The air was still thick with lingering heat and mingled scents,
sweat and ragged breaths weaving together as soundless proof of what had just happened.

Jiang Zhilin leaned against the headboard, hands covering his face,
his chest heaving, still unable to recover from the chaos moments before.

“…Fuck.”

His voice came out hoarse, laden with raw regret.

He shut his eyes, trying to steady his thoughts,
yet the images from just now surged back again and again—
those glistening eyes, trembling fingertips,
the shiver that had raced across his skin.

It wasn’t supposed to spiral out of control like this.

He couldn’t believe it—
that in the middle of an investigation,
he had ended up in a one-night stand with a man whose identity he didn’t even know.

Grinding his molars, the strange flutter in his chest unsettled him.

He had always been disciplined,
drawing strict lines for his own desires.
But just now… it was as if he’d been bewitched,
drowning in that man’s presence, unwilling to let go.

Worse still, he could remember it all—
the heat of that body, the scent clinging to him,
the feel of those lips against his own.

A faint coolness of mint, tinged with smoke,
blended with the alcohol-sweet air of the nightclub—
and in that chaos, it carried a strange, irresistible pull.

—Damn it. Stop thinking about it.

“Shit.”

He cursed under his breath, flinging the blanket aside and forcing himself upright.

On the other side, the man was already nearly dressed.

Shen Yanxing stood beside the bronze-plated bed.
In the darkened booth, neon leaked through the crack of the door, etching a cold blue streak of light across his profile.

His lowered gaze stayed steady on his buttons, fastening them with a composure so precise it was startling—
as if the one panting against the mirrored wall just moments ago was someone else entirely,
and he was merely tidying up the wreckage that body had left behind.

“If you want to write it off as just an accident, I don’t care.”

His husky voice was pressed low, almost indifferent.
When the last pearl button slid into its hole, he flipped his cuff twice, revealing a pale scar along the bone of his wrist—left last week when he blocked a drunkard’s bottle. Now, it was the plainest evidence of guilt.

The lingering warmth and damp marks in the wrinkled sheets seemed to have nothing to do with him.
Even the bruises on his lower back, left by Jiang Zhilin’s grip, were nothing more than routine badges of his work.

From his pocket, he drew a silver cigarette case.
The way he bit down on a menthol stick was as practiced as breathing.

A flick—click.
The lighter’s flame leapt, catching in his lashes and the motionless calm of his pupils.

Amid the faint hiss of burning tobacco, he suddenly leaned past the bed, snatched up Jiang Zhilin’s belt from the floor, and tossed it over.
The metal buckle struck the tiles with a sharp clang, breaking the stagnant air.

“VIP booths are checked every forty minutes.”

He tipped his chin toward the mirrored décor in the ceiling’s corner.
Smoke rings blurred the reflection of his reddened collarbones.

“You’ve got six minutes to get your pants on—
or squeeze in another quick round.”

His tone was as flat as a bartender asking, Whiskey, neat or on the rocks?
He even gestured lazily at Jiang’s open fly with the lit end of his cigarette.

The sticky dampness between his thighs cooled against fresh fabric.
Not a twitch of his brow betrayed it—
as if the sweat-heavy breaths, the rumpled sheets, the nails pressed into his waist were nothing more than another cheap fever dream in neon haze.

Jiang Zhilin glared, hard, his fist sinking into the satin sheets.
The slick texture against his knuckles only reminded him of how a snake shed its skin.

The cold bite of the bed’s bronze post pressed into his lower back,
but it couldn’t suppress the creeping heat at his spine’s end— where Shen Yanxing’s fingertip had pressed earlier was now burning in betrayal.

“Shut up.”

The words ground out through his teeth.
His Adam’s apple bobbed, tugging at the bite marks on his collarbone,
pain and the faint mint-smoke scent stabbing straight into his nose.

Damn it.
Even his sense of smell was replaying that half-hour-old farce.

He forced his eyes to scan the room like a crime scene:
two lipstick-stained butts in the ashtray by the bed,
an empty tequila bottle tipped across the carpet,
his own belt buckle glinting neon where it lay slack.

Every detail that should have been evidence now mocked him in silence.

Focus.
Name, age, time of incident…

He triggered interrogation mode in his head—
but when it came to victim’s description,
his vision betrayed him with the line of Shen Yanxing’s back, muscles shifting with each breath.

His knees snapped together reflexively—
and sticky heat smeared the inside of his thighs.

His back arched hard, nails biting his palm in search of an anchor of pain—
only to find even pain itself was shrouded in lust’s fog.

A wet swallow scraped his throat,
obscenely loud in the dead-still booth.

“Fuck!”

The punch into the mattress rattled the springs,
scattering neon shadows into shards.

The palm that should have held him upright was trembling, veins bulging like blue cords across the back of his hand.

And worse—when Shen Yanxing’s lighter clicked alive again,
his waist muscle spasmed reflexively,
as though that flame were retracing every line of what had just happened.

He jolted up, knees slamming into the bedpost.
The dull thud rang louder than it should,
and he let it stand as his excuse to flee.

He grabbed his clothes, but the satin sheet tangled around his ankle like a serpent’s tail, forcing him to stumble against the mosaic mirror wall—
neon refracted through the shards of glass, multiplying into thousands of naked reflections of himself.

At the instant the bathroom door swung open, cold fluorescent light and the stench of disinfectant crashed down on him.

His hand shot the lock too fast—metal clanged with a tooth-jarring screech, as if the entire building was mocking his disgrace.

“Hrk—”

A dry heave surged up his throat, but nothing came out.
Forehead pressed to the tiles, he gasped for air, only to choke on the mix of mint smoke and woody cologne clinging to his own body.

The mirror threw back his current state:
deep violet bite marks stamped across his collarbone like fallen medals,
finger-shaped bruises flaring crimson along his waist,
traces of blood scoring the inside of his thigh where a grip had dragged him raw.

By instinct, his gaze scanned this body the way he’d inspect a crime scene:
a faint bite mark gouged just three centimeters below the Adam’s apple,
a bruise sucked dark around the edge of his left nipple,
the outline of pale handprints dug deep into his hip bones,
even his knee pit still smeared with dried filth.

Drip—

Water from the sink broke the silence.

He wrenched the tap open, slammed his face into the stream—
but the sting of cold water against his eyes only revived the filthier image:
five minutes ago, the way he’d yanked Shen Yanxing’s hair and shoved him down toward his crotch.

“Shut up!”

His fist smashed into the mirror.
Spiderweb cracks burst from his knuckles, shattering his reflection into a thousand trembling selves.

“Fleeting fling… to hell with your fleeting fling!”

His fingertips brushed the needle-prick wound on the back of his neck—
the pain snapped back a thread of clarity.

No time for neatness.

After a rough wash he scrambled to dress, fumbling for his belt buckle—
but the chill of the metal overlapped with memory:
the heat of that silver lighter pressed to the hollow of his waist as the man smoked.

Clack—

The belt buckle slipped from his trembling fingers for the third time, smacking against the floor like a sharp slap to the face.

When Jiang Zhilin pushed open the bathroom door, the neon inside the booth had already shifted into the harsh white of closing mode.

The air still carried a trace of lingering mint smoke.
In the ashtray by the headboard lay a freshly extinguished cigarette butt,
and along the rim of a glass clung a half-dried ring of water—
a lip-shaped mark pressed there when Shen Yanxing tilted back the whiskey, Adam’s apple rolling as he swallowed.

He froze at the doorway, eyes falling on the satin bedsheets, now neatly smoothed out.

Too neat.
Even the creases he’d clenched into the fabric had been pressed flat into a cold, rigid plane—like a museum display marked do not touch.

On the bench at the foot of the bed sat a folded square of damp towel, the edges embroidered with DEEP’s golden logo, its creases faintly stained with red.

Instinctively, he brushed his hand over his neck—
only then realizing the scab from a shaving cut had been scraped open.

“…Fuck.”

He kicked the bench over.
Amid the screech of metal legs dragging across marble, the comm device in his earbone suddenly erupted with static.

“Detective Jiang! Camera Three picked up a possible cargo route. Report to the back alley at once—”

“Mission terminated.”

He tore the stud from his ear and flung it into the trash.
The faux sapphire clattered against the aluminum bin, ringing out a hollow echo.

The lingering cologne in the hallway throbbed at his temples.
On the dance floor, only a janitor remained, dragging a bucket as the mop scraped back and forth—
bleach mixed with the sour sting of spoiled liquor, flooding his nose.

He stepped across a scatter of crushed ice,
and when a sharp shard bit into the sole of his shoe,
it almost felt like a masochistic kind of clarity.

The moment he pushed open the emergency exit,
the chill of dawn air came crashing down on him.

In the back alley, the neon sign flickered overhead,
DEEP stretching a ghostlike shadow at his feet.

He reached into his inner pocket for his badge.
The plastic sleeve had gone soft with body heat,
and under his thumb, the embossed crest burned like a brand.

Three meters away, behind the dumpster, came the faint clatter of movement—
the sound of leather dragging across the ground.

Jiang Zhilin’s muscle memory snapped taut at once,
fingers pressing against the holster at his back—
but he froze when the neon swept across the shape in the dark.

Nothing but a black cat, leaping onto the wall with a fishbone in its teeth.

He let his hand fall, turned,
and disappeared into the morning fog across the street.

The hem of his trench coat swept through a puddle,
rippling into fractured rings of neon reflected on the water.