Translator: ayszhang
Proofreaders: Luzo, Mecca, Pau, & Red
The Rental Shop Owner ch 15
15
He had gone but perhaps not far. I flung the blanket
away and sprinted out in slippers.
How
could I have just fallen asleep? Fuck me. Why didn’t I strip him naked and tie
him to the bed?
I
knew I wouldn’t be seeing him again if I did not find him this time. He came
back to see me for the last time. He rushed back before his injuries could heal
because he couldn’t leave me hanging. He must have gone to do something big, or
maybe he had already done it?
But
judging from what he said yesterday, he probably hadn’t yet.
I
ran outside as I tried to think with my half-awake head straight until the main
road.
It
was only six or seven in the morning. A few people saw me running around like a
mad man in cotton pajamas in the middle of winter and began pointing and
whispering—which psych ward is this guy from?
I don’t see him. Where did he go?
Shen Bin, you little shit. Damn you. I… I’ll
fucking kill you.
Only
after I crouched down did I notice how cold it was.
I
went back to get dressed, went to the ATM to withdraw some cash and took a taxi
heading to the train station. I had to find him. I asked the driver on the way
how much it cost to go to Shanghai. The driver said twenty-five bucks but the
price was double during the New Year’s season. Habitually, I drove a hard
bargain and struck the deal at thirty-five. I wondered if that rascal also took
a taxi to Shanghai and if he also haggled.
I
called home saying I was going to stock up. “There’s a new release. Super hard
to get. Uh-huh. Yeah. Only in Shanghai. I might not even get it today. Might come
home the day after. I’m staying at my old classmate’s place. Hmm. Yeah,
carpool. Yeah, saves me the money for the trip there.”
I
hung up. I recalled what Binbin had said. He was younger but he considered more.
I
had parents whom I constantly worried about and who lived because of me. He
never thought about long-term for the two of us, so it was not surprising that
he had been so brave and straightforward with his courting… I dozed off
thinking about this.
I
got off at the new bus station in Shanghai. His company and dorm were the only
places to begin the search. A drowning man takes his chances with a straw. It
was the same as it had been before New Year’s. The entire building where the
company had been was closed. The dorm had new tenants.
I
knew finding him was nearly impossible, but I had to do something.
How
could I have let him leave me? How could I have lost him? My parents aside, he
was the dearest person in my life. I had to wait. Even if he committed a crime,
he might run back to me or get locked up again or…
I
sat down at ‘Cockadoodle’ across from his dorm and ordered a half a kilo of
white cut chicken. I ate and I ate. It never seemed to run out. Eating with him
last last time in Shanghai seemed just like yesterday. He had even taken out
his cell… His cell phone!
I
called that number of his that had been out of service for a long time. I was
clutching at that piece of straw.
It
went through. My heart stopped beating.
A
man picked up. His voice was hoarse and he asked me before I could say
anything, “Lookin’ for Shen Bin?”
“Yes.
And you are….”
“Wait
in front of VM Security’s building.”
The
call ended.
I
was a bit stunned. Was it the gangs? All my knowledge on gangs was limited to
movies. The most recent one was The
Longest Nite: Tony Leung peeling nails off and chopping fingers… Brrr.
I
waited for two hours in front of the building I had gone to at noon. No one
came for me and it was so damn cold. I tried calling again—‘the number you have dialed is currently unavailable.’ I had to keep
waiting though, so I bought some bread and hard-boiled eggs at the convenience
store to fill my stomach. Dammit. I was only halfway through that chicken!
Another
two hours passed. This place wasn’t a busy area and it was cold, so there
weren’t many people out on the streets. I looked down at my watch. It was
almost ten o’clock.
Are they blowing me off? Playing a joke on me?
Where’s Binbin?
My
face had gone numb from the wind. Shuffling around did not help. I was just
thinking about buying some more food when a small van pulled over. The door
opened when it passed by. I was pulled in. The door closed. The car left.
It
really was like a movie.
The
A/C inside was very warm. It was probably remodeled. The front was separate
from the back and there were two rows with three seats each row facing each
other with a space in the middle. The one who pulled me in was a tall, lanky
man. He pushed me down in a seat in the front row and sat down beside me.
A
small light flicked on once I sat down and I saw there was a man sitting across
from me. He didn’t look out of the ordinary: buzzcut, small eyes, tall nose, a
bit of freckles on the face, a black tee inside a leather jacket, about thirty
years of age. He didn’t have much of an expression though, so it looked like he
was meditating or something.
“Who’re
you?” He scrutinized me. It was the voice of the man who answered my call.
“I’m
Qian. I’m Shen Bin’s friend.”
“The
one who sell videos?” Still no expression.
“Not
sell, rent…”
“You
the one who got Bin-zi
locked up?”
“No,
I…”
“No?” His small eyes jeered at me but his
face still showed no emotions.
I
didn’t continue.
“What
do ya want Bin-zi for?”
I
remembered what Binbin told me so I kept it to a minimum. “He came back to see
me but then suddenly left so I came looking for him.”
“He
went to see ya, you who made him go in the slammers, instead o’ choppin’ ya
up?” The corners of his lips curved upward.
“I
didn’t do it on purpose. We’re actually on pretty good terms.” My words trailed
off weakly.
He didn’t
look at me anymore and instead began to crack his knuckles—crack, snap, crack…
“Ya
needa tell the truth.” He looked up again and gave me a scare. His eyes were
pinned on me and I felt like I could not catch my breath. I was useless, wasn’t
I?
Was
this the big brother whom Binbin was grateful for?
I
gulped and was about to–
“I
wanna hear the truth,” he reminded me as he crossed his legs.
“Shen
Bin came looking for me on the third day of the New Year, wounded and running a
fever. He left before he got better so I came to check on him.”
He
closed his eyes. I was just about to ask where Shen Bin was when the man beside
me stuck something against my waist. I took a look and it was a gun—a gun!
“Better
be honest with us, punk.”
“I am telling the truth.” My voice shook. I
know, I was spineless but I couldn’t help it.
It
was a gun after all.
The
car came to an abrupt halt. I didn’t know where we were. What were they going
to do? Silence me and throw me into the Huangpu River? What about Shen Bin?
What about him?
“What
do you guys want? I’m just looking for Shen Bin. I want to take him back.”
The
man across me stood up. “He ain’t got parents, or kids or nobody. Where’s he
gonna go?”
“He
keeps getting hurt being a guard and he was just released. I didn’t want him to
get locked up again for doing something bad, so I was going to find him a job.
It-it’d be better than working out here.”
The
man didn’t speak. I had no idea what he was thinking. The gun on my waist had
not moved the whole time and my cotton shirt was sticking to my skin because of
the cold sweat. I thought of my ma and pa. If I died, that would be three lives
gone.
He
still had a blank expression as he stared at me. “Shen Bin came to me today
sayin’ that he doesn’t wanna roll with me no more.”
He doesn’t wanna roll no more? He came back
because he didn’t want to keep doing this? Because of me?
The
man gave the tall guy beside me a look. “Show ‘im what you got there on ya.”
The tall
guy faltered for a second before taking something out from a bag and throwing
it on the floor.
It
was a finger. It was still bloody.
“Bin-zi chopped it off his right hand.” The
man wiggled his index finger. “Without this he can’t shoot, useless. What the
hell did ya do that he’d come back and do this to himself?”
The
thing on the floor was his index finger.
He
had asked me last night, ‘Ge, will
you not like me if I take the bad path?’
I
lunged for his finger. Perhaps it could still be reattached. He had it hard
enough. He couldn’t become crippled on top of that. It was all my fault. It was
all those assholes’ fault!
The
tall guy yanked on my clothes to pull me up. I do not know where I got the
energy from, I even forgot he had a gun, and kept thrashing around, waving my
left hand at him and picking up the finger from the floor with my right.
It
was kind of cold.
Pain
shot through my scalp. The tall guy switched to yanking on my hair. He kneed me
in the stomach and I felt as if my insides were being stirred around. I thought
I was probably not going to make it out alive today. With his cold finger in my
grasp, I suddenly had the thought when the pain was about to kill me, that
maybe, perhaps Binbin wasn’t compliant so they… If not, where did they get the
SIM card? Then I had called at the right time so now they were going to get rid
of loose ends.
Had
I put him in danger again?
Was
he dead?
The
doom overwhelmed me. I clawed at the man pulling on my hair and escaped his
grasp. I headed for the culprit across from me. Yes. Him.
Before
I took one step, something hit my mouth—the grip of the
gun—and knocked out a tooth. I fell to the floor after another kick.
I spat the tooth out. It didn’t even hurt.
That’s right. Binbin, he… He had been killed by them.
He was dead.
Now they were going to kill me.
He
was dead.
I
fell into chaos. Something had snapped in my head. “You scumbags. He was a kid
who never had a single good day in his life and you make him put his life on
the lines for you. There is honour
amongst thieves. Yeah right! Just a bunch of horseshit. You motherfuckers.
You make him sell his life to you by doing him a few favours and then you kill
him when he doesn’t want to keep working for you. You coldblooded bastards. You
damn devils. I curse you, I curse your whole family, all to hell. You bastards.
Motherfuckers. You all burn in hell. Fuck you…”
I
don’t know what I said. I probably had never screamed so many profanities in my
life. I don’t think they could hear me clearly either. I cried while I cursed
them. I cried especially loud. I bawled my eyes out and my face was wet with
tears and snot. I had never cried so much in my life either. I felt so bad that
I wanted to tear my insides out. I had wanted to spoil him with my love for the
rest of my life.
It’s all nothing—my ma and pa, the rental shops, the bad and the
good—none of it matters, as long as you’re alive.
I
held onto his finger.
I’ll do anything as long as you’re alive. I
don’t need anything else.
As long as you’re alive.
Wahhhhhhhh.
No
one gave a damn about me as I screamed and wept.
I
was pulled up by the hair. The devil was crouching right in front of me,
smiling.
“Why
ya howling like that? Someone lost their mommy and daddy?”
You fucking son of a bitch.
I
cried so much that I couldn’t think clearly and I swung my fist out. And I
think I actually hit him since he covered his mouth. Alright. I got him.
Then,
I got hit on the back of my head. My nose knocked onto the floor. There was
something warm. It was bleeding.
“The
fuck you howling for? The boss ain’t said Bin-zi is dead,” the tall guy spat.
“Get
out first,” the devil demanded.
Not
dead. He wasn’t dead.
I
was stupefied.
I
squeezed the finger that had become a bit warm. It was still reattachable. It
was reattachable within twenty-four hours.
Wait
a second. I remembered when Binbin licked his fingers when he was eating
chicken, his fingers were long and slender. When I fucked him, I had held his
hand under mine; it was longer than mine. But the finger in my hand now was
short and fat. Also, there were thick calluses. Binbin didn’t have any. His
fingers were smooth.
I
threw the finger on the ground and yelled at the devil who sat back down. “This
isn’t Binbin’s finger. What did you do to him?”
The
man just laughed. His face was swollen from my punch and he was laughing.
“How
can you tell?” he asked.
I
slowly propped myself up. I was hurting all over. “What’s it to you? This isn’t
his finger. Where is he?”
“You’re
about to die and you still care about ‘im?”
He lit a cigarette out of nowhere,
took one puff and passed it to me.
What the hell?
But I still took it from him and
took a few puffs which calmed me down.
“You’re,” he paused and continued
when he saw that I was looking at him, “Bin-zi’s
boyfriend, ain’tcha?”
Boyfriend? Was it that obvious? I
turned my head away.
“The fuck you being shy about?”
Would they use me to blackmail Shen
Bin? “I’m his ge. What are you
talking about?”
The man chortled as he lit another cigarette
and sucked on it.
What was so funny? Maybe it was because
I smoked his cigarette, but I kind of thought he might have not been so…
“And here I was thinking to myself.”
He took another cigarette out, lit it and spat out a cloud of smoke.
“All these years I’ve been in the
South, hmmph, I ain’t never seen a real man. Not one had guts. Shen Bin, though,
he got guts.”
“My illness started actin’ up in the
slammer and he saved me. I told ‘im I could bust ‘im out and in exchange, he’d
work for me outside. He said no way. Then when I found out ‘bout his shit
afterwards, I got someone to get rid of that piece of trash. He still didn’t
wanna work for me though. Tsk, good for ‘im!”
Judging from his expression, he
really thought highly of Binbin.
“But soon, outta nowhere, he told me
he’d work for me and asked me to bust ‘im out ASAP. I guessed he wanted to take
revenge on ya ‘cause you visited him that one time.”
“Boy, it took a long time. Took
lotsa effort too, gettin’ him out. Had to set the place on fire and then put it
out and send out bribes, the whole works. He went back home after he got out
but I ain’t seen him take no revenge.”
I bit my lips.
The little brat. The little brat.
It was all for me.
“He’s helped me lots. Took a bullet
for me just before New Year’s. Saved my ass again.”
He blew out lots of rings of smoke.
The car wasn’t big to begin with and the air became foggy. He rolled down the
window. It was pitch black outside but I could still see that we were
definitely by the river.
After a while, he turned to look at
me again, studying me. “What’s so good about ya? Is fuckin’ ya better than
fuckin’ a bitch? What does he see in ya?”
His words made me feel
uncomfortable. Dammit. What was the big deal?
“I owe ’im. He’s like a brother. I
won’t let ’im follow me anymore.” He rolled the windows back up and came up to
me. He grabbed my jaw roughly and stared into my eyes. “You needa stick with ’im
from now on. Be good to ‘im. He ain’t got family. He only got himself.”
My eyes got wet. Maybe this man was
actually real to him. His eyes were filled with sorrow when he said ‘he only
got himself.’
I nodded furiously.
He had gotten off the car too and
soon, he and the tall guy went back on. The tall guy even patted me on the head.
“Sorry, Bin-zi’s loverboy.”
I got abandoned by the river.
I was aching all over and my
consciousness was staticky like I was dreaming. They probably had originally
planned to kill me.
I couldn’t stand up so I just stayed
there for a while. Soon, he came.
He hoisted me up and began crying
when he saw how messed up I was.
I realised we both were crybabies.
I grabbed his hand and studied it.
There was a new wound on his right index finger.
“Brother said whoever didn’t wanna
go with him can just pretend to not know him after New Year’s but he’d have to
get rid of his trigger finger. I-I’d planned to… he’s a real man so I’d wanted
to go but… And when I brought the knife down, he stopped me.”
I held him tight.
Everything you did was for me.
“What did you all do for him?”
He
took a moment to gather his thoughts before telling his story.
That
boss had wanted to go clean and run a security company but it was still
borderline illegal. He had a wife in the Northeast but always kept it a secret
because he didn’t want people to hurt her. Then, last August, his wife got
murdered. He decided to go back north to avenge her.
“Yannoe,
Sister was pregnant. They raped her before killin’ her and even took pictures.
After they killed her, they ripped out the baby. Brother and Sister were really
close.”
“Those
people knew Brother would hunt them down so they hired a gunman to gun him
down. That’s why I became his bodyguard.”
“Brother
didn’t let me go with him and he kicked everyone close to him away. I just
found a bunch of murderers and people with nothin’ left to lose to go up north
with him.”
I
didn’t tell him everything. I think the boss originally wanted him to go along.
He didn’t have anything left to lose either, and he was fierce and willing to
risk his life. The boss knew he was a loyal guy so he said that on purpose to
let him walk right into the trap.
But
the boss had a sorry life too, for sure.
He had
let us go in the end. His eyes had some humanity left in it.
“Ge, he called sayin’ that he was sorry.
He didn’t know you were my…”
“Boyfriend.”
I finished his sentence. I felt absolutely wonderful seeing him blush. ‘Boyfriend,’
so what? No harm came to that title.
“Thank
goodness I was your boyfriend. If not, they would’ve butchered me into pieces.”
He
pursed his lips. “If he killed you, I’d fuck him over.”
Then
it occurred to me that the boss probably let me go because he knew that Binbin
would.
But
I was really happy and the tiny bit of jealousy that I had towards the boss
disappeared without a trace.
Heehee. The brat only liked me.
Heehee.
Author’s note
It’s ‘happy-happy’ from here on out. Teehee.
________________
ayszhang: Phew! We've made it past the highest point of the rollercoaster. For those who didn't see the announcement on Cold Sands, I've finished with this story and will be starting to translate a story whose title I translated as Till Death Do Us Part.
Thank you Anon-san for making a beautiful cover for us! And thank you Dairytea for editing it <3 If you made a cover for us, feel free to send it to us. We will compile them for the PDF version.
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The Rental Shop Owner - English Translation by ayszhang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
wahhhh ;A; u got me there~~~
ReplyDeletethank god there's nothing come between them..
thank god binbin not dead...
thank god, they can still be together..
most of all, thank god both of them are still alive and kicking XD
Huuuff thanx outhor you didn't kill binn bin hehehe
ReplyDeleteoh man that was a pretty intense car ride for Qian haha. BinBin and Qian are just too cute together. Can't wait for their happy life to start!
ReplyDeleteFor a little bit, my heart was pounding hard for Q of his van ride situation but it turns out OK at the end of the ride.
ReplyDeleteNow, my heart all warm and fuzzy for the lovey dovey couple.
A lots of *big hug* to you. AZ, thank-you for the happy chapter. Can't wait for the new series.
I loooove that cover, very niceee, goes to steal it, as usual XDD
ReplyDeleteAnyway, loved the chapter, this chapter could be counted a an happy ending for me, but i want mooore :)
When he was eating chicken >< my stomach started to groal,
umm, and that ride, shows how much Jiying loves Binbin.. it must have been the best ride he'd ever got in his whole life XD
i liked the boyfriend thing, did you just know that you two were boyfriends??
ahaa, guess these two are even slower than Han Xin, oh wait, Han Xin is just to stubborn to admit the truth, until he finally loses it, then he knows it' value (henting at him leaving Murong)
uhh, but raping the pregnant women and then ripping the boy out!! aghh, that's just so heartless, who'd be so cruel to do such thing.. sends me shivers ><
Can't wait for more happy chapters of this, annnd i love the title of the new project, keep going ayszhang, i wonder how good the next project will be, thanks for translating soo much stories for us, i'll see you soon ;)
just like you, i'm feeling al fuzzy from inside, it was a nice chapter..
ReplyDeleteLet me join you guyss *bigger hug* ^^
I know >u< so sweet
ReplyDelete:') Yeah! Thank goodness!!! <3
ReplyDeleteAwww you're welcome <3333
ReplyDeleteXD I know~ the next chapters are so cute >.<
ReplyDelete*big gigantic group hug*
ReplyDeleteYup! It was a rollercoast all right! XD But I like it <3 Now they're gonna live (relatively) normal lives
>o< you're welcome~~~
ReplyDeleteHehe I know! Qian totally fell for Binbin and there's no saving him now!
.
TT^TT Don't remind me of CS...I'm translating ch 41 now and *sniffs* ToT I can't...
.
Omg yes, the new story is so beautiful <333 I'm sure you'll love it. And the smut is sooo hot *nosebleeds*
Heeheeheeheeheheeheheheheheh *creepy grin* June 18~21 release everyday└(^o^)┘ Yaaaay Thank you guys so much !!(*^0^*)
ReplyDelete*returns creepy grin with even creepier grin* >;D
ReplyDeleteHmm... So ch41 is so sad. Than Does it mean MY did not retreat but was playing Xin to relax before attacking?
ReplyDeleteI'm not telling youuuuuuu (//A\\)
ReplyDeleteMy wild guess is that maybe ZH will die or be crippled or goes insane or maybe either HX or MY will be crippled or goes insane (Oh boy, there goes my so many insane guesses).
ReplyDeleteSince AZ mum the words, I guess that we will have to be patiently wait for it because it is coming real soon; however, be prepared to have a box of Kleenex next to you.
Will they both die?!? Lol. If one dies then I prefer they both die. They can be together in death like the butterfly lovers *tears*
ReplyDeleteturns out vanilla.....#sigh #loveiseverywhere
ReplyDeletedoes that mean, Murong yu kills Han XIn??
ReplyDeleteor Han XIn kills Murong Yu??
Or they both comit suicide ?!!!!!!!!!!
.
.
.
back to the death issue again ?! sighh..
yepp, best death in the world T^T
ReplyDeleteYUou're soo insane.. but you'll never beat at that, youkeep being the pervert and i keep being the psycho, we got a deal?
ReplyDelete*goes to the shop, buys the kleenex, goes back home, sits waiting.....*
D: why does it sound like you don't like it
ReplyDeleteSince you die again, do you want to be bury?
ReplyDelete;D yeah it has a slow-ish build up to the smut but the build up is so beautiful too <3333
ReplyDeleteWaaaahhhhhh!
ReplyDeleteThis chapter almost made me cry, then- then... Then it made me happppyyyyy >.<
Like, my eyes were getting moist then those last two lines XD
Mannnn, that was a good read <3
"Heehee. The brat only liked me." I DON'T KNOW WHY BUT THAT WAS TOUCHING!
*looks at release dates*
woah woah woah woah!
A release 4 days in a row starting on Friday!? I'm gonna love this week! XDDD
Thank you :3
I couldn't read this chapter on the day you released it unfortunately, I have to start getting to bed early lately (since this stuff comes out at 10pm for me lol) :P
>u< I know it was so sweet and cute~ and there's more where that came from!
ReplyDelete.
Aww~ We can't accommodate everybody unfortunately :( but better late than never XD
Yeus! The cover is so nice and purdy *purrs like a cat* OuO
haahhahaha love it, it's just all my prediction went wrong.....never thought that they would have this sweet vanilla love considering their bacground and the way they met......am not good at become a psychic it seems 😂
ReplyDeleteXDD Ah~ I see! That's why you're sighing hahaha. I thought you were disappointed with how it turned out.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the chapter really nice story!!
ReplyDeleteSO SCARED AT FIRST... DAMN. I HAD MY HEART OUT OF MY MOUTH LITERALLY.
ReplyDeleteBut it's all good in the end and I couldn't be more than happiest ever through out the series.
❤
❤
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome :D
ReplyDelete