After Zhang Bin left, Ren Changdong was left alone in the room, feeling utterly agitated. This Zhang Bin always seemed to challenge Ren Changdong’s worldview.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Ren Changdong experienced a rare sense of helplessness.
He had never suffered the hardships of living like a “wild man” in his entire life. The hotels he frequented were always equipped with full, professional amenities, and whenever minor issues arose, he had He Chengfeng around to handle them meticulously.
Now, looking at his wrinkled suit, he had no idea how to wash or iron garments made of such expensive fabrics and sophisticated cuts.
Ren Changdong borrowed a garment steamer from the front desk and tried doing it himself.
The old-fashioned steamer sputtered hot steam, and the crude water droplets quickly gathered into beads, dampening a large patch of his clothes. When the little curly-haired boy came over to try and help him steam it, the situation only became worse.
The little curly-haired boy looked at Ren Changdong with a panicked expression.
“It’s fine,” Ren Changdong said.
Ren Changdong knew for a fact that it wasn’t his fault, nor was it the boy’s. Looking at the steamer—a high-age veteran recalled from retirement—it was already a miracle that it could turn on at all.
Thinking of Zhang Bin, Ren Changdong figured that someone as meticulous as him would likely carry a portable garment steamer. But Ren Changdong refused to lower himself to ask Zhang Bin for help over such a trivial matter. Instead, he simply turned off his camera and started his meeting.
Normally, subordinates could carefully read between the lines of Ren Changdong’s micro-expressions, but with the screen completely black, the roomful of people felt even more on edge. The subordinates were exposed in the light while the boss remained hidden in the dark, which made everyone’s skin crawl.
Zhang Bin likewise intensely disliked the feeling of the other person being able to see him while he couldn’t see them. So, instead of using the door, he walked over to the French windows outside and knocked on the glass.
Figuring he might still need Zhang Bin’s help later, Ren Changdong didn’t want to ruin the relationship completely. He muted his microphone and went to open the window for Zhang Bin.
After returning to his own room, Zhang Bin had discovered that his “dead rat skin” toy was missing. Unable to find it anywhere inside his own room, he had come back to search for it.
While continuing his meeting, Ren Changdong watched Zhang Bin search frantically around the bed. Zhang Bin picked a stray eyelash off the sheet—it was impossible to tell whether it belonged to either of them.
Once the meeting concluded, Ren Changdong raised his eyes to look at him. “What are you looking for?”
“Things,” Zhang Bin replied, unwilling to tell him.
“That dead rat skin of yours?” Ren Changdong asked.
Ren Changdong had raised a child before and wasn’t unfamiliar with ugly toys. But this was the first time he had ever seen a toy so hideous and terrifying.
Zhang Bin sat on the bed, stewing in frustration. He thought to himself: Something I haven’t lost in decades, and it goes missing after just one night at Ren Changdong’s place—this guy is genuinely my jinx. Zhang Bin even suspected whether Ren Changdong had thrown his dead rat skin away.
“Did you see it?” Zhang Bin asked.
“Mn.” Reading Zhang Bin’s thoughts, Ren Changdong cleared his name. “Saw it last night. It was still there when you were sleeping.”
Ren Changdong added, “Must be important, huh? Li You also has a very precious little bear whose fur is all matted.”
“How old is he, and how old am I?” Zhang Bin naturally refused to admit it. “It’s just for self-defense, to scare away creeps who don’t sleep in the middle of the night and spend their time staring at other people.”
Ren Changdong steered the conversation toward adult matters.
“Do you have a garment steamer?” he asked casually.
“No,” Zhang Bin said.
“You brought room fragrance, but no garment steamer?”
“The fragrance was bought right here on the island,” Zhang Bin said, quite fond of the scent. “The floral-shirt guy runs a mediocre hotel, but he really knows a thing or two about picking out scented candles.”
“Not focusing on his proper business,” Ren Changdong said flatly.
“What even is a ‘proper business’?” Zhang Bin countered.
Zhang Bin actually quite appreciated the floral-shirt guy’s attitude toward life.
“Running a hotel just well enough that it doesn’t go bankrupt, soaking up the sun on clear days, and watching the drama unfold on stormy days. How do you know that isn’t considered his real business? Look at you—you can’t even catch the sun, and you’re way more anxious about being delayed from work than he is.”
“Is that why you came here?” Ren Changdong asked.
“Not quite,” Zhang Bin admitted. “Mid-flight, I found out the neighboring island is owned by you, and I was afraid you’d send people to dump me in the ocean, so I temporarily found a place to crash.”
Zhang Bin crossed one leg over the opposite knee, propped his chin in his hand, and sized Ren Changdong up.
“Ren Changdong, have you ever genuinely wanted to kill me?” Zhang Bin asked.
Of course Ren Changdong wouldn’t admit to it. “I run a legitimate business and abide by the law.”
“Fine, whatever.”
Zhang Bin leaned back against the bed, completely ignoring this “law-abiding businessman” as he stared blankly up at the ceiling light. He couldn’t fathom why Ren Changdong had to insist on wearing that damned suit.
During his work, Zhang Bin had encountered plenty of blue-collar men wearing work uniforms. These men wore uniforms to work and leftover work clothes at home; if you made them change out of them, they’d feel uncomfortable, unaccustomed, awkward, and anxious.
Zhang Bin couldn’t help but find such people a bit pitiable, but given the exorbitant price tag of Ren Changdong’s “work uniform,” looking at him now, Zhang Bin just thought he had it coming.
Zhang Bin called the front desk and asked the floral-shirt guy to bring up a flat-bottomed electric kettle.
“What are you trying to do?” Ren Changdong asked, afraid Zhang Bin was going to boil water and throw it at him.
Although Ren Changdong wasn’t particularly obsessed with his looks, he had zero intention of getting disfigured.
“What, only you are allowed to be law-abiding? Only you are the decent person here?” Zhang Bin retorted.
Last night, to ensure a good night’s sleep, Zhang Bin had made Ren Changdong sleep on the sofa. He had no intention of saying thank you, nor did he want to apologize, but he also didn’t want to remain indebted to Ren Changdong.
Zhang Bin dampened a face towel, wrapped it around the bottom of the electric kettle, and began ironing Ren Changdong’s vest piece by piece.
Still suspecting Zhang Bin harbored malicious intentions, Ren Changdong watched him cautiously, wondering what kind of unhinged antics this trickster was up to this time.
He watched as Zhang Bin, dressed in a bathrobe, stood behind the island counter, holding his vest down with one hand while operating the kettle with the other, pressing out the wrinkles inch by inch.
Unlike He Chengfeng, who always maintained a tense, high-strung posture when handling Ren Changdong’s affairs, Zhang Bin looked relaxed, yet his hands were remarkably steady. It was a pleasing sight that carried a rare sense of domestic warmth.
If Zhang Bin were actually a well-behaved person, Ren Changdong thought, I might even consider having Li You marry him off as a virtuous wife to keep at home. But unfortunately, this Zhang Bin was by no means a harmless character.
Just as Ren Changdong was pondering this, Zhang Bin finished the job.
“Do it yourself from now on; that’s the method,” Zhang Bin said. “Staying in your room for a night and ironing one piece for you pretty much calls it even.”
Zhang Bin’s hourly rate wasn’t low. Checking the time, the duration he had spent ironing this vest for Ren Changdong was already worth several nights of room rent.
Ren Changdong walked over and picked up his vest to inspect it. The garment was indeed pressed neat and crisp, but it carried an unpleasant odor—a faint, metallic smell of rust from the kettle’s bottom.
“Can’t you smell that?” Ren Changdong asked.
“Smelling it won’t kill you. Just wear it when you’re on video calls; people on the other end won’t be able to smell it anyway,” Zhang Bin asked Ren Changdong, “Has your problem not been resolved yet?”
Ren Changdong waved a hand, not in the mood to speak.
Looking at him, Zhang Bin felt his good intentions had been treated like a donkey’s lung. Wasn’t Ren Changdong trying to solve his problem? Well, problem solved.
The two men glared at each other, each finding every little thing about the other annoying.
Ren Changdong simply couldn’t bring himself to squeeze into a piece of clothing with a weird smell, so he opted to host his meeting wearing just his shirt this time. This wasn’t an internal company meeting, so he kept his camera turned on.
Zhang Bin walked out of the bathroom with freshly washed hands. Unaware that Ren Changdong was in the middle of another meeting, he only saw him sitting there in his shirt looking utterly exhausted.
He scorned Ren Changdong: not only was the man completely incapable of taking care of himself, but he was also being picky and choosy under these circumstances. Zhang Bin wondered who on earth handled Ren Changdong’s intimate apparel—it was probably that good assistant of his.
“Ren Changdong, if you hang your underwear in the bathroom like that, is it even going to dry?” Zhang Bin called out to remind him. “Don’t end up with nothing to wear inside or out later.”
Instinctively, Ren Changdong reached out to slam his laptop shut, only realizing after his hand was already moving that he was using an old-school desktop-style computer.
The other attendees on the call kept entirely straight faces, acting as though they had been born without ears and were completely incapable of hearing any words Ren Changdong wouldn’t want them to hear.
Even Ren Changdong, usually a man of unreadable composure, didn’t show much expression, but the senior executives closest to him could tell: the bridge of his nose twitched ever so slightly. He was genuinely losing his temper now.
Once the meeting concluded, Ren Changdong looked at Zhang Bin.
“Do you find this amusing?”
Ren Changdong’s tone wasn’t heavy, but the accusation was unmistakable.
Zhang Bin fired back: “You weren’t wearing formal attire, how was I supposed to know you were in a meeting? You’re always like this—you’ve always been like this. With Li You’s matter, you slapped a label on me without any evidence, and it’s the same story this time. Do you always have to act so high and mighty? Do you really have to hold such deep prejudices against me?”
“As for Li You’s affair, how do you expect me to categorize it?” Ren Changdong retorted. “Do you genuinely think that just because you didn’t cross the line subjectively, you wouldn’t mess things up?”
“If you didn’t go around hooking up indiscriminately, would you have gotten scammed? Even if you didn’t corrupt Li You, you’re hardly innocent, are you?”
Ren Changdong looked at Zhang Bin—a man in the prime of his youth with top-tier looks, yet carrying himself with such a self-negligent attitude. Flitting through so many people’s beds, acting so improperly.
“This time Li You scammed you by hiding his age and identity. Next time, you’ll run into someone carrying a full load of filthy diseases and rot away in bed.”
“What kind of business do you think I was trying to hook up with Li You for? We never intended to sleep together in the first place,” Zhang Bin sneered. “What do you know? You still don’t know a damn thing.”
“Ren Changdong, you’re repressed, you’re impotent, so you assume kids don’t need to learn anything or know anything, right? Who are you keeping that chastity archway erected for? Setting an example for the kids?”
“You’re raising a kid going through puberty as if he were a seven or eight-year-old. If you don’t teach him, plenty of other people will.”
Ren Changdong was provoked into anger by Zhang Bin, precisely because Zhang Bin had hit the nail on the head.
All the suppressed fury Zhang Bin had accumulated on the island for the past month flared up at this moment. When this man wanted to hurt someone, every single word could find the softest underbelly of the other person.
Dropping his usual polite, sophisticated facade, every syllable Zhang Bin uttered was barbed and hooked.
“If nobody really taught him, how would any teenage boy know how to do things that way? Which boy knows how to play in these little social circles? He looks just like you—don’t you ever look in the mirror? And you just dumped him abroad like that?”
Instead of scolding the kid, Zhang Bin chose to humiliate the man right in front of him.
“With that seductive air of yours, if you weren’t Ren Changdong and just some ordinary employee, do you honestly think you could guard that chastity archway of yours? Becoming someone’s kept toy or house-husband would be thanking your lucky stars. If someone genuinely wanted to completely play with you, they’d have a hundred ways to do it.”
Too exhausted, Ren Changdong sat in the interwoven light and shadow of the room, raising his eyes to look at Zhang Bin with a complexity never seen in his gaze before.
Here on this island, stripped of his social status, he was merely Ren Changdong—not Director Ren. The complex mix of emotions and the persistent physical pain gnawed away at his outer shell, rendering him “naked” in a metaphorical sense.
Zhang Bin looked back at him.
For the very first time, he looked at Ren Changdong strictly through the lens of another man.
Zhang Bin thought that he must have gone too long without a decent glass of wine, craving it to the point of madness. In this single fleeting instant, he suddenly felt as though Ren Changdong resembled a bottle of noble rot wine.
Ren Changdong was no longer young, but that had nothing to do with being old.
He was inherently a bottle of rare, once-in-a-lifetime noble rot wine. A grape pushed to the brink of over-ripeness, with mold blooming across its prime season of life, yet miraculously, it hadn’t rotted away. While all other plants completed their cycles of withering and flourishing, he played a game of chess with time itself, and even time would willingly raise its hand to grant him extra leniency.
He was damnably scarce, damnably expensive, and damnably tasteful. Yet when the mediocre masses looked at him, they could only feel that their own clothes appeared ragged and their hands entirely empty.
Zhang Bin looked at him, momentarily choked up by his own train of thought.
“Zhang Bin.”
Ren Changdong spoke, calling out the other man’s name.
He stood up and walked toward Zhang Bin. He didn’t argue with him, nor did he say another word.
Raising his hand, he landed a solid, resounding punch right across that infuriating, slightly curved face.