Reservoir Dogs chapter 13
The System’s Defectors
He changed into a new outfit.
Covered in luxury brands he couldn’t name, the Hermes belt stood out conspicuously. He lightly brushed the cold metal buckle with his thumb. The fabric clung softly to his body, but it was uncomfortably tight.
Jiang Chengyuan’s gaze was appreciative, even a bit stunned. Xiao Zhou was slender but not frail, tall with long legs and a slim waist. The suit suited him well, far better than loose, shapeless T-shirts, highlighting his physique.
Their destination was a luxurious hotel in the neighboring city, for an event organized by the City Bar Association. The association was divided into 18 committees based on specialized fields, including criminal, civil, financial, and securities law. Jiang Chengyuan, the head of the Criminal Research Committee, was often invited to various practical and research discussions. Not only did he have to attend these events, but he also had to speak.
After circling the underground garage and finally finding a parking spot, a flashy Porsche suddenly cut in, taking the spot first.
A fashionably dressed man jumped out of the car. His clothes were brightly colored and trendy, his figure tall and slim. Heavy makeup dulled the natural finesse of his features.
Just as Xiao Zhou was about to find another spot, he saw the man walking over.
The man directly approached their car’s back window, knocked on it, bent down, and smiled. “What a coincidence, Chengyuan. Sorry, I didn’t see you earlier and took your spot.”
The dark car window rolled down halfway, revealing Jiang Chengyuan’s eyes. His voice was cold. “It’s fine. I’m not in a hurry anyway.”
The man smiled with fox-like eyes. “I’ll wait for you to park, and then we can go up together.”
“Alright,” Jiang Chengyuan nodded and rolled up the window.
After parking, Xiao Zhou wasn’t planning to follow but heard Jiang Chengyuan say, “We’ll be staying overnight. Come up with me and wait in the hotel room.”
Xiao Zhou had no choice but to follow.
The man was waiting for them and seemed intrigued by the newcomer. “Your new apprentice? I’ve never seen him before. What field does he specialize in?”
Jiang Chengyuan didn’t pause as he walked toward the elevator. “Driver.”
The man walked up beside him. “A driver you brought here? Don’t joke. I’d believe it if you said he was your lover.”
Although the man was talking about him, he acted as if Xiao Zhou didn’t exist.
Full of arrogance and high-handedness, he hadn’t looked at Xiao Zhou after the initial glance when he appeared with Jiang Chengyuan. His attention was entirely on Jiang Chengyuan. It wasn’t that he was domineering, but rather that he didn’t regard others as worth dealing with.
Jiang Chengyuan was quite tolerant of him, lazily saying, “Ji Yang, you wouldn’t believe me even if I told the truth, so what do you want me to do?”
“I can’t possibly not believe you.” Ji Yang smiled a little. “But you handled Zhou Jun’s case poorly last time, causing such a mess. I heard Xiao Sun was in contact with him. Zhou Jun kept complaining to me, feeling you didn’t take it seriously. After all, he paid a lot of money; you should at least put on a show for him.”
Jiang Chengyuan responded flatly, “Xiao Sun is enough for this case. If Zhou Jun accepts it, we’ll continue; if not, he can find someone else.”
Ji Yang’s tone grew slightly serious, “It’s not about not accepting. Zhou Jun isn’t the issue; the problem is someone behind him pushing for a quick resolution. The longer it drags on, the more likely it will cause trouble.”
Jiang Chengyuan replied, “I know, otherwise you wouldn’t have come to find me.”
Ji Yang asked, “So, you’re confident then?”
“Yes, don’t worry about it.”
Hearing this, Ji Yang seemed reassured and jokingly added, “I have another divorce case involving a cross-border equity division. It’s quite complicated. I have two good bottles of wine stored in this hotel. How about we discuss it over dinner tonight?”
Jiang Chengyuan said, “If there’s a problem, just tell me.”
Ji Yang seemed a bit regretful but directly explained the situation. “The main issue is jurisdiction. The woman has a company in the US and transferred the shares to her sister before the divorce. Now the man wants to sue, but the local court refuses to accept the case, saying the shares are overseas and the transfer has been announced. They haven’t handled similar cases before and haven’t made a decision.”
“If they believe the case isn’t within their jurisdiction or they shouldn’t handle it, have them issue a written decision of non-acceptance within seven days as required by the Civil Procedure Law. Then take the decision to the Supreme Court to appeal.”
“I’ve mentioned that, but they refuse and keep dragging it out. It’s been over a month.”
“What’s their reason?”
Ji Yang rubbed his nose. “They say they didn’t accept our submitted materials, so the seven-day rule doesn’t apply.”
Jiang Chengyuan laughed, “Then they’re just playing tricks. You have no choice but to keep at it, going to each department and leader one by one. Since the woman resides domestically, not in isolation, and the company’s profits are usually domestic, the Supreme Court has precedents on jurisdiction. Take those precedents to discuss with the court leaders. Even if you can’t get the case filed, you should be able to get a decision.”
Ji Yang looked at Jiang Chengyuan with admiration and respect, “Your mind is like a legal document library. The court has been discussing it for a month without a result, yet you can think of similar cases.”
Jiang Chengyuan said, “If you had spent less time competing with me in college, you wouldn’t have forgotten even this.”
Ji Yang chuckled, “No way, with the way you were in college, I couldn’t stand someone more arrogant than me.”
As they entered the elevator, Ji Yang inadvertently glanced at Xiao Zhou’s nape as he walked past, and then stopped. The glands on Xiao Zhou’s nape were a bit swollen and still bore fading bite marks.
The elevator ascended slowly.
Ji Yang’s voice was a bit strange, “Is he an Omega? Did you mark him?”
Jiang Chengyuan also saw the marks and responded affirmatively.
Ji Yang’s expression grew even more strange, his gaze locked on Xiao Zhou, “This is the first time I’ve seen an Omega around you. How did you meet? How long has it been? Are you serious with him?”
Jiang Chengyuan didn’t bother to answer, “You ask too many questions.”
Ji Yang’s face darkened, but he adjusted his attitude when the elevator doors opened and said, “President Wang has reserved a table at the seafood restaurant. There’s a car waiting outside. Why don’t you come with me?”
Jiang Chengyuan nodded and told Xiao Zhou to go to the room by himself.
The top-floor suite had both a master bedroom and guest rooms.
Xiao Zhou waited in the room until past seven, predicting that Jiang Chengyuan wouldn’t return anytime soon. He changed into a T-shirt and long pants and left the hotel. Across the street was a row of snack stalls with exaggerated neon signs and rows of outdoor tables and benches. He ordered the cheapest fried noodles, added extra chili, and ate with the complimentary hot tea, sweating profusely.
The night breeze gently brushed his face. He wiped his mouth with a tissue, his back sticky with sweat as it dried in the wind, leaving him with a cool sensation.
The night market was bustling and noisy, the air filled with the smell of stir-fried oil and smoke, which clung to his clothes.
His arms rested on the greasy table, leaving a layer of oil. He wiped it with a tissue, but it didn’t get completely clean. Despite this, he felt relaxed and natural, much more comfortable than in the hotel earlier.
Walking back to the hotel from the night market, he passed an ice cream truck decorated with color-changing lights and playing children’s songs. Five yuan for two scoops.
Xiao Zhou glanced at it and walked past, but then returned and asked the vendor for an ice cream. He frowned, deciding between the five flavors, and finally chose strawberry and chocolate.
He had just paid and taken a bite when a flippant voice came from behind, “Boss, I’ll have one too.”
The vendor smiled, “What flavor would you like?”
The newcomer pointed to the ice cream in Xiao Zhou’s hand, “I’ll have the same as him.”
Xiao Zhou looked up and saw a pair of smiling fox-like eyes.
Ji Yang greeted him, “What a coincidence, you like this kind of street food?”
Xiao Zhou didn’t have a good impression of him and didn’t respond, walking past him.
Ji Yang grabbed his ice cream and hurried to catch up, “Hey, don’t you have any manners? I talked to you, but you didn’t say a word.”
Xiao Zhou walked slowly, biting the top chocolate scoop, almost freezing his teeth. Hearing him talk, he didn’t know what he wanted, “Do you need something?”
“Not really, just felt like saying hi since we ran into each other.” Ji Yang smiled and asked, “You look quite young. How did you meet Jiang Chengyuan?”
Xiao Zhou raised his eyes to look at him, unable to determine his relationship with Jiang Chengyuan. If they were friends, this person seemed deliberately antagonistic, constantly competing, which was quite annoying. If they were enemies, Jiang Chengyuan was very tolerant of him, generously overlooking issues like parking disputes and even helping with cases.
Their relationship was too strange. Xiao Zhou didn’t want to say anything wrong and replied with something irrelevant, “Your ice cream is melting.”
Ji Yang looked down to see the ice cream melting. He was actually quite disgusted by street food, finding it dirty and unsanitary, unsure of how it was made. He reluctantly took a bite, tasting the overly sweet artificial flavor and the gritty texture of crushed ice, which made his scalp tingle with disgust, almost causing him to spit it out. Passing a trash can, he threw the ice cream away, “How can you like eating this stuff?”
Xiao Zhou disapproved of his action, “Even if you don’t like it, you shouldn’t waste it.”
Ji Yang laughed, “Are you lecturing me?”
Xiao Zhou said, “Just teaching you some public morals.” He turned and walked away again, quickly pulling ahead.
Ji Yang caught up, looking at his T-shirt and shorts, with slippers on his feet, feeling quite disdainful, “Doesn’t Jiang Chengyuan buy you clothes? With this look, how did you hook up with him?”
Xiao Zhou licked half of his ice cream, finally understanding why this high-society elite was persistently following him, “He didn’t take a fancy to me. He’s my guardian.”
Ji Yang thought he misheard, “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
“What do you mean by guardian? Are you messing with me?”
Xiao Zhou was getting annoyed, stopped, turned abruptly, grabbed Ji Yang’s arm, and pulled him close, their faces almost touching.
With his facial muscles tense, brow furrowed, and a fierce look in his eyes, an obvious white scar at the corner of his eye, he said, “What I mean is, if you want to find out about him, watching me is useless. I’m a paroled convict; he got me out of jail. I act as his Omega, that’s all, nothing complicated. I’m nothing, if you must make an analogy, I’m just a convenient, useful sex toy.”
After saying that, he released Ji Yang’s arm and walked away.
Ji Yang was startled by the sudden confrontation, still shaken by the face-to-face encounter. If someone else had said they were a paroled convict, Ji Yang would have laughed it off, thinking they were bluffing, but with that face, it seemed entirely plausible. He looked at his arm and saw a deep handprint.
Ji Yang paused in place for a moment, then caught up and asked, “Are you serious? Why would he do that?”
Xiao Zhou threw back the same line Jiang Chengyuan had said before, “You wouldn’t believe me even if I told the truth, so what do you want me to do?”
Ji Yang almost choked on his breath, “He couldn’t find an omega he wanted, so why resort to this?”
Xiao Zhou said, “I don’t know. Maybe he has some issues. I thought you knew him well enough to understand.”
Ji Yang’s expression changed, sounding somewhat confrontational, “He’s arrogant and has a foul temper. He always acts like he’s superior. Who could be close to him?”
Xiao Zhou asked, “Then why are you following me?”
Ji Yang’s face stiffened, “Because this situation is very unusual.”
Ignoring Ji Yang, Xiao Zhou finished licking two ice cream balls and started biting into the crispy crust. As they crossed the street, he looked up and saw someone standing at the hotel entrance.
Under the night sky, the hotel towered magnificently, shining with gold and jade brilliance. Jiang Chengyuan stood alone, like a dark silhouette left behind in the night. Only his fingers holding a cigarette, lit with a flicker of fire, were visible—long, elegant, and exuding a striking cold elegance.
Even with his biases, Xiao Zhou had to admit Jiang Chengyuan was handsome, exuding a unique charm that made the luxurious building behind him appear mundane.
Quickly finishing the crust, Xiao Zhou walked over slowly and stood a step away. “Are you waiting for me?” he asked.
Jiang Chengyuan glanced at him but then looked past him, focusing on someone behind.
When Ji Yang noticed Jiang Chengyuan looking over, he instinctively stopped in his tracks.
He could clearly sense Jiang Chengyuan’s displeasure. Ji Yang had competed with this person unilaterally for so long that he believed he understood the man’s emotions well. For example, now Jiang Chengyuan seemed irritable and was struggling to suppress it. But Ji Yang didn’t understand why. Since that incident, he hadn’t seen Jiang Chengyuan show such overt emotions for a long time.
Withdrawing his gaze from Ji Yang, Jiang Chengyuan looked at Xiao Zhou and whispered, “What were you two talking about just now?”
Xiao Zhou replied, “He seems curious about me.”
Before he could finish, Jiang Chengyuan suddenly bent down, pinched Xiao Zhou’s chin, forced him to look up, stared into his eyes for a moment, and then leaned down to kiss him.
Ji Yang froze immediately, eyes wide in shock.
Xiao Zhou was equally stunned.
To be exact, it wasn’t a kiss. Xiao Zhou’s teeth clenched as Jiang Chengyuan only licked away the ice cream residue at the corner of his mouth.
The frozen lips were rolled over by the scorching tongue, feeling like grabbing a piece of charcoal from the fire on a winter night.
It was so hot that he recoiled.
Xiao Zhou kept his eyes open, meeting Jiang Chengyuan’s gaze. Jiang Chengyuan didn’t avoid it either, staring at him with eyes that were deep and dark.
“Ice cream,” Jiang Chengyuan said after a moment, lifting his lips away but not moving back, his nose brushing past, the lingering smell of tobacco mixing with the closeness, “Is that why you came out? To eat this?”
Looking up, Xiao Zhou struggled to breathe, with the scent of a man closing in around his nostrils.
He didn’t know why Jiang Chengyuan did this. Was it for someone else to see or just a sudden whim?
Jiang Chengyuan gripped his waist, wiping away the ice cream stain on Xiao Zhou’s T-shirt. “Did you eat anything else?” he asked.
The ambiguous exhalation lingered in the air, mixed with the scent of tobacco, tickling his lungs and causing a tingling sensation.
“Noodles,” Xiao Zhou said.
“What?”
“I also had noodles,” Xiao Zhou repeated.
The urgent pressure seemed to dissipate somewhat. Jiang Chengyuan’s voice softened a bit as he leaned close to Xiao Zhou’s face, his voice softly stroking his eardrums, “Do you remember what you promised me? When you go out alone, unmarked, you need to wear the ankle bracelet.”
Xiao Zhou stiffened. “I’m sorry.”
“If it happens again, it’ll be hard for me” Jiang Chengyuan warned softly, then took his hand and led him into the hotel.
In the elevator, Xiao Zhou’s pounding heart gradually calmed down, but the sensation on his lips lingered.
He touched his lips, then let his hand drop, asking, “Why?”
“Because I can?” Jiang Chengyuan replied nonchalantly.
It was a somewhat insolent remark, but Xiao Zhou couldn’t argue.
In truth, even Jiang Chengyuan couldn’t explain why he did it. Perhaps it was seeing clothes left on the bed upon returning, only to find him and Ji Yang entangled across the street, that stirred an odd anger within him.
Although pretending to be indifferent and waiting for them to fall into the trap, he knew it was a false pretense of peace. He was anxious and unhappy.
As Xiao Zhou maintained his stubborn posture and spoke to him, a trace of strawberry ice cream stain on his lips made him look somewhat ridiculous and amusing.
Recalling the scene just now, Jiang Chengyuan found himself much calmer.
Xiao Zhou looked down at his toes and said, “That person, he was asking about you.”
Jiang Chengyuan nodded slightly. “Is that so?”
“I found it bothersome to be pestered, so I told him the truth. Does that matter?”
Jiang Chengyuan smiled and lifted his hand to Xiao Zhou’s neck, his touch slightly rough, bringing a coarse sensation. “It doesn’t matter. His name is Ji Yang, he’s a good person.”
Xiao Zhou blinked. “I thought you didn’t like him.”
Jiang Chengyuan said slowly, “There are many people who dislike him. We were classmates in university and met through intercollegiate debates. After graduation, he joined the procuratorate and was quite idealistic and radical when he was a prosecutor, showing no mercy in his words and actions, even conflicting with local senior lawyers.”
“Including you?”
“No, he resigned from the system within two years and became a lawyer. After resigning, he faced joint suppression and was unemployed for a while.” Jiang Chengyuan relaxed a bit, leaning against the elevator wall, his hand still resting on Xiao Zhou’s neck, “But his resignation was related to me.”
Xiao Zhou looked at him.
Jiang Chengyuan continued, “At that time, I took on a case where a crucial piece of evidence favorable to the defense was missing in court, only to later discover that the procuratorate had failed to submit it. When I questioned why, the prosecutor handling the case at that time replied, ‘The law does not require us to submit all evidence.'”
Jiang Chengyuan paused, lips curling in a wry smile. “They say lawyers only speak for their clients, but prosecutors are the same. Sometimes they hide evidence to secure a conviction. Different roles lead to different actions. The piece of evidence was brought to me by Ji Yang, and before the verdict was reached, he resigned.”
“At a dinner later, I heard from his colleagues that he had a heated argument with his boss over hiding evidence, even slamming the table and tearing things up, but his protest was in vain. He resorted to breaking in and stealing the evidence, nearly facing disciplinary action afterward. However, due to the unsavory reasons, it was dropped. Actually, he was on the verge of being promoted to head of the Supervision Department, being groomed by higher-ups as a promising young cadre. It’s a pity he was too impulsive and ambitious, squandering a bright future.”
Xiao Zhou hadn’t expected Ji Yang to have done all this; it was hard to reconcile such a just act with the flashy and flamboyant man he had seen.
“Do you find it hard to believe?” Jiang Chengyuan raised an eyebrow.
Xiao Zhou nodded. “The contrast is too stark.”
“He hasn’t really changed; he was like this in university too, inherently inclined to ‘walk out of the system.’ I always felt he wouldn’t settle down.”
Recalling Jiang Chengyuan’s words, Xiao Zhou asked, “So, he lost his job because he helped you?”
Jiang Chengyuan lifted an eyelid. “Hmm.”
“So that’s why you’re so accommodating towards him.”
Jiang Chengyuan nodded. “Yes.”
Because of that case, he had always felt indebted to Ji Yang over the years, helping him in various ways, overtly and covertly. In fact, he had already repaid what was owed long ago. Inside the system, outside the system, each had its strengths; one offered stability and respectability, the other was full of challenges and opportunities, like the stock market—high risk, high return. When Ji Yang was suppressed, he pulled him out, and since then, he had sailed smoothly, now enjoying both fame and wealth. He lacked nothing in luxury homes and sports cars. Perhaps if he had stayed within the system, he wouldn’t have achieved what he has now.
Thinking about Ji Yang’s behavior tonight, Xiao Zhou still didn’t fully understand. “If it’s a friendship like that, your interactions seem quite strange. Since both sides benefit, why does he insist on competing with you and proving himself superior?”
Jiang Chengyuan glanced sideways, saying nothing.
Ding. The elevator door opened.
Jiang Chengyuan walked out. “He’s an Alpha. Just remember to keep your distance.”