The Sheng family’s financial standing easily left the Lin family in the dust.
Sheng Lang’s father—the one famously cuckolded by his wife—owned a small building by the river in the South District, where he ran a modest inn.
It was a four-story structure featuring aluminum window frames, blue-tinted glass, and an exterior clad in pink tiles; a sign with yellow characters on a red background hung above the entrance, reading “Jufu Inn.”
Lin Zhixia found Boss Sheng’s artistic sensibilities cringeworthy.
The South District was indeed teeming with inns; just on the street where the Shengs lived, one could count five or six of them at a glance.
Just as Sun Mingzhu had said, even if they didn’t hang red lanterns, the entrances were always decked out in splashes of red and purple—giving the whole place a decidedly sleazy air.
Just beyond the South District lay the Old Fenghe Bridge, and on the opposite bank, a vast new city was under rapid construction.
At dusk each day, workers would stream across the old bridge in droves after their shifts, pouring into the South District and disappearing into the various inns. There, in the soft, fragrant embrace of women, their cheap bodies and weary souls could find a moment of respite.
It was early morning now; none of the inns on the street had opened yet, and only a few birds were out foraging.
Lin Zhixia took out the megaphone he had borrowed from the milk depot. He looked up at the Sheng family’s blue windows, a mischievous, wicked smile playing across his fair, innocent-looking face.
Sheng Lang’s room was essentially a stairwell closet—barely larger than a coffin. It was stiflingly hot in the summer, and since the noise of guests ‘getting busy (making love)’ annoyed him, he usually slept in a makeshift shed on the rooftop.
That morning, he was fast asleep, sprawled out with his belly exposed, when a piercing alarm sound suddenly made him bolt upright.
Residents of the South District were hyper-sensitive to that particular sound—which mimicked a police siren so closely it could practically jolt a soul back from the brink of the afterlife.
At first, Sheng Lang thought someone had committed a crime, but then he heard his own name. “Sheng Lang! Sheng Lang, come out and pay up! You smashed the milk bottles—come out and pay!”
Sheng Lang leaned out and looked down to see a strange kid shouting through a megaphone.
“Sheng Lang, you smashed those milk bottles; don’t even think about welching on the debt. If you’ve got the guts, come out and pay!”
Sheng Lang cursed; without even stopping to put on his slippers, he stomped down the stairs and lashed out with his bare foot, aiming a kick right at the kid’s face.
Lin Zhixia had already heard his footsteps and calmly stepped back three paces.
Sheng Lang caught the glint of something shattered on the ground and managed to slam on the brakes just in time.
He looked closer.
Holy hell!
The ground was carpeted in shards of broken glass, each piece glinting with a razor-sharp edge.
If Sheng Lang hadn’t been quick on his feet, the soles of his feet would have been shredded into a bloody mess.
“Fuck!” Sheng Lang cursed furiously. “Are you fucking looking to die?”
“Not looking to die,” Lin Zhixia said calmly. “Just looking to get paid. You smashed half a cartload of my milk—bottles and all—totaling four hundred yuan. I’ve got the receipt from the milk station right here.”
Lin Zhixia waved the slip of paper in his hand.
Sheng Lang wanted nothing more than to kick the kid flying, but the boy was standing in the middle of the broken glass, and Sheng Lang wasn’t wearing shoes.
He paced back and forth in front of the glass shards, snorting heavily through his nostrils, his green eyes fixed intently on Lin Zhixia—as if the boy were a rabbit just one pounce away from being caught.
Only then did Lin Zhixia really take a good look at Sheng Lang.
Sheng Lang’s unknown foreign father had blessed him with striking good looks.
Though only thirteen, the boy already had the height of an adult, with a large frame and long limbs. He had fair skin and thick, jet-black hair with a natural wave; unkempt and tangled, it hung over his forehead, partially obscuring his eyes.
Those eyes were the most undeniable proof of his heritage.
In the light, they shone a brilliant, emerald green; in the shadows, they deepened into the dark, bottomless pools of a mountain stream.
Eyes like that demanded a handsome face to match. Sheng Lang’s face was truly, impeccably handsome.
His features were sharply defined and perfectly proportioned; beneath a high bridge of the nose sat a mouth with distinct, chiseled contours.
At thirteen, he was at the age when a boy looks his absolute best. He had yet to develop the coarse facial hair or the rugged, hardened angles of adulthood; his face was striking and vivid—radiantly, almost ethereally beautiful.
Yet, there was not a hint of effeminacy about him. He was raw, unbridled, and primal; his fierce expression was charged with a beast-like aggression.
“Stop pacing,” Lin Zhixia said. “Own up to what you did. Pay me back, and we’ll call it even.”
“Pay you? Go fuck yourself,” Sheng Lang spat.
He had hit puberty early and his voice was breaking; whenever he raised it, it would crack into a thin, squeaky pitch that sounded rather comical. Consequently, Sheng Lang had become a man of few words, preferring action over speech to maintain an air of cool, tough detachment.
But today, this kid had infuriated him so much that he’d lost his temper and cursed out loud—only for his voice to crack pathetically.
That crack instantly sapped the menace from his outburst. Lin Zhixia burst out laughing.
That laugh was the spark that ignited Sheng Lang’s powder keg.
He grabbed a mop from the corner, swung it in a wide arc, and lashed out at Lin Zhixia, who was standing amidst the shards of broken glass.
Lin Zhixia, wearing sneakers, hopped and skipped through the glass, dodging left and right while switching on his megaphone; a pre-recorded rhyme blared through the entire alleyway:
“Sheng Lang smashed a bottle, refuses to pay a dime. He wrecks the place and walks away—what a model youth of Yong’an!”
The neighbors were roused from their sleep and peered out their windows. The local ladies of the night, who had only just turned in a few hours prior, leaned against their windowsills and shouted curses.
“So it turns out it was A-Lang who smashed that bottle!” shouted an auntie from the building opposite. “A-Lang, that’s disgraceful. Don’t bully someone younger than you—pay up!”
The other neighbors chimed in, voicing their agreement. Sheng Lang was panting heavily, his face flushed crimson, and a greenish glint flickered in his eyes like a ghostly flame.
He swung the mop in a wide, vicious arc, ready to smash it down on Lin Zhixia.
Sheng Guangquan had just run out of the house when his foster son smacked him right in the face with the mop, sending him sprawling flat on his back.
A burst of raucous laughter erupted from the alley.
Furious and flustered, Sheng Guangquan scrambled up, kicked Sheng Lang aside, and pulled out a wad of bills to fling at Lin Zhixia.
“Here, take this and get lost!”
Lin Zhixia picked up only four of the bills.
“Thank you, Uncle. But Sheng Lang only owes me four hundred yuan; I can’t take the extra. Goodbye, Uncle.”
Lin Zhixia gave a polite bow and sped off on the tricycle like a gust of wind, leaving behind a scattering of broken glass that stung the eyes of the Sheng father and son.
“Get inside!” Sheng Guangquan barked at Sheng Lang.
Sheng Lang raised his head, shot his foster father a sinister glare, dropped the mop, and strode into the house.
Sheng Guangquan slammed the door shut, then suddenly lashed out with a violent kick that sent Sheng Lang flying.
Thud—Sheng Lang tumbled into a stack of chairs piled in the corner.
Sheng Guangquan, acting like a madman, pounced on the boy, raining down punches and kicks.
“You little bastard, you mongrel cur! You don’t learn a damn thing right—all you ever do is cause me trouble!”
Sheng Guangquan wasn’t much taller than thirteen-year-old Sheng Lang; he was a bald, brutish man with a face like a slab of meat and layers of sallow fat that rippled as he moved.
“You’ve made me lose face and cost me money! You son of a whore…”
Sheng Lang offered no resistance and begged for no mercy; he simply glared back with those greenish eyes, looking for all the world like a stubborn, wild wolf cub.
The sight only enraged Sheng Guangquan further; he snatched up a broom from the corner and began thrashing Sheng Lang, raining blows down on his head and body.
The broom handle struck Sheng Lang’s lower leg with a vicious crack. A pained groan escaped his nose as he curled up, clutching his leg.
“Stop it, Old Sheng.” A woman with purplish-red hair leaned out from the second floor, revealing a flash of pale, bare skin. “That damned old woman will come knocking again, ready to tear you apart.”
Panting heavily, Sheng Guangquan dropped the mop and kicked Sheng Lang one last time.
“Get lost!”
He stomped up the stairs.
“Why does it always have to be such a scene?” the woman muttered under her breath. “The kid’s still useful; it wouldn’t pay to drive him away…”
“He isn’t going anywhere,” Sheng Guangquan scoffed. “The little bastard is still waiting for me to pay the old woman’s medical bills.”
Sheng Lang sat amidst the wreckage, rubbing his swollen, bruised leg and wiping away the blood that had trickled down to the corner of his eye.
A snow-white face, crimson blood, emerald-green eyes—and an expressionless mask.
The boy hauled himself up and limped his way up the stairs.