Chapter 11 Ares
Ares
Ares stares down at his first opponent.
A man, but just barely, with weak stubble and stooped shoulders and badly dyed straw-blond hair, the black roots already starting
to peek out like weeds. College-aged, if he even goes to college. Heavier than Ares is, which could be a problem, but he knows
from experience that it could also mean he’s slower.
The man stares back, his teeth bared and yellow, his fists raised. On his thumb, he wears the same ring Ares had been given
upon initiation: rusted silver, a dragon carved into the band.
“Last chance to place your bets,” Sangui calls out from the shadows of the Cave.
“I’m going with the new boy,” someone says.
“That kid? Nah, his face is a little too symmetrical,” someone else remarks.
This earns him an obnoxious cackle that echoes off the grimy walls.
“What’s a symmetrical face got anything to do with it?”
“A face like that hasn’t been messed up enough. Means he hasn’t seen enough fights,” the second man speculates.
“Or it could mean he’s never lost,” the first one points out.
“Well, I never lose my bets,” the man retorts.
“Yeah, right. You lost just the other night.”
Jeers and laughter sound around Ares, more voices rising, arguing, calling out names, mixing with the loud rattle of mahjong
tiles from the floor above.
Ares keeps his eyes straight ahead. As his opponent lowers himself into starting position, he wonders, briefly, what brought
the man through Beijing’s outer city, into the twisted alleys, down the steep steps here tonight. What kind of favor he wants
from Long Ge—if it’s hard cash, or a job, or if there’s someone he needs to find, like Ares.
But he doesn’t let himself wonder any more than that. He doesn’t want to know whether the man standing before him has a mother
waiting for him at home with a bowl of steaming beef noodles, or whether he’s struggling under the weight of hospital bills
for his little sister’s surgery. He doesn’t want to know anything that might make him hesitate to shove the man onto cold
concrete and split his skin open, because even a second’s hesitation could mean losing, and he can’t lose.
A bell rings to his left.
Ares breathes in, steels himself, and charges.
From the very beginning, he’s on the offensive.
Always punch first. Old advice from his boxing coach, though he hasn’t attended a proper boxing lesson in a while now.
Doesn’t have time for them anymore, and doesn’t care for official competitions and prizes—nothing compares to what the fight club can give him if he wins.
His first punch lands with a solid, satisfying crack, and he immediately chases it with another punch to the stomach. If he can just keep punching, keep going no matter how wounded
he is, keep drawing blood without giving his opponent a second to recover, he can win. He can separate his brain from his
body, step outside himself for the duration of the match.
It’s not him in the fighting ring. That’s what he tells himself. It’s not his fist driving itself into the man’s face. It’s
not his knuckles splitting open yet again upon impact. It’s not his blood filling his mouth with rust when the man punches
back.
He’s above it all.
He’s only distantly aware of his arms moving, though it’s as disconnected from him as a video-game character on a screen.
Like Street Fighter—that was Luke’s favorite game. Luke would always race to it at the arcade, and every time he lost, he
would beg for another match, and Ares would humor him, emptying all the tokens in his pockets. . . .
“Wocao,” the man curses, doubling over as Ares knees him bluntly in the stomach.
He shoves his opponent to the ground, pinning him down by the neck, trying not to feel the blood pulsing underneath his nails,
the muscles straining around the man’s throat as he gasps.
A countdown begins.
“Three . . . ,” the crowd chants. “Two . . . one . . .”
And finally Ares comes back to his own body. To the pain throbbing in several different places, his own labored breathing. He wipes the sweat trickling down his jaw and stands up, even as a sudden wave of exhaustion threatens to sweep him off his feet.
From the corner of the room, Sangui steps out, fully tatted arms crossed over his chest. He catches Ares’s eye and gives him
the briefest of nods before declaring to the room: “Ares has won this one.”
The crowd explodes into yells and hoots of triumph and outright gloating (“And you said his face was too symmetrical—you’re
just jealous yours isn’t!”), and as dirty money is passed from hand to hand, Ares staggers off alone.
In the dingy backroom, he slumps onto the bench and mechanically inspects his wounds, the way you might inspect a car for
faulty parts.
A sharp prickling in his left arm rudely calls for his attention.
He identifies a gash the length of his thumb. Sighs. Reaches into his pocket for some tissue, then dabs at his own blood.
He clenches his teeth around a hiss, knowing that any noise from him would reach the ears of the men outside, and it would
only invite ridicule, rather than pity.
His pain means nothing to them.
To anyone. His own father wouldn’t care if he saw him this way, though that would require him actually visiting Ares, which
hasn’t happened in over a year. Their only form of communication these days is through his father’s monthly bank transfers.
One hundred thousand yuan each time, more than enough to cover his school fees and his groceries. He shouldn’t complain.
The door creaks open, and Sangui ambles his way inside, whistling some old opera tune. His expression remains indifferent
when he sees Ares bleeding.
“That was decent for a first match,” he says in his chain-smoker’s rasp.
“Thanks,” Ares mutters. He doesn’t feel like talking, but he also knows better than to ignore the man who’d let him join the
Cave. His new membership here is his only connection to Long Ge—and his little brother, by extension—and he can’t mess things
up. It’s this connection that he’s planning on using to approach Long Ge at the nightclub tomorrow, just like he’d glimpsed
in the vision. Maybe, if Long Ge sees the ring on his finger, the dragon symbol marking his loyalty, he’ll be willing to hear
Ares out. Ares knows that until he’s crowned victor and secures his favor, Long Ge is unlikely to reunite him with his brother—but
if he could just get a new photo of Luke, a one-minute phone call, any updates about Luke at all . . .
“Just four more matches to go,” Sangui says, leaning one shoulder against the wall. “Next one is in three nights. Make sure
you win.”
Before the fight tonight, Ares had overheard whispers that Sangui had been involved in some kind of elaborate kidnapping scheme
gone wrong, under the orders of a big director at Longfeng Oil. The details were brief—this clearly wasn’t fresh gossip—but
he gathered that the mission had left Sangui with nothing, or else the man wouldn’t be here. Nobody would be here if they
had a better option. The whole place reeked of resentment, of jaded people who had been slighted or lied to and now had to
resort to wronging others to make up for it.
“I will,” Ares says, holding the man’s gaze. “I’ll win it. I’ll win the round after that too.”
“Let’s not get too cocky now,” Sangui says, rubbing a speck of dust off his gloves.
Ares has never seen Sangui without his black gloves, and he’s starting to suspect that they’re artificially attached to his
body, or maybe even a part of him. He imagines Sangui combing his dyed orange hair every morning with those stupid gloves
on, or washing a bowl of grapes, or brushing his teeth. He imagines Sangui climbing out of the womb with the gloves plastered
to his tiny fingers, the doctors’ shock and confusion as they tried explaining the phenomenon to Sangui’s family.
“Is something funny?” Sangui asks, his eyes narrowing.
Ares presses his lips together. “No.”
“Better not be.” Sangui glances down at the floor, where Ares’s blood has splashed across the cement in three dark drops,
glistening like wet ink. “Oh, and wipe that up before you leave. The floor’s dirty enough already.”
Ares walks home alone.
It should only take ten minutes, but his injuries are slowing him down, and as the adrenaline from the fight seeps out of
his bloodstream and the night breeze stings like salt on all his open cuts, he can feel the panic kicking in. Not that the
panic is ever really gone. It just lies dormant, skirting the edges of his thoughts.
When it’s particularly bad, like tonight, it compromises his ability to breathe. He knows that technically, he can’t just stop breathing out of nowhere. That he has a pair of functioning lungs. That there’s more than enough oxygen
outside, with the oak trees lining the street, the city spreading out wide around him.
But then he’ll think about how fast time is passing, and how he might never find his brother, will never get the chance to make things right, and no matter how hard he tries to inhale, it’s like the air ends up trapped in his throat. His lungs seize, drawing nothing in.
He has to pause beside a traffic sign, one hand gripping the metal pole to support himself, lightheaded and gasping like the
man he’d almost strangled earlier. Karma, maybe.
Then a boy on a bike rides past him, slow enough for Ares to glimpse his face under the streetlights. His heart stops.
Luke.
It’s him, it has to be. The unruly black curls that never stayed put, no matter how hard you brushed them, the soft, boyish
features that always made elderly women grin and pinch his cheeks, the wiry frame. He’s even wearing the same shirt—white
cotton, a graphic logo printed on the back.
“Luke,” he calls out into the night, almost choking on the name. He feels nauseous with hope, his pulse thrumming violently.
When the boy doesn’t turn around, Ares starts running, his worn sneakers slapping the concrete. He pushes himself faster,
tearing down the street, narrowly avoiding crashing into a Meituan courier who swears at him. Every step sends a judder of
pain through his bruised ribs, but he ignores it. He’s well trained when it comes to ignoring pain.
“Luke!” he calls again, his voice echoing in the cold night air. “Wait, it’s me—Ares.”
And finally, finally, the boy squeezes the brakes, the bike wobbling before he nudges the kickstand down with one foot. He
lifts his head and—
It’s not him.
Ares’s stomach drops, the disappointment so crushing and complete it feels like he’s lost his brother a second time.
The boy stares up at him, wide-eyed and clearly unnerved, and as the haze of hope clears, Ares can see how stupid he’d been.
Yes, the boy does bear a resemblance to his little brother—but he resembles his brother from three years ago. In his head, Luke has become immortal, his appearance permanently frozen on the day he ran away from home, when in reality,
he wouldn’t be a little kid anymore, but a teenager. The version of Luke from the vision is older, taller, his features so
hollowed out and somber that Ares almost hadn’t recognized him when he’d first peered into the lake.
“Were you calling after me?” the boy asks.
“Sorry,” Ares says. He swallows, wipes the sweat from his forehead. “I thought . . . I was looking for someone, and I thought
you were him.”
The boy blinks. “Okay, that’s okay.” He hesitates, maybe sees the naked desperation on Ares’s face, and adds: “Do you need
help looking for him? Maybe . . . if he goes to school in the area, my friends might know—”
“No,” Ares says, feeling more and more stupid by the second. “But thanks.”
“Okay,” the boy says again, and glances up at him one last time with something like concern—though he isn’t sure if it’s for
the boy’s own safety, or Ares’s sanity—before righting his bike and riding away.
Ares stares after him for a few moments longer, his chest hollow, then slowly continues limping down the street.