TAMW CH27

The ancestral hall of the Zhou residence was where Zhou Xiao had often been made to kneel in punishment as a child. He would kneel upon a prayer mat, incense burning in his grasp, waiting for it to burn down to ash. Back then, all Zhou Xiao could think about was when the First Madam would finally drop dead.

Later, Yuqing had also knelt frequently on that very mat, though what occupied his mind was how the Eldest Young Master might end up dying somewhere out in the world.

A dense haze of incense smoke hung thick within the hall. With one hand tucked into his pocket, Zhou Xiao narrowed his eyes at the prayer mat. The butler had told him that during the Old Master’s illness, Yuqing would regularly come to burn incense, praying to ancestors and beseeching these ethereal spirits to heal Zhou Yuzhang in his sickbed.

Brilliant, piercing daylight spilled in past the wooden threshold. Dust motes drifted lazily, rising and sinking in the air. Zhou Xiao stood enshrouded in shadow, almost seeing the faint impressions of his younger self and a teenage Yuqing overlapping upon the woven mat.

What had Yuqing been like when he first arrived at the Zhou mansion? Had he, too, endured the First Madam’s cruelties? Yuqing’s frame was so slender, almost frail; how could he have borne it? Long before they ever met, Yuqing had knelt here, taking the punishments meant for him.

A bleak, lonely childhood had left Zhou Xiao feeling nothing toward this compound except deep revulsion. The cloying incense, the damp rot creeping along the shadowed corners of the brick walls, and a gaggle of the living dead upholding never-ending sets of rigid rules. Just looking at the tiered rows of ancestral tablets made him itch to topple them all into a heap and set them ablaze.

As he stood in contemplation, a shadow stretched across the blue-flagstone floor.

Yuqing dressed comfortably while inside the residence, untroubled by onlookers. He wore his customary long gown, which concealed his lower abdomen, supported at the threshold by Zhao Fu. Resting one hand against the doorframe and the other draped lightly across his stomach, his delicate silhouette caught Zhou Xiao’s cold, brooding gaze.

Yuqing’s long hair draped gently over his shoulders, framing striking amber eyes. Leaning against the door, he carried the tender grace of an expectant mother, yet the sharp, slender lines of his shoulders preserved the striking, contradictory nature of a man carrying a child. He was like a pool of clear spring water stepping into a dizzying room suffocated by incense.

“Why did you come out?” Zhou Xiao frowned slightly, though his legs had already carried him forward to offer an arm.

“It has been quite some time since I offered incense to Father,” Yuqing said smoothly, resting his hand against Zhou Xiao’s forearm. “I came to pay my respects.”

Zhou Xiao hurriedly snubbed out his foreign cigarette.

Yuqing suddenly recalled how disgustedly Zhou Xiao had looked at him the first time they met, thinking he had been smoking an opium pipe. Back then, he had assumed Zhou Xiao was a truly progressive gentleman, righteous like the demonstrating students marching to purge opium from the country. In the end, Zhou Xiao simply smoked imported rolled cigarettes.

Having extinguished the ember, Zhou Xiao worried the smell might cling to Yuqing and waved his hands to clear the surrounding air. The heavy scent of burning joss sticks and drifting ash was already so overpowering that the faint scent of tobacco was virtually undetectable.

Even so, Yuqing cast him a sidelong glance, warning, “Don’t let it happen again.”

“Mhm…” Zhou Xiao agreed almost instinctively, only to stop and think: Why the hell should I listen to him? But on second thought, Yuqing scolding him meant Yuqing cared. His mood brightened at once, the corners of his lips curving upward. “Always finding a way to boss me around.”

Yuqing gave him a long, cool look. “What sort of junior smokes inside an ancestral hall? It shows a complete lack of filial respect.”

Zhou Xiao: “…”

Not burning this hall to the ground was already showing immense face for Yuqing’s sake. Those long-dead ancestors ought to be celebrating in the underworld; who among them would dare accuse him of disrespect? It was an utter joke.

“That’s only because they didn’t have imported cigarettes back then,” he retorted. “Otherwise, they would have smoked them too.”

“You…” Amused by his brazen sophistry, Yuqing stood firm and raised a hand, feigning a slap across his cheek.

Zhou Xiao didn’t flinch. Instead, he tilted his face slightly toward the hand, raising a brow in open defiance.

Seeing him refuse to back down, the ever-dutiful Yuqing could hardly strike someone in front of the ancestral tablets. He settled for tapping the tip of the man’s nose with his finger. “No arguing. Wrong is wrong.”

Having his nose tapped several times, Zhou Xiao watched him with flickering, half-smiling eyes. “I’ll yield to you, just this once.”

Yuqing’s condition made it difficult to kneel and kowtow, so he merely offered three sticks of incense and had Zhou Xiao bow low in his stead.

Standing before Zhou Yuzhang’s memorial tablet, Yuqing’s gaze was quiet and filled with sorrow, as if he carried endless things he wished to say to the lacquered piece of wood.

Once he finished bowing, Zhou Xiao stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Yuqing. There stood Yuqing in a traditional gown and long hair, alongside Zhou Xiao clad in a sharp Western suit. Their shoulders brushed, one tall, the other delicate. Zhou Xiao thought to himself: This is what a true, heaven-made union looks like.

Yuqing murmured, “Knowing you are willing to stand here beside me would set Father’s heart at ease.”

“Is that so?” Zhou Xiao scoffed. “He gets to rejoice over nothing, then.”

The old man had never given him anything worthwhile. Even if Yuqing insisted the old man loved his son, love that was never given was love that did not exist. What someone carried in their heart and what they actually did were what mattered. Except for Yuqing, of course.

Zhou Xiao supported him as they left the hall. They needed to prepare for the celebration banquet at the Ruan residence tomorrow.

With Jiang Sui away and Zhou Xiao’s business rooted outside the city, Zhou Xiao was effectively a stranger to Baizhou’s social circles. But once Yuqing showed his face at the docks, everyone learned that the Zhou family’s adopted ward was now the President of Qingming Bank. Socially and politically, attending the Ruan banquet was unavoidable.

The President of Qingming Bank was concurrently a Vice President of the Baizhou Chamber of Commerce, a rank shared by the Ruan family. With two vice presidents clashing violently at the harbor, the Chamber President had dispatched an invitation seeking to broker a truce.

Baizhou boasted the largest port in the province, handling over a hundred passenger liners and cargo vessels daily. Under the Republican regime, with civil strife tearing across the north and south, many outlying counties lacking garrisoned troops had fallen to local bandit chieftains. In areas without railways or reliable armed escorts, commodity prices soared out of control. Controlling a maritime trade port was effectively holding the lifeblood of Baizhou’s economy; no one could look upon such a lucrative prize without greed.

When Jiang Sui’s troops were garrisoned at the docks, no one dared stir up trouble. Now, the landscape had shifted. With Jiang Sui’s fate on the western front unknown, if confirmed news of his death arrived, several factions would tear one another apart for ownership of the harbor.

If Ruan Yuqing skipped this banquet, it would be interpreted as forfeiting his claim to the port, leaving him vulnerable to rival alliances aiming to swallow him whole. He had to go, and he had to appear in person.

“Are you truly comfortable dressed like this?” Zhou Xiao’s hand rubbed gently over his lower abdomen. “Does it not hurt?”

Yuqing drew in a breath. “It’s fine. Once draped under the heavy cloak, nothing will show.”

Yuqing naturally favored loose cuts. At five months, his swelling belly was noticeable when walking in standard robes. Binding his abdomen and chest with a lightly elasticized cloth allowed him to step out in loose outer garments without the pregnancy being obvious, even if he shed his cloak.

“Why not let me handle it in your place?” Zhou Xiao asked. “It isn’t that difficult.”

“The Young Master has been away from Baizhou for so long; you likely do not realize how far the Ruan family’s reach extends.”

The Zhou family had enjoyed its own glory once, using the pawnshops’ peculiar curios to grease palms, laundering bribes for municipal, provincial, and ministerial officials alike. By the time Zhou Yuzhang took the reins, the Republican era had arrived; gold and silver ornaments gave way to silver dollars, and the high-ranking officials who frequented the shops were swept away in the regime change. That was why Zhou Yuzhang had constantly traveled to keep trade alive.

Zhou Xiao knew a fraction of this, but nowhere near as much as Yuqing.

As the Zhou family waned, the Ruan family took control of the harbor, bringing foreign opium into the city. They established clandestine alleys, luring the masters of prominent households to smoke opium while visiting brothels. Later, when the harbor was placed under formal scrutiny and overt opium shipments ceased, the Ruan family brought it in from neighboring provinces—pricier, yet capable of yielding extortionate markups from Baizhou locals. Anyone craving a fix had to pay double. If officials became hooked, the Ruan family traded opium for political appointments. By now, even the deputy chief of the Baizhou Police Bureau was a Ruan family plant. Otherwise, following Zhou Yuzhang’s death, how would the police have dared back the Second Uncle’s raid on the Zhou estate?

Yuqing finished securing the cloth bindings and walked back and forth past the screen. His figure remained remarkably graceful, draped in a fox-fur stole that made him look like a fox spirit nurtured in an opulent mansion, completely arresting to behold.

“Until the opium trade is driven out, the Ruan family will stick their fingers into every venture. While news of Jiang Sui’s death remains unconfirmed, they are still hesitant. Securing the port is our highest priority. The Young Master need not worry; I can handle the negotiations myself, I—” Yuqing looked up, only to catch Zhou Xiao staring fixedly at his ankles from across the table.

Having just changed, Yuqing stood barefoot atop a tiger-skin rug. The pale arches of his feet revealed delicate, faint green veins beneath the skin, echoing the pale hue of his preferred gowns.

Most people described Yuqing simply as ‘beautiful,’ struck by his features without pinpointing the exact source of that beauty. Yet true beauty lay in the bone, not merely the skin. The joints of his toes were cleanly defined, his nails trimmed neat and round, with a soft flush of pink at the tips. The paper-thin skin clung to bone; even resting unadorned upon the rug, his feet held the delicate, poised silhouette of an orchid mantis. An ankle alone was enough to send Zhou Xiao’s thoughts running wild.

He felt Yuqing resembled a pregnant praying mantis—gorgeous, having discarded the father to keep the child, alluring yet lethal, brimming with the soft grace of maternity, making it impossible not to look.

To Zhou Xiao, Yuqing had always seemed gentle and fragile. Before their reunion, he had imagined Yuqing as someone tragically pitiable. Yet upon reuniting, he discovered that hidden within that delicate, frail vessel was a mesmerizing, ruthless brilliance.

Yuqing took two more steps, refraining from calling Zhou Xiao out.

As expected, Zhou Xiao remained transfixed by his ankles.

Yuqing found it amusing. Did this young master truly study finance in France? He had laid bare the Ruan family’s machinations hoping the young master might offer some useful counsel. After all, Young Master Zhou was a legitimate vice president of a bank in Shencheng. Who would have thought that after speaking for half the morning, not a single word had registered with him?

Or perhaps he had registered exactly one sentence: ‘He didn’t need to worry.’

So he was truly washing his hands of it? What a self-serving hypocrite. When asked to ponder serious matters, he said nothing, doing nothing but staring endlessly. In moments like this, how was he any different from his father? Shying away from declaring what he truly desired, preferring to run—a glaring flaw, and an irritating one at that.

Yuqing deliberately stepped behind a mother-of-pearl folding screen, vanishing from view.

Zhou Xiao caught his breath, suddenly restless. “What did you say?”

“I said…” Yuqing drawled languidly.

With his voice drifting from behind the partition and his figure concealed, Zhou Xiao felt as though a cat’s claw were scratching at his heart. He pushed back his chair and strode past the screen.

Yuqing sat casually upon a sandalwood chair within the alcove, reclining against the backrest. His bare feet remained unsocked, one leg crossed over the other as he leaned an elbow on the tabletop, seemingly waiting for him to follow.

Zhou Xiao cleared his throat. “You…”

“I cannot put on my stockings,” Yuqing said. “The cloth bound around my belly makes it awkward to bend. Would Master Zhou be so kind as to assist me?”

He parted his gown, revealing a slender calf rising from the ankle, his toes resting lightly against the tiger pelt.

Zhou Xiao smiled faintly. “Of course.” He stepped closer and offered a hand. “Lift your foot.”

“My stomach is uncomfortable. Come down here, or you won’t hear a word I say,” Yuqing commanded.

Zhou Xiao scoffed, stepping closer and bending at the waist until their faces were inches apart, his warm breath fanning across Yuqing’s skin. “Are you truly asking me to dress your feet, or do you simply want me on my knees?”

A look of pure innocence flashed across Yuqing’s eyes. “Both.”

Since he refused to listen, he deserved a light punishment.

Zhou Xiao: “You want to ride over my head to prove you’re the one calling the shots in the Zhou family?” Straightening slightly, he clicked his tongue. “Expecting me to kneel and serve you your stockings… Go lie in bed yourself.”

Yuqing pursed his lips, wearing an expression of faint helplessness. “Very well, then…” Raising his voice, he called out, “Zhao Fu—”

“Madam.” Zhao Fu had been waiting outside the door; hearing the call, he hurried in with his head bowed low.

Yuqing tossed the pair of silk stockings toward him. “Come here.”

Zhou Xiao’s face darkened instantly. He snatched the fabric out of the air before it could reach the servant, grinding his teeth. “Ruan. Yu. Qing!”

Paying no heed to whether he had caught the stockings, Zhao Fu instinctively moved to the wardrobe to retrieve a fresh pair, walking back over with his head down. As he reached the edge of the pelt, terrified his cloth shoes might soil his master’s lavish rug, he dropped to his knees without hesitation, preparing to crawl toward Yuqing’s side.

The movement was practiced, fluid, and practiced.

Accustomed to being served, Yuqing merely closed his eyes slightly and swayed his foot, looking like an exquisite sculpture carved of white jade.

While I was away, just how insolent had this servant become? Zhou Xiao’s anger flared violently, hot enough to singe his brows. His gaze fell upon the brass shears resting on the table. A spineless, gutless worm. Does a creature this cowardly even deserve to serve? The boy was merely a soulless dog molded by the compound’s archaic etiquette.

Yuqing ignored the tension. After waiting a beat, he felt a pair of hands grasp his foot.

A rough, calloused palm—this was certainly not Zhao Fu. Zhao Fu never dared touch his bare skin directly, only gingerly holding the edges of the stocking until his foot slipped inside to tie the ribbons. Zhou Xiao’s hands, however, were textured with calluses. Despite being young and refined in appearance, his palms bore the wear of whatever mechanical pursuits he tinkered with in the West.

“Master Zhou,” Yuqing pressed the sole of his foot against the man’s palm, “thank you for your trouble.”

Zhou Xiao had dropped to one knee, but standing before Yuqing, he felt as if his soul had been reeled in. “Master Zhou,” Zhou Xiao mocked under his breath. “Are you calling me, or are you calling him?”

‘Him’ was, of course, Zhou Yuzhang.

Zhou Xiao detested hearing his wife use any title that did not distinctly belong to him. He could assume the mantle of family head, but he loathed hearing Yuqing say it aloud. Otherwise, what if it made him think of that old ghost?

As the stocking was drawn over his ankle, Yuqing chuckled at his childish possessiveness. “Zhezhi, thank you.”

“Mhm.” Only then did Zhou Xiao look somewhat satisfied. “There is no swelling today.”

He remembered how drenched in sweat Yuqing had been during a sudden leg cramp the previous day. He had heard that when women were with child, their limbs swelled heavily in the later stages until they couldn’t fit into shoes, though he never knew if the rumor was true.

Yuqing hadn’t expected him to pay such close attention to his physical state. “Perhaps it is because you returned, making Yuqing’s heart happy?”

“Do you even believe that yourself?” Zhou Xiao rested the stockinged foot atop his thigh. Finding the angle awkward, he dropped his other knee to the floor, kneeling fully before him. “In your heart, aren’t you just itching for me to take the silver dollars and rush back to Shencheng to build the railway and earn you a fortune?”

Yuqing let out a soft gasp and reached down to pat the man’s cheek affectionately. “Zhezhi is so remarkably clever.”

Yuqing’s laughter chimed clear as silver bells, leaving Zhou Xiao utterly intoxicated. A pout of displeasure crept across Zhou Xiao’s features. “I knew it. I will make the money; you won’t lack for food or fine clothes.”

Yuqing said, “Merely having enough to eat and wear is hardly enough.”

“Then what else could you possibly want?”

Yuqing calmly unveiled his prize: “The Ruan family.”

Zhou Xiao said, “Did that old man know how insatiable your appetite was before handing you the Zhou estate? The Zhou family wasn’t enough; now you want to swallow the Ruans as well.”

Yuqing’s lashes fluttered. Looking down from his seat at Zhou Xiao, he tilted his head slightly. “Indeed.”

Zhou Xiao: “You swindled me out of such a massive cut of profits. What makes you think I will help you? Just because I drank your—”

Before the word could leave his mouth, Yuqing planted a foot firmly against his chest. The fabric of the long gown slid down his calf, revealing a slender, pale knee blushing faintly pink. Zhou Xiao’s voice cut off instantly.

The scent of jasmine washed over him once more.

“Because you, too, are a merchant. Setting aside our standing as husband and wife, we can still be business partners, can we not?”

Yuqing had already secured everything he set out to gain. A century from now, when the genealogy records were penned, he could easily alter his name from Ruan Yuqing to Zhou Yuqing, having his memorial tablet carved for future generations to venerate. He had the child, and he had the Zhou estate. As for Zhou Xiao, if the man proved capable, keeping him around for some intimacy was harmless enough. If he grew recalcitrant, replacing him would not be difficult.

Setting aside our standing as husband and wife? Zhou Xiao thought bitterly. Over my dead body. He was not someone who risked his neck for strangers; no one in this world warranted such devotion, not even his biological father. If Ruan Yuqing wanted him, he had to bind himself to him—with the child, and with Yuqing’s own affection.

“How do you propose we cooperate?” Zhou Xiao lifted Yuqing’s other foot. Spotting a small beauty mark near the toes, he bent lower, wanting to inspect it closer.

“On the surface, you will partner with the Ruan family on the railway, granting them thirty percent of the profits at most—a share they will hardly refuse. As for the rest…”

“Once the tracks are laid, trigger a mine explosion and pin the blame on the Ruans? Splash the newspapers with headlines claiming the Ruan family wasn’t satisfied with their profits and chose to destroy lives in reckless greed?”

Yuqing arched a brow, a slow smile unfurling across his lips. “So Zhezhi truly is that sharp.”

“Human lives are expensive,” Zhou Xiao murmured, cradling Yuqing’s ankle as he leaned down to discern whether the beauty mark was red, brown, or pink. “Besides, everyone is born of a mother and father. The tricks of the inner courtyard are always the same; what is there to puzzle over? It takes a single thought to see through it.”

He wouldn’t engage in the senseless slaughter of innocents, but corrupt officials were another matter entirely; he was already scheming to drag several greedy bureaucrats down with them. Over the years, he considered himself to have cultivated the upright bearing of a proper gentleman—at least in the eyes of the public.

As he leaned in, Yuqing gently raised his foot.

At first, it merely rested against Zhou Xiao’s shoulder. But with the slightest application of pressure, Zhou Xiao seemed to lose all the iron in his bones. The one who had sworn never to kneel was the very same man kneeling before him now—the spineless Young Master Zhou.

His posture yielded as though an invisible hook had caught his collarbone, pulling him down until he was nearly pressed against the floor, because only in that position could Yuqing’s bare sole rest directly against his cheek.

Lying prostrate, Zhou Xiao finally saw the beauty mark clearly. It was lovely, resting just shy of the big toe’s nail—smaller even than the mole beneath Yuqing’s eye.

Yuqing lightly tapped his cheek with the sole of his foot. “I wonder if all my silver is sufficient to purchase a single collaboration with you?”

This sudden display reminded Zhou Xiao of their wedding day. Major Chen, a battle-hardened soldier and a veritable reaper in this chaotic age, had taken a slap from Ruan Yuqing without daring to make a sound. It turned out Yuqing had bewitched countless men long before this. The disdain Zhou Xiao had felt back then had curdled into regret—regret that he hadn’t surrendered himself to Yuqing’s robes sooner. Had he done so, they might have been devoted to each other that much earlier.

Yuqing pressed down a fraction harder, mussing Zhou Xiao’s carefully groomed hair until a few stray locks obscured his eyes. Tilting his head slightly, Zhou Xiao pressed the tip of his nose against the arch of Yuqing’s foot.

“It is enough…” his voice drifted, hushed and distant.

The cool scent of jasmine flooded his lungs; the touch of Yuqing’s skin was cool and smooth.

“You can afford me.” Zhou Xiao’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

He loved being treated like this by Yuqing, because he was certain Yuqing had never treated another living soul this way. Never. And even if he had, as long as the other party died, he would still be the only one left in the world to receive it.

Yuqing let out a soft hum. Watching his subservient posture, the man looked nothing like an arrogant young master. “Mhm…” Yuqing smiled faintly. “Then, here is to a pleasant partnership.”

With the stockings and shoes secured, the pair prepared to depart for the Ruan estate.

When Deng Yongquan opened the automobile door for them, he noticed his young master’s face was distinctly flushed.

The Ruan Residence.

The Ruan estate was an authentic Western-style mansion and the grandest estate in all of Baizhou City. Ruan Hongtian kept no fewer than twelve concubines, to say nothing of the mistresses tucked away in various villas whom he hadn’t bothered bringing home.

Today was the birthday celebration of a young master. Zhou Yulin had originally married Master Ruan’s second sister; after their only son, Zhou Min, died, he had taken to frequenting his mistress’s quarters. Shortly after Zhou Yuzhang’s passing, his mistress was discovered by his wife. Some time later, the mistress turned up dead, while the pair of illegitimate children she bore were brought back into the main household.

The guests arriving today were the cream of the city’s wealthy and influential, alongside several newspaper reporters. Celebrating the child’s birthday was merely a pretext; all the Chamber vice presidents were expected to attend. Most importantly, the President of Qingming Bank had just been outed as the late Master Zhou’s adopted ward. Everyone was eager to see the drama unfold.

“Will he show his face today?”

“Back then, the First Madam failed to put an end to him. Look at him now, shamelessly clinging to power—first clinging to the old man, now clinging to the young master. Just like his whore of a mother. But look how his mother ended up! What’s the use…”

“Ruan Yuqing crawled out of the Ruan family, after all. An ungrateful wolf.”

“I wonder what sort of man that Young Master Zhou is, standing up for him like that.”

“Standing up for him? To my eyes, he’s here to settle the score! Word has it Ruan Yuqing sold off every Zhou family asset to establish Qingming Bank. The Second Master already let it slip: the young master couldn’t stand the sight of him from the start.”

“And that scene at the docks the other day…”

“All for show! Once they’re back behind the Zhou family gates, Ruan Yuqing doesn’t even bear the surname Zhou. Do you truly think the family will bow to him? Do you think the young master would just surrender the estate? How could he? The man studied abroad; his methods are ten times sharper than his…”

“I heard he gave himself away as a male wife for nothing—Zhou Xiao didn’t even want him!”

“A man serving as a wife—it’s nothing more than a passing diversion. Who has ever seen a male concubine? It’s humiliating just to mention. Zhou Xiao is probably sick of him to death.”

On the ride toward the Ruan residence, Zhou Xiao suddenly leaned in and nibbled at Yuqing’s neck. “Tsk… what are you doing?”

“Am I truly that annoying?” Zhou Xiao scowled. “I’ve already agreed to your partnership. What more do you want from me? Once we step into the Ruan estate, you’ll still have to rely on me. Couldn’t you try flattering me beforehand?”

Yuqing tried to push him away in exasperation.

Yet the fox-fur stole Yuqing wore today masked the faint scent of jasmine clinging to his skin, making it hard for Zhou Xiao to catch it inside the car. Without that familiar hint of jasmine, he felt strangely hollow inside, his nose drawing closer and closer until it pressed right against the crook of Yuqing’s neck.