He had arrived early. The client had not yet come. The reserved dealer took the key and led him into the card room.
This time, the client was coming over from Shen City. Chen Wan had learned that the other party liked to gamble, so he played host and invited him to Puli Hotel, booking a private room.
The dealer was a tall, young Ukrainian white woman, fluent in English and Chinese, and her Cantonese was also very standard. She led Chen Wan upstairs through the side elevator.
Chen Wan asked her whether the hotel had an event tonight. In the past, he had always gone up by the main elevator; the sightseeing elevator offered a full view of the water city in the hotel garden, and the scenery was beautiful.
The dealer smiled and said there was indeed a VIP visiting tonight. She said nothing more.
Chen Wan did not ask further. Instead, he instructed her on a few habits of the guests who would be arriving soon.
The dealer was very professional. That night, Chen Wan’s client had an extremely good time. During the mid-game break, Chen Wan had someone open the wine he kept stored here and drank a great deal with the client. Fortunately, the project progressed more smoothly than expected.
After several rounds, the client continued gambling heavily at the table. Chen Wan’s stomach felt a little uncomfortable, so he went to the restroom to wash his face.
“The person wasn’t sent up… left…”
Chen Wan’s hands, held under the faucet, stopped.
“…didn’t come… not certain… didn’t see clearly…”
So the people who had reserved the third floor tonight were from Minglong.
“This is damn strange… Zhao… in the car… clearly…”
“Wine cellar… remote monitoring… next time…”
“I refuse to believe…”
Chen Wan raised his head and saw his expressionless face in the mirror. He dried his hands, walked to the stall where the voices had come from, and used a mop to wedge the door handle shut from the outside. Then he picked up a bucket of dirty mop water and dumped it over the top.
“Fuck!”
“Who? Who the fuck did that?”
“Who’s out there? Open the door! Open the damn door!”
“Don’t let me find you! You bastard!”
Chen Wan put down the bucket, leaned against the door, and lit a cigarette. Expressionless, he smoked while listening to the man curse. When he grew tired of listening, he raised his hand and threw the cigarette butt into the stall. The person inside must have been burned, because he let out a strange cry.
Amid the deafening pounding on the door, Chen Wan went back to wash his hands. He pressed out a little hand soap, rubbed it over his hands, finger by finger, carefully and thoroughly. Then he rinsed them, dried them, and walked out of the restroom unhurriedly, leaving the torrent of curses behind him.
Before entering the private room, he lifted the corners of his mouth. Facing the client, he was all smiles, the picture of a refined gentleman. None of the fatigue or cold gloom from the restroom mirror could be seen at all.
The No. 8 storm signal left as scheduled, and Hai City finally saw clear weather after a long absence.
The young masters, who had been stifled indoors, began to grow restless. Chen Wan had always been available whenever called, accompanying them to the end in every kind of eating, drinking, entertainment, and luxury.
When he told Zhuo Zhixuan he did not want to do anything, that had been true.
But wanting to see that person once was also true.
If a feeling could be restrained so completely within the rules, without overflowing at all, that could only prove it had never carried much weight.
The inner demon that had circled him for years bared its claws and teeth. Reason strained to bind it. Only then could Chen Wan barely maintain the skin of a normal person.
To see him once from far away, without disturbing him, was Chen Wan’s tug-of-war with himself. It was also the only outlet Chen Wan could give himself.
But the situation was somewhat different from what Chen Wan had imagined. Even if Chen Wan kept himself on call twenty-four hours a day and stayed by Tan Youming and the others, he still might not truly see Zhao Shengge more than a few times.
Seeing him once out of ten attempts already counted as good luck that day.
In the past, when people said seeing Zhao Shengge once was harder than climbing to heaven, and that even members of the Zhao family’s main branch had to go through a second secretary and three assistants to see him, Chen Wan had thought it was only an exaggerated rumor.
Now, it seemed it was not baseless at all.
But what Chen Wan was best at was patience and waiting.
When there was an opportunity, he fought for it. When there was none, he lived his own time seriously.
However, it was one thing to give him no hope at all, not even one chance in ten thousand. But as long as there was even the slightest possibility, he would seize it by any means, regardless of the cost.
Chen Wan was not a young master. He did not have much freedom.
When he heard Zhao Shengge might attend a rowing race, he stayed up all night rushing through his work to free up one full day, though in the end Zhao Shengge did not appear.
Zhuo Zhixuan said Shen Zongnian had invited Zhao Shengge to watch horse racing. Chen Wan was away on a business trip in Aoyu. After a moment of silence, he went to the airport the next day and took the earliest flight. Once he landed, he drove alone for four hours to the estate, only to hear from someone that Zhao Shengge had left halfway through.
The Royal Equestrian Team’s touring exhibition match was held on Xiang Island. Chen Wan was grinding through a crucial contract. After leaving the negotiation table, he did not even change out of his suit before going over.
Unfortunately, he only brushed past the vehicle Zhao Shengge was leaving in. The black Maybach swept up dust all the way, spraying him as he got out of the car until he looked utterly disheveled.
Severely lacking rest, with his nerves loaded to their limit, Chen Wan leaned against the railing and watched the racehorse leap over the hurdles like lightning. He felt that perhaps his luck truly was not good.
But there was not much disappointment in his heart.
Do your best, then keep a calm heart.
Ultimately, he lived in a world without Zhao Shengge.
If Zhao Shengge appeared, it was an extra reward.
But Chen Wan himself had to understand that absence was the norm.
Zhao Shengge did not actually like going out or socializing. He appeared at certain events only because he needed to readapt to the domestic ways of human relationships and social obligations.
He also did not have many things that interested him. Other young masters liked to play golf, swim, or work out after getting off work. He liked to catch up on sleep, because his nerves had been extremely tense ever since his student days.
Zhao Shengge was indeed very busy, busy enough that he had no time to remember unimportant people and matters that appeared at the edges of his life.
At the airport, amid a constant rotation of flights, his schedule had changed at the last minute. There had not been time to apply for a private-flight route or VIP waiting room, so Zhao Shengge could only rest and doze in the ordinary departure hall. He was woken by a child in the luxury shop next door.
A little curly-haired boy was crying and begging his mother to buy him an expensive model pistol.
Zhao Shengge listened to the white mother and son tug back and forth for more than ten minutes. The child’s crying was truly too noisy. He lifted his eyelids, his gaze still not entirely awake, watched for a while, then stood, walked over, and directly bought the last model pistol left in the shop.
Carrying the gift box, Zhao Shengge walked away under the little boy’s dumbfounded stare.
He even gave the boy a gentlemanly, apologetic smile.
The world was finally quiet.
In June, Hai City held a Commerce Association meeting.
In recent years, trade exchanges in the Bay Area had grown increasingly close. Several mainland political figures who had recently risen in rank came for exchange, so the meeting’s scale and protocol were more formal than in previous years.
Chen Wan heard from Zhuo Zhixuan—who had also heard it from Tan Youming—that Zhao Shengge should be attending.
He had just returned to the country, so he would give them that much face. Moreover, this meeting would roughly discuss Hai City’s economic situation and development plans over the next several years, as well as policy measures concerning trade with the mainland. None of these could do without Minglong.
Or rather, none of them could bypass Zhao Shengge.