforce — client entertainment, hard to keep declining.”

His mother, being a perfectionist, had not permitted her son to develop the habit. He had, out of a certain spirit of opposition, eventually learned anyway, and then discovered it was actually quite dull.

After a pause, Yan Zishu turned the question back: “You’ve never smoked at all, have you? That’s a good habit.”

Fu Jinchi considered it, and gave a short, wry laugh. “I was afraid if I started, I’d end up on something else.”

He said it with such ominous weight that it was difficult to know whether this was exaggeration, or whether his upbringing had truly been that hazardous.

Yan Zishu nodded. “There are cases like that in the news — people luring others into drug dependency by concealing narcotics in cigarettes.”

Fu Jinchi drew a cigarette from the pack and held it up to examine it. “That sounds exactly like something Fu Weishan’s mother would do.”

“Is she really that frightening?” Yan Zishu asked. “I’ve heard about her for years, but never had the chance to meet her.”

“Not so frightening, actually.” Fu Jinchi smiled. “They say disasters last a thousand years — and yet there she is, a ‘fleeting beauty.’”

Yan Zishu furrowed his brow. He found the smile on the face before him more unsettling than the subject matter. What had this person been through.

They talked for a while longer, a few exchanges of this and that. The balcony window was still open, and it was starting to feel genuinely cold. Yan Zishu pressed the cigarette — its filter bearing a few small toothmarks — into Fu Jinchi’s hand, gave him the outer layer he’d been wearing, said he was tired, and turned back inside first.

After a moment Fu Jinchi came to bed from the other side. Just before falling asleep, something occurred to him: “What time do you usually get up?”

Yan Zishu put his phone and glasses on the bedside table. “Six.”

Fu Jinchi paused. “Your office doesn’t open until nine. Why that early?”

“Habit.” A faint smile. “You’re welcome to take the guest room if you’d prefer.”

“No need — just asking.” Fu Jinchi gave him a good-night kiss and lay down.

At six in the morning, the relentless alarm woke both of them simultaneously. Fu Jinchi, having made a boast only the day before, went to the kitchen to make breakfast without prompting. Yan Zishu, with the unhurried morning time available to him, dealt with some work first, curled up in the living room waiting for food and drink to materialize.

He held his tablet, and found himself thinking that being looked after wasn’t so bad, even as an occasional thing.

From the kitchen came the sounds of bowls and plates, the extractor fan humming — the morning symphony of any ordinary household.

Working with what hadn’t yet expired in the refrigerator, Fu Jinchi improvised two bowls of sour broth noodles. When they sat down to eat, he suddenly brought up something substantive: “You deliberately set Fu Xiaoyu up for a fall this time…”

Yan Zishu looked up, amused: “What, you don’t believe it? Can’t I have made a genuine mistake?”

Fu Jinchi said: “You might fool someone else. But I keep thinking — press releases going out from Yinghan that passed through your hands for review, and something this obviously wrong slipped through? That’s not your style.”

“…”

“You don’t have to admit that one. But there were other things out of place too. From the moment Fu Xiaoyu joined the company you’ve been fawning on him — when did you ever need to cultivate someone like that? Especially handing him the autumn auction — you might as well have written ’trying to set him up’ directly on your forehead.”

Yan Zishu thought privately: it wasn’t quite fawning, surely.

In truth, at first he hadn’t thought it through in particular — Fu Xiaoyu had appeared as an unexpected variable, and keeping him agreeable seemed sufficient for the time being. Once he’d observed Fu Xiaoyu’s arrogance and recklessness, he’d seen potential there, which was why he’d pushed the autumn auction in that direction. Murkier water was better for fishing.

Fu Xiaoyu was the visible target; Ji Chen was the actual one. If people misread it as going after Fu Xiaoyu, that wasn’t entirely without logic.

“He walked in wanting to take my position — can’t I give him a small lesson?” Yan Zishu said, lightly. He had no particular desire to lay out his full hand, so he let the interpretation stand. “Though I also didn’t anticipate it getting tangled up in the Ma Trading Association money laundering case. That was a miscalculation.”

Fu Jinchi studied him: “The way you say that doesn’t sound like the truth. Your eyes are different when you’re lying.”

There was no denying it: Fu Jinchi didn’t have merely half of him figured out — he was close to having all of him figured out.

Yan Zishu sighed: “Then don’t ask. The saying goes: see through it and say nothing.”

Fu Jinchi said: “Whether it was deliberate or not — I should thank you. You helped me.”

Yan Zishu asked: “What kind of help? Could it be connected to your entry onto the board?”

Fu Jinchi dismissed this: “‘The board seat’ was just an empty promise from Third Uncle to keep me dangling. He wanted to rope me in, so he hung a carrot in front of me and watched me chase it. Then you turned around and got his son caught in a trap. Shouldn’t I be grateful?”

Yan Zishu suddenly thought of something: “Then — if Fu Xiaoyu hadn’t run into this situation, were you going to…”

Do something yourself.

Just as Yan Zishu was grateful to Fu Xiaoyu for inadvertently acting on his behalf — was Fu Jinchi grateful to Yan Zishu for inadvertently acting on his?

“Shh —” Fu Jinchi said. “See through it and say nothing. Your words.”