Three years ago, Li You was studying abroad in high school, acting even more clueless and half-baked than he did now. For some reason, he just had to wander into an upscale club. A true young master who should only have been spending money in such high-end venues was instead standing there waiting to be “selected.”
At the time, a room full of sleek, calculating men tacitly played dumb. Not a single one of them let on that Li You was still a minor. Zhang Bin had attended that victory celebration representing the vendor side; instead of exposing their hypocritical act of feigned ignorance, he went along with their game, laughed it off, and beat them to the punch by “claiming” Li You first.
To win the right to pick Li You, he downed a whole bottle as a self-imposed penalty. The room full of men chuckled and bantered, joking that lust is a knife hanging over one’s head.
Outside the club, Zhang Bin waved a hand and told Li You to get lost, but Li You refused to budge.
Zhang Bin was a man of reason; if he reasoned with someone three times and they didn’t listen, he simply stopped talking.
So he dragged Li You into an alleyway and thrashed him until the kid cried and promised never to come to such places looking for thrills again. Afterward, Zhang Bin bought Li You an ice cream, asked for some extra ice cubes to soothe Li You’s swollen face, and advised him not to worry his parents.
“I don’t have parents,” Li You licked his ice cream and said. “I’ve never seen either of them since I was little. It’s just my uncle and me against the world…”
Zhang Bin’s ears had grown calloused from hearing that exact cliché. He cut Li You off, skipped the sob story entirely, and handed him three hundred US dollars on the spot.
Clutching the cash, Li You asked, “Are you willing to buy me now? Right here? Or should we go to a hotel?”
Zhang Bin was left speechless. He had no idea whose brain-damaged kid this was, but he genuinely pitied the family that had to raise him.
“Go take a look in a mirror,” Zhang Bin told him.
Li You wore a blank expression. Plenty of people called Li You stupid, but Zhang Bin was genuinely the first person to find fault with his face.
Li You pulled a small pocket mirror out of his pocket, checked himself, and instinctively fixed his bangs. The face that had just served as a touchstone to test human nature was now swollen like a puppy stung by bees.
“Your hands are way too heavy. If my uncle sees this, his heart’s going to ache…”
Watching this bruised, babbling idiot ramble on was actually kind of amusing. Zhang Bin turned his head and flashed a smile—a smile that Li You would never, ever forget.
From that moment on, Li You was dead set on getting Zhang Bin into his life and onto his family household registry.
Zhang Bin met far too many people year-round, and his type usually leaned toward Li You’s demographic. He had long since forgotten about Li You, while Li You had turned Zhang Bin into a persistent obsession.
Recalling that memory, Zhang Bin looked at the face before him. Li You’s features slowly dissolved, replaced by Ren Changdong’s sharp, clear brows and eyes.
Zhang Bin spoke up: “I suggest you take the kid to see a psychologist.”
“Is that a genuine suggestion, or are you just insulting me?” Ren Changdong asked.
“Can’t it be both?” Zhang Bin retorted.
The two of them sat in silence side-by-side on the shore for five or six minutes.
“Let’s go.”
Ren Changdong tried to stand up. He didn’t want to stay by the water anymore; that floating platform was still bobbing on the surface, making his heart race with unease.
Zhang Bin stood up without waiting for Ren Changdong, once again walking ahead on his own. Ren Changdong looked at Zhang Bin’s back. The skin that had been completely clean just moments ago was now marked with several fresh scratch marks.
As the saltwater touched the open wounds on his back, Zhang Bin finally felt the sting. He glanced sideways at Ren Changdong; beneath Ren Changdong’s shirt, bruises from the rocky shore were vaguely visible in shades of blue and purple.
“I’ll head out first,” Zhang Bin said. “Give it ten minutes before you move. Let’s leave separately.”
“Why?” Ren Changdong didn’t want to be left alone by the water.
“Damn it, you’re a married man—what kind of pure virgin act are you trying to put on? Why do you think?”
Grumbling and cursing, Zhang Bin turned back around, only to see Ren Changdong’s pale face and the damp, flushed red lining his eyelids. He looked like a piece of porcelain cracking under high heat—sharp, fragile, and on the verge of shattering.
Though his tongue was venomous, Zhang Bin knew his limits. In the end, he didn’t dare leave Ren Changdong in that state alone by the water. With a sharp tug, Zhang Bin ripped the towel off Ren Changdong’s shoulders and draped it over his own instead, and only then did they walk out of the pool area together.
As soon as they stepped outside, Zhang Bin saw that Ren Changdong’s fiercely loyal assistant was already waiting by the pool entrance. He originally wanted to avoid the awkwardness of running into He Chengfeng, but he happened to catch a flash of evasion cross He Chengfeng’s face. That panic wasn’t directed at him.
Zhang Bin narrowed his eyes slightly and sized up He Chengfeng. For someone who dressed so conservatively, his hidden ambitions were certainly extravagant. Trying to climb into his own bed was one thing; but eyeing Ren Changdong? That dog had a lot more than just some nerve.
Deliberately letting the towel slip, Zhang Bin couldn’t be bothered to help Ren Changdong dodge gossip anymore. He was in a foul mood, so he figured he might as well ruin everyone else’s peace too.
“Chairman Ren’s waist is certainly anything but narrow. If it weren’t for the buoyancy of the water, hoisting you up wouldn’t have been so easy.”
Dropping that ambiguous parting remark, Zhang Bin walked away. Behind him, the two men wore faces as dark as charcoal and as red as beets.
Ren Changdong had a professional team managing his health, and his physique had always been maintained precisely according to their data. He was tall and strong, which gave him the physical stamina required to handle high-intensity work.
Prior to this, Ren Changdong had never conceptualized “aesthetics” when it came to his own body. He believed that as long as his frame was “durable,” that was enough.
In Zhang Bin’s eyes, he figured he must look quite unappealing; after all, Zhang Bin’s aesthetic preference had always leaned toward slim, slender young men.
On his walk back to his room, Zhang Bin instinctively moved his hand. The tactile memory of Ren Changdong’s thighs still seemed to linger in his palm—grab a handful, and it was pure flesh without a trace of softness, a remarkably unfamiliar sensation.
Once things quieted down, that tactile memory became sharper and clearer. He realized now that the muscle strain in his arm was far worse than he had anticipated. His muscles had already been pulled when he hauled Ren Changdong ashore; he shouldn’t have exerted himself further, yet he had stubbornly pushed through to perform CPR for so long.
Large patches of dark purple bruising were beginning to bloom across his arm.
Back in his room, Zhang Bin called the front desk to request some ice. A curly-haired bellboy heard he needed ice and showed up at his door with a champagne bucket stuffed completely full.
Stepping inside, the curly-haired kid immediately noticed Zhang Bin’s injury, genuine concern in his eyes. He used a towel to wrap the ice cubes and helped Zhang Bin ice his arm.
“Are you planning to leave soon?” the kid asked.
“Mhm.”
“I’m going to miss you,” the kid said.
Zhang Bin had mentioned before that he would be heading home before the Mid-Autumn Festival. The island locals didn’t know what the Mid-Autumn Festival was, so he had explained that it meant later this month, when the moon grew full.
Zhang Bin smiled, unsure whether he would actually miss this curly-haired kid. In the hotel, Zhang Bin had always been warm, generous, and articulate, making everyone eager to interact with him.
Yet his friendliness toward everyone practically meant he had given his heart to no one. He was terrified of this kind of unprompted, purposeless kindness; terrified of these pure, untainted little humans.
After finishing the icing, the kid left a few coconut candies on Zhang Bin’s bedside table before heading out.
Zhang Bin wasn’t a fan of candy, but he unwrapped one anyway and popped it into his mouth. Just after the kid left, he sat on the edge of the bed with his head bowed. Before the candy in his mouth had even melted, his phone suddenly vibrated. He picked it up—it was a call from home.
His mother at the other end could no longer sit still and had pushed old Zhang to call and check on the situation. The two of them were crammed together on a small sofa, their ears pressed against the receiver to catch Zhang Bin’s voice.
Old Zhang didn’t pry into his son’s other matters, instead using the Mid-Autumn Festival as an excuse to ask which chef’s catering service he was booking this year.
Sitting in the shadows cast by the bed curtains, Zhang Bin spoke in a relaxed tone.
“How about Cantonese food? A friend just opened a new place, and they do fantastic fish. Since the little miss is in the middle of her primary-to-middle school transition exams, we’ve got to feed her some good food to boost that stubborn brain of hers.”
Old Zhang told him not to tease the child, pointing out that she was about to enter puberty and had a very fragile sense of pride right now. A silence followed on the line. Old Zhang suddenly remembered that his son wasn’t exactly a stranger to wounded pride himself.
Zhang Bin had never scored lower than a double-digit ranking in his entire school life. Tapping his forehead, he made small talk with old Zhang just to fill the silence and change the subject.
“Do you think the little miss will even make it to university?” Zhang Bin asked.
The little miss’s grades hovered around the top ten of her grade in a key primary school, which wasn’t bad at all. On the other end of the line, old Zhang let out a sigh—a sigh directed at Zhang Bin.
“Looks like she’s doomed, then,” Zhang Bin muttered, shifting the blame entirely onto the child.
In a rare display of sentimentality, old Zhang said something embarrassing: “A child’s happiness and safety matter more than anything else. Being smart has its perks, but being a bit of a fool comes with its own blessings. What’s the point of being this smart…”
Zhang Bin felt a sudden sting in the bridge of his nose and the back of his eyes. Just as he was planning to add a couple of solid meat dishes to the family’s Mid-Autumn table, old Zhang started nagging again.
“Your mother and I are getting old. Who knows how much longer we can stay by your side? We just hope you can find someone to look after each other. Don’t end up having no one to talk to when trouble strikes.”
“You think you’re living so carefree now, but when you get old and have aches and pains, there won’t be a soul around to keep you company. Whoever you bring home—tall, short, fat, thin, male, female, it doesn’t matter…”
“Alright, alright, I’m hanging up. There’s no signal on island days.” Zhang Bin hated hearing this stuff.
He thought to himself: What do you mean tall, short, fat, thin, male or female? Marriage isn’t a child’s game; of course he had to pick someone he was completely satisfied with in every aspect, someone he could spend a lifetime with.
After hanging up, he looked out the window. The sky looked terrifyingly gloomy, heavy, dark clouds shrouding the ocean, pressing down low enough to make it hard to breathe. He lay back down on the bed, raised his left arm to cover his eyes, and cursed thunderstorms.
Closing his eyes didn’t bring any peace to his mind.
Every single step Zhang Bin had taken in his life was calculated with precision. He had originally planned to get married at thirty, establish a controllable social network, reinforce his credit endorsement, and polish his public image before smoothly transitioning into the next stage of life.
Thinking of Ren Changdong’s face, Zhang Bin blamed him for crashing the party and messing up his plans. Since Ren Changdong had already been married once, of course he wasn’t in a rush—whereas he himself hadn’t even tied the knot yet!
A pleasing, desirable little spouse wasn’t easy to find to begin with, let alone trying to pick one out from a sea of men.
Rain began to pelt against the glass. Zhang Bin thought: There won’t be a moon tonight, and Ren Changdong looks like he was dropped straight down from the moon. Living in those ivory towers for too long had drained all the human warmth out of him; the guy didn’t even know how to offer someone a polite way out—what a useless piece of work.
Lying there like that, Zhang Bin drifted off to sleep.
Earlier, when He Chengfeng was walking Ren Changdong back to his room, he happened to see the curly-haired kid walking into Zhang Bin’s quarters. The kid looked young and well-behaved—precisely the type Zhang Bin was known to favor.
He Chengfeng cursed under his breath: “Delivering this much ice… what a filthy game.”
Ren Changdong only shot He Chengfeng a cold, indifferent glance. He couldn’t see what ice had to do with filth, but for He Chengfeng to so presumptuously gossip about others was fundamentally wrong.
“My apologies.”
Realizing that he and Chairman Ren weren’t close enough to chat idly, He Chengfeng quietly set out Ren Changdong’s meal and tiptoed out of his boss’s room.
Ren Changdong sat alone, pondering the immediate situation.
He knew he didn’t actually need to drag this out on the island with Zhang Bin. All he had to do was make his stance clear and offer a graceful exit; once Zhang Bin was no longer restricted from returning to the mainland and grew tired of waiting it out, he would leave on his own.
As for whether a stranger felt wronged or emotionally upset, Ren Changdong genuinely had no spare capacity to care. It wasn’t that he felt zero guilt, but that emotion was so faint and light—like a tiny grain of sand trapped inside a shoe. He could feel it, but pressing forward on the journey was what truly mattered.
Ren Changdong messaged He Chengfeng to book the ferry and flight tickets; they would set off for the island he invested in tomorrow morning, and head straight back to the mainland after the inspection. He also sent a text to Li You, informing him that Zhang Bin was safe and sound—not about to die anytime soon.
With the itinerary settled, Ren Changdong lowered his gaze to the meal on the table. His chest felt like it was burning with pain, and he had zero appetite, yet he forced himself to start eating anyway.
He had to ensure he took in enough daily nutrition; it was his obligation. He didn’t pity Zhang Bin, nor did he pity himself.
First thing in the morning, He Chengfeng packed the luggage and arranged the boat. Ren Changdong changed back into his unchanging, infallible three-piece suit.