Chapter 56: In the Dead of Night

The wind howled through the night, and the temperature plummeted. Lovers shared intimate moments by candlelight, while those alone endured empty rooms.

Under Mount Helan, sand and stones whipped through the air, and Chixia Winery, along with hundreds of acres of surrounding vineyards, was shrouded in a rapidly swirling mist.

Lao Zhao had been drinking, so his sleep was already restless. At one o’clock in the morning, he was woken by the incessant rattling of the windows. Groggily, he threw off the covers and got out of bed to close them.

But even after shutting the window tightly, he tossed and turned in bed, unable to fall back asleep because he needed to urinate.

Last month, a heavy rainstorm had damaged the upstairs bathroom of the winery. The renovation team had come, discussed prices, demolished what needed to be demolished, but then said it wouldn’t work. The winery’s facilities were aging, and beyond replacing the pipes, ensuring there would be no future leaks required redoing the waterproofing on the terrace above the bathroom.

Renovating the bathroom wasn’t expensive, but replacing the pipes and redoing the waterproofing was a major project.

Lao Zhao’s winery was like a small castle; doing all of it would be too costly for him to bear. So the matter had been delayed, and to this day, the upstairs bathroom was still unusable.

When he needed to relieve himself at night, he had to go all the way down to the restaurant’s restroom—it was much too far. Besides, he was already naked, and the winery was freezing cold. Getting dressed would be a hassle.

“Sleep, just sleep. If I fall asleep, I won’t feel like peeing anymore.”

Lao Zhao closed his eyes, curled up in the warm blankets, and tried to hypnotize himself. After resisting the urge for twenty minutes, his bladder won. He crawled out of bed, shivering, and fished out an old military overcoat from the wardrobe, draping it over his bare body.

Slipping into plastic slippers, Lao Zhao stumbled out of his room in the dark, sliding down the spiral staircase.

Because of the wind, moonlight filtered through the pointed arch windows, casting a reddish glow on the floor. Amidst this pool of red light, Lao Zhao resembled a vampire from an ancient castle horror story, swiftly moving toward the restaurant.

Pushing open the back door of the restaurant, faint sobs echoed in the darkness. Lao Zhao’s urge to pee vanished instantly. He didn’t think of ghosts but assumed that the two youngsters hadn’t locked the main gate properly, and thieves had broken into his winery.

Though the valuable items were locked in the office safe, he still had four large lamb legs in the kitchen.

His first reaction was to shout and turn on the lights. But the bright light blinded him momentarily, and when he finally saw who the shadowy figure was, he screamed as if he’d seen a ghost.

In his panic, the military coat slipped off his shoulders. Lao Zhao first clutched his hairy chest, then tried to cover his red underwear, but his frantic movements failed to conceal anything. His screams grew more piercing, and in a frenzy, he turned and ran.

________________________________________

On the second day of the holiday, Cheng Simin woke up in the bedroom of apartment 1201 next door.

She kicked her leg slightly, not hitting the guardrail of the bunk bed, and upon opening her eyes, realized she was in Shi Ying’s bed.

No one was beside her—only half a glass of water remained on the bedside table, along with an empty tissue box.

The room was quiet. Cheng Simin stretched lazily, rolled around in the blankets, and buried her face back into the down pillow to doze off again. The scent of Shi Ying lingered in her breath.

Closing her eyes, last night’s scenes immediately replayed in her mind.

Their first attempt hadn’t succeeded, so they decided to exchange tools familiar to each other to serve one another.

It was their first time using someone else’s hand, and it felt fresh. Even after climax, their cerebral cortex remained abnormally excited. Lying in bed, Shi Ying and Cheng Simin continued their mental exchange.

At first, they teased each other about being single since birth, poking fun at one another. Then, naturally, they began talking about what had happened to each of them after they parted ways. Once the floodgates opened, they had endless things to say: the high school entrance exam, the college entrance exam, Cheng Simin spoke about university and work, while Shi Ying talked about pursuing his doctorate and returning to China.

They wanted to tell each other everything.

It was like a scene from Interstellar, where two separate timelines overlapped at the beginning of the year, only to discover they had been at the same place on the same day.

After Shi Kaiji’s arrest, Shi Ying had been stranded in Jicheng for a few days due to a heavy snowstorm.

After briefly informing his son about the situation at home, Li Xiangqun left ahead of time to contact a divorce lawyer to investigate and gather evidence of Shi Kaiji’s infidelity. Shi Ying stayed behind to wait for a meeting with his father.

This less-than-24-hour delay coincided with the biggest snowfall Jicheng had seen in ten years. By the time Shi Ying met with Shi Kaiji and heard his so-called explanation, the weather had worsened, and his original flight was canceled.

His return to China had been sudden, and he didn’t have much cash on him. The last money his family sent him had gone toward paying a year’s rent and buying a car. Apart from a little over a hundred pounds in his UnionPay account, Shi Ying only had a supplementary credit card for daily expenses. The primary card, held by Shi Kaiji, had already been frozen due to the ongoing investigation.

Previously, Shi Ying’s financial matters had always been handled by Li Xiangqun.

Their spending habits were similar—neither was particularly frugal. Because of this, Shi Ying rarely had to ask for money. Li Xiangqun kept track of things and would send more funds well before he ran out of money.

To her, money equaled love. Her way of loving her son was by sending money.

But this time, with such a major crisis at home, Li Xiangqun was overwhelmed. She could barely take care of herself, let alone plan for her son’s daily expenses.

Understanding this, Shi Ying didn’t want to burden her further. Seeing the weather forecast predict worsening blizzards over the next couple of days, he transferred his pounds to yuan in his mobile banking app. With only a thousand yuan in his pocket, after much deliberation, he decided against staying at his current hotel.

He found a cheap guesthouse online—80 yuan per night—and dragged several large suitcases through three subway lines and half a street before settling in.

The guesthouse was located in a remote area, on a narrow commercial street lined with hardware stores. It was still early in the Lunar New Year, and many shops were closed for the holiday. In the heavy snow, this guesthouse was the only place bustling with people.

Shi Ying’s room was at the far end of the hallway, next to the toilet and across from the communal shower. Both were shared facilities.

As he dragged his suitcase past more than a dozen pigeonhole-like rooms, none of which had windows, many guests left their doors wide open due to the stuffiness. He glanced inside briefly: some men smoked while leaning against the wall on their beds, while women sat cross-legged, eating meals.

Behind the closed doors, loud televisions played, their noise thinly masking other sounds.

The air carried an indescribable smell—a mix of instant noodles flavored with aged pickles and the sour stench of human sweat and grease.

As Shi Ying dragged his suitcase past, the eyes of these people followed him, each gaze probing uncomfortably, much like the small boss at the front desk who had just checked him in.

Without expression, Shi Ying opened his room door and pulled all his luggage inside. There was no space to stand, so he took off his shoes and climbed onto the bed.

After days of flying back to China and visiting his imprisoned father, both his mind and body were utterly exhausted. He desperately needed a good night’s sleep.

But lying on the bed, closing his eyes to avoid looking at the moldy wallpaper or the inexplicable stickers on the bedside table, even as his limbs grew numb, he couldn’t fall asleep.

It was probably night, but who could tell? The room had only four walls and the lingering stench that refused to dissipate.

Soon, snores from deep sleep and the sound of showers filled his ears. Late at night, when the televisions were turned off, moans grew sharper and louder. Opening his eyes again, in the beam of light seeping under the door, Shi Ying saw a strand of blonde hair just centimeters from his face. He turned on the light, flipped back the blanket, and discovered lipstick stains left by the previous occupant.

The pillowcase beneath was yellowish-black—he had been lying on bedding that hadn’t been changed.

His skin went numb, and his brain felt like an engine lacking oil, unable to function. Still dazed, there was a knock at the door.

Opening it revealed a heavily made-up face. Outside, in -20°C weather, the visitor wore torn stockings and a tight leather skirt. Beneath smudged eyeliner and orange eyeshadow, the girl’s face appeared about his age. But her eyes weren’t—they seemed to hold the gaze of a dead animal.

Familiarly, she held up a stack of cards, pulling one out and handing it to Shi Ying with a flirtatious smile: “Handsome, want to play?”

Shi Ying didn’t take it. She pouted, slipping the card back into her bag, and adjusted her lipstick with a weak attitude, continuing to coquette: “Business is slow during the New Year, not many customers. I can give you a discount, but don’t tell the boss.”

“If my cut is too low, he’ll get mad and yell at me.”

“No need, find someone else.” Shi Ying moved to close the door, but the girl persisted, wedging her boot into the gap to stop him.

Her expression turned angry. “What man doesn’t need this? Nine out of ten men visit prostitutes. Are you telling me you’re impotent at such a young age?”

From the opposite side, the glass door of the shower opened, and a middle-aged man emerged.

He wasn’t wearing a shirt, just a pair of thermal pants, holding freshly washed work clothes. This man looked at Shi Ying and the girl with a naked gaze, then walked over, slapping his wet hand on the girl’s butt and whispering into her ear.

The dripping clothes brushed against Shi Ying’s pants. He recognized the man—the same person who had just finished work on a construction site when Shi Ying received the keys from the small boss. Earlier, the man had been sitting on the sofa in the lobby, video calling his wife back home, with several cute children shouting “Daddy” into the camera.

The girl quickly withdrew her foot and negotiated with another potential customer. Before leaving, the two mocked Shi Ying, calling him frigid, hypocritical, useless, and not a real man.

Perhaps due to lack of sleep-induced hallucinations, the stranger’s face morphed into Shi Kaiji’s, and the girl transformed into his pregnant mistress. They sneered at him, mocking him as a failure, a complete loser.

Watching the utopia-like life being stripped away, he felt powerless to resist.

An intense wave of nausea surged from his stomach. Shi Ying rushed out of the room.

Having not eaten all day, he stumbled onto the street and crouched in the snow. He couldn’t vomit, but his fingers turned red from the cold.

Even so, he didn’t want to go back. The small, lit sign of the guesthouse seemed like the gaping maw of a monster, its rooms resembling wet, foul intestines ready to crush and expel him.

Deciding to find something to eat or spend the night at a 24-hour fast-food restaurant, he trudged through the snow.

The snow kept falling. After walking for a long time, he found a KFC located beneath an apartment building. Brushing the snow off his down jacket, he rubbed his icy ears and ducked inside.