Chapter 1: Kong Ji Is No Good Man

A new cake shop had opened outside the residential compound’s gate.

Tong Xilin had noticed it two days prior, a simple, passive observation. He wasn’t particularly interested in sweets, so he hadn’t bothered to check it out.

But today was Friday, no evening self-study, making the dismissal hour a little too early.

After hesitating briefly by the shop entrance, he pushed the glass door open and went inside, selecting a chestnut cake.

He didn’t ask for it to be boxed. Carrying the tray, he sat down by the window with a view of the main road outside.

He was a third of the way through his cake when his phone vibrated in his pocket. A message from Zhou Qi asking what he was up to, and if he wanted to play Honor of Kings.

Tong Xilin snapped a picture of the cake and sent it back.

Zhou Qi: You could’ve just ordered delivery, man. But nah, you’re dining in.

Zhou Qi: Get on the game. We’re four and waiting for one.

He hadn’t planned on playing; he wasn’t interested in games either.

But Zhou Qi was pestering him. Checking the time, Tong Xilin leaned back in his chair, facing the window, and unhurriedly logged into the game.

A party of four had their mics on. Once Tong Xilin joined the room, he caught an earful of voices—three male, one female, all noisy. Besides Zhou Qi, he didn’t recognize anyone.

Seeing him join, the female voice asked who he was.

Tong Xilin didn’t answer. He heard Zhou Qi reply, “A friend of mine. Doesn’t talk much,” and he muted his own speaker too.

Zhou Qi was an expert at the game, and the other three weren’t bad either. Tong Xilin picked a character at random and tagged along, stealing glances at the street outside from time to time.

Just as the third round was wrapping up, a familiar black car slipped into his peripheral vision and drove past.

Tong Xilin raised his eyes to see the license plate, and in that moment of distraction, his in-game character was focused and killed.

He switched to WeChat and typed to Zhou Qi: Not playing after this round.

Zhou Qi, fingers flying across the screen in his heated game, found time to reply just as fast: Your uncle’s back?

Tong Xilin ignored him. Phone in hand, he went to the front counter and asked the shop assistant to box up the same kind of chestnut cake.

The assistant was a warm-hearted girl. She glanced at his half-eaten cake, then at his face, and while packing, asked, “Would you like to apply for a membership card? We just opened, so there’s a discount.”

Tong Xilin shook his head to refuse. After a moment’s thought, he countered, “Are you hiring part-timers?”

“Ah,” The assistant was a bit taken aback. She shook her head. “Not at the moment.”

Tong Xilin offered a small smile and didn’t press further.

The assistant glanced at him again, slipped a small donut into the paper bag, and winked. “Here’s a sample for you. Thanks for stopping by.”

It got dark early in the winter. By the time he stepped out carrying the cake, the streetlights were already on. The Shallow Water Fountain in the residential compound sparkled and splashed, catching the light.

It took Tong Xilin seven minutes to cross the crosswalk, enter the compound, and walk to his building.

Standing in the hallway waiting for the elevator, he opened the paper bag to check the cake’s condition. It was perfect; the sweet, cloying scent wafted right through the box.

He might not love sweets, but he liked the smell. It felt like a small, pleasant thing.

Pity that good mood couldn’t last.

The moment he stepped out of the elevator and stood before the apartment door, just as he was about to use the fingerprint lock, the electronic door whooshed open from the inside.

“Whoa!” The person coming out was startled first. He scanned Tong Xilin up and down. Spotting the cake bag, he raised an eyebrow and yelled toward the inside, “Bro, you ordered delivery?”

No one answered, only the sound of water rushing from the bathroom.

Tong Xilin stared at him, his lips pressing into a thin line.

This person was tall and slim, with strikingly handsome features. His eyebrows were meticulously shaped, a glittering piercing stud winking on his right brow bone. He exuded an aura of style and refinement, and he was even wearing men’s cologne.

But the crucial thing was…

He looked at the man’s shirt.

He was wearing Kong Ji’s clothes.

“Give it here,” the man said, reaching out for the cake. “Why are you in a school uniform to run deliveries?”

Tong Xilin blocked his arm, sidestepping around him to enter and change his shoes.

“Hey, you—” The Eyebrow Piercing Guy’s eyebrows shot up even higher. Grabbing the door handle, he turned his head to stare at Tong Xilin’s back, trying to figure out who he was.

Without a single extra glance, Tong Xilin walked into the living room, placed the paper bag on the table, dropped his backpack, and headed to the kitchen for a glass of water.

He had just taken two sips when the bathroom door opened.

Kong Ji emerged wearing only pajama pants, his broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted upper body bare, two trails of water droplets rolling down his skin. He was drying his hair as he walked.

Seeing the open door, he asked the Eyebrow Piercing Guy, “What were you shouting about?”

“Someone’s here for you.” The guy was still holding the door. He jutted his chin toward the kitchen. “Who is that?”

Tong Xilin heard Kong Ji walking in his direction. He kept his eyes lowered, not turning around, continuing to drink his water.

“You’re back?” Kong Ji greeted him as if nothing was amiss, casually tossing the bath towel he was holding onto Tong Xilin’s head. He pressed down on his hair through the towel. “My nephew,” Kong Ji announced, and Tong Xilin heard him explain his identity to the other man as he walked out.

“Oh.” The Eyebrow Piercing Guy’s voice practically sagged with relief. He closed the door and lowered his voice to ask, “So, should I still go buy that thing?”

“The kid’s back, so what’s the point?” Kong Ji chuckled. “You should head back first.”

Tong Xilin didn’t know and didn’t want to know what posture they used, or what whispers the Eyebrow Piercing Guy shared with Kong Ji.

Placing the cup down, he went to the balcony, threw the towel into the washing machine, and then grabbed his backpack, shutting himself in his room. He threw himself onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling, letting out a long, silent breath.

Kong Ji was no good man.

He’d sensed it from their first encounter half a year ago.

Good? What a joke. Even now, he couldn’t say for sure just what Kong Ji really was.

He first heard the name “Kong Ji” in Tong Yuzhi’s last words.

Tong Yuzhi was his father, who died on Tong Xilin’s sixteenth birthday.

At sixteen, a high school freshman, he’d understood nothing. It was a few of his father’s co-workers who helped handle the funeral arrangements. Tong Xilin had stumbled through it in a daze, just going through the motions when the adults told him to break the basin or kowtow.

The urn collected from the crematorium was so small and light in his hands, it left him in a daze. It felt so insubstantial, hard to connect to the living, breathing person Tong Yuzhi had been.

Looking back now, many details are a blur. The only clear memory he had was of the photo on the tombstone—a tiny ID photo, the only one they could find in the house.

He didn’t know when it was taken, but in the picture, Tong Yuzhi looked fresh and youthful, wearing a clean white shirt. His neck was long and graceful, the corners of his lips curved up slightly, his eyes bright and gentle.

That photo caught him off guard. The sudden realization that his father, too, had been young, that he could even be called handsome, hit him.

Because as far back as he could remember, the man had always been just an ordinary, dull figure.

Their cramped home, tomb-like in its silence, had always been muted. No entertainment, no laughter. Tong Yuzhi had never offered him the kind of profound “father’s love” written about in literature.

This flatness seemed etched into Tong Yuzhi’s very being, so much so that even his last words were pallid and dry.

“If life gets too hard, go to him.”

Leaving this sentence and a phone number before his death, Tong Yuzhi’s gaunt, sunken cheeks trembled, and a tear slipped from the corner of his eye.

It struck Tong Xilin as strange; he had never seen his father laugh loudly or weep.

“Who is he?” he’d asked, curious.

“Kong Ji.”

The name seemed to drain the last of Tong Yuzhi’s strength. His gray lips trembled twice more before he managed the next words: “Ji, as in miracle.”

Tong Xilin had dabbed some water on his lips with a cotton swab and helped him close his eyes.

He didn’t ask who Kong Ji was, nor did he plan to make that call.

Until two years later, a minor accident happened. He broke his right leg. Lying in the hospital, utterly alone, he remembered the person his father had mentioned.

Clinging to the number like a lifeline, he called Kong Ji. Not knowing how to explain the situation, he just said the first thing that came to mind: “I’m Tong Yuzhi’s son.”

And Kong Ji actually came.

The man who walked into the hospital looked to be in his early thirties, insanely handsome, but with a frivolous, untrustworthy air about him.

The moment they met by the hospital bed, he directly tilted Tong Xilin’s face up for a look.

After a long study, he curled his lip in a careless manner. The first words he said to Tong Xilin were: “Quite the resemblance.”

To Tong Yuzhi?

Sitting up in bed, he looked at his own face in the mirror.

It was true, he really did resemble him.

Especially the eyes and the corners of his mouth. Blood didn’t lie, and the contours and curves of his and his father’s facial features were identical. The older he got, the stronger the resemblance.

Pushing at the corners of his own mouth in the mirror, he thought of the Eyebrow Piercing Guy in the living room and couldn’t muster a smile.

That man wasn’t the first he’d seen at Kong Ji’s place.

Since healing from his fracture, taken in like a stray dog, a scant half a year had passed, and that was already the third stranger to appear in their home.

Without exception, all were tall, handsome types.

The sound of the apartment door shutting came from outside, and the house went quiet in an instant.

Tong Xilin looked toward his bedroom door, listening as Kong Ji’s footsteps drew closer. After two perfunctory knocks, the door was pushed open directly.

“What’s up? Why the long face?” Kong Ji sat down beside him, tilting his head to study his expression.

Tong Xilin met his gaze, looking into his eyes.

Kong Ji’s eyes were somewhat narrow, but his pupils were intensely black, deep and dark.

He remembered the first time he saw Kong Ji in the hospital. Forced to meet those eyes while his chin was held, the words had inexplicably failed him for a long moment.

The same thing happened now.

Whenever Kong Ji looked at him like that, words became hard to find.

Pressing his lips together, he held back for a moment before finally blurting out: “Who was he?”

Kong Ji didn’t answer directly. He watched Tong Xilin for a moment, then leaned back on his arms, his tone utterly casual. “A friend.”

“Boyfriend?” Tong Xilin pressed.

“Not yet.” A hint of amusement flickered in Kong Ji’s eyes. “What, you didn’t like him?”

“I didn’t like him,” Tong Xilin shook his head.

“Then he’s not.” Kong Ji pinched his chin and gave it a shake, just like their first meeting.

Then he quickly let go, stood up, and walked out. “Come on, let’s eat. I brought you a present.”