Lin Yansheng felt that his life was like a single drawer.
It slid open or shut along a predetermined track, its range of movement limited, square, orderly, filled with inexpensive everyday items.
He was already content. Ideally, that drawer would never need repair for the rest of his life.
Since his youth, he had never harbored grand ambitions. He only wished to be an honest and kind ordinary man.
He still remembered the past, when he was in secondary school. Back then, the Walled City was far more bustling than it was now. Guangming Street thronged with traffic from dawn till dusk, chaotic and brazen.
By the time their class graduated, fewer than three out of ten remained in school. One after another, they had stepped into society early. Some disappeared without a trace, while others rose to sudden notoriety,
A firm, muscular hand wearing an oyster style solid gold Rolex lifted the indigo curtain.
From the back of that hand up to the short sleeve at the upper arm, intricate tattoos coiled densely, inky blue black lines forming a ferocious qilin dragon twisting amid flames.
“What’s the rush? One step slower and your kid won’t be slaughtered,” the man said as he lifted the curtain and stepped inside.
He possessed a striking appearance.
The moment he appeared, it was like a fading sun on the horizon at dusk suddenly flaring once more, cleaving through the frozen tension in the air.
Faces around the room changed at once. Even the middle aged men who had been sitting rose to their feet.
“Boss Luo, what brings you here?”
“Just accompanying a friend.”
The two exchanged pleasantries. In the brief moment it took to pass a cigarette, the crisis dissolved.
There was nothing that couldn’t be resolved once enough respect had been given.
At last, Lin Yansheng managed to lead Qin Shun away.
He murmured softly, “Shh.” Qin Shun seemed about to speak, then held back.
Lin Yansheng knew what he wanted to ask. He wanted to know who that man was.
If he had to introduce him, Lin Yansheng could only say: this was a former classmate of his, someone who had attended the same school for two years, his name was Luo Yaoshan.
He truly had been at his wit’s end.
Nor had he expected Luo Yaoshan to actually respond to him.
As children, they had often taken the same road home yet they had hardly ever spoken.
Friends?
That would be too generous a description. Up until the day he dropped out. That day, on the tram, there happened to be two empty seats side by side.
They sat shoulder to shoulder.
Out of nowhere, Luo Yaoshan said, “I dropped out.”
Lin Yansheng paused, caught off guard, not knowing what to say. “…”
“What will you do from now on?”
“What?”
“They’ll start bullying you again.”
Lin Yansheng clutched his schoolbag tightly.
At that time, Luo Yaoshan was still a boy, his skin dark, his body unmarked by any tattoos, his hair shaved into a flat buzz cut.
He gazed out the window for a moment before saying, “Lin Yansheng, enduring a hundred humiliations won’t turn you into gold. It will only turn you into rotten mud for others to trample.” With that, he got off the tram.
The next time Lin Yansheng heard the name “Luo Yaoshan” was several years later, when the man had opened his first shop.
Years passed. Riding the tides of the times, his ventures expanded at a staggering pace.
It was said that he now owned more than a dozen nightclubs and billiard halls and was even preparing to establish a film company.
The man walked ahead of them, smoking, the gray white, acrid haze drifting back.
“Thank you. Cough, ” Lin Yansheng endured the sting in his throat. “…I really don’t know how to thank you.”
Hearing him, Luo Yaoshan turned his head.
Seeing Lin Yansheng like this, he smiled, both surprised and yet not surprised at all. Then he tossed the half smoked cigarette to the ground and crushed it beneath his shoe.
“It was nothing. Just a small favor. One day, you can treat me to a bowl of braised pig’s trotter noodles.”
He glanced at him, then amended, “It’s so hot today. How about, buy me a drink instead?”
Lin Yansheng hurriedly replied, “O… okay.”
Soon, he had bought three cans of soda.
Across the flow of traffic, when he looked up, he saw Luo Yaoshan talking with Qin Shun, lighting another cigarette. Whatever he said made him laugh.
As Lin Yansheng approached, the words became clear.
Luo Yaoshan: “……………Steady? You mean little Yansheng who used to cry at the drop of a hat?” There was nostalgia in his eyes.
Lin Yansheng rushed over. “Don’t talk bad about me!”
Luo Yaoshan: “Hahahahahaha.”
Back home.
The first thing he did was check whether Qin Shun was truly unharmed from head to toe.
Qin Shun stood where he was, like a puppet, allowing himself to be examined.
Several times he tried to ask something yet never found the right moment.
“How did you get a bruise! Did they hit you?”
“I bumped into something while moving things.”
“Did anyone make you eat anything strange?”
“No.”
He questioned him one by one.
As Qin Shun answered, he found himself recalling what the tattooed man had said to him by the roadside: “Your uncle hasn’t changed at all. He was always like this, seeing everything in simple terms, believing that in this world people are people and beasts are beasts, clearly divided. Such an honest man. If it weren’t for you, he probably would never have come looking for me in his entire life.”
Because of him, his uncle now owed an enormous favor. In a muffled voice, he asked, “Uncle, what about that man?”
“Who?” Preoccupied with Qin Shun, Lin Yansheng didn’t react at first. “Oh, you mean Luo Yaoshan.” In truth, he didn’t know either but he still spoke stubbornly, “I’ll handle it.”
How would he handle it?
Qin Shun pressed his lips into a thin line.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t know Lin Yansheng was already at the end of his rope.
What could he possibly use to repay such a debt?
A thread of inexpressible irritation gnawed quietly at his chest.
It wasn’t enough, he still wasn’t grown enough.
Qin Shun felt deeply unsettled. “That man… he’s a bit strange, isn’t he?”
Lin Yansheng laughed in exasperation.
He really wanted to smack him yet violence was not in his nature. His raised hand fell instead into an awkward knock against Qin Shun. “You only realize he’s strange now?!”
Qin Shun lowered his head. “I was wrong, Uncle.”
Looking at this brat who was growing up more with each passing day, Lin Yansheng’s emotions tangled into something complicated.
A thousand words circled in his heart yet in the end they turned into a single, nasal sigh. “If you ever throw yourself away like this again, I won’t interfere anymore.”
“Mm.” Qin Shun wrapped his arms around him.
That was his answer.
Lin Yansheng held back and held back but in the end he couldn’t hold it in. Tears slipped down.
He had just been laughed at.
He hadn’t meant to cry; his voice thickened in his throat.
The truth was, there had been selfishness in saving A Shun.
A Shun, you’re the only family I have left.
That was what he thought.
After much pleading and persuasion, the school finally agreed to let Qin Shun return.
But only two days after he went back, the major exams were already upon them.
Lin Yansheng was terribly worried.
He pushed Qin Shun to review, mocking him, “You’ve missed so many classes. Let’s see how you’ll manage the exams.”
Yet Qin Shun himself seemed completely unbothered, as if nothing were wrong at all.
When the report cards were finally handed out, Lin Yansheng took one look.
“?”
How was he still ranked first in the entire school?
This was bad.
He hadn’t even earned next semester’s tuition yet.
What was he supposed to do?
What was he supposed to do?
That day, Luo Yaoshan asked to meet him.
✦ ✧ ✦
Fleurveil
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
✦ A tiny offering to the translator may please the spirits of the Realm. ☕
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← PreviousNext →
ChaptersChapter 1 · UncleChapter 2 · Ran AwayChapter 3 · TimidChapter 4 · DeceasedChapter 5 · Grow upChapter 6 · CharmChapter 7 · EndureChapter 8 · Biological FatherChapter 9 · ContestChapter 10 · MisunderstoodChapter 11 · BreakChapter 12 · ReunionChapter 13 · MeetChapter 14 · To clearChapter 15 · InstructionsChapter 16 · RegretChapter 17 · SecretChapter 18 · Subtle SophistryChapter 19 · GuestChapter 20 · KissingChapter 21 · Extra 1Chapter 22 · Extra 2Chapter 23 · Extra 3Chapter 24 · Extra 4Chapter 25 · Extra 5Chapter 26 · Extra 6Chapter 27 · Extra 7Chapter 28 · Extra 8