First Meeting
Song Bai remembered something from the past, something… not very pleasant.
Qi Jun had just returned from France and taken a position as a teaching assistant at X University. Yes, he’d also been assigned a rather rowdy class.
For the first time, Qi Jun had felt the full weight of being a teacher. He took everything so seriously that when he learned one of his students hadn’t attended class or returned to the dorm for a whole week, he grew worried.
He spent the day looking into the matter, and the more he learned, the more alarmed he became.
Su Yuan had always kept to himself, because no one wanted to get close to him. Because he was, as people called him, a fag.
“Teacher, don’t bother with him. He’s sick,” the head of his dorm room said, unable to hide his disgust.
Qi Jun had spent quite a while abroad and was relatively open-minded about this sort of thing. After asking around every which way, he finally found out where Su Yuan was most likely to be.
Blue Night was one of the most famous bars in Beijing.
People who read a lot tended to have one thing in common: they hated noisy places. Qi Jun was even more so. He’d loved peace and quiet since childhood, and there was nothing he disliked more than places like this. The moment he walked in, he couldn’t help frowning.
He stood off to one side, his poise and refinement making him seem utterly out of place.
That was how Qiao Yi spotted Qi Jun.
Qi Jun had rushed out that day in nothing but a white shirt. The buttons at the collar were undone, revealing the faint outline of his slender collarbones. His dark gray slacks made his legs look straight and long. He looked around for a while, and soon noticed Qiao Yi’s group.
Parting the crowd of people dancing wildly, Qi Jun headed toward the corner where Qiao Yi was sitting.
For the first time, Qiao Yi felt his heart race. There was only one thought in his mind: This man is mine.
Qi Jun wasn’t walking especially fast. He was slender and upright, with a scholar’s air about him. Under the lurid lights, Qiao Yi felt a sudden heat in his groin. He stared intently at the man, his mouth going dry.
“What are you looking at, Young Master Qiao?” A pretty, seventeen- or eighteen-year-old boy leaned close to him, his body so soft he seemed boneless. “Why did you suddenly go quiet…”
Following Qiao Yi’s gaze, the boy immediately froze.
“T-Teacher Qi!” he blurted out.
Qiao Yi narrowed his eyes. “You know him?”
“H-He… he teaches our class. I saw him once at the start of term.” Su Yuan had remembered him vividly because he was so clean-cut and good-looking. “Why would he come here?”
As they spoke, Qi Jun reached their table.
Seeing him up close, Qiao Yi made up his mind: he had to have him.
What a clean-cut, refined man. His lips were beautifully shaped. Qiao Yi thought they’d feel incredible to kiss. He was elegant, almost delicate, nothing like the people in this utterly disgusting world. His expression was cool and distant, and when his beautiful eyes glanced over, Qiao Yi wanted to pluck them out on the spot and keep them somewhere safe.
“Su Yuan?” Aside from the class meeting on the first day of term, Qi Jun hadn’t seen him. Su Yuan hadn’t attended another class, and it was clear Qi Jun hadn’t noticed him during that brief hour or so. At school, Su Yuan kept such a low profile that people tended to overlook him. Having only seen a photo, Qi Jun couldn’t be entirely sure that this impossibly delicate-looking person was his student.
“Teacher, what are you doing here?” Su Yuan stood up at once, looking tense.
Qi Jun glanced around at everyone seated there, his expression mild. The group of young heirs, all eager to stir up trouble, fell quiet and watched him with interest.
“Sorry, my student has something to take care of. We won’t disturb you.” He took Su Yuan by the hand and was just about to leave when Qiao Yi pulled Su Yuan back. His grip was so strong it hurt.
“And you are…? Aren’t you going to introduce yourself?” Qiao Yi smiled darkly, his narrowed eyes fixed on Qi Jun as if he were looking at a naked man.
Qi Jun instinctively felt that this man was dangerous. Being watched by him made his skin crawl, like a snake had its eye on him. Still frowning, he replied with courtesy, “Hello, sir. My name is Qi Jun. The Qi in ‘spring comes late, and the mugwort grows thick,’ and the Jun in ‘the bamboo leaves are pale green, the golden flowers smile in autumn.’ I’m here today mainly to find my student, Su Yuan. Please excuse me if I’ve been rude.”
At that moment, all Qiao Yi could think was how lovely Qi Jun’s voice sounded. He imagined how enticing it would be to hear him moan beneath him on a bed…
“My name is Qiao Yi.” Qiao Yi looked at Qi Jun, then said with utter seriousness, “I want to fuck you.”
Qi Jun froze. Su Yuan froze. The group of friends around them burst out laughing.
“Young Master Qiao’s about to show off, is he?”
“He looks so damn chaste. Bet he’s incredible in bed.”
“When you’re done with him, let us have a turn for a couple of days…”
Qiao Yi’s brow furrowed. He kicked the speaker hard. “Fuck! You touch my man and I’ll castrate you!” He didn’t hesitate for a second, as if the person he’d kicked were some stranger and not a drinking buddy.
The man slumped into the sofa and coughed several times. He stared at Qiao Yi, fists clenched, but didn’t retaliate. Someone beside him hurried to help him up, then signaled him not to do anything rash.
Qiao Yi’s sudden fits of madness were nothing new, and when one struck, he didn’t care who got in his way. Everyone was used to it. He might be a lunatic, but he was loyal and generous with his money, and his family wielded real power. So people put up with him. Besides, as long as you didn’t touch a nerve, he was usually pretty normal.
It was just that no one knew what had set him off this time. Swapping bed partners was perfectly normal in their circle, and Qiao Yi usually just laughed it off. He’d even given away Eric, his closest bed partner, without a second thought. So why was he making such a scene over someone he’d just met?
None of them could help taking another look at Qi Jun. By now, he was trembling with anger, his face faintly red. It was hard to tell whether he was angry or embarrassed.
Qi Jun was very pale. He rarely went out and spent most of his time at home reading, so his skin was almost unnaturally white. That slight flush made him look all the more alluring. Now everyone understood why Qiao Yi was so angry. If a man like this belonged to you, you certainly wouldn’t want to share him.
Qiao Yi grinned and leaned closer. “Upstairs, or right here?”
Smack! Qi Jun slapped him across the face.
Everyone stopped breathing.
Anyone who’d dared to hit Qiao Yi would have grass as tall as Qi Jun growing on their grave by now.
Still turned to the side from the slap, Qiao Yi looked at him with narrowed eyes and a faint, sinister smile. Qi Jun knew at once he’d gotten himself into serious trouble.
Qi Jun had acted too impulsively. His palm burned and his scalp prickled. Suddenly, he lunged forward, grabbed Su Yuan, and tried to run. Su Yuan’s legs had already gone weak with fear. No one knew better than he did how dangerous Qiao Yi could be.
He remembered a time when he’d been eating out. Someone at the next table had gotten so drunk he’d forgotten his own name. Maybe he’d had trouble with Qiao Yi before, because he kept shouting, “Qiao Yi, you bastard, born without a mother to raise you!” The people around him couldn’t hold him back.
Qiao Yi’s expression had turned frighteningly dark, as if he were about to eat the man alive. He gave a signal, and soon the man was dragged over. Qiao Yi crossed one leg over the other and softly uttered a single word: “Beat him.”
No one dared stop him. It was the first time Su Yuan had seen someone beaten so badly. The man lay on the ground, gasping, his face a bloody mess.
Qiao Yi stood up and walked over at an unhurried pace. He crouched in front of him, grinning like a madman. “So I was born without a mother to raise me. I’ll show you what a bastard really is!” As he spoke, he planted his foot on the man’s head. If a call from his family hadn’t come through at the last moment, Qiao Yi probably would have kept stomping until the man’s brains were on the floor.
Su Yuan didn’t know what happened to the man afterward. He only knew that no one dared bring it up again. Whenever his name came up, people looked uncomfortable and changed the subject awkwardly.
Everyone in Beijing knew you could talk about anything and anyone, but never Qiao Yi. If you had to offend someone, better to offend a ghost than the living Yama.
“Take one step and see what happens. Believe me, I’ll break your legs.” Qiao Yi glanced at Su Yuan, his tone almost casual. Su Yuan was instantly drenched in sweat, afraid that even the slightest movement might leave him spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
“Mr. Qiao! You can’t do this. He’s still a student.” Qi Jun tried to calm himself and reason with Qiao Yi.
Qiao Yi smiled. “Right, he’s still a student. How about I let his teacher take his place?” He stepped forward and ran a finger along Qi Jun’s chin. The skin felt wonderful. Qiao Yi could barely hold himself back. He didn’t know when his desire had become so uncontrollable. Tsk, seeing someone like this made him excited all over again.
After that, Qi Jun’s memory went blank. He hadn’t forgotten what happened. He simply didn’t want to remember. It had been chaotic and terrifying, a despair unlike anything he’d ever known.
Qiao Yi kept him locked in that revolting room for three days. Day and night, they did nothing but have sex. He said, “If you don’t stay with me, I’ll make this public. Let’s see how you can keep pretending to be a teacher after that.”
Qiao Yi knew exactly where to hurt him.
At the time, Qi Jun thought he might as well die.
Qiao Yi said, “If you don’t do what I say, I’ll torment your parents to death. That professor, and that teacher or whatever. I wonder what their faces will look like when they see their son getting fucked like this.”
Qi Jun stayed with Qiao Yi for three years. More accurately, Qiao Yi kept him tied to his side for three years. Three years was long enough to grow attached even to a cat or a dog, but Qi Jun never did. To him, Qiao Yi was a tumor in his heart. If he couldn’t cut it out, he would have to die.
For a while, he truly felt as if he were already dead. But he was still alive. Whenever Qiao Yi finished with him and lay beside him, holding him, Qi Jun felt ice-cold all over. More than once, he’d wanted to take a knife, plunge it into Qiao Yi’s chest, and then kill himself.
He felt awful, his chest so tight he could barely breathe, and then…
“Well, you’re awake.”
The sharp smell of disinfectant hit him. He was in a hospital.
“You can’t die from slitting your wrists just once. Blood clots, you know. If you don’t cut a few more times, it’s not easy to die. Too bad you’re so weak that you passed out right away. You got your life back for nothing.” The speaker sounded calm. He wore a white coat and stood straight at the foot of Song Bai’s bed, his hands in his pockets. “We’ve met before, but I never introduced myself. I’m Chen Zhi. Chen as in the one with the ear radical, Zhi as in ‘ambitions in all directions.’”
Song Bai breathed shallowly, as if he hadn’t heard a word. He stared at the ceiling.
Chen Zhi didn’t mind. He pulled a chair over and sat beside him.
“Your health is terrible. You were injured before and never got proper treatment. You had an anal tear, a cartilage injury, then you developed a fever that turned into pneumonia. You’ve also got a broken rib, a bit of gastric bleeding, and then you lost blood from slitting your wrists… You’ve really racked up the injuries. I’m amazed you’re still alive.”
When Chen Zhi mentioned the anal tear and cartilage injury, Song Bai couldn’t help frowning. Those injuries had been left behind by the previous Song Bai. Chen Zhi didn’t sound particularly mocking as he said it, just matter-of-fact.
Chen Zhi was famous among the princelings as a genuine top student. He was one of the few who’d been willing to devote time to studying, and he wasn’t very interested in politics. He was a medical doctor with an overseas degree, his credentials polished by time abroad. It was hard to imagine someone like him being cut from the same cloth as Qiao Yi.
Song Bai moved a finger, and immediately felt as if pain had seized his entire body. He couldn’t help groaning.
“The anesthetic’s just worn off. Don’t move around. It’s your body, so you’re the one who’ll suffer.”
“Why… did you save me?”
Chen Zhi crossed his legs. A glint flashed across his glasses as he folded his arms. “In the operating room, I really fucking wanted to strangle you myself.”
Song Bai didn’t care. His eyes truly looked as though he had nothing left to hope for.
Chen Zhi gave a cold laugh. “You should be glad I didn’t. Not because my conscience suddenly kicked in. I just remembered something.” He paused for a while, then let out a breath. “You know what? Qiao Yi’s gone mad.”
Song Bai’s hand moved unconsciously. “Oh. When isn’t he mad?”
“He’s gone mad! He doesn’t recognize anyone! What the fuck did you do to him? He doesn’t even recognize his own father now!” Perhaps he was too worked up. Chen Zhi sprang to his feet, and despite Song Bai having just come out of surgery, grabbed him by the collar. Song Bai could barely breathe. His face flushed red.
Only when Song Bai coughed up blood did Chen Zhi come to his senses. He let go and turned to leave. A nurse soon came in to tend to Song Bai.
Chen Zhi rarely lost control like that. Among Qiao Yi’s group of four, he was always the strategist. Liu Fei was the muscle, while Zhang Suyu handled the cleanup. They were truly good to Qiao Yi, so good that it was hard to understand why. Outsiders might have thought they were all after the Qiao family’s power, but only the three of them knew the truth.