Ch11 - One moment of sweetness

Lawyer Wu’s smile instantly froze, his expression becoming undeniably awkward. He had no idea that a random passing comment he said would be heard directly by the person in question.

“My bad, my bad!” He hurriedly apologised, stretching his hand forward towards me, “I’m Jin Shang Law Firm’s lawyer Wu Yi, you’re Laoshi-…. Are you Lawyer Sheng’s friend?” 

I clasped his hand in mine and shook it, “I’m his younger brother.”

He momentarily froze in shock again, the confusion clear as day on his face, and there was a long pause before he withdrew his hand back.

 

 

“Oh, yes… then you, you can wait for him first in the parlour, he should be back very soon.”

It was probably hard for him to understand why a younger brother would bring a rose, symbolic of romantic love on the opening day of his older brother’s law firm and why despite being brothers we didn’t share the same surname. 

That’s fine, later on he’ll discover even more things he wouldn’t be able to understand.

 

After I thanked him, I brought the flowers with me to the parlour, and I sat down for only a short while before the receptionist came in with something to drink.

“Have a cup of tea first, when Lawyer Sheng comes back I’ll let you know.”

The parlour had a huge glass floor to ceiling window, providing the room with ample light and also providing a decent view outside.

 

On the wall was a painting that had splashes of red and black interspersed. It was a triptych, and each panel of the painting had a concentrated section of red submerged by the darkness. The only difference was on the first panel there was quite a structured red dot, then the second panel had it becoming bigger and more distorted, until the final third panel showed something akin to a rotten tomato exploding on the canvas.

I asked the receptionist if she knew what it was, and puzzled, she turned around to take a look at the painting behind her and then shook her head at me.

“A client gifted this to us, perhaps Lawyer Sheng would know.”

 

Once she left the parlour I had nothing to do, so out of boredom I scrutinised the painting in more detail, diligently trying to decipher what the artist wanted to convey, but I was ultimately unsuccessful. 

It appeared that I was not someone who had an innate sense for appreciating art, as no matter how I tried to analyse the painting it just looked like a rotten tomato to me.

“Sir… don’t do this…”

There was a sudden commotion outside the parlour and it sounded like the receptionist and someone else were in some kind of disagreement.

I stood up to see what was going on myself, and just as my hand gripped the door handle, a high pitched shriek accompanied by the loud shattering of glass was heard. 

I instantly pulled the door open and rushed outside, seeing the receptionist pale and in shock standing at the doors, and next to her was a middle aged man, wearing crumpled designer brands.

By his feet were brown glass shards littered all over the floor, his right hand holding the remaining half of a broken beer bottle, the stench of alcohol evident around his body.

“Why did you have to represent that woman!” He screamed, his voice raw with emotions, “I already have nothing left, yet you’re still helping her steal away my paintings! Do you want me to just die? Then no one is going to come out of this alive!”

Wu Yi attempted with great effort to control the man’s emotions, his forehead drenched in sweat, “Mr Liu, please don’t do this, we can talk it out. Ms Sun is free to choose whoever she wants to represent her in her marriage dissolution proceedings. If we weren’t the ones taking this case, it would be someone else representing the plaintiff…” 

“Bullshit!” Mr Liu blurted, bursting into an abrupt fit of anger. “Back when we got married she tricked me into signing a prenuptial agreement, and now I see that she was just waiting for this day to come! Over the years how much help have I given her to establish her career? Now she says she wants a divorce so she’s getting one, she won’t even give me ten million renminbi, and she’s going to steal my paintings, how can she do this to me?”

His hand clutching the beer bottle started to shake violently, and the receptionist reacted with small panicked intakes of breath, quietly retreating a few steps as she picked up the phone, ready to make a phone call.

 

“Put the phone down!” Mr Liu caught the actions of the receptionist and barked his demand as he ran towards her.

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The receptionist let out a shrill scream, throwing the phone away and reflexively hugging her head as she dropped, crouching on the floor. 

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I suddenly had a random thought – ‘ex-inmate witnesses an act of injustice and bravely jumps into the situation to help’, now this would probably make a good positive headline for the news.

“Ah… I…. I….” Under the influence of alcohol Mr Liu had acted on his emotions and lashed out, but now that he actually saw blood being spilt, he had sobered up and now trembled with fear, “I didn’t mean it!”

His lips shivered slightly and terrified by what he had done, he tugged out the glass bottle which he had stabbed into my arm. 

Fuck……

I cursed inwardly, feeling the pain scorch my insides. The grey woolen cardigan I was wearing was quickly dyed red as my blood flowed outwards freely, and formed intersecting patterns of red and grey.

“Quick… call an ambulance!” Wu Yi was still white as a ghost, “Mr Liu, you’ve committed an offense against the law, I must ask you to put down your weapon now!”

“I didn’t do it on purpose! I didn’t mean it!” Mr Liu clearly was still in shock, and apart from this phrase he was unable to express anything else. 

Seeing him in this cowardly state made me furious inside, and just when I was figuring out how I should disarm him, a pair of pale hands came out from behind Mr Liu, with clearly formed joints and muscles. A large palm wrapped around Mr Liu’s wrist that was holding the glass bottle at inconceivable speed, and the other hand gripped his throat.

Mr Liu only had time to let out a scream that sounded like a pig getting slaughtered, as the broken glass bottle fell from his hands, and he fell to the ground with an arm restrained behind his back.

Sheng Min Ou arrived without anyone noticing, but once he actually appeared he easily overpowered everyone else and took command of the situation. He disregarded Mr Liu’s distressed howls and pressed a knee against his back, then grabbed his hair and forced him to raise his head.

“Mr Liu, now you might have another charge coming your way that you’ll have to deal with.” Sheng Min Ou whispered next to his ear. 

Mr Liu had long since sobered up and terrified, tears rolled down his face as he shivered uncontrollably, “S-Sorry…. I didn’t….”

After repeating ‘I didn’t mean to do it’ several times Sheng Min Ou ran out of patience and didn’t allow Mr Liu to say another word as he shoved the man’s head to the ground.

Everyone at the scene could hear Mr Liu’s head thud heavily against the ground, making a similar sound to when a wooden club broke the surface of a drum from hitting it too hard. Seeing this, everyone fell silent, and as a result Mr Liu was knocked out cold.

“Mr Lu, are you okay? You’re losing a lot of blood!” The receptionist exclaimed and hurriedly picked up the dropped phone, “I’ll call for an ambulance now!” 

I grabbed her, stopping her in her actions, “It’s only a small injury, no need to call the ambulance, I can treat this myself.”

I pushed up my sleeves to take a better look, and whilst it wasn’t a big wound, it was quite deep, and I had no idea whether there were any remnant shards of glass embedded inside. It evidently wouldn’t be something I could treat, and I’ll still have to head to the hospital later myself.

 

“How can we leave it like this?” The receptionist looked as if she was about to tear up, as she added, “If this had cut through a tendon or a blood vessel and affects how well you can use your hand later then what are we going to do? It’s still bleeding, it must have cut across an important vein! I’ll call the ambulance now, please just wait a moment!”

My head hurt slightly as I replied, “It’s really okay…” 

“Wu Yi, go get the first aid kit.” Sheng Min Ou took off his tie, cuffing Mr Liu’s hands against his back with it, and only after confirming the knot would steadily hold did he get up from the ground.

His suit, which was always pristinely pressed down showed a few unavoidable creases, and strands of his hair fell in front of his face, obscuring his right eye.

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Perhaps it was the commotion from just then that had made him feel slightly hot, or maybe the tightness of his formal wear made him uncomfortable, as once he got up he unbuttoned the first two buttons on his dress shirt.

Like that, his prominent collarbones which had always been hidden under his formal attire finally appeared in front of everyone. 

I stared at the bones which jutted out for a long time, not bothering to cover up the intensity of my gaze.

Wu Yi quickly came back with the first aid kit and Sheng Min Ou took it and walked towards a conference room. After pushing the door open, he turned back to look at me, and seeing me still having not moved, he furrowed his eyebrows in impatience.

“Do you need me to carry you over?”

I was caught off guard, then realised he was going to help me treat my wound. Instantly, I had a feeling that this was surely too good to be true. 

“Well, no need for that.” I maintained pressure on my wound and walked nimbly towards him.

I sat on the chair and only concentrated on Sheng Min Ou as he took various appurtenances out of the first aid kit, including bandages, disinfectants, gauzes and a pair of disposable gloves intended for medical use.

With refined ease, he quickly slipped on the pair of gloves and half knelt in front of me, using a pair of pliers to hold the gauze pads, and then started to clean the immediate area around the wound.

On the floor of the conference room was a white circular rug, which was now sullied by my blood, as droplets of red bloomed like flowers. 

“Sorry, I dirtied your carpet.”

His eyes were casted downwards, remaining focused on treating my wounds as if he didn’t have time to deal with me.

I plucked a rose from the bouquet on the table and gave it to him.

“For you, congratulations on starting your own firm.” 

Still no reaction.

Bored at his lack of response, I took back the rose and let the petals linger at the corner of my lips, “How come you can encounter life threatening situations in this line of work, considering this why don’t you just hire me as your bodyguard? I’m very inexpensive, just one kiss and you can completely have me.”

 

Maybe it was the dangerous situation that we had just faced which spiked the adrenaline levels in my body. Before, I already had the guts to do things, but now I simply had no fear.

I curled my toes and with a feather-light touch brushed it back and forth the place between his legs, in an attempt to test his limits. 

“Oof..” In almost the next instant, an excruciating pain shot up from my arm as if it was being torn in two pieces, the plier holding the gauze was now firmly pressed into my would.

My facial expressions were distorted from the pain, and I hurriedly removed my foot.

He lifted his eyes, the corners of his lips curving downwards into a slight frown, as he refused me with no room for ambiguity, “No need.”

I started this by sexually harassing him, and he returned the favour with violence. 

Excellent, how very fair.

“I was wrong I was wrong.” I used the rose to pat the back of his hand as I begged for mercy, “I apologise.”

He brushed the rose away with a flick of a hand, and then with practiced ease unravelled the bandages and wrapped up the wound.

“What does the triptych on your wall stand for?” I asked, no longer wanting to carelessly provoke him and attempting to direct his attention elsewhere. 

He stilled for a second, then turned around to take a glance at the paintings behind his back.

I thought he wouldn’t respond to me, like how he did for the many questions I’ve asked before, leaving me to just entertain myself. However, he actually gave me an answer this time.

“That alcoholic man outside, when he was in his youth he had a very promising career as a painter.”

That person would stumble just walking, and he couldn’t even enunciate his words properly, so it was clear that being in a drunken stupor was a state he was intimately familiar with. Someone like him actually turned out to have been a painter, no wonder he kept talking about his paintings… 

“However, he was unable to grasp the opportunity when it was presented to him. He listened to the desires buried at the depths of his heart, and allowed himself to indulge in it without restraint, intoxicated by the false realities and euphoria that alcohol presented him with.” Sheng Min Ou stood up, taking off the rubber gloves which were dyed red with blood, and threw them into the trash can. “This is a painting from during the peak of his career, his ex-wife gave it to me as a gift to celebrate my firm’s opening, it’s titled Life.”

I looked towards the triptych again and after knowing its name I felt like I had a sudden revelation. To be born, to grow and mature, to experience death –  the three stages essential to life.

Sheng Min Ou also gazed at the paintings, “The red here symbolises the main movement in a musical piece, with black being the coda. Throughout tens of millions of years, life was always a topic which fascinated humanity and provoked much research, however we’ve always been unable to answer the question which has puzzled us for centuries. Sometimes I think to myself, why do humans exist? If it was to just experience feelings of happiness or sweetness, then what about those lives caught up in misery, are they just meaningless?”

I mumbled underneath my breath, suddenly unsure of what I should say. I could only turn the rose around in my hand and try to think of an answer that was positive and would galvanise him to look on the bright side. 

“Even if ninety percent of it was miserable, there would still exist one moment of sweetness.”

“A moment of sweetness?” His voice was laced with a faint ridicule, “A whole lifetime of suffering, just for that one moment of sweetness? I can’t understand.”

 

He wouldn’t be able to understand because he lacked empathy. He would not be able to imagine, just for that one moment of sweetness, how long a person would steadily walk that path of misery for, all alone.

Sheng Min Ou turned back around to look at me, “Something that confuses me even more is… how could you be like a cockroach that refuses to die, harassing me time after time without ever getting tired and without regard for any consequences? What is the difference between what you’re doing now, and what Qi Yang did back then?” 

He really just compared me to that sick psychopath… his words were like drops of acid, dripping straight onto my heart. In an instant, all I could feel was a twisted sense of pain, his acerbic comment cutting straight into me. Even more tragic was that I actually couldn’t defend myself or provide a rebuttal to his points.

Truly, there was no difference between me and Qi Yang.

He was the reflection that looked back at me in the mirror.

I moved my lips and forced myself to smile, “Of course there’s a difference, I call you ‘older brother’”. 

He gazed at me, his expression stoic and calm, “I am not a toy for you two to fight over, it is not as if if you won against him, I will belong to you.”

Perhaps it was because today I acted in a heroic way which slightly bumped up his tolerance for me, so now he wanted to calm his emotions and properly have a conversation with me.

Being able to talk to him peacefully like this made me delighted, but the contents of this conversation really displeased me.

“I have never treated you as a toy.” 

Who would sacrifice ten years of their youth for a mere toy? This toy didn’t even come decked out in gold or silver, and had a foul way of speaking.

“So no matter how I treat you, you don’t plan on giving up?”

Wu Yi knocked on the door outside, saying the police had arrived, but Sheng Min Ou ignored him, his gaze never wavering from me, as he waited for my reply.

I didn’t know why he was asking me this, but I didn’t want to lie to him. 

I handed the rose over to him again, “Maybe one day I’ll give up, but at the moment I still have a lot of gas left in the tank to keep going.”

He looked down at the crimson rose, the red so vibrant it was burning, and took it from me.

My breath caught in my throat, then I saw him throw the rose into the trash can with a flick of a wrist without a trace of cherishing it, before he left, taking large strides as he moved to go outside.

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