Chapter 75#

Apparently so.

Fu Jinchi’s eyes shifted. He turned over, pulled Yan Zishu in, and pressed half his face into the pillow. “Stay with me a while. Sleep.”

He had traveled through the night — a red-eye flight to the island, the tabloid stuffed in his pocket, then straight onto the earliest ferry to Stone Drum Island without stopping. Only now that he’d seen Yan Zishu did the tightness in his chest release. Tiredness moved in immediately. The red threads in his eyes were faint but visible.

Yan Zishu told him to go change before he slept. Fu Jinchi ignored this completely, refused to unlock the cuff from either of them, and — with the swiftness of someone acting on a passing impulse — reached over and snatched the key back from Yan Zishu, returning it to his pocket.

He made a performance of closing his eyes. Before long, his breathing steadied.

Yan Zishu hadn’t the heart to keep pushing. He tolerated the fact that Fu Jinchi had gone to sleep fully dressed, in his outdoor clothes.

The roles had inverted: now it was Yan Zishu propping himself on one elbow, looking at the sleeping face.

Fu Jinchi’s looks carried a kind of assertiveness — it had always seemed consistent with his character, almost by design. But right now the man was travel-worn, a night’s worth of stubble darkening his jaw, and Yan Zishu felt the odd, mild urge to touch it with the back of his hand — but stopped himself, afraid of waking him.

He yawned, shifted until he was leaning against Fu Jinchi’s arm, and drifted back to sleep.

They didn’t get up until noon.

It was not a comfortable sleep. With two hands linked together, neither of them could move freely — any tug immediately woke the one tugging. Yan Zishu woke several times, held in one position the entire night, and got up to find both arms gone numb.

Fu Jinchi appeared to have noticed nothing. He was even wearing a small, self-satisfied smile. It wasn’t until Yan Zishu had nearly had enough and was contemplating dismantling the object entirely that Fu Jinchi finally, unhurriedly, produced the key and allowed both of them to be free.

Yan Zishu got up and changed, then picked Fu Jinchi’s coat up off the floor and hung it properly. Fu Jinchi, without comment, followed him up.

He came out of the bathroom having changed clothes, carrying the clean smell of a shower and his aftershave.

Just from the scent, Yan Zishu could tell: Fu Jinchi had used his aftershave again.

And probably his razor as well.

Apart from a toothbrush and a towel, this man helped himself to everything else without hesitation, used it up, and then refilled it without asking.

Over time… Yan Zishu looked around and realized that many things in this room had become difficult to assign to one person or the other.

If the day came to pack up and leave, it no longer felt like something that was only his to do.

Fu Jinchi was toweling his hair in that unhurried, faintly entitled way of his. Yan Zishu felt something move in him. He walked over, pulled the towel down, and ran his fingers through the half-dried strands to smooth them, speaking quietly: “You asked me something this morning and I didn’t answer yet. Do you want to hear it?”

Fu Jinchi’s eyes indicated he was listening.

Yan Zishu leaned his forearms on Fu Jinchi’s shoulders, and smiled, at an easy pace: “A little. I did miss you a little.”

Fu Jinchi’s hands went still for a moment. His throat moved. Then he folded Yan Zishu into him: “That’s not fair.”

His voice was low, almost a murmur, rough in a way that seemed to carry a hook in it: “I started missing you the moment I walked out the door.”

During the time Fu Jinchi had been away, they had of course stayed in contact.

And yet — strangely — opening a video call, talking for hours, flirting, felt like the easiest thing in the world. But reporting in like young students in first love, accounting to each other daily for every small thing — that, somehow, felt like an embarrassing amount of effort.

That kind of clinginess — for Yan Zishu at least — no longer felt like something appropriate to his age.

He had been sitting with a vague, unspoken anxiety the whole time, and refusing to take up Fu Jinchi’s time with it unnecessarily.

Yet the moment of waking to find Fu Jinchi there — the heart went straight to pleased before startled, and everything else became too minor to account.

There had been a great deal keeping Fu Jinchi occupied in the time since returning to the eastern district.

Fu Weishan’s case went to the second-instance hearing, and he attended to observe. The proceedings were closed to the public, so Fu Jinchi watched the full broadcast from the waiting room. On the television screen, the familiar face at the defendant’s table — once young and sharp-looking — now wore an expression of contained fury and reluctance.

Watching it, what Fu Jinchi saw was the man as he had always been: imperious, certain of his own importance.

Quite a few feelings arose, rather pointlessly, in him. Things like: the strangeness of all things, the absurdity of how a life could become like a dream you’d misread from the beginning.

Pointlessly — because these were thoughts he would turn over only in private. He had no intention of going back to share them with Fu Weishan.

When the judge announced that the second instance upheld the original verdict, Fu Jinchi stopped watching and left.

He had already said everything caustic that could be said, during a visit to the detention center. Though at that time he’d lost Yan Zishu, and his manner had probably been poor. Now it made no difference — what he held most precious had been found again.

Fu Jinchi smiled to himself, and even felt enough leisure to acknowledge that he had been somewhat undignified in that period.

His own lawyer walked behind him at a respectful pace. Attorney Wu and his firm had served Fu Jinchi for many years, understood the man reasonably well by now, and had watched this whole fraternal drama unfold from beginning to end. At this point, nothing could really surprise him.

Attorney Wu rode in Fu Jinchi’s car afterward. The driver was in front; the two of them in the back. Fu Jinchi rested his chin in his hand, looking out the window with a vague attention, then suddenly called out to the driver: “See that young man up ahead? Take the side exit — go around.”

Attorney Wu followed his gaze. What he saw was someone who looked like a university student — decent-looking, but currently in some visible disarray, standing in front of the court building, looking around with an anxious restlessness, apparently searching for something or someone.

Attorney Wu’s attention sharpened slightly. He did have some recollection of this young man.

Ji Chen — though he had no direct connection to the case itself — had come up extensively in the background materials Attorney Wu had reviewed on the former Yinghan president Fu Weishan. He knew the general picture. A kept companion? — Attorney Wu, being a certain kind of man, preferred not to define it, but in his understanding it was something like that. After the patron’s downfall, the companion’s life had reportedly become difficult, one trouble after another — genuinely hard going.

Though, Attorney Wu reflected, that was rather to be expected. Hibiscus in its bloom, then rootless and cut.

He refrained from judgment, but asked, out of instinct: “Is there anything still unresolved with that young man?”

Fu Jinchi’s expression was lightly amused: “I just don’t want him to spot the car and come over to make a scene. Nothing serious. It’s a good day — I’d rather not have my mood disturbed by someone irrelevant. Easy enough to avoid.”

Attorney Wu didn’t entirely follow the logic, but agreed immediately with every sign of comprehension. Clearly this was not his question to ask.

The driver took the alternative exit as instructed. They left the court without Ji Chen seeing them, then got on the highway.

One press of the accelerator, and all the complications were left well behind.

Fu Jinchi spoke again: “Attorney Wu, are you free this afternoon? I’d like to take you to lunch — and I have a few questions I’d like to consult you on.”

Attorney Wu immediately said that he was, of course he was.

As for Third Uncle, who was still in the hospital — Fu Jinchi had gone in person to pay a visit.

By then, Third Uncle was out of the ICU and had been moved out of immediate danger. He lay in the hospital bed, speech impaired, movement limited — the common aftermath of what he’d suffered. Fu Jinchi set a fruit basket on the bedside table and looked at him for a while.

However much had passed between them, there was still blood. This unexpectedly reminded him of the time Fu Zhizhang had been hospitalized, all those years ago.

The ward Third Uncle occupied was top-of-the-line, with two nurses, yet not a single family member in attendance. Fu Xiaoyu was currently in a mandatory rehabilitation program and hadn’t come out. His mother had all her attention fixed on her son and cared about nothing else.

Third Uncle wasn’t even sixty, relatively young, which made the prognosis for his hemorrhage somewhat better. Put another way: with proper care and personal effort, there was a reasonable chance of substantial recovery.

Unfortunately, just before this, the Yinghan board had been in the process of nominating him as director-general.

Whatever credibility that prospect had ever had — it was now going nowhere.

Fu Jinchi experienced a faint, almost contemptible sympathy.

He sat down, picked up a knife, and began peeling an apple for Third Uncle. “There’s nothing to rush about right now, Third Uncle. Focus on recovering. Your own health comes first. All this talk of children being a comfort in old age, companions in old age — you can’t always count on them, can you? Think of it this way — you spent half a life working hard, made all this money — if you don’t enjoy it yourself while you’re still well enough, who are you going to leave it to later? Fu Xiaoyu? What good would that do?”

Third Uncle’s capacity for speech was limited. Hearing this blandly delivered speech, all he could manage was a furious look, strained and helpless.

Fu Jinchi’s expression remained entirely mild. His manner was such that even the nurses outside would have noticed nothing — they’d have taken it for a younger relative visiting as normal.

The corners of his mouth curved upward. His hands moved at an unhurried pace. “Though seeing you like this is a bit of a reminder to me, actually — might be worth accumulating a bit of good karma while you’re healthy and still moving around. Otherwise when you’re the one lying in a hospital bed, there might not be anyone to shed a tear.”

“After all, we’re uncle and nephew. I’ll still wish you a long life — live as many days as you can manage. Since in the end, your useless wife and son are going to depend entirely on you.”

One long, continuous apple peel fell cleanly into the bin. Fu Jinchi placed the perfectly peeled apple on the bedside table, not particularly concerned whether the patient could eat it. “I have someone at home who needs looking after. I should get back to them. I won’t keep you.”

He dropped the paring knife back on the table, helped himself to the hand sanitizer dispenser, and rubbed his hands as though washing off every bit of the bad air.

Then, just before pulling the door open, Fu Jinchi seemed to remember something and turned back. “Oh — I suppose I never mentioned who, did I? It’s little Yan — don’t be alarmed, it’s exactly who you’re thinking of. Did everyone assume he was dead? I found him eventually.”

Third Uncle’s eyes did go wide. His mouth produced sounds he couldn’t shape into words.

Fu Jinchi smiled. “Feeling like you’ve seen a ghost? He’s fine — better than you, at the moment. You should be grateful to heaven for preserving him. Because if he weren’t all right, none of us would be comfortable right now. Those things Fu Xiaoyu got up to before — I still have them noted down. I’m a patient man, but I may feel like revisiting old accounts at some point. So when you recover, Third Uncle — remember to wish us a long and happy life together.”

And then Fu Jinchi turned and walked out without looking back.

Outside the hospital building, he let a smile of pure, unguarded satisfaction break across his face. In the car afterward, he was almost on the verge of laughing out loud.

What Fu Jinchi had said in that ward — he didn’t deny that he was someone who kept accounts. He would have people watching Fu Xiaoyu indefinitely. Other old debts could be revisited in their own time, piece by piece. But the smile he was wearing now wasn’t for any of that. It wasn’t schadenfreude.

It was simply that he had thought of Yan Zishu, who was fine — and that made him happy.