Red strobes flash like warning signs down a winding corridor, which opens abruptly to a dance floor, already jam-packed with bodies.
He’s never been inside a nightclub before, but it almost feels like he has, because everything here looks exactly like the scene from the vision. The club name glowing neon pink above the bar counter.The posters advertising its special new Blue Lagoon cocktail, available today. Cheap black sofas crowding the corners, where people are draped over the cushions, pouring drinks and playing cards and laughing at nothing. Massive screens curving upward over the walls, distorting the senses, abstract streaks of light flowing over them like lava. The painted lanterns strung above the DJ booth, the electric candles inside them offering a modern touch, something Chanel Cao might pick out from a catalog.
The place reminds him of hell, although it actuallycouldbe hell: the inescapable heat, the thick smoke filling the air, the amber glow around the bar counters, the stench of stale alcohol mixed with bland cologne, the press of strangers’ bodies far too close to his own.
Now that he has his ring and the bruises as stamps of loyalty, this might actually work. If he can find Long Ge, he’s out, and never coming back.
As he cranes his neck, scanning the dense dance floor, something sharp and hard taps his elbow. He jerks away out of instinct and sees the long acrylic nails first, encrusted with gems, then the pale fingers and an oval-shaped face, slightly greasy with make-up or sweat. Some girl he’s never seen before.
“Shuaige,” the girl says, or shouts it rather, in order to be heard over the heavy rattle of music. “Guo lai gen wo wan’er ya?”Come hang out.
“No, thanks,” he half shouts back, already looking past her.
“Why? Are you here with a girlfriend?” she asks, and even though he hasn’t glanced back at her face, he can hear the pout in her voice.
“I’m busy.”
For some reason, she takes this rejection as encouragement to wrap her nails around his arm, pulling it too close to her, and she speaks directly into his ear, her hot, beer-tinged breath fanning his skin uncomfortably. “Too busy to dance with me?”
He wonders if it would be rude to just shrug her arm off. “I don’t dance,” he says. It’s true, and he doesn’t seem to be the only one. Most of the people out on the floor aren’t really dancing but standing around, scrolling through their phones, only remembering to bob their heads a little when the beat drops. A few are playing some sort of game where they keep holding up their fingers and screaming numbers out at each other like they’re in an extremely drunk math tournament.
“We can do other things, if you’re not up to dancing,” the girl says, her nails wrapping tighter and sinking into his skin like claws.
He pretends he doesn’t understand the suggestion.
“You don’t come here often, do you?” the girl continues, her persistence almost inspiring. “I’d definitely remember your face.”
His eyes flicker to her with new interest. If she’s a regular, then she might have seen Long Ge around before. “There’s this man I’m looking for,” he says, cutting to the chase. “Early forties, short hair, glasses, square face. Has a scar about this big—” He makes an estimate with his thumb and index finger. “On his left cheek. I’ve heard he comes down to this club a lot. Do you know him?”
The girl purses her lips. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I don’t remember right now,” she says coyly, her small, glitter-dusted face giving away nothing except desire. “But I might later, if you dance with me.”
He has no patience for her teasing, not when his stomach sits tight and heavy as cement and the awful remix thudding through the speakers is making his head hurt, but he can’t think of a better option. “Okay,” he says, resigned and hating himself and this whole situation. He clenches his jaw and lets her lead him down to the grimy, crowded floor, completing his descent into hell.
But if it means bringing back his brother, there are far worse places he would go.
14
Chanel
I was fifteen when I entered my first nightclub.
My father was the one who took me inside Club Sixty-Eight Hours before the official opening. He owned other nightclubs, but he wanted this to be special, and like any good businessman who understands his target demographic, he sought out my opinions on everything. What did theyoung peoplewant these days? What was trendy? What wasn’t? He let me look around and took notes when I pointed out things that could be improved. I loved that he took me seriously, that he cared enough about what I thought to let me decorate the place. He strung up the painted lanterns I’d picked out from a catalog, moved the DJ booth when I asked him to, and cleared room in the back for influencers to take photos under the neon signs.
It’s been almost a year since I last came, but everything is just as I remember.
I love it here.
I love how the blend of darkness and drunkenness aroundyou takes the edge off your self-consciousness, and it doesn’t matter if you look a little stupid because everyone does. The girl dancing next to me is going all out with the theatrics, one hand clutching her chest and the other raised over her forehead like she’s an actress in a Shakespearean tragedy, her eyes squeezed shut with emotion.
I keep an eye out for Ares as I let myself sway to the melody, slowing down my movements when the track switches to Eric Chou’s “Unbreakable Love.”
And the room swells with noise, heat, energy. And the flickering dots of light in the ceiling expand into constellations. And the music pulses in my ears like a heartbeat, alive and vivid and miraculous, and I hum to the chorus like it was written just for me.
The DJ cycles through more songs, Jay Chou for the nostalgia kick and all the latest trending tracks on Douyin, and there’s the fizzing sweetness of the cocktail on my tongue, the warmth of bodies moving next to mine, the cool sweat beading over my forehead, and I’m wonderfully aware of myself in this moment. How I look from the outside. I’m eighteen, I’m beautiful, I’m desirable, I might just be the best thing you’ll find tonight—
