At 4:00 AM, the cold-chain market reeked of fishy rot. The damp, freezing stench of thawing frozen shrimp and rotting fish pierced straight into the nasal cavity. Zhang Lu had just slipped on his washed-out labor protection overalls when his stomach clenched in a pre-emptive spasm.
He wasn’t a young man anymore, and his body was naturally no match for a youngster’s resilience. Lately, things felt even more off, as he was constantly drowsy, drained of energy, and couldn’t stomach even the slightest heavy odor. But given his criminal record, finding a gig as a cargo handler wasn’t easy. He gritted his teeth, pulled the brim of his cap down, and plunged headfirst toward the mountains of stacked seafood freezers.
His fingertips hooked into the icy plastic rim of a crate, the bitter cold creeping up his palms. Putting his back into it, Zhang Lu heaved a crate of frozen hairtail fish onto his shoulder. The fishy stench mixed with the smell of ice mold pressed against the side of his face. His Adam’s apple bobbed violently as he forcibly swallowed down the rising wave of acidic bile.
One step, two steps. His feet felt as heavy as if they were filled with lead.
He had barely lugged the crate to its designated spot when he braced his knees and caught half a breath. That familiar wave of nausea came crashing back, rolling over him even more fiercely than before. His stomach contracted violently, the fishy stench churning in his throat. Zhang Lu’s face instantly paled, and unable to hold on any longer, he abruptly turned and lunged toward the trash can in the corner.
Ugh.
He desperately pressed down the sound, bending over to dry-heave. The stomach acid burned his esophagus, leaving nothing to vomit up except involuntary physiological spasms. His shoulders were locked tight, his knuckles clawing into the freezing wall, and his entire body trembled violently.
Behind him came the clamor of cargo handling and the blaring of forklifts; no one paid any attention to this silent laborer.
Only Zhang Lu knew clearly that this wasn’t from exhaustion.
His body nowadays couldn’t handle that stench, let alone the strange, quietly sprouting anomaly inside him that even he was unwilling to admit.
Zhang Lu steadied himself against the wall and recovered for a long while. A sour, bitter aftertaste still lingered in his throat, and a layer of cold sweat broke out across his temples, instantly chilled to the bone by the draft.
He wiped his face, hiding that trace of wretchedness deep inside his dirty, worn collar, and straightened up, wanting to return to the stacks of cargo, as he couldn’t afford to lose this job.
He had barely taken two steps when a rough voice boomed from behind him.
“Zhang Lu! Get your ass over here!”
It was the foreman.
With a cigarette dangling from his lips, the man scanned him up and down, his eyes full of impatience.
“What’s wrong with you lately, huh?” The foreman spat a cigarette butt onto the ground. “Hiding in the corner to catch your breath every other minute, resting three times for every single crate you move? Where’s that drive you used to have? I’m paying someone to work here, not raising an ancestor to nurse a sickness!”
Zhang Lu’s throat tightened, and he muttered in a low voice, “I’m fine. I’ll get back to work right now.”
“Fine?” The foreman scoffed, shoving him by the shoulder with a fair amount of force. “Did you just throw up again? Stinks of sour acid! The cold-chain section hates that the most, and do you know how bad of an omen that is? If you can’t work, just say so. There are plenty of people waiting to take your spot!”
Zhang Lu was shoved backward, staggering slightly as another wave of cramps hit his stomach.
He clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white, not daring to talk back.
Someone with a criminal record had no right to be picky.
“I really can work,” his voice was terribly hoarse, “give me one more chance.”
“A chance?” The foreman eyed him sideways. “Fine. If you dawdle or try to sneak off and slack halfway through this morning’s batch of goods, don’t bother coming in tomorrow.”
With that, he waved impatiently and turned away.
Zhang Lu stood frozen in place as the cold wind carrying the scent of seafood pierced into his nose.
He lowered his head to look at his rough, frost-reddened hands, then gently pressed against his still-flat lower abdomen, which was already starting to feel wrong.
Only one thought echoed in his mind:
He couldn’t lose this job.
Yet his body seemed beyond his control anymore.
Suppressing the lingering nausea in his throat, Zhang Lu didn’t dare delay any longer. He turned and plunged back into the cargo area thick with the stench of ice and rotting sea-products.
The foreman’s words still echoed in his ears, telling him to roll if he couldn’t work.
But other than brute physical labor, he had nowhere else to turn.
The crate of frozen mussels in front of him was even heavier than the last, its plastic surface coated in a layer of icy water that was slick and abrasive to the touch. Zhang Lu bent his waist, braced his core, tightened his arms, and relied on a surge of ruthless determination to hoist the crate onto his shoulder.
The weight instantly pressed down on his shoulder blades and lower back. A dull, aching pull radiated from his lower abdomen, not a sharp pain, but a heavy, sinking, bloated soreness. Combined with the endless seafood stench drilling into his nose, his stomach churned even more violently than before.
He managed barely two steps.
His vision began to flutter. The forklift sirens and workers’ shouts around him sounded muffled and harsh, as if separated by a thick layer of water. Cold sweat streamed down his temples, slipping into his eyes and stinging so sharply he could barely keep them open.
Gritting his teeth, he tried to haul this crate to the unloading point; once he put it down, he could catch his breath.
Instead, his body collapsed before his will did.
His vision abruptly went black, and a ringing buzzed in his ears.
The weight on his shoulder, the downward drag in his lower abdomen, and the nausea in his stomach erupted all at once. Zhang Lu’s legs went soft, and he lost his balance entirely, crashing heavily to the ground along with the heavy crate of frozen goods.
Bang.
The crate split open, and ice shards and frozen seafood went rolling all across the floor.
As for himself, his vision went completely black, and he collapsed straight down, passing out cold.
When his body hit the cold, slick concrete floor, his final shred of consciousness held only a desperate thought:
It’s over. The job is really gone.
A wave of exclamations instantly erupted around him. The foreman rushed over cursing, just about to raise a foot to kick him, when he suddenly froze, his expression altering drastically.
Not far away, a black sedan had pulled up quietly at the entrance of the cold-chain depot.
The car door opened, and amidst the stunned silence of the crowd, a tall, slender man stepped out. He wasn’t dressed flashily, wearing just a plain gray trench coat paired with dark blue trousers.
Yet, his aura pressed down on the entire noisy freight yard, causing it to go half-silent in an instant.
The moment the car door clicked shut, it felt like an invisible blade slicing through the air.
The young man walked at a leisurely pace, yet everyone around him held their breath.
He was well over six feet tall. The collar of his coat was slightly open, revealing the clean lines of his neck against the simplest white button-down shirt.
The yellow overhead lights cast a glow on his face, illuminating a complexion of extraordinary fairness.
That whiteness wasn’t a sickly pallor, but rather a translucent, cold-jade clarity. Yet, his facial features were aggressively striking, with high and sharp brow bones, eyebrows slanting upward like knives, and eyes of the deepest black that were narrow with upturned outer corners.
His nasal bridge was high and decisively straight, his lips thin as a blade, and the corners of his mouth carried a naturally upward-curving arc.
It was a face entirely devoid of softness, yet so stunningly beautiful that it was impossible to look away.
Without sparing a glance sideways, he walked straight toward Zhang Lu, squatted down, and gently cupped Zhang Lu’s chin with his fingers. A faint, mocking arc touched his lips: “Having a hard backbone alone, is that any use?”
Zhang Lu was deeply unconscious, his face deathly pale, his lips completely devoid of color, and the stray locks of hair on his forehead stuck to his skin with cold sweat. Even while passed out, his brows were tightly furrowed, as if still fiercely fighting off that uncontrollable nausea and this godawful life.
The man’s fingertips exerted slight pressure, rubbing against the rough stubble on Zhang Lu’s chin.
Then he moved lower, brushing against the weak pulse at his throat.
Cold.
Hard.
And carrying an unshakeable, lingering chill of sea-stink.
“Carry him to the car.” He stood up without looking back, his gaze still fixed on Zhang Lu’s face.
The foreman finally snapped out of it, nodding and bowing obsequiously. “Y-Yes, right away! This guy, he’s just a loader with a record. Might have caught some weird bug lately. Should we…”
The man tilted his head slightly, the curve of his lips deepening, though his eyes held zero warmth. “What were you trying to say?”
“N-No, nothing at all.” Cold sweat instantly broke out down the foreman’s back.
“I’m taking him with me. Handle whatever’s left here yourselves.”
With that, he turned and walked toward the pitch-black sedan.
The cold-chain market plunged back into a dead silence, with only the scent of seafood slowly lingering in the air. As for that man, he vanished into the shadows of the black car like a sudden cold wave, carrying a sharpness of beauty that was breathtakingly suffocating.
When Zhang Lu woke up, he felt weak all over, as soft as a puddle of mud.
A stinging sensation emanated from the back of his hand, accompanied by a tugging feeling.
In the dim light, the first thing he caught sight of was the IV needle taped to the back of his hand, clear medication slowly trickling down the slender tube and directly into his veins.
The tip of his nose was greeted by a faint smell of antiseptic mixed with a familiar yet unfamiliar cold fragrance. It wasn’t the fishy stench of the cold-chain market, nor the mildew smell of his rented room, but a foreignness that made his heart panic.
He forced his eyeballs to move, finally taking in his surroundings.
An absurdly large bedroom, soft silk bedsheets pressing against his rough skin with an icy smoothness. Heavy curtains covered the floor-to-ceiling windows, letting in only a few slivers of light. The furniture was dark in tone, luxurious yet cold, looking remarkably like the other person present in the room.
A sofa sat not far from the bedside, where the young man lounged casually, his hands resting loosely on either side, his gaze fixed directly upon him.
It is him.
Zhang Lu’s heart contracted violently, his breath stalling.
That exact face.
The cold-jade whiteness, the knife-sharp features, the upturned corners of those eyes, a beauty so aggressively striking that it had repeatedly haunted his recent nightmares.
He wanted to move, wanted to sit up, wanted to escape this place, but his body refused to obey. At the slightest movement, a dull, sinking ache pulled at his lower abdomen, even tugging painfully at the IV needle in his hand as cold sweat instantly saturated the bangs on his forehead.
“Since you’re awake, behave yourself.” The man spoke, his voice low and carrying an unhurried, lazy tone, yet every single word dripped with irresistible oppression. “Move around blindly, and if the needle slips out, you’ll just have to get poked again.”
Zhang Lu gripped the bedsheets so tightly his knuckles turned white, his eyes surging with fear and defiance as his voice rasped out: “You… aren’t you… didn’t you let me go?”
The man let out a cold chuckle, stood up, and walked step by step toward the bed. Standing over Zhang Lu, his tall frame blocked out what little light remained, forcing Zhang Lu to tilt his head back just to stare at that face lingering inches away.
“Let you go?” He leaned down, his fingertips lightly brushing against the IV tape on the back of his hand, a gentle gesture that only made Zhang Lu’s entire body stiffen. “I did say that. But I also told you: you had better have the grit to survive it.”
Pausing slightly, the sarcasm in his tone grew heavier: “You dying wouldn’t matter in the least, but what’s inside your body is my child, after all.”