TF01 75

The reason Shi Yi and Ying Ming ended up so entangled was not because of some fairytale love at first sight or a sudden burst of passion.

To be precise, their first encounter could hardly be called pleasant. If not for repeatedly running into each other, and the emotional mess involving Wang Le and Wang Yiqi, they probably would have remained nothing more than familiar faces.

It was exactly because they got to this point through knowing too much about each other that, once they grew closer, things became more complicated.

Ying Ming knew very well that Shi Yi’s taboo around Mao Yu would inevitably lead him to get involved in their situation. Likewise, Shi Yi understood clearly that Ying Ming did not want him digging into that part of the past.

But people are strange. Even when someone knows the road ahead will only end in ruin, they still keep going until they crash into the wall. To put it plainly, it is just asking for trouble.

Later, Kou Jing told Shi Yi a bit more about Mao Yu, in bits and pieces.

As an outsider, his account came off more intense than Ying Ming’s. After listening, Shi Yi began to wonder if he should hear Wang Yiqi’s version too. If someone as emotionally restrained as Kou Jing could say things that vicious, Wang Yiqi’s side might be even more satisfying.

“Mingzi’s the type who cares too much about saving face. Even if something is eating him alive, he will never let it show. If we hadn’t picked up a few things here and there, we never would have known what kind of trash Mao Yu had turned into. At the time, Ying Ming’s career was already struggling. He had pretty much emptied his savings. After Mao Yu completely disappeared, he even thought about going home.”

What stopped him in the end was the realization that if he went back, he would not know what to say to his parents.

Kou Jing did not need to say it. Shi Yi had already thought the same thing. Back when the two of them were stuck in a hotel during a cross-country rally, talking about their families, he still remembered the way Ying Ming had sounded.

He took a couple of drags from his cigarette, glanced at Kou Jing, and said, “Get someone to rough him up.”

Kou Jing had still been simmering over what happened back then. Hearing Shi Yi say something like that in the same tone one might use to talk about dinner plans made him freeze for a moment. “Huh?”

“If you can’t find anyone, I’ll handle it myself.”

Shi Yi’s expression stayed flat as he looked at Kou Jing. There was not the slightest change in his face. Kou Jing stared back at him, doubt plainly written across his expression. “Are you being serious, or are you messing with me?”

The man across from him exhaled smoke and gave a quiet snort. “What’s so funny about shit like this?”

Shi Yi meant it.

If he said something, he meant it. But Kou Jing needed a moment to process. He stayed quiet for two or three minutes before finally frowning and sighing. “Sure, Mao Yu deserves a beating. But this is Mingzi’s business. It’s better if he handles it himself.”

There is a saying: when you hit someone, you don’t aim for the face. If someone beat Mao Yu half to death, no one would care. But Ying Ming had always had a sore spot when it came to what happened back then. Over the years, their group of friends had avoided mentioning it as much as they could, because they knew Ying Ming too well. When it came to his own problems, if he stayed silent, everyone else knew to stay out of it.

Some people could grow close, closer than anyone else, but no matter how close they became, there would always be a line that could not be crossed.

It was not about putting on airs. For someone like Ying Ming, certain things were simply non-negotiable. They were matters of principle. If you were a friend, you would not casually try to shake that line. There was no need to, and it should never be done.

After Kou Jing finished speaking, he looked at Shi Yi’s face and saw no reaction at all. He could not help adding, “Shi Yi, I mean it. With Mingzi’s temper, it’s better for outsiders to stay out of his business. If he needs anything, he’ll say so himself.”

Shi Yi stayed in the same position, leaning back and smoking, eyes cast off toward the distance, as if lost in thought. From the look of it, Kou Jing might as well have been talking to a wall. It was not until he finished the cigarette in his hand that he finally straightened his back a little and shoved both hands casually into his pockets.

“I’m not an outsider.”

He said it simply. Then, without even waiting for Kou Jing’s reaction, he gave a lazy wave and walked off. He had not gone home after work that day. He had come straight to Kou Jing’s place for one reason: to get the full story about what happened back then. Ying Ming had told him some of it, but it had been clearly incomplete. What Shi Yi wanted was not scattered fragments. He wanted to understand what Ying Ming had truly been like in the past.

Just because he had not been there then did not mean he would accept being kept on the sidelines. That eyesore of a man constantly reminding him that the one who tangled up with him now had an entire “past” he knew nothing about, put him completely on edge.

Fighting a defensive battle had never been Shi Yi’s style.

If they never ran into each other, that man could count himself lucky. If they did, then he had only himself to blame for the bad luck.

After that conversation with Shi Yi, Kou Jing could not shake a chill that had settled in his chest.

If it had been anyone else, maybe they would have talked big and done nothing. But with Shi Yi, once he said something, he would make sure it happened. While Kou Jing was still debating whether he should give Ying Ming a heads-up, one day he suddenly got a call from Haozi. The first thing out of the man’s mouth was, “Did you hear Mao Yu got beat up?”

After that, the line went quiet for a long moment. Neither of them said anything. They just sat there in silence, until Haozi muttered to himself, almost like he was thinking out loud, “Shi Yi moves fast.”

Kou Jing raised his eyebrows. “Did Shi Yi come to you too?”

“No, he didn’t.”

Among their circle, Haozi’s relationship with Shi Yi was the most distant. If not for Ying Ming, they probably never would have even met.

Haozi let out a quiet laugh. “Even if he didn’t come to me, it’s not hard to guess who did it. Wang Yiqi talks big but doesn’t have the guts. If there’s anyone around Ying Ming who would actually do something like this, it’s Shi Yi.”

If someone had really wanted to go after Mao Yu, there was no reason to wait until now. None of them were new to this world. Maybe they were not big enough to control both sides of the street, but hiring a few punks to take care of someone like that was more than doable.

The only reason no one had stepped up before was because Ying Ming, the one at the center of it all, had never spoken.

After hearing Haozi say all that, Kou Jing suddenly remembered the way Shi Yi had leaned back that day, smoking and saying, “I’m not an outsider.” The phrase rose again in his mind, and out of nowhere, a strange thought took root.

“Haozi, don’t you think there’s something weird going on with Ying Ming and Shi Yi?”

“Weird?” Haozi repeated the word and raised an eyebrow. “What kind of weird?”

“Any kind.”

This time, Haozi said nothing. He felt there were some things that did not need to be spelled out. Besides, even though Kou Jing had asked the question, he probably was not really looking for an answer. The two of them sat there in silence again for a long while, until Kou Jing finally muttered, “Still, this is just insane. How the hell did those two end up together…”

They were complete opposites. Different in temperament, different in the way they thought and handled things. The only thing Ying Ming and Shi Yi had in common was that they were both men. Aside from that, there was nothing you could really call a shared trait. They were not complementary either. They just did not match in any way.

On the other end of the line, Haozi chuckled softly, the sound carrying a faint hint of ambiguity.

Anyone with a bit of sense knew better than to get involved. When two lions fight, the bystanders are never safe. Things had not erupted yet, but when that day came, whoever spoke up first would be the first to go down.

Picking up on what Kou Jing had said, Haozi added, “Since Shi Yi already went through with it, there’s no point in us sitting here trying to figure it out. Whatever happens next, they’ll have to deal with it themselves.”

It was a sort of consolation, barely passable. Haozi understood exactly what Kou Jing’s vague remark meant, but he had no intention of dragging it into the open.

He was just waiting to see how things played out.

When it came to other people’s choices, he had always preferred to watch from the sidelines. Whether it turned into a tragedy or a comedy, it was never a place for outsiders to intervene.

Kou Jing could only respond with a quiet grunt. There was nothing more to say.

Strangely enough, even though both of them got wind of it early, Ying Ming turned out to be the last to find out Mao Yu had been beaten up.

It was not the kind of thing anyone would have gone out of their way to tell him. Even someone like Wang Yiqi, who usually thrived on chaos, had stayed out of it this time, content to watch from the sidelines. If it had not been for the night when Ying Ming and Shi Yi were in the middle of dinner and someone started pounding on the door so violently it nearly made them choke, the whole matter might have stayed buried.

The one outside had been a teenage kid.

He looked maybe fifteen or sixteen, dressed like a wannabe rocker. His hair was styled into a full-blown porcupine mess. The moment he saw Ying Ming open the door, he lifted a foot as if to kick it in. Ying Ming did not even blink. He slammed the door right back into him.

The boy’s foot hit the door hard. He doubled over, clutching it and cursing through gritted teeth for a good while.

Shi Yi wandered over, taking his time, and gave a casual glance through the opening. “What’s going on? Got the wrong door?” A kid this young, either drunk or desperate, showing up in the middle of the night looking for trouble, what else could it be?

But the boy completely ignored Shi Yi. His eyes locked on Ying Ming. “You’re Ying Ming!”

There was no question in his voice, only pure venom.

Ying Ming frowned slightly. “What do you want?”

“Fuck you. You hire someone to beat him up, then act like nothing happened. You say you don’t want the money, then you send someone to settle it behind the scenes. You goddamn coward.”

He shouted loud enough for the whole block to hear. Luckily, there were barely any neighbors around this place. Ying Ming glanced over at Shi Yi. The latter looked completely unbothered, leaning against the wall and watching the kid bounce and rage at Ying Ming like he was ready to go to war. After a moment, Shi Yi let out a cold laugh.

“So what are you, Mao Yu’s adopted pet, or his little side piece?”

The way he said it was blunt and filthy. The boy froze for a moment, then sprang up and tried to punch Shi Yi. But with the difference in size between them, he did not get far. His fist had barely moved before it was caught. Shi Yi squeezed so hard the color drained from the boy’s face before finally letting go. A flicker of anger finally appeared on his face.

“You looking to die, kid?”

Ying Ming, who had been watching quietly from the side, finally spoke. “Mao Yu got beaten up?”

The question was directed at the boy, but his gaze was fixed on Shi Yi.

Of course, Young Master Shi had no intention of answering. The next moment, the boy exploded in a stream of curses, glaring at Ying Ming and launching into another tirade.

Summing up the parts worth hearing, the gist was that Mao Yu had been beaten up, the injuries were serious, and everyone knew exactly who was responsible. The boy had come tonight to call him out.

Ying Ming filtered out what he needed and gave a simple nod. He looked at the boy and replied flatly, “Got it,” then turned to shut the door.

Naturally, the boy was not about to let that happen. He reached out and grabbed him.

Shi Yi had already started to move, but Ying Ming was faster by a beat. The boy had barely caught the corner of his shirt when he suddenly felt a hand clamp down hard on his jaw. The grip was vicious, like it was going to crush his bones. Straining to lift his head, he looked up at Ying Ming’s completely unbothered expression.

“If you even try to spit out another word like the ones you just did, I’ll make sure you can’t speak for three days.”

He was not bluffing.

The boy’s eyes showed a flicker of fear. Ying Ming tightened his grip, lifting him up by the jaw.

He spoke slowly, each word landing like a threat. “Did you hear me?”

“… I did…”