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 a soft 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.

‘About Chen Zhang An, you have my deepest condolences.’

Upon hearing footsteps stopping a short distance from him, Ivanov turned to face the gloomy and cold man standing hidden in the shadows - Lu Feng.

'You are not worthy to speak his name.’ His hard chilly voice sounded like metal covered in ice and snow during winter. This man is exactly like his name, be it the way he speaks or the way he acts - like the cutting edge of a blade, its sharpness is intimidating.**

An overtly sharp knife could be used to kill enemies, but carelessness could also mean hurting oneself.

He is curious to know: When Chen Zhang An first raised Lu Feng the lunatic, did he ever imagine there would be a day when he would be wounded by the very weapon he groomed?

'Now this is interesting. You certainly sound like you respect him.’ As Ivanov smoked his cigar, his pale blue eyes held a taunting laugh as he looked at Chen Zhang An’s successor.

In the early days when he first knew Chen Zhang An, there was a man named Chen Zhang Le beside him. That was Chen Zhang An’s younger brother, a beautiful man who seemed elegant, pure and gentle.

Such a pure and soft-hearted man was not suitable to dabble in the trade of arms dealing. Twenty years ago, Ivanov thought that for such a man to follow Chen Zhang An willingly, was because they were brothers.

But when Ivanov had his first woman, when he passed the springs of his youth, he knew then that the gaze Chen Zhang Le had for Chen Zhang An from the start to the end was not one of merely worship and trust but also of deep infatuation.

He disliked Chen Zhang Le because Chen Zhang An always treated him very well.

10 years ago, Chen Zhang Le took a bullet for his brother and died. It was also then that the person beside Chen Zhang An became this fellow named Lu Feng.

Compared to Chen Zhang Le, Ivanov disliked Lu Feng even more.