Several days later, Sheng Linyou was taken away.
This time there was no knock and no notice.
Public Security officers kicked the door in while Sheng Linyou was chopping vegetables in the kitchen. The blade paused above the cutting board. By the time he set it down and turned, two men had already pinned his arms.
Yin Xigui came rushing downstairs before he had even put his shoes on properly. One bare foot landed on the stairs. When he saw the three officers pressing Sheng Linyou to the wall and fastening handcuffs around his wrists, he froze halfway down.
“Let him go!”
It was the first time Sheng Linyou had heard Yin Xigui raise his voice so high—sharp and desperate.
Yin Xigui tried to rush down, but an officer blocked him. He struggled once, failed to get free, and fixed his gaze on Sheng Linyou’s face.
Pinned to the wall, Sheng Linyou turned his head. His lips formed a single word.
Don’t.
Yin Xigui understood. He stopped.
One officer shook a folded paper from his coat pocket and opened it. The document bore the red seal of the Public Security Bureau.
“You are suspected of involvement in the assault case in the eastern industrial district. A witness has identified you at the scene. The summons is lawful. Cooperate with us.”
“Who is the witness?” Yin Xigui asked. He tried to make his voice level, though the final note trembled.
“We cannot disclose that under the regulations.”
As Sheng Linyou was led toward the door, he passed Yin Xigui. The cuffs flashed in the hallway, cold metal gleaming and vanishing.
Yin Xigui reached for his arm, but an officer behind him stopped him. His fingers only caught the edge of Sheng Linyou’s sleeve before the cloth slid away.
Sheng Linyou glanced back. The look lasted only a moment—long enough for Yin Xigui to see the quiet reassurance in his eyes—then the door opened, and the men disappeared into the night.
Yin Xigui stood in the entryway with his hand still raised. His bare toes curled against the cold wooden floor.
He stood there for a long time.
The living room still held the scent of cooking oil. Blue flame still burned beneath the pan, and vegetables sizzled in bubbling sauce.
Yin Xigui went back to the kitchen and turned off the heat. The spatula rested on the rim of the pan. He covered it, wiped his hands, and moved with painstaking slowness, as if each small task could buy him time.
Then he returned to the entryway, put on his other shoe, went into the yard, and made a call.
When it connected, he sounded nothing like himself. His voice was flat and cold, carrying an authority that allowed no argument. “Find out about the case the Public Security Bureau took from my home tonight. Who put forward the witness, and who is the witness? I want an answer in three minutes.”
The other party agreed and hung up.
Yin Xigui stood on the flagstone path. The night wind scattered his loose pink hair, but he did not lift a hand to fix it. Phone light illuminated the face whose eyes usually curved in a smile, leaving them sharply defined.
The call came back in under three minutes. He listened for several seconds, and the fingers holding the phone gradually tightened until his knuckles turned white.
“It was Yin Rui’s people,” the caller said carefully. “The witness was arranged by him. He claims he saw Sheng Linyou near the industrial district that night.”
Yin Xigui closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, every trace of softness had vanished. Only something thin and clear as ice remained in his gaze.
He did not end the call. He dialed another number.
“Li Nian.”
“What is it?” came the alert reply.
“I need you to investigate everyone Yin Rui has contacted in the past week. All of them. As quickly as possible.”
Li Nian did not ask questions. He agreed immediately.
After hanging up, Yin Xigui remained still for a moment before going inside for his coat. Passing the kitchen, he stopped at the covered pan and touched its rim. It was not yet cold.
He put on his coat and left.
Yin Rui was in his study, seated in a leather chair and reading a document, when Yin Xigui called. Seeing the name on the screen, he smiled and answered without putting down the papers.
“Xigui? So late?”
“Cousin.”
Yin Xigui’s voice came through tight and urgent, with a faint catch that sounded close to tears. “Can you help me? My brother was taken by the Public Security Bureau.”
Yin Rui turned a page. “You mean that lower-tier man? If they arrested him, there must be a reason. Why are you panicking?”
“He didn’t do it! He was with me all night!” Yin Xigui’s voice rose, then dropped as if he were trying to restrain himself. “You know people at the Bureau. Please ask about it. I…I’m begging you…”
Yin Rui tapped the edge of the file with his pen.
The response matched what he had imagined that afternoon almost perfectly: anxious, helpless, flustered—the reaction expected from a pampered illegitimate young master without any real means.
“All right.” Yin Rui set down his pen, giving his voice precisely the right amount of comfort. “I’ll ask around. Don’t worry. Stay home, and I’ll tell you if I hear anything.”
“Thank you, Cousin!” Yin Xigui sounded openly relieved and even sniffed. “I…I’ll wait at home.”
“Mm.”
The call ended.
Yin Rui laid his phone on the desk and tapped the dark screen twice. Everything had gone as predicted. Yin Xigui had called for help in his usual weak, tearful manner.
Yet something felt wrong.
His index finger paused at the phone’s metal edge and slowly traced it.
The panic in Yin Xigui’s voice had been too exact. The tremble at the end of each phrase, the near-crying tone, the pauses to sniff—all of it perfectly fitted the image of a weak illegitimate son.
Perfectly fitted.
Yin Rui remembered an incident two months earlier. He had seen Yin Xigui at an Yin family club. Before Yin Xigui noticed him, Yin Rui had stopped halfway down the corridor and watched him make a phone call at the far end.
Yin Xigui’s face had been calm and cold. His lips moved with an unfamiliar certainty and measured rhythm.
Had that been an illusion?
Yin Rui turned his chair toward the window and looked out at the heavy night. He made a call.
“Investigate every account under Yin Xigui’s name, including those not using the Yin surname. Go back two years. Every incoming and outgoing transaction. Miss nothing.”
There was a two-second silence, as if the listener had been startled, then agreement.
After ending the call, Yin Rui saw his own reflection in the glass. His face was calm, but a light gradually appeared in his eyes like a match struck in a dark room.
If Yin Xigui was hiding something, then tonight’s call—those tears, that panic—had all been performed for him.
Performed for him.
A warm curve touched Yin Rui’s mouth, the interest of a hunter who had found fresh tracks in the forest.
He wanted to know what road had left mud beneath his cousin’s shoes.
Meanwhile, Yin Xigui sat motionless in the car after ending the call. The driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror, but one bland look from Yin Xigui sent him immediately back to the road.
Yin Xigui put his phone away and leaned back with his eyes closed.
On that call, he had performed panic and pleading perfectly; the tremor in his voice had been measured to every syllable. But he knew Yin Rui would not relax after one phone call.
Yin Rui distrusted a perfect answer precisely because it was perfect.
So Yin Xigui had left a flaw.
It was small—too small for Yin Rui to notice during the call. But once he replayed and analyzed it, he would realize that Yin Xigui had called Sheng Linyou “my brother” without saying his name once.
A truly panicked person would seize every detail to support his case. He would repeat Sheng Linyou’s name and repeat that they had spent the night together.
Yin Xigui had said only “my brother.”
He wanted Yin Rui to discover that crack for himself.
Yin Xigui opened his eyes, their icy sheen returning. He sat straight and told the driver, “Take me to the Public Security Bureau.”
As the car started, he checked his phone. Li Nian had sent a brief message: Yin Rui met three people this week. I have identified two. Still working on the third.
Yin Xigui replied: Don’t bother with the third. I know who it is.
He darkened the screen.
Streetlights passed one by one outside the window, flaring in his pupils and dying out again.
Sheng Linyou was held in a temporary cell beneath the Public Security Bureau. The light beyond the iron bars was dim, and a tube in the corner gave off a faint electrical hiss.
He sat against the wall. The cuffs were cold against his wrists, bringing back the countless times he had been confined before.
But he did not think of those people this time, nor of Yin Zhengsong or Yin Ou.
With his eyes closed, he thought of Yin Xigui stopping on the stairs with one bare foot.
His eyes had been red, his lips white from being pressed together, his entire body taut as a drawn bow.
Yet after seeing Sheng Linyou silently form the word don’t, he had truly stopped.
In the emotions that surged through Yin Xigui’s eyes at that instant, there had been too much Sheng Linyou had not yet had time to understand.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor. Sheng Linyou opened his eyes. An officer stood outside the bars with a cup of hot water.
“Young Master Yin asked us to bring it.”
Sheng Linyou reached out and accepted it. Heat passed through his palm, and tiny beads of water clung to the paper cup.