Chapter 5 - Parallel Lines

Translator's Note:

Hello, I hope you've all been doing well.

Here you go, and I wish you a good read.

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Beneath all their civility and education, men are inherently savage. No matter how refined their manners or how cultured their upbringing, once pushed beyond a certain threshold, their primal instincts would surface—craving blood.

 

And for men like Shuai Zhaomin, whose temper is naturally volatile and who barely manages to hide it beneath a sheep's facade, the result is even more explosive. Years of suppression had left him with a bloodlust far beyond the norm.

 

After Tengshe's subordinates cleared out the restaurant with alarming efficiency—overturning the tables, drawing their guns, and scattering the patrons—only a handful of people remained. Those who stayed either huddled in distant corners or, like Miranda, his ever-capable secretary, dutifully held onto his jacket.

 

"May I leave now?" Miranda raised her hand, her tone cautious but assertive as she tried to secure her right to flee before the situation escalated further.

 

"Go ahead." Shuai Zhaomin's dark eyes never left Tengshe's smirking face, his gaze boring into the man with a fiery intensity. He had no intention of involving the innocent, especially someone as indispensable as Miranda.

 

"I've heard a rumor," Tengshe began in deliberately measured Chinese, his tone as languid as a purr. "They say you joined the boxing club in college. Even now, you still frequent the gym weekly for practice. Is that true?"

 

That infuriating smirk was grating enough to make Shuai Zhaomin's fists clench, his taut muscles emitting faint creaks as he suppressed the urge to strike.

 

Tengshe, a man clearly hardened by a lifetime of street brawls, found amusement in the lawyer's simmering anger. His reddish-brown eyes gleamed with a cruel light as he quipped, "But don't take it too seriously, Attorney Shuai. This is just a warm-up. No need to get hurt."

 

"Afraid of losing?" Shuai Zhaomin shot back, his lips curving into a sardonic smile. If it was a battle of bravado, he was well-versed—words were his arsenal, after all.

 

Tengshe laughed, a guttural sound that carried a trace of menace. "Hardly. I just worry about injuring you—it might affect your courtroom performance next week."

 

"An admirable sentiment," Shuai Zhaomin replied, his tone razor-sharp. "But if you ended up locked up in a cell, wouldn't that save you even more trouble? Don't you agree?"

 

"Perhaps." Tengshe casually plucked the cigarette from his lips, ignoring the restaurant's no-smoking sign. With a flick of his fingers, he crushed it against the luxurious silk tablecloth, leaving a charred smear behind. "Shall we count to three and start?"

 

"Miranda, you count," Shuai Zhaomin said firmly. To back down now would be cowardly, and he wasn't about to lose face in front of this arrogant man.

 

"Uh… right. Okay." Miranda, still clutching his jacket, retreated to a safe distance and cleared her throat nervously. "One… two… th—ah!"

 

The moment "three" left her lips, both men lunged, their fists cutting through the air with a force that made the final syllable vanish into oblivion.

 

"Fuck!" Shuai Zhaomin snarled as Tengshe's first blow struck his left shoulder with the force of a sledgehammer. The pain radiated through his joint, sharp and unrelenting, and sent him staggering into a nearby table.

 

With a loud crash, the table overturned, its contents scattering as Shuai Zhaomin struggled to steady himself. But before he could fully recover, another punch was already flying toward his face, the speed and power behind it making it impossible to dodge.

 

His glasses slipped askew as he bent backward against the table's incline, narrowly avoiding the strike. The fist skimmed past his cheek, close enough to ruffle his hair, before smashing into the table behind him with a deafening crack.

 

"That all you've got?" Tengshe taunted, a wolfish grin stretching across his face. Shuai Zhaomin forced a mocking laugh in response, even as pain buzzed through his skull like an electric current.

 

"Relax. My legs are just as effective as your fists." Shuai Zhaomin countered, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

 

Exploiting his opponent's height advantage, he delivered a fierce kick aimed directly at Teng She's most vulnerable spot—a move born not of desperation but of calculated precision. And absolutely not—he told himself—a petty revenge for what he'd glimpsed the day before. Absolutely not.

 

"You bastard!" Tengshe barked, his reddish-brown eyes narrowing with fury. He attempted to dodge, but Shuai Zhaomin's foot connected with his inner thigh, eliciting a grunt of pain as the taller man stumbled backward.

 

"Jerk!" Shuai Zhaomin spat, no longer holding back either his words or his fists.

 

Seizing the opportunity, he leaped forward with a powerful right hook that landed squarely on Tengshe's jaw. The collision of bone and muscle produced a satisfying crunch, the pain and exhilaration merging into an intoxicating rush that shot straight to Shuai Zhaomin's head.

 

"Damn, I've been holding that in for way too long!" he growled.

 

The sheer force of his punch sent Tengshe reeling several steps back, sweat and saliva flying in the air. Shuai Zhaomin pressed his advantage, following up with a swift left hook aimed at his opponent's chin.

 

But just as the blow was about to land, Tengshe's hand shot out like a vice, catching Shuai Zhaomin's wrist mid-swing. Using the momentum against him, Tengshe yanked him forward, sending the lawyer crashing to his knees with a sharp thud that echoed through the empty restaurant.

 

Pain shot through Shuai Zhaomin's kneecaps as they collided with the floor, sharp enough to draw beads of sweat from his forehead. Despite the discomfort, he lifted his gaze, locking eyes with Teng She's bloody but smirking face.

 

"You're impressive for an amateur," Tengshe remarked, his deep voice tinged with a dangerous excitement.

 

Without warning, he lashed out with a brutal kick aimed at Shuai Zhaomin's chest. Shuai barely had time to shield himself with one arm.

 

The impact of the heavy sole, accelerated by gravity, smashed past his defense effortlessly. A sound like the splintering of chicken bones was faint but unmistakable. Pain, sharp and immediate, raced through him before his mind could fully register it. His body bent backward violently under the force of the kick.

 

Shuai Zhaomin then heard a choking, gasping cough, only to realize a moment later that it had come from him. It wasn't until he realized it came from his own throat that he noticed the ceiling above him was swaying, drifting in and out of focus.

 

The pain coursing through his body seemed to infect his mind, pounding violently at his temples. His blood roared like it was boiling.

 

Damn it… he'd lost.

 

"Attorney Shuai, it seems the only use for you now is as a bulletproof vest."

 

The man towering over him looked far too relaxed, as though he'd just finished a refreshing workout. A cigarette dangled from his full lips, the flame flickering as he lit it. One long leg was planted on either side of Shuai Zhaomin's thighs, pinning him to the floor. From above, the man looked down with a smug, almost leisurely expression.

 

Even now, Shuai Zhaomin's sharp aesthetic sense couldn't help but acknowledge something about the scene. The bruised face, the split lip clinging to that cigarette, and the faint swelling from his punches—all of it gave the man a wild, unrestrained beauty. It was infuriating.

 

If anything, it emphasized one thing: the man was a scoundrel of the highest order.

 

Shuai Zhaomin tried to summon a sneer, but the moment he moved his lips, a sharp, searing pain shot through his face, making the nerves in his entire head spasm. Whatever expression he ended up making must have been laughable because the man above him chuckled, unreserved.

 

Fuck! Laugh all you want now—he'd find plenty of ways to make him pay later!

 

"Mr. Brelini…" He gritted out the name, his voice hoarse as he stared up at the man straddling him.

 

His naturally soft, almost gentle tone in this weakened state came across as something else entirely—a low, involuntary moan. The man raised an eyebrow, his crimson-brown eyes narrowing slightly. Exhaling a lazy puff of smoke in Shuai Zhaomin's face, he let out a faint hum of acknowledgment.

 

"In the US, you should know better than to provoke a lawyer."

 

Despite every muscle in his face screaming in agony, Shuai Zhaomin forced himself to smile—that same polite, refined curve of the lips he always wore.

 

And then—damn it! Just because his upper body was incapacitated didn't mean his legs were useless. If he couldn't win outright, he wasn't above fighting dirty!

 

With a swift, forceful motion, his knee rammed against the side of Tengshe's leg—a vulnerable spot no matter who you were. The unexpected strike sent the larger man reeling, his balance faltering as he nearly fell forward. His palm landed mere inches from Shuai Zhaomin's face to break his fall.

 

The smugness on Tengshe's face twisted into a grimace of pain. The honey-bronzed complexion of his face seemed to pale slightly, and beads of sweat trickled down his forehead, dripping onto Shuai Zhaomin.

 

"You—" A pained growl escaped Tengshe's lips. Large drops of sweat mixed with blood as they fell onto Shuai Zhaomin's face and slid down to the floor.

 

"If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me!" Shuai Zhaomin hissed through gritted teeth. His entire body screamed in pain, his left wrist burning as if it were detached from the rest of him, but the satisfaction of that solid strike was enough to make him laugh under his breath.

 

"You… you're ruthless…" Tengshe muttered. Even for someone who'd grown up with fights as his second nature, this blow was heavy. He knelt there for a moment, teeth clenched, his face pale and damp with sweat.

 

For a moment, their faces were so close they could feel each other's breath, their labored panting intertwining. But there was no intimacy in the closeness—only absurdity, an unspoken acknowledgment of how ridiculous the scene was.

 

"Boss!" "Sir!" Chaotic shouts rang out as Tengshe was quickly helped to his feet. Four pistols were instantly trained on Shuai Zhaomin.

 

"Just a warm-up, huh?" Shuai Zhaomin glanced at the guns with weary disdain. He weakly raised his uninjured hand to adjust his glasses and then shoved the barrels aside with a fiery glare. "So, is this how all your 'warm-up exercises' end—with someone as fish food?"

 

"No," Tengshe replied, his breathing slowing as he recovered. Though he was clearly in pain, his crimson-brown eyes still gleamed with a predator's ferocity. "But I do hope we'll work closely together in the future, Attorney Shuai."

 

"Likewise," Shuai Zhaomin replied, his lips curling into a hollow imitation of a smile. Pain radiated from his left wrist, a bone-deep ache that told him it was likely broken.

 

Fuck! Work together, my ass!

 

"I'll have my personal physician take a look at your injuries. How about we schedule something for two days from now, in the afternoon?" Though his arrogant demeanor had slightly tempered, Tengshe's sharp gaze remained as untamed as ever.

 

A masochist, is he? Damn it! If I'd known, I would've pummeled him yesterday while he was "exercising" in bed!

 

"Fine," Shuai Zhaomin muttered. No matter how much he cursed internally, he maintained his composed politeness outwardly.

 

Returning to civility right after a brawl felt deeply unsatisfying, but given his current physical state and the evident disparity in strength, Shuai Zhaomin had no choice but to concede.

 

It seemed there was no escaping this case now.

 

"Let's go." Tengshe shot him another infuriating smile and issued orders in Italian to his subordinates.

 

Though reluctant, the men holstered their guns. Finally, Miranda approached, her expression tight with concern as she began treating his fractured wrist.

 

"Shuai, you might've cracked a rib too. Can we please go to the hospital for a proper checkup?" She didn't wait for his reply. The sound of an approaching ambulance answered for her.

 

Miranda really was perfect.

 

"Miranda, set an appointment with Mr. Brelini for 2 p.m. two days from now. Take care of my leave for these two days." The trip back to Taiwan would have to be postponed. Damn it!

 

"Understood," she nodded firmly, stepping aside as the paramedics arrived to treat him.

 

As Shuai Zhaomin was carried out on a stretcher, his gaze fell on Tengshe, who was perched nonchalantly on the edge of a flowerbed outside. Tengshe, cigarette in mouth, squinted maliciously at Shuai Zhaomin with a smile.

 

Nestled in his arms was a slender, blonde figure, delicately wiping the blood from his face.

 

A mountain bandit… For some reason, the archaic term rose unbidden in Shuai Zhaomin's mind as he was wheeled into the ambulance.

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