Chapter 26: A Presumptuous Introduction
Tang Yu's heart softened. Lin Juefei had been so busy lately that he was never around; whenever he came back, there were dark circles under his eyes, but he never once mentioned being tired in front of Tang Yu. "Juefei-ge, have you been pushing yourself too hard lately?"
Lin Juefei froze for a beat, then lowered his head and smiled. "No. I just want to pave more of the road for you."
Non-slip mats covered the deck, and several attendants in white uniforms stood beside the gangway.
Lin Juefei and Tang Yu entered side by side, Ji Qian'ang trailing behind.
Given the Ji family's current decline, a glittering scene like this was not one Ji Qian'ang should have set foot in, but the grandmother had told him to come along—just for fun, she said.
It might have been nothing more than a face-saving remark. Aboard the yacht, Ji Qian'ang, knowing his place, stood out on the deck in the wind while Lin Juefei took Tang Yu inside and paid him no further mind.
The main salon on the first floor held several groupings of pale sofas; champagne and fruit platters sat on the coffee tables. The crowd was small—a handful of people in suits and evening dress stood about in twos and threes, wine glasses in hand.
Lin Juefei introduced Tang Yu to a few of them: a partner of some fund, the son of a listed company's owner, an old lady in the antique trade...
Tang Yu shook hands and exchanged greetings, his mind elsewhere, trying to think of an excuse to slip out to the deck for air.
Lin Juefei touched his arm and told him to sit first; he would go pay his respects, then bring Tang Yu over. "That gentleman is very kind—he runs a culture fund. Haven't you always wanted to meet someone who does curation?"
Tang Yu said nothing. He carried two glasses of juice out to the deck and held one out to Ji Qian'ang.
Ji Qian'ang took it, and before Tang Yu noticed, had vanished from his side again. Tang Yu leaned against the deck rail, sulking quietly in the wind, watching the lights of ships on the sea come on one by one.
He had been standing there a while when he sensed someone slowly approaching.
The man stopped right at the edge of Tang Yu's vision. Tang Yu turned his head and saw a figure in a black suit, one hand holding champagne, the other in his trouser pocket.
His gaze traveled upward. Half of the man's sharply handsome face was covered by a silver mask, from above the bridge of the nose to his forehead. The exposed half showed a chiseled jaw, thin lips, faint stubble.
There were a few unavoidable lines at the corners of his eyes, yet he did not look old—rather, they lent him an added air of maturity.
"Good evening." His voice ran a little cold, the ends of his words drawn out lazily.
Tang Yu nodded politely in reply.
The man came half a step closer, a faint smile in his voice. "Forgive the presumption. My name is He Zhuokun. A first meeting—you're Tang Yu, I take it?"
Tang Yu's brows lifted in surprise. "You know me?"
He Zhuokun shook his head in mock denial. "Juefei has mentioned you. He said you'd be here tonight."
He sipped his champagne and launched into easy conversation, as if trying to close the distance. "Juefei says you play the piano beautifully, and that you're not fond of occasions like this. Seeing you now, he was right—you really don't like it here."
In the past, Tang Yifeng would occasionally bring Tang Yu to similar occasions, and had more than once warned him not to chat with people whose identities he didn't know.
Tang Yu thought to himself: if Lin Juefei could discuss his private affairs with an outsider, the two of them could not be on bad terms.
Seeing Tang Yu offer little in reply, He Zhuokun found a new thread. "I hear from Juefei that you used to study painting?"
Tang Yu nodded and raised his glass for a sip. "A few years."
He Zhuokun smiled, as if he had found a fine opening. He drifted from the history of art in London to installation exhibitions in Amsterdam, chatting as one really might with a child interested in art.
Tang Yu listened, absorbed. Rarely did he fail to keep outsiders at arm's length—now he even asked a question of his own: "Mr. He, do you think a gallery is better off staying niche, or going to the masses?"
Something flickered in He Zhuokun's eyes. "That is an excellent question."
Lin Juefei had circled the salon without finding He Zhuokun; now he stood in a corner not far away, watching every move of the two on the deck.
Every word He Zhuokun said to Tang Yu was new to him, delivered in a tone gentle to the point of indulgence.
He was smiling, the whole time.
The light in Lin Juefei's eyes dimmed, though his face kept its mild, docile expression.
Art, was it? He Zhuokun was so patient, so meticulous, he seemed ready to hand over an entire chapter of its history to Tang Yu.
Lin Juefei remembered the private studio three months ago: He Zhuokun standing behind him, guiding his hands as he mixed paints, fingertips pinching his cheek in passing, actually laughing as he teased, "A-Fei looks like a little tabby cat."
But whenever Lin Juefei tried to seize on He Zhuokun's good mood and talk at length, He Zhuokun would revert to his usual cold face and brush him off without ceremony.
Now, speaking with Tang Yu, He Zhuokun's hands hung motionless at his sides—no describing how absorbed he was.
Lin Juefei's grip tightened on the railing, his face livid.
Nangong Min lounged against the rail nearby and, at the sight, could barely keep from laughing.
The two on the deck went on chatting. Tang Yu asked, "Mr. He, what brings you to Hong Kong?"
"Charity fund business." He glanced at his watch and extended an invitation. "There's a private design exhibition later—pieces just auctioned back from Europe. You're welcome to come see it, if you're interested."
With that He Zhuokun walked toward the stairs. Passing Tang Yu, he paused for an instant, picked up the light jacket a server had brought over, and draped it, quite naturally, over Tang Yu's shoulders.
"Wear it. Don't catch a chill."
Before Tang Yu could respond, He Zhuokun had already swept away.
A faint sandalwood scent seeped from the fabric. Tang Yu glanced down at the jacket on his shoulder, feeling vaguely that something was off.
His glass emptied, a server came to take it at once, and Lin Juefei walked over to Tang Yu, a smile in place. "How was your chat with the gentleman? I'd meant to bring you over to meet him—I didn't expect you'd run into each other first."
Tang Yu nodded that it had been fine, and asked curiously, "How long have you known Mr. He?"
"A while now."
"You never mentioned him before."
Lin Juefei's eyes kept straying to the jacket draped over Tang Yu's shoulders, dark at the bottom.
At that, he gave a low laugh. "Mention him? A-Yu wouldn't be interested in these people anyway."
"An investor back from Singapore. Last year he donated two museums to universities there. He has some connection to the shipping-route development project too, as it happens."
Smiling, Lin Juefei led Tang Yu to a private room and told him to wait there while he went to check the exhibition's opening time.
The moment he reached the second floor, Lin Juefei collided face-to-face with Nangong Min, who whipped his glass around in time to keep from spilling a single drop, his expression an apologetic grin gone smug. "Ah—my sincere apologies."
Lin Juefei clearly had no wish to talk to him; he clapped his shoulder and moved to go up.
The two passed back to back, not far apart. Nangong Min spoke. "Mr. He seems to take especial care of A-Yu. He's rarely so cheerful—you ought to be glad for him."
Lin Juefei half-turned and smiled at Nangong Min. The smile was soft, submissive, touched with a little shame. "Mr. Nangong is right. I've been too thoughtless."
Nangong Min hadn't expected him to cave so quickly. He paused, then pressed on: "Mr. He only needed to show his face tonight and he could have left. He's now sought Tang Yu out twice of his own accord. If you don't do something, Mr. He may well start treating him like family."
Lin Juefei's fist clenched; a faint smile surfaced on his face. "Whom the gentleman treats as family is surely no concern of Mr. Nangong's."
Nangong Min gave a hollow laugh and leaned closer. "Of course I don't worry about him. What I worry about is—"
"You've served Mr. He all these years. You can't simply stand by and watch some child who appeared out of nowhere take the position that ought to be yours?"
Lin Juefei said nothing, forcing down the tremor, closing his eyes briefly to smother the fury at the bottom of them.
Tang Yu took off the jacket, left the private room, and asked where the washroom was. A server had already risen to lead the way when, from who knew where, He Zhuokun appeared again and personally showed Tang Yu there himself.
Lin Juefei looked away and headed for the yacht's upper deck, Nangong Min on his heels. At the bar, Nangong Min handed him a fresh glass of champagne and murmured through the narrow gap as the glasses crossed: "At the end of the port-side corridor there's a little viewing platform. The railing's low, and the servers rarely go there."
He paused, his eyes dark. "The Ji family's study companion is standing on the starboard side right now..."
Nangong Min said no more than that, dropped the smile from his face, and withdrew.
Twenty minutes later, Tang Yu came down from the deck. Crossing the side corridor, he felt a little dizzy. At first he paid it no mind—too long in the sea wind, he supposed.
The corridor had gone mostly dark. Tang Yu made his way back along it, and at the corner Lin Juefei cut him off. "A-Yu, come with me to the viewing platform, will you? I just heard you can see the bioluminescent sea from there."
Tang Yu rubbed his temples and tilted his head. "Bioluminescent sea, this season?"
"So come and see." Lin Juefei's tone was light, almost wheedling. "I haven't seen it once since coming back to China."
A few steps more, and the corridor began to sway faintly before Tang Yu's eyes, the dim wall lamps leaving afterimages. He steadied himself against the wall, breathing quickening, a thin sheen of sweat at his temples.
No. Since boarding, he'd had only one glass of juice, taken in the salon. It couldn't have been tampered with.
"A-Yu?"
Lin Juefei called from behind and hurried forward to support his arm, concern sharpening his voice. "What's wrong? Why are you so pale?"
"I'm fine." Tang Yu tried to push him away, but his whole body had gone weak; his vision blurred more and more.
"Don't move—I'll take you to the lounge." Lin Juefei half-looped an arm across his shoulders and hurried him down the corridor, then threw a word to the server behind. "Get the ship's doctor."
Lin Juefei's voice grew more and more distant in Tang Yu's world. After a burst of arguing, a hand clapped over his mouth from behind.
Tang Yu tried to struggle, but his body could summon no strength at all, and a pungent sting rose from the wet cloth pressed over his nose and mouth.
His consciousness was sinking when several short shouts suddenly reached his ears, and moments later someone barreled in from the side, bringing a rush of wind, seizing his arm and pulling him into an embrace.
Tang Yu wanted to open his eyes and see who held him, but his eyelids were too heavy to lift. He did not struggle much.
By that scalding warmth and that familiar embrace alone, Tang Yu already had his answer.
His mouth opened, and at last, with difficulty, he forced out a few breaths of sound. "Ji Qian'ang..."