Chapter 27: Going Public
It was the tenth day when everything finally settled.
All of the assets under Yin Rui's name completed their transfer and liquidation, the pushback from the Yin family's old guard was pressed silent by Zhou Ling without a ripple, and the finance department's new audit report, stamped and sealed, was locked away in the old residence's safe.
On the morning Yin Zhengsong set off for the villa in the south, Yin Xigui stood at the gates of the old residence to see him off. A few paces of distance lay between them, and apart from the driver there was no third person present.
Before getting into the car, Yin Zhengsong looked back at him once.
The wind was strong that day, blowing Yin Xigui's long pink hair to one side. He stood on the stone steps without moving, his expression calm. Yin Zhengsong's lips moved, but in the end he said nothing, bent down, and got into the car.
The door shut, and the car pulled out through the old residence's gates. Yin Xigui watched the black sedan turn the corner and vanish, then turned and went back inside.
In the afternoon he brought Sheng Linyou from the villa to the old residence.
The old residence was far larger than the villa. Yin Xigui gave him a south-facing bedroom whose window looked out on the old locust tree in the back garden.
Sheng Linyou stood in the room and looked around. The sheets were new, the curtains changed to pale gray; on the windowsill even sat a small pot of pothos, water drops still clinging to its leaves—freshly watered, clearly.
Yin Xigui leaned against the doorframe behind him, watching. The moment Sheng Linyou finished looking around and turned back, he asked with crinkled eyes, "Do you like it?"
Sheng Linyou looked at him. Today Yin Xigui wore a light, thin sweater, his hair loose; he seemed much softer than he had these past days.
But Sheng Linyou noticed that the way he stood in the doorframe was different from before—back held straight, shoulders opened slightly back, no longer the figure who would hunch his neck and shrink into someone's arms.
"You didn't have to go to the trouble," Sheng Linyou said.
"No trouble. This room gets the best light, and it's warm in winter."
Sheng Linyou walked up to him and pushed aside a few loose strands of hair at his shoulder. Yin Xigui obediently tilted his head, letting the fingertips glide past behind his ear, then nuzzled into his palm—a cat finally back on safe ground.
"Brother." Yin Xigui leaned against him, his voice gone soft, exactly as it used to be. "There's something I want to tell you."
"Mm."
"I want to make you public."
Sheng Linyou's fingers stilled at the back of his neck. He could feel Yin Xigui idly toying with a button on his coat, the motion careless—but the voice saying this was steady. Clearly he had thought it through long ago.
"Make what public?"
"Make public that you're mine."
Yin Xigui lifted his face from his palm to look at him, his expression serious. "Not as a lower-tier. As mine. My—" he considered his wording, "my partner."
Sheng Linyou looked at him and was silent for a few seconds. Sunlight outside slipped through the gap in the curtains and fell on the floor between them, drawing a narrow, long line of light.
"Don't."
Yin Xigui blinked, apparently not having expected this answer. "Why?"
"Because you're the head of the Yin family now. You've only just gotten the seat steady, and the people under you are only just starting to submit. If you go public now with a relationship with a lower-tier—"
Sheng Linyou cut himself off. Watching the confusion surfacing on Yin Xigui's face, he lowered his voice. "They'll say you've lost your mind. Say you've barely taken the seat and already left yourself a liability."
Yin Xigui's brows slowly drew together. That confusion lingered on his face a moment, then was replaced by something sharper.
"You're afraid of causing me trouble?"
"I'm afraid the seat you just stabilized will be overturned by those people again."
"Overturned?"
Yin Xigui let go of the button and stepped back half a pace, widening the distance between them. He tilted his face up to look at Sheng Linyou, his expression calm, but the curve at the corner of his mouth beginning to thin. "You think I can't even handle this much?"
Sheng Linyou heard the thorn rising in his tone. The thorn was pressed paper-thin, but the heat beneath it could already be felt.
"That's not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?"
Yin Xigui's speech began to speed up, utterly unlike his usual slow, lazy way of talking.
"I spent ten days clearing away every obstacle. I laid my plans for two and a half years. I'm holding every piece of leverage on Yin Rui there is. I even sent Yin Zhengsong away. You think I did all of that just to keep hiding you?"
"Yin Xigui—"
"I don't want to hide you."
Yin Xigui cut him off, his voice rising a little before he pressed it back down. "You were locked up so many times, shackled so many times, thrown into a cage as a lower-tier for people to pick over. Now that I can protect you, I don't want you living that kind of life anymore."
"I know what you mean."
Sheng Linyou stepped forward, and the distance between them closed again. He could see the emotions churning at the bottom of Yin Xigui's eyes.
"But your position is different now. You're the family head. The moment you go public with a partner, the whole Yin family's stock will wobble within a day. The people you just pushed down will seize on it—"
"Let them seize."
Yin Xigui's voice finally broke free entirely, echoing once in the empty bedroom before he reined it in again. Fists clenched, he stood half a step from Sheng Linyou, his breathing quick for a few beats before he pressed it back to steady.
"Let them seize. I got rid of even Yin Rui—you think I care what those people say?"
"You may not care, but the Yin family does. All those employees under you? Those companies you just took over? Your seat isn't even warm yet—"
"Sheng Linyou." Yin Xigui called his full name.
For the first time. He had never once called him by his full name. Sheng Linyou's words caught in his throat. He watched Yin Xigui's lips press tight, then loosen, a thin wash of red rising at the corners of his eyes.
"Have you never, not once, believed I could protect you?"
Yin Xigui's voice dropped, carrying that tremor Sheng Linyou knew so well, the one that came before tears—but this time it didn't tremble like pleading. It trembled like something crushing against the walls of his chest, unable to find a way out.
"I do believe in you—"
"You don't."
Yin Xigui turned his head away, facing the window, the daylight tracing a taut line down his profile. "Even now, you think I'm just that Young Master who bought you on a whim. You're afraid I'll ruin it. You're afraid I'll be pushed down by those people. You're afraid I'll cause you trouble. But from beginning to end—"
He stopped. His Adam's apple rolled, and he forced the rest of the sentence back down.
"From beginning to end, you never once believed that you are already the thing I want most."
This last sentence was different from what came before, his voice much lower, the end of it breaking off. "You're afraid of causing me trouble. But do you know... you're the only person who has never been any trouble at all."
Sheng Linyou stood behind him.
Less than an arm's length lay between them, but Yin Xigui kept his head turned away, and all Sheng Linyou could see was the hand at his side, clutching the hem of his sweater, knuckles white, the fabric crumpled into a ball.
He reached out and took that hand, gently prying the white-knuckled fingers open one by one, lacing his own in and holding on.
Yin Xigui didn't look back. But the hand gripping his tightened.
"It's not that I don't believe in you." Sheng Linyou's voice dropped too, sounding just above the small patch of skin behind his ear. "It's that I'm afraid—"
"Afraid of what?"
Sheng Linyou was silent for a long time. Wind outside set the locust tree's branches rustling; the sunlight on the floor between them moved a short, slow distance.
"Afraid that one day you'll regret it."
He finally said it.
"You look at me now and everything seems fine, because I'm the first person you've met who's willing to stand in front of you. But as the days grow long, you'll start to wonder whether all you paid for me back then was worth it. You'll think—"
Yin Xigui whipped around.
He turned so fast he nearly crashed into Sheng Linyou's chest, his forehead knocking against his shoulder with a soft sound. But he didn't pull away. Instead he raised his hands and seized Sheng Linyou's collar, dragging him down several degrees.
"Listen to me."
Yin Xigui tilted his face up, eyes rimmed red, lips trembling slightly, but his gaze nailed straight onto Sheng Linyou's face. "I spent two and a half years laying plans to take the Yin family. Maybe a year and a half of that was because of you. Because of the time you were locked in the basement. Because of the moment I saw that No. 763 on your collar. From that moment I was thinking: someday I'm going to let everyone know you're not a lower-tier. You are the person I, Yin Xigui, brought back with my own hands."
Sheng Linyou looked down at him. No tears fell from Yin Xigui's reddened eyes; they simply burned, reflecting his silhouette.
"I'm not afraid of regret," Yin Xigui said, each word distinct. "What I'm afraid of is you regretting that you didn't believe me that day."
The bedroom went quiet for a moment. Daylight passed between them, dragging a long bright shadow across the floor. Sheng Linyou lowered his head, resting his forehead against Yin Xigui's, their noses nearly touching.
"...All right. I understand."
"And what does 'I understand' mean?"
"It means," Sheng Linyou's voice sounded just above his lips, warm, with the faintest rasp, "if you want to go public, go public. I won't stand in the way anymore."
Yin Xigui butted his forehead lightly against his, the force not heavy but clearly annoyed. "You should have stopped standing in the way ages ago."
"Mm."
"I'm mad at you."
"Mm."
"You're sleeping on the sofa tonight."
"Mm."
Yin Xigui butted his forehead again, gentler this time. Sheng Linyou raised a hand to cup the back of his head and pressed him into the crook of his neck.
Buried against his shoulder, Yin Xigui said, "Even on the sofa, it has to be the one next to me."
The corner of Sheng Linyou's mouth bent at the crown of his hair—a small curve, but Yin Xigui, pressed against the hollow of his shoulder, felt it.
He burrowed deeper into Sheng Linyou's arms, burying his face completely.
Outside, the locust tree's branches swayed gently in the wind. Daylight passed by their sides and fell quietly bright upon the floor.
The public announcement went out on a Wednesday morning.
The Yin Group's official account posted a brief statement, with a photo attached.
In the photo, Yin Xigui and Sheng Linyou stood side by side beneath the old locust tree in the back garden of the old residence. Yin Xigui wore a white shirt, his long pink hair a little windblown, head turned toward the person beside him, the corner of his mouth curved.
The statement's body was only four lines: "I, Yin Xigui, hereby publicly confirm my partnership with Mr. Sheng Linyou. Effective immediately, Mr. Sheng Linyou is no longer subject to the restrictions of lower-tier status; all related restrictions have been lifted. All prior negative records and rulings concerning his status are hereby voided."
The Yin family's electronic seal was stamped at the end.
Within half an hour of the post, the entire internet exploded.
The financial accounts reacted first, reposting at a speed as if someone were glued to their refresh buttons.
The comment section blew past a hundred posts within minutes; the first few dozen were still "What's going on?" and "Has the Yin family's new head lost his mind?"
Then people began digging up Sheng Linyou's old photos—the podium of that championship race two years ago, the young man with his medal between his teeth grinning at the camera, screenshotted and set side by side with the profile beneath the locust tree in the statement's photo.
"So this is the racing champion who got sold off as a lower-tier?"
"Yin Xigui bought him back from the black market??"
"If they make a movie of this story, I'm buying a ticket."
Comments like these flooded the screen like a tide.
The entertainment sections turned over even faster, the headline changed to "The Yin Family's Youngest Power-Holder Goes Public with His Partner—A Former Lower-Tier," followed by analyses and speculation from every angle.
Someone dug up screenshots of Yin Xigui's black-market purchase record from two years ago; someone else strung together the old money-laundering stories of the property companies under Yin Rui's name, piecing together a faint timeline.
In the comment section, people began connecting the scattered puzzle pieces—certain tells Yin Xigui had gradually let slip in the two years since buying Sheng Linyou, Yin Rui's downfall, Yin Zhengsong's retreat—threading them into one clear line.
Someone wrote in a highly upvoted comment: "You thought this was a Cinderella story—turns out it's a damn revenge novel."
That comment broke a hundred thousand likes within an hour.
The phones at the old residence hadn't stopped ringing since morning.
Zhou Ling answered call after call in the front hall—from media, from partners, from distant relatives of the Yin family's cadet branches, saying everything under the sun.
Zhou Ling's handling was clean and crisp. The uniform answer to the media: "Please refer to the statement."
Calls from partners were transferred to the legal department. As for the calls from the cadet branches—some probing, some disgruntled—he registered every name and then shelved them all.
Yin Xigui sat in the second-floor study, the screen before him refreshing with live news coverage.
He flipped through a few pages, set the mouse down, and leaned back in his chair, watching the locust tree's leaves turn in the wind outside. Sheng Linyou sat on the sofa beside him, his phone turned face-down on his knee, screen against fabric.
"What are you looking at?" Yin Xigui asked, turning his head.
"Nothing."
"Liar. Your phone's face-down."
Sheng Linyou glanced up at him. Yin Xigui lolled in his chair, the collar of his white shirt loosely open one button, showing a length of pale skin at his throat.
The expression he wore looking at Sheng Linyou carried a trace of smugness—the whole "See? I told you so" written plainly across his brows and eyes.
"I'm reading the first comment under your statement," Sheng Linyou said.
"What does it say?"
"It says, 'The head of the Yin family is kind of hot.'"
Yin Xigui laughed, rose from his chair, and came over to sit down beside him.
The sofa dipped slightly where he sat; he leaned in, resting his head on Sheng Linyou's shoulder, the ends of his pink hair sweeping Sheng Linyou's forearm. The two of them sat side by side on the study sofa by the window, daylight filtering through the glass, edging both their silhouettes with a soft rim.
"What else," Yin Xigui's voice sounded against the hollow of his shoulder, lazy and loose. "You definitely read something else too."
Sheng Linyou looked down at him.
Yin Xigui's eyes were closed, lashes casting a small fan-shaped shadow beneath them, the corner of his mouth curved, a little of the color he'd finally recovered these past days back in his cheeks.
The whole of him curled against his side, relaxed almost to the point of softness—utterly unlike the cold-faced figure in those news photos, standing in the old residence's courtyard running meetings.
"I also read the one asking why you don't cut your hair short."
Yin Xigui opened one eye to look at him. "Who said that?"
"Don't remember."
"Then I'll cut it short tomorrow."
"Don't."
The one open eye curved.
He closed it again and nuzzled deeper into the hollow of Sheng Linyou's shoulder, voice going vague and mumbled. "I knew you liked long hair."
Sheng Linyou didn't answer that, but he raised a hand and pushed aside the strand of pink hair hanging by Yin Xigui's ear, fingertips sliding slowly down the strand to its end, looping it once around, then letting go.
Yin Xigui felt the motion, and the curve of his mouth deepened a little.
Wind slipped in through the window's crack, stirring the edges of the papers spread on the desk.
From downstairs came the faint sound of Zhou Ling answering calls, blurred and distant through the floor.
Yin Xigui's phone buzzed once on the coffee table.
He didn't open his eyes, groped for it, and held it up. On the screen was an unread message, contact name "Li Nian," the content a single line: "Saw it. Congratulations."
He turned the phone face-down on the coffee table and burrowed back into Sheng Linyou's shoulder.
Sheng Linyou's gaze rested on the message preview for half a second, then moved away. He asked nothing.
After a while, Yin Xigui's phone buzzed again.
This time he didn't look. Out of the corner of his eye, Sheng Linyou glimpsed the screen showing a number with no contact name, but the preview contained the words "This is Lin Zhi."
Yin Xigui didn't touch the phone.
When it buzzed a second time, he picked it up, muted it, turned it face-down, and set it back on the coffee table, then buried his face in the side of Sheng Linyou's neck.
"Sleepy?"
"Not sleepy. Just don't feel like moving."
"Then don't."
Yin Xigui gave a muffled laugh against his neck, arm looping around his waist and tightening.
Outside, birds landed on a branch, chirped twice, then fluttered away.
The daylight moved slowly over the two of them, dragging their side-by-side shadows into one long outline on the floor.
Yin Xigui's breathing gradually evened out—he was truly asleep. Sheng Linyou looked down at that quiet sleeping face, pink strands against his jaw, forehead pressed into the hollow of his shoulder, brow smooth, no guard left at all.
Sheng Linyou raised a hand and gently brushed aside a strand of hair that had slipped onto his own shoulder, then rested his hand on Yin Xigui's back, palm against the warm fabric, and slowly closed his eyes.
The study was quiet.
Downstairs Zhou Ling was still on the phone, the sound drifting up faintly, blurred into a background hum. The pages on the desk stirred once more in the wind, rustled, and went still.
That evening, a news platform ran a long-form feature titled "From No. 763 to Sheng Linyou—The Racing Champion the Yin Family's New Head Bought Back from the Black Market."
It laid out the story of Sheng Linyou's championship two years ago, the several records that had surfaced from his time circulating through the black market, and the brief text of the Yin family's public statement.
The article closed by quoting the statement's final sentence—"All prior negative records and rulings concerning his status are hereby voided."
That line was set off in bold at the end of the piece, and more comments poured into the section beneath it. One was pushed to the very top, its like count still climbing.
"The Yin family's move here—I've only got two words: satisfying."
The night Yin Xigui scrolled onto that comment, he was curled on the sofa eating a bowl of wontons Sheng Linyou had boiled for him, the steam rising from the bowl fogging his phone screen.
He held the phone a little farther away, squinted through the comment, then looked up at Sheng Linyou, who sat beside him peeling an apple.
Sensing his gaze, Sheng Linyou looked up too. "What?"
"Nothing." Yin Xigui lowered his head and took a sip of the wonton soup, steam washing over his face, a pair of crinkled eyes peeking over the rim of the bowl.
Sheng Linyou cut the peeled apple into small pieces, set them in a dish, and pushed it in front of him. Yin Xigui speared a piece with his fork and, chewing, suddenly mumbled something.
"No one will dare call you No. 763 anymore."
Sheng Linyou looked at him.
Yin Xigui was still chewing that piece of apple, cheeks bulging, a glint of wonton soup at the corner of his mouth, looking soft and ordinary in the warm yellow light of the living room—like any couple living together, sitting on a sofa chatting about trivial daily things.
Sheng Linyou reached out and wiped that spot of moisture from the corner of his mouth with his thumb, then drew his hand back.
"Mm," he said.