When Sun Xi first decided to return to Stone City, he hadn’t even thought about targeting Le Sheng Huang.
After ending that unexpected phone call with Tingting, he stood for a while in the outdoor smoking area on the north side of the hotel. That day in Beijing wasn’t particularly cold, and it was the warmest time at noon. The breeze sweeping through only tousled the hair on his forehead, but he suddenly furrowed his brow tightly, as if he’d also been hit solidly by something causing a dull ache.
The decision to go back had some impulsive elements to it, as if that reckless and solitary headstrong youth from years ago had returned, disregarding reality and consequences, naively believing that a one-sided desperate rush could break free from the chains of fate.
He didn’t want to mention the lessons and costs—being driven out time and time again, swearing never to return.
But now, Sun Xi couldn’t help but chuckle. He had unhesitatingly reversed the direction he’d taken when he left, driving back to his hometown at almost the fastest speed possible. Absurd.
Even more absurd was that over those nine hundred plus kilometers and ten hours of driving, he’d had many chances to exit the highway and choose a route back, but each time that thought flashed through his mind, it was swept away by the rapidly retreating winter wind.
After passing Shanhai Pass, watching the increasingly heavy snow on both sides of the highway, as the bitter cold atmosphere unique to his hometown gradually took over, Sun Xi finally faced reality. Though it wasn’t deeply thought through and his motives weren’t entirely pure, he planned to come back, and indeed had already come back.
If he couldn’t escape it, then he wouldn’t escape.
But to face a blizzard head-on, one needs sufficient cold-weather equipment.
After more than half of the long journey was complete and the sky had darkened, he gazed at the fine snow-like winter haze ahead, trying his best to patiently and rationally sort through the current thorny situation. The urgent priority was to first eliminate risks, then secure some leverage for himself.
By coincidence, he received two phone calls within an hour.
The first call wasn’t unexpected—it was from his uncle Sun Zhengwu, who embellished and exaggerated Tingting’s experience of being bullied at the art studio, complained about being ground down by the bathhouse crew all these years, and implied the responsibility lay with Sun Xi between the lines, quietly awaiting his sincerity in solving the problem.
Sun Zhengwu certainly wasn’t a responsible elder. He was cowardly, calculating, selfish, and greedy. Sun Xi understood that essentially, he’d never considered him true family. In Sun Zhengwu’s eyes, the young Sun Xi was a burden who brought trouble at any moment, while the current Sun Xi had become his reliance for settling troubles.
The direct change brought about by this power shift in the family was that recently Sun Zhengwu relied on him for matters big and small, exploited him, while also carefully fearing him.
Sun Xi knew this but never pointed it out. However, this moment was different—he needed to first cut off the risks that might disturb him. So he suddenly changed his expression and coldly said that fundamentally this was trouble Tingting had caused, that she should learn her lesson, and if they continued to let her run wild unchecked, she’d poke an even bigger hole. If it really came to a fight, forget Wen Wen for now—could they fight Yu Kaixuan? Besides, what does this have to do with me? You’re the parents who didn’t manage your child properly.
Seeing Sun Zhengwu had gone quiet, apparently frightened, Sun Xi’s attitude softened somewhat. He said to quit while ahead, that if Tingting caused more trouble and delayed her art exam it would be too late. Your business on Xifeng Street closing down wouldn’t be a pity anyway—it wasn’t making money to begin with. Better to do something else.
Sun Zhengwu was caught completely off guard by his combination of threats and coaxing. Thinking about it, he realized this reasoning made sense. After hesitating for a long time, he said he understood, that they would keep a close eye on Tingting, and added that they’d recently been thinking about finding something to do in the county—your aunt’s third uncle’s side just happened to need people. Sun Xi was too lazy to listen anymore and hung up.
Not long after, he received a call from Wang Heyuan.
He glanced at the caller ID screen showing “Le Sheng Huang Wang Heyuan” and felt extremely annoyed, muttering about how he’d forgotten to delete him. He didn’t answer. But immediately, a second call came through. As soon as he pressed answer, a string of enthusiastic expressions composed of different onomatopoeia burst through the car’s Bluetooth system.
Wang Heyuan naturally knew he didn’t have a good face with Sun Xi. Throwing away all shame, he smiled obsequiously through a round of pleasantries to build rapport, tossing out flattering words as if they cost nothing, even forgetting that he’d previously asked Sun Xi to call him uncle, directly lowering his generation to call him brother. He said, “Brother, your big brother here has encountered a bit of trouble and needs you to build a bridge. I know you’re quite familiar with Secretary Xu from the municipal government. Could you introduce us?”
Sun Xi remembered that when he came back last time to ask him for help, he had indeed mentioned Secretary Xu’s name. He casually asked, “What’s the matter?”
Having run a KTV for so many years, Old Wang had waded through plenty of human relationship rivers in society—he had a bellyful of schemes and naturally wouldn’t reveal everything to Sun Xi. He only vaguely said in a pitiful manner that there were some small issues with industrial and commercial taxation, and he wanted to consult Secretary Xu. Otherwise, his precious treasure Le Sheng Huang couldn’t be saved.
At that time, Sun Xi hadn’t set his sights on Old Wang’s precious treasure. He perfunctorily said he’d ask about it. After hanging up, he happened to enter the Stone City highway section. He tossed this matter to the back of his mind, turned off navigation, and relying on memory used the shortest time and fastest route to arrive under that birch tree across from her family’s building downstairs—where he’d hidden countless times in his youth.
Standing there for half an hour, three cigarettes, he’d hesitated about whether to go over, and wasn’t sure if she wanted him to appear.
If it had been his last visit home, he wouldn’t have taken this risk, but since he couldn’t escape and truly didn’t want to escape anymore, he might as well force himself once, take a gamble.
That outcome wasn’t unexpected, nor was it the most humiliating situation he’d encountered. He’d been rejected more than once. At least this time no one bled or got scarred, no one screamed themselves hoarse. This degree of rejection and severance was normal for him—he should have been used to it.
He thought so.
He parked his car at the highway entrance and sat there almost all night. At dawn, the first ray of sunlight spread over flatly without any obstruction, shining directly at him. Looking up, a blinding brightness—he instinctively wanted to avoid it again, but discovered there was nowhere to hide.
So he looked straight at it honestly. After the dazzling brightness came a sheet of cold orange light. The distant sky was broken into several layers—pale yellow, intensely deep red, and at the bottom a vast expanse of white ice and snow. Cold and warm echoed each other, holding up what could be called the magnificent winter sunrise unique to his hometown’s deep winter.
He watched quietly for a long time, watching the sun gradually rise, the cold orange fade, the sunlight become scorching. Suddenly he felt that beautiful things don’t necessarily have to be dazzling.
It was at that moment he decided to grab some leverage to hold onto all this, and in a roundabout way, thought of Le Sheng Huang.
Sun Xi really did arrange this meeting Wang Heyuan had been hoping for, even emphasizing he’d specially made a personal trip back to Stone City for him. It was just that Secretary Xu was busy and could only come later—before that, they’d drink some tea while waiting. Old Wang was somewhat moved by his sincere words and let his guard down, revealing some of his cards in advance.
After all, he was the owner of Stone City’s established KTV and the brother-in-law of Fu’an Shopping Mall. If he hadn’t truly reached the end of his rope with no way out, how would he go begging a troublesome punk with whom he’d had some friction?
In the time it took to drink a pot of tea, Sun Xi figured out the root of his current predicament.
In recent years, Old Wang had been obsessed with playing Bitcoin online and had lost quite a bit of money back and forth. His usual spending was also lavish and shocking—his accounts had long been a mess. He’d also borrowed quite a bit from his older sister, then turned around and lost it again. When his gambling fever was high, he’d even secretly used Wang Feixia’s two properties as collateral for loans. His sister had beaten him over the head for it, and after that wouldn’t fill his holes anymore. Young Master Xiaofu had always looked down on this old uncle and wasn’t close to him—asking was useless. Old Wang truly had no other options and started thinking crooked thoughts about the KTV—selling fake liquor, keeping false accounts, evading quite a bit of tax.
During the recent routine industrial and commercial tax inspection, he didn’t know which son of a bitch had schemed against him, but they caught him red-handed. The handling result was also simple—either make up the taxes and pay the fines, or face prosecution and jail time. They’d need an answer after the New Year holiday. Secretary Xu was a rising star in Stone City’s official circles these past two years, and in terms of business, he was in charge of directly managing industrial and commercial taxation work. In a society based on personal relationships, he had influence. Old Wang wasn’t asking Secretary Xu to break rules—just to help smooth things over, delay some time so he could gather the money.
Sun Xi asked how much the back taxes and fines added up to together. Old Wang reported a small seven-figure number. Then seeing Sun Xi suddenly frown and nod, Old Wang was about to ask what was wrong when Secretary Xu arrived.
To receive Secretary Xu—and of course also wanting to send Sun Xi away to cultivate a relationship alone with the leader—Old Wang asked Sun Xi to go find Ge Fan. Ge Fan had his house keys and could fetch two bottles of his treasured Flying Moutai.
It was only about twenty-some minutes. The opening pleasantries to flatter the leader had just finished when Sun Xi returned. For some reason, Old Wang felt his expression had darkened considerably after going out. He sat down by the window, and together with Secretary Xu, they laid groundwork about how busy government work was and how strict management was. Before long, Secretary Xu found an excuse to leave first, leaving Sun Xi to drink with him.
Wang Heyuan immediately had a premonition he’d been played, but the leader had at least come out for a twenty-minute appearance, so he really did open a bottle of Moutai. He later regretted it tremendously—losing a bottle of good liquor was minor, but letting Sun Xi systematically deceive him out of his Le Sheng Huang was most hateful.
Old Wang’s previous intuition and assessment of Sun Xi weren’t wrong—he was an unprincipled rogue. What was detestable was that he also had brains. This kind of clever scoundrel, if he sincerely wanted something or schemed for something, as long as he was willing to put in the effort, would succeed eight or nine times out of ten.
His methods weren’t particularly sophisticated—just sinister enough and ruthless enough. When they’d drunk half the bottle of Moutai, Sun Xi pretended to be enthusiastic about helping with this favor. To dispel Old Wang’s doubts, he even proactively asked for some compensation for his trouble. Seeing Old Wang agree, he said again that the leader wasn’t convenient to chat too much with you directly, but you can give me Le Sheng Huang’s real industrial and commercial tax materials—they must be genuine. I’ll have the leader think of a way. Delaying some time isn’t anything special—let’s see if we can solve it once and for all.
Wang Heyuan believed him and gave them. The next morning, Sun Xi returned the materials to him and incidentally said two things. One was that Secretary Xu couldn’t solve this matter. The other was that he could solve it.
The solution was also very simple—he could cover that small seven-figure hole, but Old Wang had to package these two floors of Le Sheng Huang and give them to him. If he didn’t want to, that was fine too. He practically threatened to his face, saying he’d accidentally made a copy of all that evidence about selling fake liquor, keeping false accounts, and tax evasion.
“Fuck your mother, you little bastard, playing this game with me—what’s the difference between this and robbery!” Wang Heyuan had never suffered such a huge loss and truly planned to fight Sun Xi.
Sun Xi lowered his head and calculated—a storefront of several thousand square meters on two floors in the city center, even in a relatively economically backward northeastern small city, did have the flavor of robbery. He patiently said, “Uncle, don’t be hasty. How about I add another ten percent?”
“Get the fuck out!” Wang Heyuan glared at him fiercely. “You go ask around—have I been mixing around all these years for nothing? Believe it or not, I’ll kill you!”
Sun Xi just watched him rage, tilting his head in silence for a while, seeming helpless as he sighed. “Fine, I’ll ask around. When you’re done, you can also ask around about me.”
Wang Heyuan at that time spat viciously at him, cursing this death-seeking little bastard in his heart. Using Secretary Xu as a front to commit fraud—eighty percent he didn’t have any real relationship with him. This was Stone City, not Beijing—secretly dealing with someone here wasn’t anything unusual. Old Wang truly planned to teach Sun Xi a lesson and really did inquire a bit about him.
Old Wang thought it was nothing more than that sensational matter from a few days ago about how his biological father had killed someone over twenty years ago. What of it—could he break out of prison and protect his cub?
But upon inquiry, he learned about something from nine years ago that he’d personally done, which not only made Old Wang re-recognize this rogue, but also confirmed that Sun Xi and Secretary Xu indeed had a deep friendship.
Wang Heyuan downed a bottle of Moutai by himself and thought seriously about it back and forth. He did have some social connections, but most were just drinking buddies. Someone at Secretary Xu’s level—he couldn’t afford to provoke. Moreover, even if he scraped together the money to pay it back, how would Le Sheng Huang operate going forward? His pockets were cleaner than his face—he couldn’t even come up with next month’s employee wages. Several types of liquor in the shop had run out and he couldn’t restock. Every day he was barely holding on—it couldn’t withstand close scrutiny.
Though humiliating, there seemed to be no other solution. Old Wang even cried for a while before reluctantly accepting through gritted teeth. He knew Sun Xi had opened a small private room on the fourth floor, so he went over there drunk, handing over his precious treasure.
But who’d have thought this punk would actually go back on his word again—he didn’t want to give that ten percent either!
…
“It’s not that I can’t give it.”
Sun Xi remained lying there, his gaze pressing toward the opposite side. The chaotic, gaudy colored lights overhead flickered unevenly on his face, alternating between bright and dark.
“If you have something to say, say it straight!” Wang Heyuan roared at him.
“Write me a promissory note right now, with those same conditions.” He emphasized, “Right now—tomorrow won’t work.”
Sun Xi’s temporary change of heart was meant to lock Old Wang down tight. After all, people temporarily lose their rationality in order to hold onto what they might lose. He’d committed this kind of foolish mistake more than once.
Old Wang cursed and swore verbally, but really did open the door and shouted out to someone outside to bring some paper, pen, and ink pad. Before long, Ge Fan pushed the door open and came in.
Sun Xi hadn’t expected it to be Ge Fan. He was startled for a moment, but also felt it wasn’t a bad thing.
Ge Fan knew Sun Xi was here. He glanced at him without good humor, but was curious about what kind of scheme he and Old Wang were really concocting, so he stood to the side without leaving.
Wang Heyuan didn’t avoid him either. He directly pressed the paper on the coffee table and started writing. While writing, he read out these humiliating, treaty-of-national-humiliation-like conditions loudly word by word, as if venting. Two copies—he read them twice.
Sun Xi lay there listening, occasionally pointing out one or two key points about timing and numbers, emphasizing that what he wanted was to gradually complete the procedures within half a month, with the money also given in batches. Of course, the faster the procedures, the faster the money. While speaking, he didn’t look at Old Wang at all—his gaze constantly drifted on Ge Fan’s face, as if observing, also seeming to provoke.
Ge Fan watched Wang Heyuan package and cheaply sell to Sun Xi the KTV he’d worked hard to build up over many years, standing there already dumbfounded. He certainly didn’t believe Sun Xi wanted to do business in his hometown with its poor investment environment, but before he could figure out his motive, Old Wang pressed his handprint, pushed it to the side, and had Ge Fan deliver it to Sun Xi.
Sun Xi sat up, took the paper and pen from Ge Fan’s hands, even said thank you, and checked it character by character before picking up the pen to prepare to sign.
Ge Fan was full of questions and unwillingness, even had an impulse to stop him. At this moment, Wang Heyuan suddenly said something that made him instantly freeze in place as if struck by lightning.
That sentence from Wang Heyuan was directed at Sun Xi. He didn’t know what possessed him—perhaps wanting to vent and have some verbal satisfaction—he pulled a smile: “Tell me, is loving to kill people also hereditary? You’re quite similar to your father.”
Sun Xi looked up at him with dark eyes, lips pressed tight.
Old Wang got more spirited: “Didn’t you tell me to ask around? I asked around—that attempted murder case at the end of 2014 was pretty ruthless.”
Sun Xi kept a straight face, first signed his name, then said offhandedly, “It wasn’t attempted murder.”
“Didn’t you use a brick to smash that kid into paralysis?”
He looked up, his gaze cold and condensed. He didn’t deny it, only explained an unimportant detail: “It wasn’t a brick. It was a concrete block.”
“Two hits with a concrete block could smash him like that?”
“Not two hits. Seven hits.”
Old Wang shuddered—the drunkenness from that bottle of Moutai seemed to have dissipated. “That Xu Tian has quite some capability—he could even get you off the hook for this.”
Xu Tian was Secretary Xu, a full cycle of the zodiac older than Sun Xi. Back then he was already in the civil service system.
Sun Xi ignored him, lowering his head to press his fingerprint. That finger wearing a plain ring lightly dipped into the red ink pad and pressed down heavily—the silver ring swayed lightly.
Old Wang was angry inside and deliberately provoked him: “What’s really your relationship with that Xu Tian? Back then he risked his career to protect you like that—what, did you save his life or something?”
Sun Xi hadn’t saved Xu Tian’s life, but he had saved his father’s life.
Xu Tian’s father was that drunk they’d saved on the suburban road that night when the heavy snow was about to arrive in 2012, after they finished drinking milk tea. Although they hadn’t left information at the time, Xu Tian had always wanted to find them. Through the community hospital surveillance, he’d recorded the facial features and characteristics of that pair of young benefactors, then recognized Sun Xi in that 2014 incident.
All these years, Xu Tian was Sun Xi’s only friend in Stone City, his only fellow townsperson he still kept in contact with, and also the only person who knew about his youthful experience with Yu Jiuqi.
Yu Jiuqi.
Sun Xi suddenly lost patience for no reason. Seeing the matter was settled, he left behind one copy of the promissory note, pushed the other to Old Wang, and asked if there was anything else? If not, you should go out—I’m tired and want to rest.
He really lay down again.
Ge Fan left first. The explosive amount of information in that small private room in just half an hour left him breathless. Turning around, he was pulled away by several VIP customers who said someone had just gotten divorced and wanted to celebrate. He accompanied them drinking for a while. His condition was exceptionally poor—a case of beer got him drunk.
When he woke up it was already the next morning. Rubbing his head, last night’s memories suddenly surged up. Ge Fan thought rationally—regardless of for whom or for what reason, he needed to figure out Sun Xi’s purpose.
He immediately went to the small private room. There was already no one inside. He asked the front desk, who said the customer in the small private room had just left. Ge Fan didn’t chase after him, but instead came to the window on the west side of the fourth floor to look down and see if his car was still there.
With one look, he saw him standing by his car, as if smoking. But the cigarette was just held in his hand without moving for quite a while. His head was turned toward the main entrance of Wendu Water Resort, seeming to be staring at something in a daze.
His heart tightened. For some reason, Ge Fan thought Xiao Jiu had come.
But when he opened the window and looked in the direction of Sun Xi’s gaze, extending his head out to look, it wasn’t Xiao Jiu.
Walking toward the entrance of Wendu Water Resort was Yu Kaixuan.
He was watching Yu Kaixuan.
Ge Fan’s phone suddenly rang, but he had no mind to answer it. His head was full of thoughts about another matter.
He suddenly remembered that when Sun Xi came back last time and they drank and played board games together at Le Sheng Huang, he seemed to have inadvertently said something he shouldn’t have said.
The phone kept ringing.
Ge Fan was annoyed. Without looking carefully, he randomly picked up and barked like a firecracker, “Who is it?”
Never would he have expected it was his older sister Zhu Duomei.
Zhu Duomei didn’t waste words either, saying come pick me up in your car—I need to go to Le Sheng Huang to find that idiot Wang Heyuan. Ge Fan had no time to deal with his sister and Old Wang’s business and told her to come herself.
Zhu Duomei sighed, saying I’m bringing explosives—it’s quite heavy, can’t carry it myself.
Before Ge Fan could digest his sister’s words, watching Sun Xi downstairs staring at Yu Kaixuan, in his haste, that sentence he’d said to Sun Xi floated up first.
He’d said at that time: Downstairs, my dad has had his eye on these two floors of KTV for a long time—it’s been on his mind constantly, he’s determined to get it.