Huo Shaoheng gave them a sideways look as he put his phone back into his trouser pocket. “A test? How do you want to do it?”
“Heh, how else? By meeting famous Japanese porn stars, of course!” Zhao Liangze and Yin Shixiong rubbed their hands together and wriggled their eyebrows suggestively. “If we don’t ‘test’ ourselves with Japanese porn stars, how do we know for sure our anti-seduction training actually works? And anyway, we’re just ‘testing,’ we won’t actually be doing ‘it’ for real.”
Huo Shaoheng was fairly certain that the young men just wanted to see Japanese porn stars perform for them live.
Huo Shaoheng ignored them. He walked over to the window, a cup of tea in hand, and gazed at the night view outside.
The night scene of Tokyo was beautiful. The lights from the high-rise buildings flickered and sparkled like diamonds; they mingled with the stars in the dark blue night sky, quiet and peaceful.
Zhao Liangze and Yin Shixiong saw that Huo Shaoheng wasn’t going to humor them with a reply. They backed off, disappointed.
Both secretaries sighed, and sat heavily on a sofa, each nursing a cup of coffee as they talked in hushed whispers.
“Big Xiong [1], have you ever done it with a woman?”
“I’ve never even had a girlfriend, let alone slept with a woman.” Yin Shixiong snorted. “What about you? You were trying to get with that female officer from District 3, right? What was her name again?”
“Ugh, don’t remind me. I failed to impress her and I almost got beat up in the process.” Zhao Liangze shook his head forlornly. “She has so many suitors waiting in line. I bet the queue stretches from District 3 all the way to District 4. What chance did I have?”
“Seriously? I don’t see what all the fuss is about, she doesn’t look all that special to me.” Yin Shixiong rubbed the back of his head and said in a disconsolate tone, “I wonder what it’s like to do it with a woman? What if we keep resisting our urges, and eventually we become so removed from sexual desires, we can’t even get it up? How are we going to have children then? My family goes back five generations, and they’re depending on me, the only son, to continue the line!”
Huo Shaoheng turned around at this. He walked over from the window, set his cup of tea down, and said, indifferently, “You’ll get it up. You’re overthinking it.”
“Overthinking it?! Sir, you know what our anti-seduction training is like because you’ve experienced it. Are you honestly not worried you won’t be able to get it up?! Or afraid that you’ll suffer from premature ejaculation?”
Huo Shaoheng lowered his head as he lit a cigarette. He took a drag and then continued his reproach. “Don’t be so pathetic. Obsessing over women 24/7, that’s just sad. It’s late. Go to bed, we have an early day tomorrow.”
“Sir, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Zhao Liangze brazenly. He had summoned his courage and was now zealously fighting for the right to reproductive activity between men and women. “You’ve never tried it, so how do you know it’s not going to be a problem? And who’s obsessing over women? We’re in Japan, I’m just saying we might as well!”
“How do you know I haven’t tried it?” Huo Shaoheng cocked his head, flicked the ash from his cigarette, and turned away, prepared to return to his room. His face, normally impassive, actually seemed to have taken a bit of color in his cheeks.
Zhao Liangze and Yin Shixiong’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets. They shouted at his retreating back. “When did you lose your virginity, Sir?! Why don’t we know about it?!”
They were the personal secretaries of Major General Huo and they followed him like his shadow: how could they not have noticed this momentous milestone in his private life? They had failed in their duty! FAILED!
…
Huo Shaoheng ignored the frenzied shouting from his personal secretaries as he calmly made his way back to his room. He got out his phone, and before he knew what he was doing he had already dialed a number.
“Yes? Who is this?” Gu Nianzhi’s sweet, lovely voice sounded from the other end of the line.
Huo Shaoheng had not expected Gu Nianzhi to actually be awake. He collected himself and said, “What are you up to?”
Gu Nianzhi was running on the treadmill, in the gym. She had been listening to a song on her headset when the call came in, and had immediately taken it without stopping to see who it was. When she heard Huo Shaoheng’s deep voice, her heart immediately burst into a joyous flutter. She said, her voice full of laughter, “I’m working out!” and then continued, a little flirtatiously, “I’ve gotten fat again. I need to lose weight!”
Huo Shaoheng dangled a cigarette in his hand as he said absent-mindedly, “You’re not fat. It’s better to have more curves. Feels nicer to hold.”
As soon as he said that, an awkward silence fell upon the both of them.
Huo Shaoheng was the first to recover his wits. He took a drag on his cigarette before exhaling a cloud of white, lingering smoke. He asked casually, “Sweetie, is that you?”
Gu Nianzhi mentally spat in disgust at this. She said, slowly and deliberately, “Huo Shao, this is Nianzhi. Gu Nianzhi. Were you thinking of someone else?”
She had known Huo Shaoheng for six years, but had never heard him call anyone with a nickname as intimate as “Sweetie.”
Huo Shaoheng grunted, and stubbed his cigarette out on an ashtray. His voice was indifferent and low. “Wrong number. Don’t stay up too late.” Then he hung up.
Gu Nianzhi continued to jog on the treadmill, her mind full of questions: did Huo Shao have a girlfriend? Should she try asking Chen Lie about it?
Over on the other end, Huo Shaoheng was feeling a little warm after the phone call. He changed into his sportswear and made his way to the hotel gym.
The Chiba Hotel gym wasn’t particularly crowded this late at night.
Several Japanese men in tight, body-hugging shirts were huddled together. They were in the middle of an animated discussion.
They spoke rapidly, their expressions exaggerated.
They saw Huo Shaoheng come in but automatically assumed that he did not speak the language. They did not bother to lower their voices as they continued what should have been a private conversation.
“That male bra they just came up with is soooo comfy!”
“I know, right? I wear it every day when I’m out and about. I feel funny without it!”
Huo Shaoheng’s understanding of Japanese was rudimentary, but his Bluetooth headset came with an auto-translate feature. Thus, he could clearly hear and understand every word in this passionate conversation about male bras.
The subject of their discussion left him dumbfounded. He stepped onto a treadmill without letting his face betray his amusement. He selected the highest speed setting and began to run.
The long-legged, broad-chested Major General Huo was like a sleek, powerful cheetah on the treadmill. It was an awe-inducing display of strength and virility. His raw energy radiated outwards from him, enveloping the room.
A few Japanese women who had just entered the gym could not help ogling him.
“Oh my god, he’s so dreamy!”
The effeminate Japanese men who had been talking about male bras heard the women, and were immediately filled with jealousy and resentment. They sneered and disparaged him in Japanese, sour as grapes.
“If you’re such a fast runner, why aren’t you in the Olympics?”
“Yeah! Show-off!”
Huo Shaoheng finished his run. He stepped off the treadmill, grabbed one of the Japanese men next to him, and single-handedly hoisted him onto the treadmill. He strapped the man’s arm to the handlebars of the treadmill, then selected the fastest speed. He patted him on the shoulder, and, in a low voice, said to him in Japanese, “Good luck!”
The treadmill started moving. Fast.
The Japanese man was forced to run, screaming and shouting as he struggled to keep up.The treadmill was moving too fast for him; he was soon wheezing to catch his breath, but his arm was firmly secured to the treadmill. He was trapped. He squealed like a pig under a butcher’s knife. “Help! Someone save me!!”
The gym security guards standing at the door rushed in upon hearing his cry for help. After a bit of confusion they “rescued” the Japanese man from the treadmill, but he had already fainted dead away.
By this time Huo Shaoheng had long since left the gym and was already back in his room.
Just as soon as he was done showering, he heard his phone ring. He picked it up and saw that it was an incoming call from Chen Lie.
[1] “Big Xiong” is Yin Shixiong’s nickname.