After leaving the house, Sheng Linyou tried everything he could think of.
He called Yin Xigui. The first time, the phone rang for a long while before the call was rejected. The second time, it was switched off.
For two days he stood at the mouth of the lane, from morning until night, watching the iron gate remain shut. Even the curtains left not the slightest gap.
On the third day, the butler finally appeared and handed him an envelope through the gate. Inside were a few banknotes and a note in Yin Xigui's rounded, meticulous handwriting. It contained a single line: “Go back where you belong.”
Sheng Linyou stood holding that note for a long time, until darkness had fallen completely.
He folded it, tucked it into his inner pocket, and left.
He tried Lin Zhi.
She was silent on the phone for a long while before finally saying, “He's avoiding even me.” Then she hung up.
He tried Li Nian. Li Nian sent only one reply: “He told me not to contact you either. He says this is his own business.”
Every possible route had been blocked.
The paths that had once led to Yin Xigui were like doors slammed shut, the locks clicking into place behind him, one after another.
What he didn't know was that, during those few days, Yin Xigui had removed his SIM card and changed his number.
He had changed the locks on the house and stationed people at the entrance whom even Yin Rui couldn't touch.
He had folded the dark gray T-shirt Sheng Linyou kept in the wardrobe and placed it at the very bottom of a drawer. Then he had closed the drawer and never opened it again.
Yin Rui moved faster than Sheng Linyou imagined.
On the fourth day after Sheng Linyou left, Yin Xigui sat down opposite Yin Rui in the study of the Yin family's old residence.
This time there was no Yin Zhengsong, no Yin Ou, none of the home cooking laid out to maintain appearances.
There were only two chairs and a desk. Several folders lay open on its surface, revealing densely packed transaction records and timelines.
Yin Rui sat across from him. Pressing his fingertips to the corner of the topmost document, he gently slid it toward Yin Xigui.
“You started laying the groundwork two and a half years ago. First, you opened three offshore accounts without the Yin name attached. Then you used your mother's old connections to gain access to the gray areas of the financial system. By the time you bought that lower-tier citizen on the black market, you were already using a network of your own.”
Yin Xigui looked down at the document spread before him. He didn't touch it. His gaze swept over it once, then withdrew.
“You've been thorough.”
“I always am.” Yin Rui leaned back in his chair. His expression was calm, but his eyes held the concentration of a hunter reassessing his prey. “So that evidence of yours—the evidence about me—where did you intend to use it?”
Yin Xigui was silent for a moment.
The study window stood open a crack. Cold air slipped through, stirring the edges of the papers on the desk with a faint rustle.
He reached out to press down a lifting corner, leaving his fingers there for a moment.
“The transaction records of the property company in your name were tampered with sometime last autumn. Around then, a large sum came into your offshore account. It was labeled as a dividend from a property development, but the project in question wasn't actually profitable.”
Yin Rui's expression didn't change. As he listened, his fingers tapped lightly against the armrest in an even rhythm.
“And?” Yin Rui smiled. “Who were you planning to trade this information to, and for what? Your father's approval? Your lower-tier citizen's freedom?”
Yin Xigui withdrew his hand from the page and straightened. He met Yin Rui's eyes. Their gazes crossed in the narrow space above the desk like two blades pressed edge to edge.
“For you to leave him alone.”
Yin Rui's eyebrows shifted.
“Use what you have against me. That's fine.”
Yin Xigui's voice was level and steady. Each word sank into the heavy air above the desk.
“But you don't touch him. He knows nothing. From beginning to end, he was just someone I bought. I've sent him away now. He has nothing more to do with you or the Yin family.”
Yin Rui watched him for a long time. That assessing gaze scraped over Yin Xigui's face, inch by inch.
“You're showing me your hand for a lower-tier citizen?”
“It's not for him,” Yin Xigui said. “It's so I have nothing holding me back.”
The corner of Yin Rui's mouth curved.
“Fine.” He stood and gathered the folders on the desk. “You want me to leave him alone? I can do that. But you have to destroy everything you have on me.”
“I already have.” Yin Xigui remained seated. “I deleted it all the night you investigated me.”
Yin Rui paused. He tilted his head to look at Yin Xigui, that thin layer of interest surfacing in his eyes again, like a snake discovering the entrance to another snake's den.
“You're smarter than I thought.”
“You flatter me, Cousin.”
After Yin Rui left, Yin Xigui sat in the study for a long time.
Outside, the light faded. The documents they had gone through still lay open on the desk, their pages turning into a gray blur in the gathering dimness.
He didn't put them away. He simply sat in the chair, looking at his indistinct reflection in the window.
That reflection seemed like a stranger. An expression sat rigidly upon its fair face, neither crying nor smiling.
He reached up to touch his cheek. Beneath his cheekbone, his fingertips found a dried track. He must have cried at some point without even noticing.
Yin Xigui lowered his hand and went on sitting there.
Meanwhile, Sheng Linyou was staying in a cramped little hotel on the west side of the city.
The room was small, its sheets washed almost white. Outside the window was a narrow alley that never received direct sunlight.
Every day, he went out looking for some way to reach Yin Xigui. Each time, he left with hope and returned with an equal measure of disappointment.
He sat on the hotel's creaking chair, holding the note whose folded edges had begun to fray.
Yin Xigui's handwriting was rounded and neat, every character written carefully and earnestly. The final stroke of “Go back where you belong” had been pressed down with particular force.
Sheng Linyou turned the note over. The back was blank. He extended his thumb and slowly rubbed it.
He folded the note again and returned it to his pocket. Rising, he went to the window and pushed it open as far as its narrow gap allowed. Cold air poured in against his face.
A crooked plane tree stood in the alley, its leaves almost gone.
He remembered Yin Xigui standing on the stairs, turning his head to avoid his hand.
The movement had been quick, but he had still caught the fierce struggle that flashed through Yin Xigui's eyes, like someone pushing his most precious possession out a window with his own hands.
Sheng Linyou closed the window.
He stood leaning against the wall for a while, then went to sit on the bed.
The thin coat he had grabbed from the entryway on the day he left still lay across the foot of the bed. He picked it up and brought it close to smell. The fabric carried a faint trace of soap-pod fragrance, the same scent Yin Xigui always wore.
He folded the coat and placed it beside his pillow. Then he lay down fully dressed and stared for a long time at a slender crack in the ceiling.
Voices came from the next room, muffled and indistinct, as though through a layer of water. In the alley outside, the wind knocked something over with a clatter.
Sheng Linyou closed his eyes.
He remembered the day he first met Yin Xigui, how he had timidly called him Brother, how his eyes had reddened at a single harsh word.
Where was that little fool now?
Sheng Linyou rolled onto his side and buried his face in the coat.
The soap-pod scent was already very faint, but he kept his eyes closed and pressed his face deep into it.