It all came to a head a few days later.
Sheng Linyou returned from the market that morning and opened the door to find two strangers in the living room.
Dressed in dark suits, they stood silently on either side of the sofa.
Yin Xigui sat between them, his back perfectly straight. A tablet lay open on the coffee table, its screen lit.
The instant Sheng Linyou entered, Yin Xigui looked up at him.
It was a brief glance.
“Brother, put down the groceries and go upstairs.”
Sheng Linyou didn't move. He glanced at the two men, then back at Yin Xigui.
“Go upstairs.”
Yin Xigui hadn't raised his voice.
Sheng Linyou's heart sank a little. There was nothing familiar in that voice.
He put down the groceries and went up.
Halfway up the staircase, he heard the front door open below, followed by footsteps. More than one person's.
Yin Rui's voice carried up through the living room, neither loud nor soft. “Xigui, I need you to explain these accounts to me. To my face.”
Sheng Linyou stopped on the stairs.
His back to the room below, his knuckles tightened around the banister, then loosened.
Then Yin Xigui spoke.
His voice was still flat and cold, as though negotiating with a business partner. “You have all the overseas accounts in my name. What do you want to know?”
“Where the money came from. Where it went.”
“I earned it myself. Investments.” Yin Xigui paused. “As for where I spent it, that's none of your business.”
Yin Rui laughed once. The sound echoed through the room.
“Yin Xigui, you're my cousin. Your business is the Yin family's business. You used systems outside the family to investigate our own people.” His voice dropped. “You're coming after me.”
Silence held downstairs for several seconds.
On the stairs, Sheng Linyou felt his heart hammering against his chest.
Then Yin Xigui spoke.
His tone had changed. It was neither the soft sweetness he used with Sheng Linyou nor the level coldness of his negotiation with Yin Rui.
It was a voice Sheng Linyou had never heard, carrying something long suppressed that had finally broken the surface.
“Yes,” he said. “I'm coming after you.”
Yin Rui's breathing caught.
“You're investigating me. Why can't I investigate you?”
Yin Xigui's voice continued through the silence. “Yin Rui, do you think I don't know what your people have been doing? Laundering money through property companies, funneling funds through offshore accounts. How clean do you think your methods are?”
Yin Rui didn't answer immediately. The living room was deathly still. Sheng Linyou heard only his own heartbeat and the almost arrested breathing of the two people below.
“You've hidden yourself well.”
When Yin Rui finally spoke, every trace of genial amusement was gone. “I've investigated you for two years. All this time, I thought you were just a useless bastard. Even when you bought that lower-tier citizen, I assumed it was a child's whim.”
“That lower-tier citizen—” Yin Xigui's voice rose a fraction before he forced it down. “Has nothing to do with this. He knows nothing.”
“And?”
“He's innocent. Leave him alone.”
Yin Rui laughed again.
This time it was short and sharp, like broken glass grinding beneath a shoe. “You're showing your hand over a lower-tier citizen? Yin Xigui, are you thinking straight?”
Silence fell again.
Sheng Linyou's palm was slick with sweat around the banister.
He wanted to go down, to enter that living room and push those two men away from Yin Xigui. But his feet were nailed in place.
Because he'd heard Yin Xigui's last words. He's innocent. He knows nothing.
Yin Xigui was protecting him.
The realization shot up his spine like an electric current.
A chair scraped downstairs, followed by footsteps moving toward the door.
Yin Rui spoke from the entryway, his restraint deliberate after the offense he had taken. “Yin Xigui, this isn't over. Whatever you've dug up on me, you'd better be sure you can hold on to it.”
The door opened and closed. Footsteps vanished beyond the courtyard gate. Then an engine started, its sound gradually fading.
Sheng Linyou stood silent on the stairs for several seconds.
Then he turned and hurried down, meeting Yin Xigui at the turn as he started up. They stood face-to-face on the small landing, no more than a hand's breadth apart.
Yin Xigui looked up at him.
“How much did you hear?”
“Everything.”
Yin Xigui's lashes trembled.
“Good.” He stepped back, putting another half-step between them.
Looking down at his shoes, he said, “Then you heard clearly. Yin Rui is watching me. He knows I'm investigating him. Things are going to get dangerous for me.”
“So?”
“So you can't stay here anymore.” Yin Xigui's voice held no inflection, every word carefully weighed. “You're a lower-tier citizen. If Yin Rui wants to hurt me, he'll start with you. Leave now, and you can still save your life.”
Sheng Linyou looked at him.
The landing was dim. Half of Yin Xigui's face lay in shadow, leaving his expression unreadable. Sheng Linyou could only see the hand at his side curling slightly, the knuckles tightening and releasing.
“You're sending me away.”
“Yes.”
Yin Xigui raised his head and met his gaze directly. There were no tears, no reddened rims around his eyes. Only a dull, gray calm.
“I bought you for the novelty. That's worn off now. I don't need you anymore.”
Sheng Linyou's breath caught.
He looked into those eyes he had seen countless times: shining at him from beneath a quilt late at night, curving into crescents over his cooking, reddening as Yin Xigui appealed to him after being mistreated.
Now there was nothing in them. Only cold.
“Yin Xigui.” Sheng Linyou reached for his face.
Yin Xigui turned away.
He moved another half-step to the side, retreating to the edge of the stairs.
“I told you to leave.”
At last, a tremor entered his voice.
“If you don't, I'll have someone throw you out.”
Sheng Linyou's hand stopped in midair.
He watched Yin Xigui, who kept his face averted, leaving only the taut line of his jaw.
Pink strands of hair fell across half his face, indistinct in the dim stairwell.
Sheng Linyou lowered his hand.
“All right,” he said, his voice deep and quiet. “I'll go.”
He turned and went downstairs.
He didn't stop in the living room. Passing through the entryway, he bent to pick up his coat, opened the door, and walked out.
It closed behind him with a soft click.
Sheng Linyou stood on the stone path outside the house. The morning wind met him head-on, curling the hem of his coat backward.
He stayed still, looking at the closed door. Its paint was a little old, peeling around the edges.
He waited for a while.
The door didn't open.
He started walking.
At the mouth of the lane, he glanced back. A curtain at a second-floor window stirred, then went still.
Sheng Linyou looked away and disappeared into the crowd.
Upstairs, Yin Xigui leaned against the wall beside the window. His fingers still clutched the curtain, his knuckles pale from the force.
Through the narrow gap, he watched Sheng Linyou vanish around the bend at the end of the lane. Then he slowly slid down the wall to sit on the floor.
Tears spilled at that instant, silently covering his face and dripping from his jaw onto the floor.
He pressed the back of his hand over his mouth, forcing down the sounds rising in his throat, his shoulders shaking violently.
His phone lit up on the floor.
Looking down, he saw a message from Li Nian: “Has he left?”
Yin Xigui didn't reply. He turned the phone facedown and rested his forehead on his knees, curling into a tiny ball.
The room was so quiet that only his suppressed breathing and the wind-stirred curtains remained.
He remembered Sheng Linyou's back as he turned to leave. His footsteps hadn't hesitated.
Yin Xigui buried his face against his bent knees. Tears soaked a small patch of fabric dark.
He had to make him leave.
Yin Rui had already raised the knife. Unless Yin Xigui pulled Sheng Linyou out of this, sooner or later that blade would fall across his neck.
His fingers slowly tightened around his trouser leg.
He remembered Yin Rui's parting words: “You'd better be sure you can hold on to it.”
Outside, a bird landed on a branch, fluttered its wings twice, and flew away.
Yin Xigui stayed curled in the corner.