Li Xun stood at a busy intersection in the heart of the city.
Traffic poured through the night like a golden river, stretching as far as the eye could see.
“So?” A man emerged from a shadowed corner — looking younger than he probably was, slight and wiry, with a pair of prominent, protruding eyes that, the moment they shifted, suggested something shifty moving behind them.
Li Xun said nothing. Hou Ning went on: “I can read it off your face anyway — same thing I told you before, which you didn’t believe. Come on, let’s get food. I’m starving to death.”
At the far end of the street there was a small noodle shop. Business was thriving at this hour — the place was packed inside, and tables had spilled out onto the pavement.
It was a family operation, run for many years by a husband and wife. The husband stood at the front by the large iron pot, towel draped across his neck, boiling noodles. His wife worked the floor — delivering orders, collecting payments, busy and cheerful.
It was just past eight-thirty. Office workers from nearby buildings had finished for the evening and were filtering in for a meal. The theme at nearly every table was the same: complaints about work and about bosses.
By contrast, Li Xun’s table was unusually quiet.
Two bowls of beef noodle soup sat on the table, but Li Xun hadn’t touched his. He smoked and watched the street — the people passing by, the flow of traffic.
Hou Ning ate his way through half a bowl, then propped his laptop open on his knees and began typing with impressive speed.
“That’s the company you wanted to go after?” He didn’t look up, addressing Li Xun directly. “I already looked them up. They’re quite large now.” He paused. “Their reputation is awful, though. Nothing but abuse online.”
Li Xun said nothing. He kept his eyes on the distance.
Hou Ning lifted his gaze from the screen, studied him for a few seconds, then closed the laptop. “Li Xun, come with me.”
Li Xun slowly turned.
Hou Ning looked at him and said: “You’ve just been to see those old classmates of yours. I can tell from how you look what kind of reception you got. You can’t hold it against them — that’s just how the world works. The first time I went in, when I got out, my own parents wouldn’t acknowledge me — all because of that small debt. Doesn’t matter how it happens. When you’re on the outside and things go wrong, the people closest to you are the first to walk.”
Hou Ning gave a short, humorless laugh. His face was especially lean — when he smiled, creases fanned out across it, and combined with those bulging eyes, he looked rather like a monkey.
He tapped the laptop tucked under his arm. “But what they don’t know is that I made that much money back with a few keystrokes.”
Li Xun’s gaze went flat and cold.
Hou Ning leaned forward across the table. “Li Xun, money is money, no matter where it comes from. You think your old classmate’s money is clean? If it were, he wouldn’t have half the country cursing him. ‘Friends’ — what a joke. The louder they shout about loyalty, the faster they sell you out. But that’s all in the past. A person has to look forward. Leave this place with me, go abroad — after that, no one can touch us, and we’ll have more money than we know what to do with.”
Li Xun never answered him. He was looking toward a fixed point in the distance. Hou Ning followed his gaze and made out, at the far end of the dark street, the lit-up face of Jili Company’s building — newer than its neighbors, and for that reason more imposing.
The expression on Li Xun’s face darkened. He ground his cigarette out on the table, stood, and walked out. Hou Ning let out a sound of protest, grabbed his laptop, and went after him.
Hou Ning’s limbs didn’t seem to cooperate well with each other — he was fine walking, but running exposed a certain ungainliness. He barely came up to Li Xun’s chest, and had the thin, undernourished look of someone who had never quite filled out. He appeared less imposing than a middle-school student.
“What are you going to do? Tell me and I can help!”
Li Xun’s legs were long and his stride was wide. Hou Ning fell behind within moments, breathing hard. He gave up the chase and hurled his voice at the retreating figure instead.
“Li Xun!”
Li Xun didn’t slow down. He disappeared into the darkness of the night.
---
*
A sports car was parked outside the entrance to a villa complex.
The night had grown late. The street lighting inside the estate had been dimmed to its evening setting, but it still caught the blaze of the car’s body — vivid red, luminous as flame.
It was the second sports car Jin Cheng had bought that year. Counting his previous vehicles, he now owned seven in total, five of them red.
In truth, Jin Cheng had no particular fondness for red. But when he bought his first sports car, the timing happened to coincide with “Light Red” topping every chart, and at his manager’s insistence he had picked a red car for the occasion. His fans had since enshrined red as his signature color, portraying him as a man like a living flame. After so many years, he had somehow come to genuinely believe it himself.
“I’m going in.” Ren Di roused herself from the passenger seat, undid her seatbelt, and moved to step out. Jin Cheng caught her by the shoulder and pulled her into a kiss.
Their lips parted. Ren Di frowned.
“You’ve been drinking a lot.”
“You drank more than me.”
“But I didn’t drive.”
“It’s this late — who’s going to check? And even if they did, what of it — that’s what publicists are for,” Jin Cheng said, unbothered.
Ren Di had no patience for it. Jin Cheng held on, wheedling, his mouth at her ear. “…Every rock band has to drink heavily, that’s part of the deal—”
Ren Di was tired and irritated. She pushed him off.
“I’m going.”
Jin Cheng had another gathering to get to. He drove away.
Ren Di didn’t go inside immediately. She stood at the gate and lit a cigarette.
It was just turning autumn, and the air was still thick and close. She wanted to undo her collar for a breath of air, but she’d drunk too much and her hands kept trembling — she failed several times before giving up and simply tore the button off.
Ash fell in the scuffle and burned her hand. Ren Di swore under her breath.
When she looked up again, she saw a figure step out from the shadows between the trees ahead.
Ren Di went still. She spent about ten seconds deciding whether this was real or a drunken hallucination, then slowly opened her eyes wider.
Li Xun moved into the light of a streetlamp. She saw him clearly now. She dropped her cigarette to the ground, kneaded her dry, stiff hair, then stamped her foot once, hard, in pure release — and swore loudly:
“Damn it!”
The night wind came through. Something in her chest felt fractionally lighter. She turned back and opened the gate, waving him toward her.