Chapter 1
Splash—
A cup of plain water was thrown right onto someone’s face.
Dripping from the chin, Xia Fengsheng sat up, a large patch of his shirt soaked through across the chest.
His roommate He Qiang asked, “Sheng’er, how are you feeling?”
Xia Fengsheng looked down at his see-through outfit. “Absolutely drenched.”
Early that morning, He Qiang had woken up and found something slumped over the desk. He focused and realized it was a person. Leaning in closer, he saw it was Xia Fengsheng.
Why was he sleeping here?
He remembered Xia Fengsheng had a group meeting at nine, so he reached out and tried to poke him awake.
Who knew the other man would be so stubborn. He called him several times, but those eyelids refused to open. This had happened before.
As long as you fetched some plain boiled water left overnight from the kettle, you could wake him up.
With a towel hanging around his neck, Xia Fengsheng pulled open the curtains. Outside, the sun was steadily rising.
Amazing. Another day alive.
He Qiang came over and said, “Sheng’er, you scared me to death just now.”
Xia Fengsheng: ?
“When I touched you, you felt all stiff,” He Qiang said shyly. “I thought you were dead.”
Luckily, Xia Fengsheng himself possessed the life force of a cockroach.
Standing in front of the wardrobe, he took off his wet see-through shirt and pulled out a clean one.
“What time did you get back last night?” He Qiang sat at his computer organizing materials. He’d gone to bed early and had no idea when Xia Fengsheng returned to the dorm. “Why didn’t you sleep in your bed?”
Buttoning his shirt, Xia Fengsheng said, “I got back this morning.”
Oh, this morning.
No wonder he hadn’t heard anything last night.
He Qiang clicked his mouse a few times, then suddenly froze.
This morning?!
“No, wait— Sheng’er! You really got kept overnight?!”
Xia Fengsheng was a second-year graduate student in finance at the Huaguang School of Management, Jing University.
These past few months, the advisor supervising him had taken on a major project. Any drinking party or dinner engagement, he would definitely bring Xia Fengsheng along.
A lot of people envied the advisor for pulling him into the circle. Even if the project didn’t bear his name and he wouldn’t get much of the profit, just the connections and big shots he met at those banquets were enough to make others drool.
The people inside the situation were confused; the bystanders saw clearly.
He Qiang, who wasn’t in the same department as Xia Fengsheng but shared a dorm with him, knew perfectly well that President Fang, the powerful female investor backing the project, had taken a liking to Xia Fengsheng.
That was why the advisor always brought him to those dinner parties.
Because of this, He Qiang had picked up plenty of small colorectal hospital advertisement cards and kept them around the dorm, just in case.
Xia Fengsheng had an especially distinctive face. His skin was snow-white, his lips blood-red; the veins on his body looked like moss growing over him. His hair was black like seaweed, his eyes ink-black, his eye shape somewhere between a rat’s and a fox’s, the outer corners slanting up with a sinister allure. His nose was high and sharp, and beneath the right corner of his mouth was a small mole. His whole aura was like a damp, surging tide.
His looks leaned toward the eerie and wicked. It was said that before his advisor Yang Liwan decided whether to take him on, he had specially shown Xia Fengsheng’s photo to someone to read his physiognomy.
“No. Halfway through drinking, I said I needed the bathroom and ran.”
“As long as you didn’t get kept, that’s fine, that’s fine.” He Qiang stuffed his heart back down from his throat. “Amen must’ve really come through. Don’t forget to pay your respects when you go out later.”
At the end of science lay mysticism. Better to believe than not.
At 8:45 in the morning, Xia Fengsheng walked out of the dorm. After closing the door, he didn’t leave right away.
Instead, he closed his eyes and pressed his palms together.
Devout as a believer.
“Amen!”
Then he strode off.
The dorm door, of course, did not leave with him. It remained standing there, and on it was pasted a bright golden plaque.
Two gold-stamped characters were written on it:
“Zhao Kingdom.”
.
Xia Fengsheng arrived at the classroom for the group meeting right on time.
Someone saw him and greeted warmly, “Senior brother, you’re here. Good morning.”
Xia Fengsheng had always been well liked. Usually, he was gentlemanly and courteous, eloquent in speech. Whenever they ran into difficult problems or needed help with something, he never hesitated to step in.
He had helped revise papers and make PowerPoints for most of the people present.
“It’s nothing. If there’s anything you don’t understand, come ask me next time.”
Mature, steady, and charming—compared to people his age who were only a year younger than him, or even the exact same age, he seemed more like a real adult.
Normally, the junior students wouldn’t avoid him when they saw him. Instead, they would actively greet him.
With him leading the group meeting today, they wouldn’t be quite so nervous performing in front of the advisor later.
Xia Fengsheng responded with a smile, but there was not a trace of warmth in his eyes.
Who on earth says good morning on a Monday, a day with no end in sight?
Their advisor Yang Liwan was famous for having a terrible temper. Since he still hadn’t arrived, everyone hurried to check over their presentation materials one more time.
Some were nervous. Some were scared. Xia Fengsheng just had a headache.
Half hangover, half group meeting.
By 9:30, the advisor still hadn’t shown up.
Xia Fengsheng stood up and started rallying everyone to get ready for the meeting. Yang Liwan had never cared much about students who couldn’t produce worthwhile results. When he came, most of his time was spent on personal attacks, and the little time left was spent calling their PowerPoints garbage.
Xia Fengsheng recalled the scene from last week’s meeting with the doctoral senior students while the advisor was present. That had truly been exploitation at its finest.
But just as Xia Fengsheng finished speaking, Yang Liwan pushed the door open and walked in.
“Sorry, everyone. Something delayed me on the road.”
The younger students smiled and said it was fine.
Yang Liwan was forty this year, tallish and a bit overweight. On top he wore a shirt and sweater, below a belted pair of dress pants. His whole vibe was greasy and preachy enough to shoot straight into your skull. And what sat between his ears was even something taboo to the Hui people.
Xia Fengsheng: Dead pig spirit.
Yang Liwan looked at Xia Fengsheng.
Xia Fengsheng: 🙂
Yang Liwan sized him up from top to bottom. “Little Xia, when did you leave last night? I didn’t even notice.”
Yesterday, the dinner party had still been in full swing with the investors, and the next thing he knew, Xia Fengsheng had vanished.
Xia Fengsheng said, “Boss, you drank a lot last night, so maybe you forgot. I even said goodbye to you before I left.”
“Did you? I thought you snuck off.”
“Boss, you’re wronging me.”
Yang Liwan gave a light snort and didn’t press further. He figured Xia Fengsheng didn’t have that kind of nerve.
In reality, that was not the case.
Xia Fengsheng was nothing but nerve.
“Come to my office after the meeting.”
Having said that, Yang Liwan began the meeting.
After enduring one hour of personal attacks and one hour of garbage PowerPoint commentary, the meeting finally ended.
Everyone left with hairstyles blasted out of shape.
The moment they stepped out of the classroom, it felt like entering a different lifetime.
By the time Xia Fengsheng arrived at the office, Yang Liwan was on the phone.
His pig face was practically dancing with delight. “I know you miss me. Once I’m done being busy for a while, I’ll come see you, pretty girl.”
Xia Fengsheng glanced at him.
A taboo romance.
After hanging up, Yang Liwan’s attitude was much better than during the meeting. He even smiled at him.
“Little Xia, how’s the paper you’re working on coming along?”
When someone is suddenly overly attentive, either they’re a thief or they’re after something.
Xia Fengsheng had a vague idea of what he wanted.
“It’s not finished yet.”
“It’s been how long already? You’re usually not this inefficient.” Yang Liwan sounded disgusted. “Fine. No matter what state it’s in, send it to me.”
“I happen to be free this afternoon, so I’ll take a look for you. Go back and send it over.”
When Xia Fengsheng came out of the office, he felt his neck itching.
Then he suddenly smiled in realization. Turns out he was just missing a rope around it.
As he opened the door and stepped out, someone slipped into the office in the gap he left behind. The man had a waxy yellow face and dark circles under his eyes, the classic skin tone of the finance school. He was a doctoral senior brother who had been crushed under pressure for two years and still hadn’t graduated.
Just like Xia Fengsheng, he had no family background and no backing, another one of Yang Liwan’s exploitation targets.
“Senior brother!”
Xia Fengsheng turned his head. It was a junior student from the meeting earlier, Song Yu.
Song Yu ran over. “Senior brother, what a coincidence. You haven’t left yet.”
Xia Fengsheng said, “I was just about to.”
“Senior brother, have you eaten? Want to go together?” Song Yu asked.
Xia Fengsheng had originally wanted to refuse, but then he remembered that Song Yu came from a good family—second-generation rich.
“Sure.” The scarlet corners of his mouth lifted into his signature smile.
He agreed to go to the cafeteria with Song Yu to kill his hunger.
He would never pass up a chance to build a good relationship with someone from a wealthy family. In the decadent finance circle, getting access to connections and resources was harder than reaching the heavens.
The elevator was under maintenance today, so the two of them took the stairs instead.
They had only gone down one flight when his phone suddenly started exploding with messages at the worst possible time.
Dead Pig Spirit:
“Little Xia, I thought it over. Your professional ability isn’t enough, and you have many shortcomings. Even though you haven’t sent me the paper yet, there are definitely oversights in it. So this time, don’t put your name down as first author. I’ll look it over first and arrange things afterward.”
Xia Fengsheng stared expressionlessly at the screen. What was supposed to come had finally come.
“Oh right, I have a few papers in hand. Read them and write me a summary report afterward. I’ll send you the format in a bit.”
“Did you see this? Reply when you do.”
“Say something.”
Xia Fengsheng got angry.
He typed a few words and sent: “Received”
No punctuation.
The very next second—
Dead Pig Spirit: “Where’s the period?”
Xia Fengsheng: ……
What am I, a goldfish? Do I need to blow bubbles when I text you too?
You’ve really been given too much face.
When an ordinary man is enraged—
Xia Fengsheng struck back.
“Received.”
That was it. Just enraged.
No sooner had he replied to that message than another contact’s messages came one after another.
This one was from a male leader at the female boss’s dinner party, a man of the same species as Yang Liwan.
Xia Fengsheng’s note for him: The Other One.
“Little Xia, I heard from your advisor that you’ll be coming to tomorrow’s dinner party too.”
“When the time comes, let’s secretly slip out and have some fun behind President Fang’s back.”
“[Image]”
An oily selfie.
Because I read too fast, by the time my brain realized what it had just seen, my eyes…
All that was left of Xia Fengsheng’s eyes was the whites.
The man’s appearance was deeply moving. To protect itself, Xia Fengsheng’s eyesight automatically downgraded to myopia. Anyone who had seen that face ought to join forces and pound on the doors of the National Healthcare Security Administration, wailing until nearsightedness got included in medical insurance.
You would think the messages ended there, but no. Once refreshed again, they still came in endless waves.
This time it was from junior students.
“Senior brother, there’s a report I can’t understand. Could you help me take a look?”
“Senior brother, how do I do this PPT? Please help.”
“Senior brother, it’s urgent, please help me out (palms pressed together)”
“Senior brother…”
“Senior brother…”
Sometimes he truly wanted to stuff his phone into a toilet and flush it away.
Looking at his phone as he walked downstairs, Xia Fengsheng caught his foot on something and nearly fell.
Song Yu hurriedly steadied him. “Senior brother, are you okay?”
Xia Fengsheng: “Food.”
He stood back up, expressionless.
Why didn’t I just fall to my death?
The zipper on Song Yu’s backpack hadn’t been fully closed, and a ballpoint pen dropped onto the stairs.
Neither of them noticed and they kept going down.
Boom—
A thunderous crash.
Song Yu instinctively ducked and covered his head. By the time he lowered his hands, Xia Fengsheng had already gone from the top of the stairway mountain to the foot of it.
How had he gotten down…? Not by taking the stairs, and not by taking the elevator either.
With both hands resting over his chest, Xia Fengsheng lay in a pool of blood, quiet and still.
Song Yu cautiously called out, “Senior brother?”
Xia Fengsheng: ……
Song Yu: “Corpse Bro!!!!”
