BF Chapter 3

After driving for a while, Zhan Shili asked, “Shall I take you home now?”

Xu Shen looked out at the night view beyond the window. “Let’s go for a drive.”

Keeping his eyes on the road as he drove, Zhan Shili asked casually, as though making small talk, “You’ve been back for a few days now, are you adjusting alright?”

Xu Shen’s gaze shifted to him, and after looking at him for a moment, said, “I thought Mr. Zhan wouldn’t care about something like that.”

Zhan Shili said, “Didn’t you just call me Nic?”

“Nic,” Xu Shen corrected himself, “you’re not quite what I imagined.”

Without turning his head, Zhan Shili asked, “How am I different?”

“You saw my eldest brother fall to his death, yet you don’t seem flustered at all,” Xu Shen said. “You didn’t even call my father.”

“Neither did you,” Zhan Shili replied.

Xu Shen shook his head slightly: “That’s different. I’ve only known him for two days, and he feels more like a stranger to me.”

“I didn’t need to make a call,” Zhan Shili said. “The police would notify them soon enough, and I don’t want to invite unnecessary trouble.”

Xu Shen chuckled softly: “You’re not going to ask why I just happened to be there?”

Zhan Shili asked offhandedly, “Why?

Xu Shen said, “I was meeting a friend for drinks at the bar.”

Zhan Shili nodded, showing no curiosity.

Xu Shen changed the subject: “Nic, how long have you been my dad’s assistant?”

Zhan Shili switched on the turn signal: “Not very long, I was only transferred to the boss’s side last year.”

“Then you must be very capable. Someone as young as you getting to work beside my father… he must trust you quite a bit,” Xu Shen said, seemingly implying something. “He definitely doesn’t know what you’ve done behind his back.”

The car stopped at a red light. Zhan Shili turned to look at him and asked steadily, “What have I done behind his back?”

Meeting his eyes, Xu Shen found himself thinking that this man was more handsome when he smiled; when he looked at someone with a smile, his gaze became deeper, almost affectionate.

He countered with, “What do you think?”

Zhan Shili showed little reaction: “I don’t know.”

Too lazy to continue, Xu Shen merely smiled and looked away.

An hour later, Xu Shen received a call from home telling him that something had happened and urged him to go back immediately. Simultaneously, Zhan Shili also received a message instructing him to go to the Xu Family estate.

“So you really didn’t need to make that phone call. They found out that quickly,” Xu Shen remarked jokingly after hanging up.

Zhan Shili reminded him, “The police have already gone to the estate. They’ll probably ask everyone to give a statement. Think carefully about what you’re going to say later.”

Xu Shen asked him, “Nic, are you worried about me?”

Zhan Shili replied, “I’m the one who brought you back, so it’s my responsibility to take care of you.”

Xu Shen tilted his head slightly: “I thought you had forgotten what you said before.”

Zhan Shili paused for a moment. He knew Xu Shen was referring to that time in New York, when he had promised to help him deal with any trouble, and only then had Xu Shen agreed to take his business card and return here.

But after that, someone else had taken over the matter.

Zhan Shili explained simply that it wasn’t that he had gone back on his word; after their meeting, Xu Shiji handed over the matter of recognizing his son to another assistant, Assistant Liu, so it had been someone else who remained in contact with Xu Shen ever since.

“When I gave you my business card, I told you to contact me anytime if you needed anything, but you never looked for me again, either.”

Xu Shen said, “I thought that was just you being polite.”

Meeting the slightly reproachful look in Xu Shen’s eyes, Zhan Shili shifted his gaze back to the road. “It wasn’t.”

Xu Shen raised an eyebrow slightly, and the conversation ended there.

Leaning back into his seat, he turned his head: reflected faintly in the car window was the silhouette of Zhan Shili’s profile—a smooth, perfect curve from his forehead to the tip of his nose and then to his jaw. The outwardly gentle temperament he presented failed to conceal the indifference at his core, yet a simple “It wasn’t” was enough to make people hooked.

Xu Shen watched quietly for a moment before the corners of his lips curved upward.

By the time the car returned to the Xu family estate, it was nearly midnight. The two entered one after the other. The place was already in chaos, so no one noticed that they had come back together.

After receiving the news, Xu Shiji had been so furious he fainted. The family doctor had already been called over. His second son, Xu Ziren, had accompanied Xu Zijie’s wife to identify the body and had yet to return. The police were taking statements from the rest of the Xu family one by one, asking about Xu Zijie.

No matter how much they had argued or fought before, no one had imagined that someone would actually die. Everyone in the house wore awkward expressions, frightened and at a loss.

Xu Zikang had just finished giving his statement when he turned and saw them come in. His eyes immediately settled on Zhan Shili.

Zhan Shili nodded at him, his eyes seemingly trying to reassure him.

Xu Shen saw the exchange, and his hand inside his pocket brushed over the gold coin he always carried with him, eyelids lowering, concealing the emotions in his eyes.

Zhan Shili went to give his statement, while Xu Shen went upstairs to see Xu Shiji first.

Xu Shiji was leaning against the headboard after having just taken his medicine. There was nothing seriously wrong with him; he had simply suffered the blow of an old man outliving his son. He would need to go to the hospital for a thorough examination afterward, and the doctor advised him to take a break from work and rest for a while.

Xu Shen sat down by the bed and offered a few words of comfort. Xu Shiji let out a long sigh, “You’ve only just come back. I thought our family could finally be reunited, but then your eldest brother was met with this… Truly, this family has been cursed with misfortune.”

Xu Shen remained silent and did not respond.

Xu Shiji’s talk of a happy family reunion did nothing to move him; he had never believed in such things.

As for the family misfortune… they had brought it upon themselves.

A dozen minutes later, Zhan Shili also came up, having completed his statement.

Although Xu Shiji had suffered a shock, his mind remained perfectly clear. He specifically called people over to explain the situation.

Xu Shen stood up to leave and glanced back one last time. Standing before Xu Shiji, Zhan Shili carried himself with calm composure and impeccable propriety. Even standing beside Assistant Liu, who had followed Xu Shiji for more than ten years, he was in no way inferior.

After going downstairs, Xu Shen was called into the sitting room to cooperate with the police in giving his statement.

After sitting down, he asked the policewoman in charge of taking notes, “Madam, was the person who died really my older brother?”

The policewoman said, “According to the identification documents found at the scene, it was indeed Mr. Xu Zijie. Mr. Xu Ziren and Ms. Huang Minli have also confirmed the identity of the deceased just now.”

Xu Shen smiled inexplicably: “What a pity.”

The policewoman’s pen paused, “What do you mean, ‘what a pity’?”

The smile at the corner of Xu Shen’s lips disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, so quickly it almost seemed like an illusion. He said softly, “It’s a pity he died.”

It’s a pity he was killed so easily. What an idiot.

The policewoman frowned slightly, let the remark pass, and began asking her questions.

The investigation was still in its preliminary stages, so the police asked nothing more than the usual basics: his relationship with Xu Zijie, whether Xu Zijie had behaved unusually over the past few days, whether Xu Zijie had contacted him before the incident, and so on.

Xu Shen answered all the questions cooperatively. He was the last person to give a statement, and it was over soon enough.

After the police left, everyone else returned to their rooms one after another, and the lights in the hall were switched off.

The alcohol he’d had earlier had left his stomach feeling somewhat uncomfortable, so Xu Shen went to the kitchen and made himself a cup of honey water. As he came back out, he heard voices coming from outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the side sitting room, so he stopped in the darkness and quietly stood there for a moment.

“Nic, I’m a little scared.”

It was Xu Zikang’s voice, panicked and uncertain: “Why did Eldest Brother suddenly fall from the building? Was it an accident, or suicide… or murder? Why did something like this happen?”

Xu Shen leaned back against the kitchen island behind him, and by the faint light from outside, he saw Zhan Shili standing beneath the porch. He raised his hand and gently patted Xu Zikang’s shoulder as he sat in his wheelchair and said gently, “Let’s wait for the police investigation. Don’t overthink it.”

Xu Zikang said helplessly, “Eldest Brother may have had a bad temper, but he wasn’t a bad person, and he didn’t have any deep grudges with anyone, so how did he just die like this…”

The hand Zhan Shili had resting on his shoulder tightened, bringing him back to his senses. “CCalm down, stop thinking about these things, go upstairs, take some melatonin, and get a good night’s sleep.”

Xu Zikang also realized that he had lost his composure, swallowed, nodded, and leaned over to embrace him.

Xu Shen slowly finished the last of the honey water in his cup; it was a little too cloyingly sweet, and he didn’t like it very much, so he set the empty cup down on the island counter next to him.

As the saying goes, “Do not look at what is improper,” but he clearly had no such self-awareness and kept staring at the two people outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Zhan Shili patted Xu Zikang’s back to calm him down, then drew away and said again, “Go upstairs.”

He pushed Xu Zikang inside, brought him to the elevator, and pressed the ‘up’ button for him.

Xu Shen wanted to make himself another cup of coffee and was searching through the sideboard for coffee beans when another hand suddenly reached out beside him, pulled open a drawer, and took out a bag of coffee beans before handing it to him. “Looking for this?”

Xu Shen glanced back without taking it. “Mr. Zhan, are you still not going home when it’s this late?”

Zhan Shili reminded him, “It’s best not to drink coffee this late.”

Xu Shen took the coffee beans from him, tossed them back inside, and pushed the drawer shut.

“Is it interesting, always prying into other people’s private affairs?” Zhan Shili asked.

“What private affairs?” Xu Shen folded his arms and looked at him with a half-smile. “You and my third brother? What exactly is your relationship? This is my home. I only happened to stumble upon the two of you being intimate, so why don’t you say that the two of you were simply too bold?”

In the dim light, the expression in his eyes was indistinct—they were faintly mischievous, or perhaps reproachful.

Zhan Shili narrowed his eyes slightly. “You’re curious about my relationship with your third brother?”

Xu Shen said, “I’m only asking casually. After all, I’ve only just returned to this family; one of you is my third brother, one is my father’s assistant, and then there are all the others in the family. What kind of relationship each of you has with the others, whether it’s good or bad—it can’t hurt me to understand a little more. Otherwise, if I accidentally lose my life like my eldest brother, I wouldn’t even know how I died.”

Zhan Shili’s tone was slightly subtle. “This is your home, yet you seem to think you’ve entered a dragon’s lair and a tiger’s den.”

Xu Shen did not deny it: “Who knows?”

After several seconds of silence, Zhan Shili said in a low voice, “Whatever you think my relationship with him is, that’s what our relationship is.”

He looked directly into Xu Shen’s eyes, his gaze carrying an overwhelming sense of pressure, intentionally or unintentionally.

After a long moment, Xu Shen suddenly stepped forward, moved close to him, and lowered his voice as though murmuring in a dream. “When you said you would look after me before, did you mean the way you look after Third Brother?”

Zhan Shili did not answer, but silently traced the face so close to his with his gaze—

Hidden within those bright eyes was a seductive, mocking smile: beautiful, alluring, and dangerous.

“Not going to say anything?” Xu Shen persisted. “Or is it a ‘nope’ again?”

Zhan Shili looked at him: “What do you want my answer to be?”

“Nic,” Xu Shen murmured softly, repeating the exact words Xu Zikang had just said, “I’m a little scared.”

Zhan Shili’s voice remained perfectly even. “What are you scared of?”

The lights in the garden slowly flickered and, without warning, went out.

Zhan Shili sensed Xu Shen’s breath drawing closer and, in the darkness, could make out his eyes, brighter than they had been before.

Xu Shen’s gaze flickered, and with no way to tell if he was sincere or merely pretending, he said, “I’m scared of the dark.”

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