PH | Chapter 2

Conspiracy

1936, Shanghai

“My father is already on his last breath. These days I’ll be going to the hospital often to see him. Once he’s gone, you can make your move on your end.” Zhu Xin listened to the opera while looking at the stage below from the private room.

Li Xiao paced back and forth in the private room with his hands in his pockets, then smiled and asked, “You want to take over You Tianxia. That’s pretty bold. Your big brother isn’t just decoration—he’s really going to let you get away with it?”

You Tianxia was the entertainment venue built by the Yan family in Shanghai. It had all kinds of acrobatics, opera, stalls, restaurants, billiard rooms… It was the Yan family’s largest entertainment industry.

Zhu Xin took a sip of tea and said firmly, “As long as you’re willing to help me, I can get it. Haven’t we been doing exactly that these past two years?”

Li Xiao now belonged to the garrison command, with considerable power in the Shanghai Chinese-controlled district. His brother had also been promoted to corps commander, a high-ranking general in the Jiang Zhe region. Zhu Xin had returned to Shanghai two years ago, and together with Li Xiao, he used despicable methods to take over one of the family’s theaters and casinos.

Li Xiao kept smiling. “You’re willing to make up with me because you want to take revenge on the Yan family?”

Zhu Xin looked up at Li Xiao. “I’m not asking you to help me for nothing. The industry I take over gives you a share every quarter. It’s a win-win thing. You Tianxia is the Yan family’s biggest entertainment industry, with even greater profits. You only need to provide the people, and I have a way to take it over. There’s no cheaper deal than this.”

Li Xiao strolled over to Zhu Xin’s side, took Zhu Xin’s hand, and said tenderly, “Since you returned to Shanghai, I’ve helped you with a lot of things. You know what I want is not money.”

Zhu Xin frowned and pulled his hand away. He hated being touched by others. Li Xiao was a very dangerous person. Though they had worked together on many things these two years, because of what happened before, Zhu Xin had always been guarded around him. He tried his best to speak with reason: “Li Xiao, I treat you like a good brother. I didn’t go looking for anyone else for this kind of no-capital deal, only you, because I value the friendship between us. Don’t make things difficult over money.”

Li Xiao looked at his empty palm with a cold laugh, thinking: What bullshit. You don’t ask others because no one would help the bastard born from your whore mother, and no one would offend Yan Jianzhi for your sake.

For two years, Li Xiao had tried to move Zhu Xin with sincerity. Yet Zhu Xin was impervious to reason, not even willing to give him a kiss. He was an impatient bastard, yet he had endured for Zhu Xin for two full years. He considered his sacrifice enormous, but Zhu Xin treated his sincerity as if it were invisible.

Li Xiao looked deeply affectionate as he slowly said, “Zhu Xin, our relationship can go one step further. Be with me, and I can help you even more.”

His patience was very limited. A relationship that had gone nowhere for two years had gradually worn his patience down to almost nothing.

Zhu Xin stood up and grasped Li Xiao’s arm. Li Xiao’s improper thoughts made him feel sick. He had graduated from a prestigious school and had his own career. He should not yield himself to anyone, nor should anyone fantasize about him. He deserved the respect he was due: “Li Xiao, you’ve seen it these past two years. Working with me brings you huge benefits. I’m a man, so please don’t make me ashamed with this kind of thing. We’ve known each other for a long time. I truly take you as a friend. I don’t mind what happened before between us, and you should stop using this kind of thing to humiliate me. I treasure the friendship between you and me.”

Li Xiao held the hand on his shoulder and thought: With that body of yours, what the hell kind of man are you? “I really love you. What happened before was my fault. Look at these years—I haven’t done a single thing out of line again. I’m sincere toward you.”

Li Xiao seemed to be expressing love…. Zhu Xin was very resistant to love. His birth, everything he had seen and heard, all told him that this world was filthy and unbearable. A form like love, something that could only appear in movies, could never happen to him.

He hated male bodily contact with him, hated the form of love that would inevitably involve bodily contact!

He had also loved people before. His love had been pure… it could be translated into respect for the elder brother and sincerity toward Li Xiao. But in the end, what had he received?

He was humiliated by his brother, humiliated by Li Xiao… His malformed body became pregnant with his brother’s child, and he was dragged to have an abortion without the slightest dignity.

Yan Jianzhi and Li Xiao were the warm, faint sparks that had burned in Zhu Xin’s heart as a child. Their humiliation extinguished those sparks. He felt that he had been toyed with by Yan Jianzhi and Li Xiao, spun around in circles. Even he thought himself ridiculous—someone like him actually dared to hope for sincere treatment from others….

Zhu Xin’s eyes turned cold. He let go of Li Xiao’s shoulder. “Is it my malformed body that makes you feel curious?” Li Xiao could have any kind of person he wanted. Why insist on clinging to him and having relations with him? Aside from that reason, he could not think of any other.

Li Xiao found it laughable. “You can’t feel what I feel for you?”

“Don’t say such disgusting things. Sleeping with me won’t earn you more money, and with my current status I don’t need to trade sex for benefits! Stop humiliating me!”

“You still hate what happened before? You still refuse to forgive me?” Li Xiao asked.

Zhu Xin said, “I want to maintain a stable cooperative relationship with you. Please measure me in terms of money and interest.”

Li Xiao looked at Zhu Xin without speaking. The opera’s singing drifted up from below, but the private room was especially quiet.

After a long while, Li Xiao gave a soft laugh and shrugged. “Fine… you’re right. I shouldn’t make things difficult over money. When your old man is about to die, remember to tell me.”

Zhu Xin sighed in relief and smiled at Li Xiao. “Thank you. I still have things to do, so I’ll go first…”

“To the hospital?”

“…Yes.”

“Take my guard with you.”

“No need. The people you gave me are already enough as protection.”

The footsteps outside the private room gradually moved away… Only the faint rustle of strangers’ voices remained in the corridor…

Li Xiao looked at the stage below. The smile on his face gradually faded. Zhu Xin was using him. He was still resentful about that matter. Li Xiao believed that once he had been used to the fullest, Zhu Xin would become an ingrate and have no more dealings with him.

And once Zhu Xin, who now held power in his hands, gradually became equal to him, by then he would be even less able to get close to Zhu Xin….

Li Xiao flipped the food and tea cups on the table over with one hand and gave a dark, vicious laugh and curse: “Get the hell out of here, who the fuck wants your money!”

…

Warm sunlight spilled through the clouds onto the lush green lawn. Everything in spring looked full of life, yet the atmosphere of the hospital was forever lonely and desolate.

Zhu Xin walked along the hospital’s gravel path, with three guards following behind him.

He had come to see Yan patriarch, and unfortunately ran into Yan Bingzhi along the way.

Yan Bingzhi blocked his path, took off the sunglasses on the bridge of his nose, and cursed with interest: “Fuck, this is interesting. Even your whore’s brat can look human one day.”

Zhu Xin no longer feared Yan Bingzhi as he had when he was a child. Yan Bingzhi was now only a lazy playboy. What right did he have to compare himself with Zhu Xin? “Move.”

Yan Bingzhi snorted, equally disdainful, cursing Zhu Xin through his teeth: “You’re here to see Father? Get lost. No one in our family likes you, you filthy thing, a monster crawled out of a prostitute’s belly!”

Zhu Xin suppressed the anger in his heart. He had studied diligently, and even when he was beaten black and blue by Yan Bingzhi as a child, he still insisted on going to school. At school he was publicly insulted and beaten by Yan Bingzhi, and no one liked him there. Everyone treated him coldly. He had never given up his studies. He was only born lowly, but now he had learning and a career. They should no longer use his birth to humiliate him!

Yan Bingzhi kept spewing curses.

Zhu Xin’s expression was cold. He crossed both hands over his abdomen. To show wealth, all five fingers were covered in decorative rings. He turned the jeweled face of the rings inward toward his palm and slapped Yan Bingzhi hard across the face.

“Smack!”

Yan Bingzhi covered his face in shock, then looked at Zhu Xin in disbelief. He raised a hand and found blood on his palm, and angrily swung a fist at Zhu Xin.

The guards reacted quickly and stepped forward to stop Yan Bingzhi.

Zhu Xin’s gaze passed over the guards to Yan Bingzhi, and he said coldly, “We have the same father. It’s because of that old lecher that there is you and me. Your father is a lecher, your whole family is a den of depravity—what makes you any nobler than me?”

Zhu Xin left indifferently, while Yan Bingzhi was blocked behind him, cursing like a mad dog.

He neither heard nor cared. He wanted to make himself seem refined. Bickering with ignorant dandies would damage his dignity.

Zhu Xin arrived at Yan patriarch’s private hospital room. Yan patriarch was in the innermost room, with a sitting room and tea room outside it. The Yan family’s guards did not stop Zhu Xin from entering and leaving. If this had been before, the servants in the house would absolutely not have allowed Zhu Xin to come and go freely in the area where the old master stayed.

But the Yan family was different now. The old master was ill, and among so many children in the family, only a few were truly promising. Zhu Xin was one of them. More importantly, even Yan Jianzhi had not ordered that Zhu Xin be forbidden from entering and leaving Yan patriarch’s room.

Zhu Xin walked into the receiving room and unexpectedly saw Yan Jianzhi on the sofa. The Yan family had many businesses, including entertainment and manufacturing, so Yan Jianzhi ought to have been very busy.

Yan Jianzhi looked lazily at Zhu Xin, bent down, took a cigarette case from the coffee table, shook out a cigarette, and put it in his mouth. “Here to see Father?”

Zhu Xin took the food box from the guard behind him. “Yes… Can Father eat today? I brought some food.”

Yan Jianzhi sized Zhu Xin up from head to toe. Since taking over the family business, Zhu Xin had become fond of dressing himself up. He looked at Zhu Xin’s hands: ten fingers, seven of them wearing rings, with a luxury watch and a jade bracelet on his wrist, as if the words ‘rich’ were written all over his face.

Yan Jianzhi did not approve of this version of Zhu Xin. The Zhu Xin in his memory had been obedient, sensible, and often looked at him with pitiful, devout eyes.

Yan Jianzhi flicked ash from his cigarette. “No. Only IV fluids.”

Zhu Xin held the food box with both hands and placed it on the coffee table, saying respectfully, “Has eldest brother eaten? The dishes were just made and are still warm. If you haven’t eaten, you can fill your stomach. If you don’t want to eat, I’ll take them away after I’ve seen Father.”

Yan Jianzhi lifted his chin without refusing. Seeing this, Zhu Xin pretended to be docile and opened the food box, taking out the dishes and setting them before Yan Jianzhi.