Ning Zhuo woke up as if emerging from an intoxicating dream, one so blissful he wished he could stay lost in it forever.
But reality hit hard—the moment he moved, an unspeakable pain made him collapse back onto the bed.
He was highly resistant to pain, but pleasure left him unfamiliar and uneasy.
So, during the latter half of last night, he clung tightly to Shan Feibai’s waist, half-dependently surrendering himself into his arms, as if the warmth before him was the only real thing amid the haze of illusion.
In Ning Zhuo’s ears echoed the faint murmurs he’d uttered in his dazed state last night.
“No… we can’t…”
“Mom and Dad are here, we can’t…”
A flush, like rouge, spread across Ning Zhuo’s face.
He closed his eyes, wrestling with his body for a while, until he finally regained control.
Struggling to get up, a few strands of hair stuck to his lips with sweat, but he had no mind to tidy them. Supporting himself against the wall, he staggered forward, step by faltering step.
He couldn’t take big strides, or the pain would flare, and his head would spin.
Ning Zhuo thought he might be bleeding.
At twenty-eight years old, to be reduced to barely walking by a kid five years his junior—it was absurd.
He decided he had to do something.
So, he stumbled into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face.
The cleanup had been taken care of by someone else yesterday, sparing him the trouble.
After washing his face, Ning Zhuo grabbed a disposable razor blade.
He tested its edge on his fingertip—sharp enough.
He left the bathroom, hand hanging loosely, and approached Shan Feibai step by step.
Shan Feibai had already been roused by the sound of water.
He propped his bare arm behind his head, squinting at Ning Zhuo with fearless, unguarded eyes, as if he’d steeled himself to face whatever came, ready to be carved up.
Shan Feibai knew punishment was coming, but he felt he’d done nothing wrong.
“You’ve grown up. Gotten bold,” Ning Zhuo said, his voice so hoarse it startled even himself.
His words carried their usual slow, light cadence. “Almost fucked me into not getting up.”
Shan Feibai blinked, the corners of his mouth twitching upward a few centimeters before he caught himself, suppressing the flicker of smugness and joy.
Ning Zhuo extended his mechanical hand, clamping Shan Feibai’s throat with the crook of his thumb and pressing down slowly to restrain him. With his other hand, he wielded the blade, prying Shan Feibai’s legs apart.
The cold touch of the blade made Shan Feibai squint uncomfortably, a bad premonition rising in his chest.
He shifted his hips.
He knew Ning Zhuo’s temperament well.
When Ning Zhuo was truly furious, he’d slit a throat without hesitation, not bother with petty torments.
Licking his lips, Shan Feibai asked, “Gonna castrate me?”
Ning Zhuo replied, “No. Shaving you.”
Shan Feibai: “???”
He hadn’t expected this treatment at all. Panicking, he thrashed to escape, only to be pinned back onto the bed by Ning Zhuo.
In his struggle, Ning Zhuo seized his weak spot with precision.
Ning Zhuo gave a faint smile. “…You’re scared of this?”
No matter how thick-skinned Shan Feibai was, his face burned with embarrassment. He fought with all his might to break free. “Bro, Ning-ge, I was wrong. Next time, I’ll make sure you agree before—”
Ning Zhuo yanked the blanket off the bed, stripping away Shan Feibai’s last shred of cover. “Oh, so there’s a next time.”
When Ning Zhuo set his mind to something, nothing could stop him.
Shan Feibai didn’t dare resist too hard and could only grit his teeth, holding his breath.
Ning Zhuo’s hands were deft. With each stroke of the blade, he left Shan Feibai bare, smooth as a teenager, pink and clean.
Shan Feibai burrowed into the pillow, looking as if he wanted to smother himself in it.
Having thoroughly tormented him, Ning Zhuo felt his frustration ease.
“Not bad for a plucked chicken. Wanna take a look?” Ning Zhuo patted his backside. “Still pink.”
Shan Feibai, who feared little else, had an unusual pride in this matter. At Ning Zhuo’s words, he froze, his face unmoving but his stomach already flushed pink with shame. “You—you—”
Ning Zhuo tossed the blade aside, gave the bed a quick tidy, and belatedly felt the ache in his waist and legs. “Scoot over.”
Shan Feibai, pillow and all, shuffled slowly to make room for one person.
Ning Zhuo stretched out, lying flat on his back, in a surprisingly good mood. Yet he knew they’d fallen back into their tangled, unresolved state.
Everything said last night might as well have been unsaid.
But his emotions weren’t as bleak as they’d been then.
A faint ache stirred deep in his abdomen, his heart pulsing in sync—not tense, but soothing.
It calmed him, rare as that was.
Smoothing over that restlessness, Ning Zhuo thought Shan Feibai’s embarrassed look earlier was kind of cute.
At the same time, he felt a warm body slowly inching closer.
Back when they were enemies, Ning Zhuo had to stay hyper-alert to track this agile, slippery sniper’s movements.
Now, a single stir from the other side of the bed was enough for Ning Zhuo to know what he was up to.
Warm skin pressed against his from behind.
Sounding a bit aggrieved, Shan Feibai asked, “Does your waist hurt?”
Ning Zhuo frowned impatiently. “Tch.”
A pair of hands, calloused from handling guns, slid around his waist, gently kneading his stiff muscles.
Ning Zhuo let out a soft hum through his nose, commanding, “Lighter.”
Shan Feibai pressed his cheek briefly against Ning Zhuo’s back, signaling “got it.”
Shan Feibai’s dejected, tail-between-his-legs act was a sight Ning Zhuo thoroughly enjoyed.
But three days later, Ning Zhuo regretted it.
…The new growth was prickly as hell.
A miscalculation.
And of course, Shan Feibai, noticing his dislike, made a point of shamelessly pressing closer. “Pink, huh? Don’t like it, Ning-ge?”
Just like when they used to butt heads years ago, Shan Feibai loved Ning Zhuo but refused to lose to him, hating to seem weaker.
Somewhere along the way, Shan Feibai had gotten hold of an oil-based marker. While Ning Zhuo was blissfully unaware, he scrawled a few words just below his pubic bone, then thoughtfully pulled his underwear back up.
He was so stealthy that Ning Zhuo didn’t notice it in the morning.
Lately, they’d moved past their adjustment phase. Mornings brought only mild waist soreness, and Ning Zhuo felt more energized than ever.
As per yesterday’s plan, Ning Zhuo went to the training room to spar with Kuang Hexuan, both of them working up a satisfying, dripping sweat.
Kuang Hexuan took a beating, but he was oddly thrilled about it.
His admiration for Ning Zhuo grew exponentially with every thrashing he received.
He respected people with real skills—Shan Feibai was one, and Ning Zhuo was another.
Given Shan Feibai’s knack for saying whatever suited the moment, whether sweet-talking people or spinning tales for ghosts, the folks at “Panqiao” could never quite pin him down. They couldn’t tell if his kindness toward Ning Zhuo was genuine or a mask for ulterior motives.
But Kuang Hexuan was a straightforward guy, well-liked within “Panqiao.”
His shift in attitude toward Ning Zhuo directly influenced others in the group to see him in a new light.
After the last sparring session, Kuang Hexuan chugged a ton of water to rehydrate.
He gestured, “Ning-ge, I’m hitting the bathroom.”
Ning Zhuo stood up. “Me too.”
Kuang Hexuan got instantly hyped, his mind racing with the idea of Ning-ge going to the bathroom with him. Thinking it over, he felt a weird, almost giddy teenage crush-like joy.
He absolutely wasn’t planning to compare sizes with Ning Zhuo or anything.
That’d be a bro thing, not the vibe for Ning Zhuo.
Trailing beside him, Kuang Hexuan racked his brain for something to talk about.
But then Ning Zhuo stopped short, unzipped, glanced down, and his shoulder muscles visibly tensed. He yanked the zipper back up in a flash.
The next second, he stormed off like a frigid gust of wind, radiating icy fury.
Kuang Hexuan stood there, stunned, unable to process for a long moment.
“…Ning-ge?”
Back in the room, Ning Zhuo found that Shan Feibai had wisely made himself scarce.
He stormed into the bathroom, tugged down his underwear, braced himself against the wall, and gritted his teeth as he looked down.
—Shan Feibai had drawn one complete “正” character and one incomplete one on his skin.
Nine strokes in total.
A tally of how many times Shan Feibai had “gone in.”
Ning Zhuo scrubbed his skin raw until the mortifyingly intimate mark was gone.
Faced with such blatant provocation, Ning Zhuo wasn’t about to let it slide.
In the dead of night, when Shan Feibai sneaked back into the room, Ning Zhuo fitted him with a black male chastity cage.
The device was secure, an elegant little “birdcage.”
Aside from bathroom breaks, Shan Feibai’s equipment was completely out of commission.
Unaccustomed to the constraint, Shan Feibai tossed and turned all night. Come morning, when his body reacted instinctively, he clenched his teeth, gripped the sheets, and endured it.
Ning Zhuo considered his disciplinary tactic highly effective.
Shan Feibai slunk out the door, looking thoroughly deflated.
But less than half an hour later, Ning Zhuo got a call from Jin Xueshen.
The message was curt: “Yu Shifei told me Shan Feibai’s causing trouble in the men’s restroom on the east side of the fourteenth floor. You dealing with this or what?”
The specifics of Shan Feibai’s “trouble” were as follows: he’d camped out in “Haina’s” only smoking area, ambushing every guy who came to use the restroom—whether from “Haina” or “Panqiao.” He enthusiastically invited them to pee together, all while shamelessly flaunting his chastity cage:
“Looks cool, right?”
“Someone put it on me to keep me in line.”
Shan Feibai’s stunt worked like a charm.
Soon enough, he got a furious call from Ning Zhuo: “Shan, get your ass back here!”
…
While Ning Zhuo and Shan Feibai were locked in their tit-for-tat games, Ma Yushu was drowning in one problem after another.
The reports from his underlings were each worse than the last, driving Ma Yushu, holed up in his office, to slam his desk in rage multiple times—yet he was powerless to fix anything.
Ma Yushu had assumed he was dealing with some brazen, clueless small-time crook.
People could run, but money didn’t vanish into thin air—it flowed somewhere.
Tracking transfers or withdrawals should’ve been simple.
But as the investigation deepened, Ma Yushu realized, to his horror, that his opponent seemed to wield an invisible pump, siphoning money from him and funneling it into a maze of real and fake accounts, laundered over and over, impossible to trace.
Figuring out where the money went or who ended up with it had become like finding a needle in a haystack.
At this point, Ma Yushu had to admit: he’d been played by a group with both skill and connections.
They’d come prepared, hell-bent on bleeding him dry.
It was like a series of stinging slaps to his face!
Back in his younger days, when he was scraping by, he’d been kicked out by casino doormen, only to shamelessly cling to their pant legs, begging for one more chance to turn his luck around.
Now, older and richer, his pride had grown thin.
In his fury, Ma Yushu didn’t lose his composure entirely.
He mentally cataloged everyone he might’ve crossed.
In his line of work, the cash he handled was always stained with blood.
Ma Yushu knew he was a reeking executioner, and the list of people he’d wronged was too long to count.
But he was also a pragmatist.
He wouldn’t have dared cross anyone capable of orchestrating a scheme like this.
He racked his brain until it ached, but no clear suspect emerged.
So, lately, he’d been having fits of rage, though in a oddly civilized way—rarely smashing things.
Having known hard times, he loved money too much to destroy possessions, no matter how angry he got.
Instead, Ma Yushu took to beating people.
Lately, whacking his underlings bloody with a heavy cane was his only way to vent.
Soon, it was time to collect from Motobu Ryo, a big client who required careful handling.
Ma Yushu pulled himself together, plastered on a smile, and dialed Motobu’s number. “Mr. Motobu.”
On the other end, Motobu Ryo’s voice was cool and detached, typical of a tech guy. “Hm.”
“Getting rich, getting rich!” Ma Yushu said warmly, his tone like a spring breeze. “Heard you landed deals with two more companies?”
Motobu Ryo replied coldly, “You’ve been keeping tabs on me.”
Ma Yushu chuckled. “Nah, nah, just part of the job, you know—mutual understanding, right?”
Motobu Ryo, flat: “What’s up?”
Ma Yushu grinned. “Oh, come on, big shot, forgetting something? Mr. Motobu, my VIP, check the calendar.”
Sensing Motobu Ryo’s silence, Ma Yushu pressed on. “I hate to nag, really. Your business is just taking off, cash flow’s tight, I get it. But this money isn’t mine—I borrowed it from my boss, and the interest ain’t much lower than yours. I’m just a guy trying to make a living, scraping by. You wouldn’t make things hard for me, would you?”
“Oh, that money,” Motobu Ryo said.
He took off his glasses, wiped them, and let out a slow breath.
Ever since borrowing the cash, the weight of it had loomed over him, nagging at him constantly.
He’d buried himself in work to numb the creeping dread.
Now, with the moment of truth here, Motobu Ryo felt an odd sense of relief.
He spoke clearly, deliberately: “I’m not paying it back.”
The words caught Ma Yushu so off-guard he didn’t process them at first.
His face still held a polite smile. “…What?”
“I said,” Motobu Ryo repeated, “I’m not paying back the twenty million. Do what you want.”
