Chapter 11: The Mantis

It was less a request than a declaration.

The last word had barely left his lips, reduced to a breath, when Ren Yu grabbed Fang Yingli by the waist, tilted his head up, and kissed him. Afraid of rejection, he threw himself into it with bruising force, hard enough to split Fang Yingli’s lip.

Fang Yingli’s eyes flared, but he refused to stay passive. He kissed back just as hard, shoving Ren Yu’s head against the floral wall with a dull thud. There was no tenderness in it. He pressed in harder, his body swallowing Ren Yu into the dim shadows beneath the lattice, as if to make him pay for daring to initiate.

Morning glories spilled over their shoulders, leaves brushing skin with a numbing, electric tickle, flushing both their faces.

Feeling the response, Ren Yu’s eyes flew open, fixing on Fang Yingli’s face. His brows were faintly furrowed, but his eyes stayed shut, as though he was genuinely enjoying the kiss.

The sliding door, rusted with age, shrieked as it opened. Ren Yu heard Zhang Xiang step out and lock eyes with whoever had come up the stairs.

“Um… hello. I’m here to get some clean napkins.” A waiter. The staff downstairs must have run short and sent him up for freshly dried linens.

Zhang Xiang rubbed his brow and waved the man off. Then his gaze drifted toward the floral wall.

Ren Yu’s whole body tensed. He clutched Fang Yingli’s collar with a sweat-slicked palm. He thought he heard Zhang Xiang take two steps in their direction. At that moment, Fang Yingli’s hand slid up, untucking Ren Yu’s shirt from his trousers, and settled on his waist.

Anything was fine—kissing, biting, coldness, rejection. But not this. Not touching, controlling, countering, tightening. Not this hand, the one that set his desires alight.

Especially not with someone watching.

A heavy sound escaped Ren Yu’s throat. Zhang Xiang’s footsteps stopped. He turned back toward the terrace and bent to murmur to Liao Xiuming, “Just a couple hooking up, and a waiter.”

Liao Xiuming nodded, apparently done with the conversation. He walked out, casting a glance in Ren Yu’s direction as well. Through the cutouts in the lattice, he could just make out a sliver of lean waist beneath the white shirt and hear the faint sound of ragged breathing.

Liao Xiuming pressed a finger to the corner of his mouth and shot Zhang Xiang a dark, meaningful look. “Heh. Spicy.”

Zhang Xiang forced a laugh, and the two of them headed down.

The footsteps faded.

When they’d faded, Ren Yu couldn’t say. The kiss lasted until neither of them had breath left. It did not end early just because Liao Xiuming had gone.

At last their lips parted naturally, and they shared what little oxygen remained in the narrow space. Fang Yingli touched the split corner of his mouth, tasting iron. He looked down at Ren Yu, who was panting, eyes dazed from oxygen deprivation. Ren Yu met his gaze, his lips still smarting, and complained frankly, “You pressed into me just now.”

Both of them had reacted. It would’ve been stranger not to. Fang Yingli wasn’t the least bit flustered. He only demanded, “Boss Ren, care to explain?”

Ren Yu raised his arm, showing the inside of his cuff. “I spilled wine on my sleeve. Looking for the restroom, I accidentally overheard President Liao and President Zhang talking. I realized I was in an awkward spot, so I used you as cover.”

He thought the explanation sounded natural enough. “Didn’t expect you to be here too, Mr. Fang.”

So he hadn’t been invested in the kiss at all. His mind had been running the whole time, working out this smooth little script.

Fang Yingli let out a short, cold laugh, apparently accepting it. He stepped back and unhurriedly smoothed his collar where Ren Yu had wrinkled it, those sharp-jointed fingers cinching the tie inward.

That one simple gesture stoked the fire in Ren Yu rather than quenching it. He forced himself to look away and tucked his shirt back in.

Nothing had really happened, but the scene had an unmistakable after-sex feel to it. And clearly, Ren Yu was the more disheveled of the two.

At that moment, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he hadn’t used Fang Yingli to dodge a disaster. Rather, he was the mantis stalking the cicada, only to be caught by the oriole behind.

The thought irritated him.

But the work still had to be done. The final payment was calling. Since they’d run into each other, he might as well cast his net again.

Ren Yu couldn’t tell if he was trying to complete the job or if the mood had simply carried him here. He glanced at his watch. “Come on, one more drink?”

Fang Yingli, unexpectedly, didn’t refuse. They got a designated driver and headed to Thousand Nights Bar to keep the night going.

Chu Weiyi was mixing drinks. When he saw Ren Yu walk in with Fang Yingli, he caught on immediately and, playing along, called him “Boss Ren” with great enthusiasm. His hands never stopped—ice, edible glitter, whiskey as the base, a squeeze of lemon. He worked the shaker, ice clattering inside, then poured the bright liquid into two glasses and slid them over.

“New cocktail. Try it.”

After the night’s tension, Ren Yu had finally relaxed. Weariness softened his features. He lazily twirled the mint leaf in his glass, the vivid purple liquid swirling like a vast rose-colored cosmos.

“What’s it called?”

Chu Weiyi smiled with deliberate meaning. “Stealer.”

Stealer my ass.

Ren Yu’s eyelid twitched. He shot Chu Weiyi a look. Chu Weiyi just laughed, grabbed the empty shaker, and walked off. “Enjoy.”

Ren Yu looked up at Fang Yingli, who was watching him with the half-lidded gaze of a predator sizing up prey. That was the thing about this man—his pupils were so dark that when he focused, his stare turned razor-sharp.

Ren Yu’s scalp prickled. He lifted his glass and took a long drink, the burn of whiskey and the bite of lemon slashing down his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut.

“Try it. It’s good.” He raised his glass in a toast, then, feeling the alcohol’s warmth, shrugged off his suit jacket and draped it over the back of the chair, brooching side up, deliberately. He undid two buttons at his collar. The shifting lights carved out the lines of his collarbones, even the shadows lending themselves to suggestion.

Fang Yingli sipped his drink, gaze lowered, the edge in his eyes reined in. “You wear a suit well, Boss Ren.”

He’d spotted Ren Yu the moment he walked in. Far more put-together than the slouched, easygoing version he’d seen around the complex. The loose, lazy manner had been packed away, letting the fine bone structure show through. He couldn’t quite articulate it, but Ren Yu had a natural scholarly air. No matter how worldly he acted, there was something refined underneath.

Ren Yu smiled. “I don’t go to those things often. I heard there might be business opportunities, so a friend got me in. Turns out it wasn’t my scene. I almost crossed someone like Liao Xiuming.”

He waved a hand dismissively. “Also, we’re well past formalities. Call me Ren Yu, not Boss this and Boss that.”

“Oh? And what exactly are we?” Fang Yingli asked, amused.

“The kind who drink at the same table.” Ren Yu raised his glass again and tipped it back. One Stealer down, his chest burning. He ordered an iced tequila to cool off. Two drinks in, his face was heating up, a flush spreading even around the small mole by his nose.

“You went to A University?” Fang Yingli asked suddenly.

“Yeah,” Ren Yu answered. “Chinese literature. An interesting major. Also a broke one.”

“Interesting how?”

Ren Yu’s eyes went a little unfocused—partly the alcohol, partly memory.

“For the first two years, I wrote bad poetry and hung around the literary club. The coursework was good too.” He propped his chin on his hand and looked into Fang Yingli’s eyes. “Did you know Journey to the West wasn’t actually written by Wu Cheng’en? Back then I thought, damn, I’d been lied to for years.”

“Later, junior and senior year, I ran with the philosophy, history, and journalism crowds. I learned a bit of everything.” Ren Yu suddenly smacked the table as if remembering something. “Oh, senior year I did a performance art piece. The photos made a splash on the school site but got taken down within 48 hours. Funny, right?”

Fang Yingli’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.

It was a series of photos on ocean conservation. He’d actually seen them.

Ren Yu stood on a reef, enclosed in a massive glass dome. Behind him, the sea and sky merged into a gray-blue dusk. He was completely naked, his wet body wrapped in dark green strands of seaweed that half-covered painted wounds in blood-red. Back then, Ren Yu had still been inside the ivory tower, untouched by the world’s harshness—romantic, unrestrained, with shoulder-length hair falling loose against his neck. One leg bent, arms folded to hide the essentials, though not entirely. Below the abs, the lines of a very beautiful lower body were still faintly visible.

He hadn’t shied from the camera at all. Against the crash of the waves behind him, he’d stared straight into the lens with a look that was utterly singular. Empty nihilism would’ve been cliché. But his gaze was overgrown with desire.

It was the look of someone who knew exactly how beautiful his naked body was, who flaunted it, who dared you to take it.

Too wild. That was Fang Yingli’s first thought when he saw the photo.

“Bold” wasn’t even the right word. Bold meant overcoming yourself, having a goal, being deliberate. Wild meant there was nothing to overcome. He was nature itself, above morality and rules.

The photos were deleted quickly, and the originals were hard to find now. But screen recordings and blurry screenshots still circulated quietly among each new class of students. Fang Yingli had only known from the low-quality image that the subject was some senior who’d already graduated.

It was only at this moment that Fang Yingli confirmed it: that senior was sitting right in front of him, fully dressed, eyes soft with drink, completely unaware that Fang Yingli had already seen through the clothes to the body beneath.