Yin Rui came just before dawn.
When Yin Xigui received the call, he was sitting on the steps outside the Public Security Bureau.
The night wind tugged his coat tight, then loose again. Dew had dampened the ends of his pink hair, leaving them clinging to his neck.
He held the empty paper cup in one hand, his fingers stiffening in the cold.
Yin Rui himself had called. His voice was gentle. “Xigui, I’m outside the Bureau. Where are you?”
Yin Xigui looked up and saw a dark-gray sedan slowly turning in from the corner.
He put the paper cup in his pocket and stood. Before ending the call, his finger hovered above the screen for a moment.
Yin Rui stepped out wearing a dark-gray overcoat with its collar turned up, a thermos in his hand.
He watched Yin Xigui descend the steps. The boy’s fair face was visibly drawn; dark shadows lay beneath his eyes, his lips were dry and cracked, and he looked as though he had not slept all night.
“Cousin.” Yin Xigui’s voice was hoarse, trembling around the edges.
Yin Rui handed him the thermos. “Have something hot first. I asked around. There’s been a turn in the case—they found a new witness.”
Yin Xigui’s hands paused around the thermos. He looked up, a thin sheen of moisture rising in his eyes. “Really?”
“Really.”
Yin Rui smiled. “The witness says the person he saw that night wasn’t your lower-tier man, but someone with a similar build. The victim woke up this morning, too. He said his attacker wore a dark-blue collar around his neck. Your man’s is black. It doesn’t match.”
Yin Xigui’s fingers tightened against the thermos until his knuckles whitened, then slowly loosened.
He lowered his head. “Thank you, Cousin.” The words were muffled by his collar, followed by the faint sound of a sniff.
Yin Rui watched the pink swirl at the crown of his bowed head. He reached over and patted Yin Xigui’s shoulder, neither too lightly nor too hard.
“All right. They’ll release him soon. Wait here. I have things to get back to.”
“Mm. Safe trip, Cousin.”
As Yin Rui turned away, his peripheral vision swept over Yin Xigui. He remained bent over the thermos with both hands around it, curled up against the wind beside the steps—small, thin, and fragile.
Yin Rui got into the car. As it drove away, he watched that pink figure shrink to a blurred dot in the rearview mirror. Morning mist rose between them, turning the view gray and indistinct.
He did not look away until the figure disappeared completely.
“Back to the old estate.”
When the car picked up speed, Yin Rui took out his phone. The message that had vibrated while he was still in the car remained lit on the screen.
Found it. Yin Xigui has three accounts under names that are not Yin. All are overseas. The earliest was opened two years and four months ago.
Yin Rui turned the phone facedown on his knee.
Dawn spilled through the car window and touched the faint upward curve of his mouth.
At the Bureau’s entrance, he had given Yin Xigui an answer. He had let Sheng Linyou go. He had let Yin Xigui believe that everything was over.
And he had obtained what he wanted to know.
By the time Sheng Linyou was released, daylight had fully broken. The iron gate opened, and he narrowed his eyes. Backlit by the morning, he saw someone standing outside.
Pink hair lifted and fell in the breeze. He was wrapped in an overcoat two sizes too large.
Yin Xigui smiled at him in the morning light. His eyes curved, but their rims were red.
He took two steps forward. He did not throw himself at Sheng Linyou as he usually did. He simply stopped half a step away.
Sheng Linyou looked down at him. Yin Xigui looked back up, keeping that smile in place while his fingertips curled helplessly.
“Let’s go home,” Sheng Linyou said.
“Mm.”
Yin Xigui was quiet all the way back. He sat on the far side of the backseat beside the window, his forehead against the glass as the streets flew past outside.
Sheng Linyou could see his blurred profile reflected in the window. His expression was flat—not soft as usual, and not wearing the fragile smile he put on when something was wrong.
Once they returned to the house, Yin Xigui went into the kitchen first. He reheated the unfinished vegetables from last night and brought them to the table.
They ate breakfast in silence. The sound of chopsticks touching the rims of their bowls became the loudest thing in the room.
“Yin Xigui.” Sheng Linyou set down his chopsticks.
Yin Xigui did not stop. He picked up a bite of greens, placed it in his bowl, chewed slowly, swallowed, then looked at him. “Brother, are you done? There’s porridge in the pot.”
“Look at me.”
Yin Xigui’s lashes trembled. He set down his chopsticks.
He lowered his eyes to the empty space between their bowls, fingertips brushing lightly along the grain at the table’s edge.
“What happened last night?”
Sheng Linyou’s voice was quiet, but every word sank like a stone into water. “The witness said the collar colors didn’t match. When they arrested me, they never mentioned the color of a collar.”
Yin Xigui’s fingertips went still.
He looked at Sheng Linyou. His lips moved, then closed again, as if choosing his words. After a long moment, he spoke in the same soft voice. “Cousin just looked into it and found another witness...”
“Yin Xigui.” Sheng Linyou cut him off.
“Are you still going to hide it from me?”
He watched him. “I was behind the bars when you made that call last night. I could hear you. You didn’t sound the same as you do when you talk to me.”
Yin Xigui’s fingers tightened around the table edge.
“I know you’re hiding something.”
Sheng Linyou rose, walked around the table, and stopped before him.
He bent, bracing both hands on the arms of Yin Xigui’s chair, caging him between the backrest and his own arms.
“But I don’t want to wait anymore. Tell me clearly.”
Yin Xigui looked up at him as his eyes slowly reddened. Light gathered in them, but this time Sheng Linyou did not reach out to wipe it away.
They stared at each other from too close a distance. Yin Xigui’s lips parted slightly, his quick breath brushing Sheng Linyou’s jaw.
“Brother.” His voice shook.
“Talk.”
Yin Xigui closed his eyes.
When he opened them, the moisture was still there. Looking at Sheng Linyou so close before him, he drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“There are some things I’m doing.”
His voice lowered, and some of that softness faded. “Things about the Yin family. About the collars. About you.”
“Be specific.”
“I can’t.” Yin Xigui lifted a hand and touched the wrist Sheng Linyou had braced on the chair arm. “Not yet.”
Sheng Linyou’s breathing deepened. “Why?”
“Because Yin Rui is investigating me.”
For the first time, Sheng Linyou heard the chill beneath the ice in Yin Xigui’s voice. “If I tell you everything, you’ll be dragged in deeper. Then I might as well never have done any of it.”
“Yin Xigui.”
“Brother, trust me.” Suddenly Yin Xigui gripped his wrist, harder than he ever had before, his knuckles pressing into the skin at Sheng Linyou’s wrist.
“Trust me this once. When I’m finished, I’ll tell you everything.”
Sheng Linyou looked down at the hand clutching his wrist.
The fingertips were white, the joints sharply defined—nothing like the soft, weak hand Yin Xigui usually showed him.
Then Sheng Linyou reached out and caught Yin Xigui by the chin, forcing him to lift his face.
Yin Xigui frowned slightly at the pressure but did not avoid him. He met Sheng Linyou’s eyes head-on.
“The day you bought me,” Sheng Linyou said in a low voice, “when you were pinned beneath me in the backseat of that car—were you pretending?”
Yin Xigui’s pupils contracted almost imperceptibly.
“When you cried. When you were afraid of the dark. When you knocked on my door in the middle of the night and said you were cold—which of it was real?”
Yin Xigui’s eyes reddened again. This time he bit his lip and did not let the tears fall. He only looked at Sheng Linyou.
“Being afraid you’d leave was real,” he said hoarsely. “Being afraid you wouldn’t want me anymore was real, too.”
Sheng Linyou looked into those red-rimmed eyes. They held only his reflection, intent and stubborn, as if he might disappear if Yin Xigui blinked.
Sheng Linyou released his chin.
That hand rose, and his thumb brushed Yin Xigui’s eye.
“Fuck.” Sheng Linyou’s voice had gone rough too.
Yin Xigui threw his arms around his waist. He buried his face in Sheng Linyou’s chest and held on with all his strength.
Sheng Linyou felt his shoulders trembling. Yin Xigui’s fingers wrinkled the fabric across his back.
“Don’t send me away.” His voice came muffled from Sheng Linyou’s chest, thick with tears. “I know you’re angry, but don’t send me away.”
Sheng Linyou looked down at that pink head pressed to his chest. The strength of the arms around his waist was too great for a delicate, sickly young master.
He raised an arm around Yin Xigui’s back, pressed his palm against the trembling shoulder blade, and pulled him close.
“Who said I was sending you away?”
Yin Xigui raised his head. His eyes were red, his lashes wet, and the tip of his nose had gone pink.
He looked up at Sheng Linyou, pressed his lips together, then let them loosen.
“Then you won’t force me anymore?”
“I will.” Sheng Linyou looked down at him, wiped away the moisture at the corner of his eye with his thumb, his words hard but his touch gentle. “When you’re finished, you’re going to tell me every last detail.”
Yin Xigui smiled through his tears. He buried his face against Sheng Linyou again, forehead resting against his collarbone. “Okay.”
Morning blazed outside the windows, sunlight pouring through the gap in the curtains.
Yin Xigui rubbed against him, pink hair brushing Sheng Linyou’s chin.
Sheng Linyou did not let go. He knew Yin Xigui still had far too much he had not told him, but he could feel the arms around his waist trembling with their fierce grip. That strength was not an act.
He was afraid Sheng Linyou would leave. Afraid Sheng Linyou would not want him.
Those two things were real.
At least those two things were real.
Sheng Linyou lowered his head and placed a very light kiss on the top of Yin Xigui’s hair, his lips lingering for one moment against the soft pink strands.