BEHIND THE EAST SIDE’S glowing commercial center was a man-made green space with attractive scenery. Half a mile in, haughty upscale residences started to appear. They’d been built there deliberately—peace and quiet were only valuable when they were an oasis within hustle and bustle.
The green space was surrounded by places to spend money. They formed concentric rings, their axis style. The most expensive spots lay in the inner circle, while cheaper ones were even farther out, closer to other streets. And the best, most expensive, most stylish place of all was Chengguang Mansion.
The owner of Chengguang Mansion wasn’t just rich—they were also deeply pretentious. They’d renovated the courtyard in a pseudo-antique style so that, at first glance, it looked like a protected historical building. That renovation work had been completed not long ago, and the mansion’s owner had invited their wealthy and prestigious friends to a party so that they could show off the spot. Some were there to network, some to talk business, and some just to show support. More than a few attendees had simply scented a party and followed their noses, happy to use their face or body as an entry ticket. The parking lot was packed with luxury cars of every color. It was a Vanity Fair of ostentatious scope.
Fei Du made his way over on foot, unhurried. He could hear the music and the voices of the people in the courtyard from a great distance. By the time he arrived, he’d finished his sickeningly sweet coffee. Just as he crammed the empty paper cup into a roadside bin, he heard someone whistle the note souring at the end.
“Fei-zong, over here!”
Turning, he saw a group standing nearby—all young people with rich parents and too much time on their hands. Their leader was an exceedingly fashionable young man dripping with accessories. This was Zhang Donglai, one of Fei Du’s reprobate friends.
Fei Du strode toward him. “Are you mocking me?”
“Who’d dare?” Zhang Donglai threw an easy arm around Fei Du’s shoulders as they walked. “Your car’s been here for ages. We’ve been waiting here too the whole time. Where’d you go? And what’s with the getup? Did you just sign a trade deal with the president of the United States?”
Fei Du didn’t even look up. “Shut up.”
Very obligingly, Zhang Donglai piped down for a whole minute before his self-restraint shattered. “No, I can’t. Looking at you makes me uncomfortable. I feel like I’m walking with someone’s dad. How are we going to pull any girls?”
Fei Du’s steps paused. He took off his glasses with one finger and hung them on Zhang Donglai’s collar, then removed his jacket, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and opened four buttons. His shirt gaped open, the incomprehensible tattoo on his chest peeking out. With one hand, he mussed up his hair; then he grabbed Zhang Donglai’s claws of fingers, slipped off three thimble-thick rings, and popped them onto his own hands. “Well, son? This all right?”
Zhang Donglai thought of himself as a worldly man, but Fei Du’s instant physical change dazzled even him.
Fei Du led their group of useless rich kids because while everyone else had a father—they were all crown princes, so to speak—Lord Fei had lost his mother at an early age, and he’d barely been an adult when a car accident turned his father into a vegetable. Thus, he’d “taken the throne” before the others, putting him a rank above them: He had all the money he could want and nobody to control him. Naturally, that made Fei Du a force of conspicuous consumption. One saving grace, however, was his lack of interest in playacting as some kind of “business prodigy”—he behaved himself when it came to actual business affairs and never threw his money at dodgy investments for no reason. He only spent money like a wastrel in his personal life, and there was a limit to how much he could waste that way.
But lately, for whatever reason, he’d stopped coming out to dick around with the clique. Almost as if he was thinking of washing his hands of them.
Fei Du stuck both hands in his pockets and sauntered forward. “Just so you know, I’m only here as a show of support. I’m leaving at midnight.”
“Why, Lord Fei…?” Zhang Donglai grumbled. “That’s so lame.”
“Your idea of fun is vulgar,” Fei Du replied airily. “I’m turning over a new leaf.”
Vulgar? Zhang Donglai looked at Fei Du’s unbuttoned shirt and long hair billowing in the wind. He didn’t see much sophistication there.
Hurrying after Fei Du, he asked, “Are you worried about your cop friend nagging you? What’s wrong with you, Lord Fei? You’re ignoring a whole thick forest for one damn tree you hug all da—”
Fei Du whipped his head around and pinned Zhang Donglai with an icy look. There was a peculiar, contradictory air about Fei Du. When he smiled, he was as charming and seductive as a peach blossom in full bloom. When that smile fell, razor-sharp severity seamlessly took its place, and his gaze turned almost menacing.
Zhang Donglai hesitated, then decided not to finish his sentence. He slapped his own cheek and pretended to spit. “Oops—shouldn’t have said that. I’ll apologize to Officer Tao for it some other time.”
The tension weighing down the corners of Fei Du’s mouth finally eased. Waving Zhang Donglai off easily, he graciously turned the page. Unseen, Zhang Donglai rolled his eyes. His Lordship’s been bewitched by beauty; the kingdom is doomed.
“Lord Fei” was as good as his word. When midnight came, he left like Cinderella hearing the clock strike twelve. Wending through the crowd of devils and painted faces—and dodging some idiot heartily toasting him with a glass of champagne—he headed to a little grove to look for Zhang Donglai. The idiot behind him yelled drunkenly, “Wealth, power, and a dead dad! Lord Fei, you’re the real winner in life!”
“Thanks, but my dad’s not dead.” Fei Du nodded politely at him, then turned to look into the distance at Zhang Donglai. “Busy?”
Zhang Donglai was discussing the birds and the bees most enthusiastically with a beautiful woman. They both seemed quite indifferent to the presence of others around them. Shameless as he was, the scoundrel answered Fei Du with a whistle. “Join us, Lord Fei?”
“No.” Fei Du didn’t even slow his pace. “I don’t share your appetite. I’m leaving.”
He ignored Zhang Donglai hollering behind him and marched swiftly down the cobblestone path. His steps were unwavering, as if he hadn’t been drowning in booze all night. In the parking lot, he buttoned his shirt up again and called for a designated driver, then leaned against the trunk of a pagoda tree to wait. At the tail end of spring and beginning of summer, the scent of pagoda tree blossoms always suffused the air in Yancheng. It began in quiet little corners, so faint it could be masked by a single puff of exhaust fumes, but, left to settle without disturbance, the scent built gradually and emerged once again.
In the distance, music from Chengguang Mansion was interspersed with noise and laughter. Fei Du turned back to look, narrowing his eyes. A group of young women were playing a game with a few balding and potbellied, but rich, “pretty boys.” Even east of Nanping, most shops were closed at this time of night, and those who came with their cards to rub shoulders and network would’ve left before midnight. There was a tacit understanding that those who remained were hanging around for the next event: indulgence in the pleasures of the flesh.
Fei Du plucked a few little white blossoms from the tree. He blew the dust off them, then put them in his mouth and slowly chewed as he lazily opened the contact list on his phone. He let his finger hover over “Officer Tao” for a good while, but then—suddenly realizing how late it was—he gave up on it. At first, he stood silently. Then he began to whistle through the floral sweetness of the blossom on his tongue, and a tune gradually took form.
Ten minutes passed. The driver arrived and took Lord Fei’s flashy little sports car onto Nanping Boulevard with great trepidation. Fei Du leaned back in the front passenger seat, resting his eyes. An app played an audiobook on his phone’s speaker. “‘Incedo per ignes,’ replied Julien,” the clear male voice intoned evenly. “‘I have hidden enemies.’”2
The hired driver was a college student working part-time. He had a healthy hatred of materialism and assumed Fei Du was either a debauched heir to second-generation wealth or some post-surgery Z-list celebrity. When he suddenly heard the audiobook, however, he couldn’t resist a bemused glance back at his passenger.
Just then, a car approached from the opposite direction with its high beams on, almost blinding the driver. Nutjob, the driver cursed inwardly as he veered instinctively to the side. The searchlight masquerading as a car sped narrowly past. The driver, still dazzled, didn’t catch the car’s model, so he was regretfully unable to decide whether to say “Do they think being rich makes them better than everyone else?” or “Broke idiots with no decency should just stay off the road.”
Then the driver heard a thud.
Turning his head, he saw that his customer’s phone had fallen from his loose grasp. Nevertheless, the audio continued. “‘…A road does not lose its beauty because thorns grow thick on either side. Continue along it, traveler, and leave those hateful thorns there to wither.’”
Fei Du slept, unconscious of the world around him. As it turned out, he’d been using the audiobook as a sleep aid. The driver looked away expressionlessly. Tch. So he’s a good-for-nothing pretty boy after all, he thought.
Letting his mind wander, the young driver brought the car steadily down stick-straight Nanping Boulevard in the depths of the night. Meanwhile—after all but forcing the young driver’s eyes shut with its high beams—the other car waited until they had long passed each other to shut off those lights, round a bend soundlessly, and smoothly turn into the quiet West Side.
At almost one o’clock, the endlessly flickering streetlight finally passed on. A stray cat jumped onto the wall to survey its domain. Suddenly, all its fur stood on end, and it let out a piercing yowl.
Weak rays of moonlight hit the ground, illuminating a man’s face. It was so swollen and puffy that the man would’ve been unrecognizable if not for a crescent-shaped scar on his temple. A piece of roughly torn blank paper covered his forehead like a talisman to ward off corpse reanimation. He lay on the ground, limbs splayed.
He was dead.
The stray cat was so alarmed that it slipped and slid off the low wall. When it landed, it rolled across the ground and darted away without looking back.