EWH 32

The meeting place was a star-rated hotel. Xu Wanhe purposely arrived a little late. When he got there, all he saw was Fei Qi. Tang Ziyan was nowhere in sight.

Fei Qi stepped forward respectfully as soon as he saw him.

“Xu-ge… I’m sorry… Tang-ge had something urgent come up and just stepped out. He told me to wait here and let you know he’ll be back in five minutes.”

Xu Wanhe didn’t even glance at him and walked straight into the private room.

He didn’t look angry.

Fei Qi felt a bit uneasy, but when he turned around and saw the man kick the door hard with a pair of expensive Italian leather sandals, he relaxed again.

That was more like the Xu Wanhe he knew.

But the kick had been so forceful that the sequins at the tip slightly curled upward.

It wasn’t actually sequins at the tip. It was his toes. Xu Wanhe had forgotten that Yang Moshou had swapped his shoes earlier. He thought he was still wearing leather shoes when he slammed his foot against the door.

A sharp pain shot through his toes. He clenched his jaw and held it in, refusing to check if he was bleeding. That would’ve killed the vibe.

One of the guys leaned in and whispered in his ear.

“Xu-ge, your foot’s bleeding.”

Xu Wanhe shot him a cold look. “Fuck your mother.”

The guy didn’t know what he did wrong, but seeing Xu Wanhe pissed, he quickly apologized.

“Sorry, ge, my bad.”

Xu Wanhe ignored him. He strutted over to the table and sat down on the couch, crossing one leg over the other.

He lowered his eyes and took a quick look. It was just a scrape, so he decided to leave it alone.

Xu Wanhe actually enjoyed the sight of himself bleeding a little. He always felt it made him look more masculine.

Across the table, there was a cup of pu’er tea. Steam was still rising from it, showing that whoever had been there had just left.

Xu Wanhe stared at the tea for a while, lost in thought. When he finally snapped back, he caught his own reflection in the mirrored wall across from him.

That hat looked fucking ugly.

He immediately yanked it off and mentally cursed Yang Moshou out a few hundred times.

Then he panicked at the thought of Tang Ziyan showing up and seeing it, so he shoved the hat under the couch.

When he lifted his head again and looked at the mirror, he felt much better. Only his injured ear looked a little unsightly.

He took out a cigarette.

One of the guys rushed up to light it and moved the ashtray right in front of him.

Xu Wanhe touched his ear with one hand, cigarette between his lips, his chest tight and stuffy. He got up, figuring he’d step out for a bit of air.

Fei Qi looked nervous. “Xu-ge…”

Xu Wanhe flicked some ash on his head. “I’m just stepping out. Don’t be so jumpy.”

The hotel had been around for years. The interior still had those old-school spiral European staircases, iron railings, and marble tile floors.

Xu Wanhe leaned against the railing and looked down through the gaps in the stairs.

It was about four or five stories high. There were not many people on the stairs. Most had probably taken the elevator instead.

Holding his cigarette, Xu Wanhe stared at a spot a few floors below. The ash on his cigarette had grown long and was close to falling.

Two people were standing there talking. He could not see their faces clearly, but just by their bodies, Xu Wanhe knew exactly who they were.

Tang Ziyan was a natural clothes hanger. Even simple clothes looked amazing on him. The young man beside him was thin and sharp-looking, wearing a pair of black Converse sneakers that looked a little dirty.

The two lingered there for a while. It seemed they were about to head in different directions, one going up, the other going down. They held hands loosely, swaying back and forth, clearly reluctant to part.

Xu Wanhe stared, burning with envy.

All his life, except for getting dragged back by the hand when he was beaten as a kid, he had never held hands with anyone.

When he saw the two hugging and kissing again, Xu Wanhe turned back and went inside to wait.

He casually ran his hand over the knife scar on his waist and stomach, feeling like it was nothing.

It surprised him that he was not really angry. He was not even all that heartbroken.

He did not know if it was exhaustion or something else.

He always thought of himself as someone who loved hard. But now that he looked back, maybe the time was long, but the feeling was never that deep.

Xu Wanhe could never understand how Tang Ziyan had loved Tang Pei for so many years, yet in less than a year, had fallen for someone else. Thinking about it now, he suddenly understood a little.

It was like what Tang Ziyan had said to him once. Time really was a wonderful thing. It deepened what needed to be deepened and faded what needed to fade.

Maybe people are just too damn realistic.

Or maybe, that person he waited for was never really the right one to begin with.

Xu Wanhe sat back down on the couch. His fingers felt a burning heat. He looked down and realized the cigarette was almost burned out.

The butt had fallen into the ashtray filled with rose water, letting out a faint sizzling sound.

Footsteps approached from the distance. Xu Wanhe tilted his head slightly and saw the person walking toward him.

Just like always, Tang Ziyan wore that gentle, lazy smile, with a black gun tucked away in his pocket.

“Xu-ge, sorry to keep you waiting.”

Xu Wanhe lifted his eyelids a little. “Oh.”

—

The rice noodle shop had strong air conditioning, but the two of them still ended up sweating through their foreheads.

Yang Moshou finished one bowl in thirty minutes while Mo Mo ate three and even added a meat bun.

Yang Moshou glanced at Mo Mo’s waist and stomach. “You eat so much but you don’t get fat at all. Not even a little belly.”

Mo Mo thought about it. “It’s alright. I studied sports. My daily exercise load is heavy, so I eat a lot. Hard to change my appetite now. I’ve put on a bit of weight compared to when I was in school, but I work out every day to maintain it.”

Seeing that there was still time, Yang Moshou sat to the side drinking his iced herbal tea.

“Aren’t you working at a bank? How come you studied sports?”

Mo Mo wiped the sweat off his forehead with a napkin.

“My family arranged the job. I graduated from a sports academy.”

“Oh,” Yang Moshou said, taking a big sip of tea. “Sports are great. What did you major in?”

“Sprinting. I was best at the 400 meters,” Mo Mo smiled as he looked at him. “Sprinters usually need to be tall and have good explosive strength. I was one of those with strong explosiveness but also better endurance than most.”

Yang Moshou felt a little complicated inside.

He was not sure what to say next when a loud bang suddenly shook the rice noodle shop. There was a scream from the kitchen, like something had caught fire.

Before he could react, his hand was grabbed, and he was pulled into a full sprint.

Yang Moshou struggled to keep up.

“We paid already, no need to flee like criminals.”

Mo Mo dragged him down nearly half a street and finally stopped in front of a tobacco and liquor store.

“The restaurant uses gas canisters. I was afraid it might explode,” Mo Mo said, still catching his breath.

Yang Moshou was panting so hard he could barely breathe. He wanted to rub his chest to ease it, but he could not even lift his arm.

Mo Mo’s palm was cool, maybe because of his body type, or maybe from holding that iced tea cup earlier.

Yang Moshou suddenly felt really warm. “Hey… um…”

Mo Mo didn’t let go. “Huh? What is it?”

From not far away, a furious shout suddenly rang out. “Fuck your mother!”

Both of them froze and instinctively looked in the direction of the voice.

When Xu Wanhe stepped out of the hotel, he was in a low mood. He really wanted a cigarette, but found that he had run out.

So one of his guys drove him to the nearest tobacco shop.

While waiting for the cigarettes, Xu Wanhe sat in the backseat, bored, and glanced around aimlessly.

That’s when he spotted two guys holding hands across the street. At first, he felt a little disdainful.

But in the very next second, that feeling completely vanished.

The underling in the passenger seat saw Xu Wanhe suddenly open the door and get out, so he followed.

“Xu ge… what’s wrong…”

There was a split second where Xu Wanhe genuinely didn’t understand it himself. Just moments ago, he hadn’t even been mad. So why was he suddenly this furious?

That brief moment of rationality was instantly scorched to ash by pure rage.

Motherfucker. I haven’t even held hands with him yet.

His fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles cracked. Xu Wanhe felt like he was about to burst into flames.

Yang Moshou reacted fast. He quickly shook off Mo Mo’s hand and said just two words.

“Run. Now!”

Mo Mo didn’t fully get what was happening, but when he saw the man storming over with a face like thunder, and heard Yang Moshou’s warning, he made a split-second decision and took off running.

Yang Moshou let out a long breath. He was just thinking about how to deal with this raging madman when, right as he stepped forward, he saw Xu Wanhe charge ahead like an arrow.

Yang Moshou stood there in shock.

Mo Mo was already running fast enough. But somehow, Xu Wanhe ran even faster, like a wild donkey. In less than a hundred meters, he caught up to Mo Mo.

The ten or so guys who had been chasing behind could not even get close. Yang Moshou thought to himself, if this were a soccer team, Xu Wanhe would have to be the striker. With that kind of speed, he should be saving the national team, not wasting his life in the underworld.

Actually, Xu Wanhe had never been naturally fast. It was all from years of fighting. Around here, fights usually meant knives, and if you got caught, you were dead. After all these years, Xu Wanhe had trained himself. If he ran, he ran like his life depended on it.

Mo Mo was completely stunned by the black-clad madman gaining on him. Before he even made it out of the block, Xu Wanhe had tackled him, grabbed him by the hair, and slammed his head toward the ground.

Xu Wanhe was seething with rage. He had even lost one of his sandals during the chase.

“You son of a bitch. You dare touch my person? I’ll chop your fucking hand off!”