Chapter 5: Love rival and competitor 1 (1/2)
Chapter 5: Love rival and competitor (1)
The whole world is like a pyramid. The people at the bottom of the pyramid are akin to worker ants who have to slog while the people at the top of the pyramid are like gods, looking down at the pitiful ordinary folks who have to struggle to make their own fortunes.
With a cigar clasped between two fingers, Ivanov took a deep inhale before he blew out a mouthful of smoke steadily. The translucent smoke broke apart and dissipated quickly against the window pane of the hotel.
A single hand in his pant pocket, this man with the distinctive looks of an Eastern European stood at the topmost floor of a hotel in The Bund*, Shanghai. His icy pale azure eyes quietly took in the extravagant and modern night view.
Regardless of whether you are at the top or at the bottom of the pyramid, it is ultimately difficult to escape death. The only problem is however, Chen Zhang An’s death was too sudden.
With eyes blue like the icy artic floor, Ivanov’s pale golden hair shone with a cold metallic luster in the light of the dying sun. In this place that is Chen Zhang An’s hometown, he couldn’t help but reminisce about their past.
When he first met Chen Zhang An, he was just a kid who was barely ten; still wearing stockings, leather shoes and suspender pants.
When the USSR fell, there was a large number of arms traffickers in the Ukraine. Among them was a Chinese man named Chen Zhang An.
The young Ivanov then would sit on the rug in this house and play with his toy guns. Occasionally, he would sneak a peek in the direction where a raven-hair man was having a business meeting with his father.
The Chen Zhang An from more than two decades ago was a young, virile and vigorous man. With jade-adorned fingers, he would roll his cigar, releasing asoft rustling sound. That sound was like millions of ants crawling on Ivanov’s chest, a sensation both tingling and numbing.
The man who was rumored to be of fallen nobility, likes smoking a cigar with ephemeral white smoke pouring slowly from his mouth. His pair of onyx eyes glinting with blood-red light resembles those of the devil Ivanov sees in his dreams.
It was from that moment that Ivanov knew that this man named Chen Zhang An was a devil, one that can seduce people into his bidding.