He Chusan spent three days writing an extremely clichéd story, one that had circulated widely among the public for years.
A wealthy young lady and a poor young man secretly fell in love. However, a triad boss who abducted innocent women had the wealthy young lady bundled into a sack and carried back to his lair. Disregarding his own life, the poor young man went straight to the boss’s door and fought him courageously. Afterward, the young couple successfully eloped and lived happily together.
Xia Liuyi idly poked at the fish balls with a bamboo skewer, rolling them twice through the curry sauce.
“This boss uses twin blades too?”
He Chusan stood obediently before him and offered a sincere compliment.
“It’s very imposing.”
Xia Liuyi crooked a finger at him.
The moment He Chusan stepped closer, Xia Liuyi seized him by the collar and slammed him onto the table. Grabbing a fistful of his hair, he smashed his head down with a bang.
Blood immediately burst from He Chusan’s forehead. The world spun violently around him. When he finally endured the dizziness and managed to focus his eyes, cold sweat instantly soaked through his clothes.
Xia Liuyi was holding the bamboo skewer and preparing to stab it straight into his eyeball.
Resigned to his fate, He Chusan closed his eyes.
He waited for a long time, but nothing happened. Confused, he opened them again.
Xia Liuyi had merely turned the skewer around and pressed its blunt end against He Chusan’s trembling eyelid, neither lightly nor heavily.
“You stayed quiet and didn’t say a word, but you’ve certainly got plenty of schemes in that head of yours. You’re taking the long way around to curse me, aren’t you?” Xia Liuyi said. “Don’t try playing tricks with your Brother Liuyi. Get lost and rewrite it.”
With his head wrapped like Indian Ah San, He Chusan obediently spent another three days writing.
When his father asked what had happened to him, he merely said that a flowerpot had fallen from upstairs and split his head open.
Every morning, he continued leaving home early with his little schoolbag on his back. The moment he turned the corner of the alley, several burly men would seize him and carry him to the company.
He would write there for the entire day, then late at night, several burly men would bundle him up and deliver him home again.
Three days later, he handed in a new script.
A dashing, uninhibited triad enforcer fell in love with a beautiful woman forced into prostitution. After a deeply moving romance that could shake heaven and earth, the woman was abducted by a rival gang.
To rescue his beloved, the enforcer fought a blood-soaked battle. Alone and armed with twin blades, he cut down more than forty men in one continuous charge, carving a bloody path through the cramped alleyways…
The more Xiao Ma listened from the side, the more wrong it sounded.
He leaned toward one of his subordinates and whispered, “One man with twin blades cutting down forty people? Why does this plot sound like what Brother Liuyi did when he rescued Boss Qinglong back then…?”
“Cough! I didn’t hear anything, Brother Ma.”
Xia Liuyi had been listening attentively to the script, but his expression grew darker and darker.
He Chusan, unfortunately, remained completely unaware. He kept his head lowered and continued reading the plot outline, believing that since he had changed from criticizing the triads to praising them this time, he probably would not be beaten.
He diligently finished reading, then stood there waiting for an evaluation.
The room became so quiet that even the drop of a needle would have been audible.
Reading Xia Liuyi’s expression, Xiao Ma secretly flexed his knuckles, preparing to help Brother Liuyi beat someone.
“Where did this story come from?” Xia Liuyi asked, lightly tapping his knuckles against the tabletop.
“I heard it,” He Chusan replied.
He raised his head and secretly glanced at Xia Liuyi, finally realizing that something about the atmosphere was not quite right.
“Who did you hear it from?” Xia Liuyi continued.
“Everyone says…”
Before He Chusan could finish, his entire body went flying.
His thin, slight frame knocked over two stools and slammed into the wall along with their broken legs.
When he fell, he was covered from head to toe in dust and grime. He lay on the floor and coughed twice, then unexpectedly spat out a mouthful of blood.
“Eighty percent strength,” Xiao Ma silently calculated from where he stood watching.
Xia Liuyi strode over, picked up one of the broken pieces of stool, and struck He Chusan with it again.
He Chusan could not suppress a cry of pain.
A broken iron nail protruding from the stool fragment tore through his arm, and blood immediately began seeping out.
In pain and confusion, He Chusan lowered his head and stared at his own blood. He could not understand why this unpredictable triad boss had suddenly turned on him again.
Xia Liuyi reversed his grip on the broken stool leg, pointed its sharp, splintered end at He Chusan, and expressionlessly raised his arm high.
He was just about to drive it downward when the door was abruptly pushed open from outside.
The underlings guarding the entrance shouted one after another.
“Boss!”
“Boss!”
The moment Hao Chengqing stepped inside, he heard a muffled thud.
Hao Chengqing had inherited the gang as its crown prince at the age of twenty-five. Over the following ten years, he had endured all the vicissitudes of life in the underworld. His manner and methods were exceptionally calm and steady.
He paid no attention to the strange noise. He merely swept a composed gaze around the room before asking, “Where’s Liuyi?”
Xiao Ma and the other burly men stood with their mouths hanging open, sweating as they all looked toward the space behind the door.
The wooden door creaked.
Clutching the back of his head, Xia Liuyi jumped out from behind it in an extremely disheveled state. He casually tossed aside the broken stool leg in his hand.
“Ah Da.”
Hao Chengqing frowned in confusion.
“I was standing behind the door beating someone, Ah Da!” Xia Liuyi complained aggrievedly, rubbing his head while sucking in breaths of pain. “Next time you come in, can’t you give a warning first?”
Hao Chengqing laughed.
He put an arm around Xia Liuyi’s shoulders and pulled him closer, personally rubbing the back of his head for him.
“Does it hurt?”
“It hurts!” Xia Liuyi answered without the slightest politeness. “You owe me compensation for injury and disability.”
“I’ll let you manage the new nightclub. Is that enough?”
“Enough! More than enough!”
Xia Liuyi hurriedly accepted the offer.
He turned and shot Xiao Ma and the other underlings a murderous glare.
The group immediately sprang into efficient action, pouring tea, fetching water, and dusting off the furniture as they respectfully invited Boss Qinglong to sit on the sofa.
He Chusan, who was still struggling on the floor behind the door, was also hauled upright by two burly men, one on either side, and carried away so that he would not offend the boss’s eyes in the slightest.
Finally, the underlings respectfully closed the door from outside.
Only Qinglong and Xia Liuyi remained in the room.
Xia Liuyi strode over and dropped himself straightforwardly into the seat beside Qinglong.
“Ah Da, why are you here?”
“Xiaoman wanted to come and see the film set…”
Before he could finish, Xia Liuyi shot to his feet, his eyes wide.
“Xiaoman came? Where is she?”
Qinglong’s expression remained calm as he took a cigar from the box on the coffee table.
Xia Liuyi obediently sat back down and lit the cigar for him.
“Ah Da, I was wrong. I interrupted you again. Go ahead, I’m listening.”
Qinglong slowly took a puff, then handed the cigar to him.
Only after watching Xia Liuyi accept it and bite it between his lips did he continue.
“We were nearly at the entrance when she said she felt dizzy, so I had someone take her home first.”
“Is she still in poor health? How has she been feeling lately?”
Qinglong shook his head.
“I’ve been too busy and haven’t had time to look after her. When you’re free, come and keep her company more often.”
“All right.”
Xia Liuyi nodded, then after a moment of thought, asked, “You’re really giving me the new nightclub?”
Qinglong took out a second cigar.
“When has Ah Da ever lied to you?”
“Wouldn’t that be a little inappropriate?”
As Xia Liuyi lit the second cigar for him, he took the opportunity to complain.
“Xu Ying hasn’t liked me much lately. After the previous lackey was transferred away, he planted several more men around me. Matters outside the Walled City have always been his responsibility. I’ve crossed into his territory and made him unhappy.”
“You don’t need to concern yourself with him,” Qinglong said. “If there’s anything in the accounts you don’t understand, ask Dongdong.”
Xia Liuyi lowered his head and silently went through everything in his mind.
“All right. Don’t worry, I’ll manage it properly.”
Qinglong smiled.
“You’re sensible. Ah Da has nothing to worry about.”
The two of them discussed some additional business.
Qinglong then noticed the handwritten pages scattered across the floor, some of them still stained with blood.
“What’s this?”
“The script for the new movie.”
Xia Liuyi immediately looked embarrassed.
“I found a university student to write it, but that brat made up a load of nonsense…”
Before Xia Liuyi could rescue the situation, Qinglong had already casually picked up one of the pages lying beside the coffee table.
After looking at it, he said, “Pick up the rest.”
Xia Liuyi had no choice but to obediently bend over and rummage around in every direction, eventually collecting a thick stack.
His face stiff, he watched Qinglong turn through one page after another.
His heart pounded wildly as he did his utmost to explain.
“That brat’s brain must be waterlogged. I already beat him up for it, I…”
“It’s quite good,” Qinglong said calmly. “Film it like this.”
“I… What?!”
Qinglong set down the script and stood, patting Xia Liuyi on the top of the head.
“I still have matters to attend to, so I’ll head back first. Remember to visit Xiaoman often.”
“Ah, but…”
Xia Liuyi was still struggling with the decision when the door opened from outside. Two quick-witted guards respectfully escorted Qinglong out.
As Qinglong walked away, he waved a hand to indicate that there was no need to see him off.
Xia Liuyi watched until Qinglong’s back disappeared from sight.
After closing the door, he immediately leaned against it.
He stared blankly at the stack of pages with a wooden expression for a while, then let out a soft sigh.
Looking exhausted, he took out a cigarette, tilted his head, and lit it.
“Xiao Ma!”
“Yes!”
“Take that kid to have his injuries treated.”
…
He Chusan had several layers of bandages wrapped around his chest and several more around his arm. The head wrapping had not been removed either.
He had successfully advanced from Indian Ah San to Mummy Ah San.
With his head lowered, he sat at the edge of the film set, watching a group of petty gangsters rush around arranging props under the director’s instructions.
Without warning, everyone stopped moving and called out respectfully in unison.
That meant Xia Liuyi had arrived to inspect the set.
Everyone else fawned over Xia Liuyi.
Only He Chusan lowered his head, ignored him completely, and continued writing the dialogue for the next scene.
It counted as his one small, feeble act of resistance.
Everyone here was a villain, and Xia Liuyi was the greatest villain among them.
He Chusan only wanted to finish writing all the dialogue as quickly as possible, complete the filming, and return to school.
He had already missed two weeks of classes. His attendance rate had plummeted, and he was certainly going to lose this semester’s scholarship.
Next semester, he would have to ask his father for tuition money.
He was already twenty-one years old. Not only was he unable to support his father, he still had to spend his father’s money.
The thought alone made him miserable.
With a gloomy expression, he wrote furiously.
A gentle voice suddenly spoke beside him, startling him so badly that his pen flew from his hand.
“What’s your name?”
The speaker was an exquisitely made-up woman.
She was Xiaoman, the female lead in the movie, Qinglong’s wife, and the Sister-in-law of Xiaoqi Hall.
She had been present during filming over the past few days. He Chusan had watched her from a distance without much interest, but he had never taken a close look.
Now that he suddenly saw her at close range, he realized that she had delicate features and an elegant, gentle bearing.
She was completely different from the women of the pleasure quarters in his neighborhood, who were either seductive or fierce-tempered.
For some reason, however, he felt that she resembled the leader of those villains to some degree.
The resemblance was particularly noticeable in the upward tilt at the corners of their eyes.
The difference was that Xia Liuyi’s laziness concealed a calculating mind, whereas her eyes were hazy and unfocused, as though she had lived for years beneath a faint cloud of melancholy.
He stared blankly without answering, looking as though she had frightened him.
Xiaoman did not mind. She asked again, “What’s your name?”
“He Chusan.”
Xiaoman smiled.
“Were you born on the third day of the Lunar New Year?”
“Yes.”
Xiaoman smiled again and rubbed the bandages wrapped around his head, as though petting a puppy.
He Chusan could not explain why, but he felt that her gaze was slightly vacant and her movements somewhat strange.
“I heard you’re a university student?”
“Yes.”
“How nice. I never even attended primary school. Is university fun?”
He Chusan thought for a moment, then gave an answer that did not match her question at all.
“The library has a lot of books.”
“I don’t like reading. I like singing,” Xiaoman replied, giving an equally unrelated answer.
She looked around and, after confirming that no one was paying attention to her, secretly sang a short passage to He Chusan in a low voice.
He Chusan found her increasingly strange, but he did not point it out. He simply listened attentively until she finished.
She sang quite beautifully.
Her voice was bright and clear, like a little golden oriole in spring.
“Sister-in-law! We’re about to start filming!” someone called from the other side of the set.
Xiaoman straightened and glanced at the speaker.
In an instant, her face became expressionless. She assumed the dignified, noble bearing of the gang’s Sister-in-law.
The man immediately stopped urging her and merely stood there waiting.
Xiaoman turned back to He Chusan and continued asking questions.
“What happened to your head? Were you injured?”
“Yes.”
“Who hit you?”
“Brother Liuyi.”
Xiaoman sighed.
“Ah Liu has been naughty again. I’ll speak to him for you.”
“There’s no need. Really, there’s no need.”
He Chusan was alarmed and anxious.
“I must speak to him.”
Xiaoman widened her vacant eyes and shook her head.
“He’s always like this. That’s why he can never make any friends. Don’t blame him. He only behaves this way because no one plays with him.”
“He was so pitiful back then. There were only the two of us.”
He Chusan listened to her describe the Children’s Day tyrant, whom no one dared provoke, as though he were some miserable little abandoned dog.
A chill ran through him.
To prevent the conversation from drifting in an even stranger direction, he cautiously asked, “Sister-in-law, shouldn’t you go and film?”
Xiaoman gave a distant, melancholy smile.
“What is there to film? No matter how much I film, he won’t watch it.”
He Chusan mistakenly assumed that “he” referred to Xia Liuyi.
As he was currently writing a chronicle of triad love and vengeance, he immediately imagined all kinds of stories involving the Sister-in-law before him and her subordinate enforcer, Xia Liuyi.
Perhaps affection had grown between them over time. Perhaps they were entangled in love and hatred. Perhaps they had suffered separation in life and parting in death…
Fortunately, a voice interrupted at precisely the right moment, bringing his scandalous fantasies to an end.
“Sis, filming has started. Why are you still here?”
He Chusan’s eyes widened.
Xia Xiaoman rose onto her toes, hooked an arm around Xia Liuyi’s head, and pulled it down.
She affectionately kissed him on the forehead, then ruffled his hair as though petting a puppy.
With his hair in complete disarray, Xia Liuyi smiled with a tenderness as improbable as a lion becoming vegetarian.
“Go on, Sis. Everyone is waiting for you.”
Xia Xiaoman lowered her head and smiled at He Chusan, then walked away with light steps, still slightly on tiptoe.
He Chusan remained staring blankly after her.
Xia Liuyi slapped a plate of beef offal down in front of him and threatened, “What are you staring at? I’ll dig your eyeballs out!”
“She… is your biological older sister?”
“Call her Sister-in-law!”
“Oh.”
He Chusan secretly glanced at Xia Liuyi, who was seated on his table eating beef offal.
His head, chest, and arm all began aching dully.
He could not shake the feeling that Xia Liuyi might suddenly become displeased, bend down, and smash him with another stool.
Could you please stop sitting here? I can’t write while you’re in front of me.
He Chusan brooded inwardly.
While He Chusan sat there wallowing in gloom, Xia Liuyi was in an excellent mood.
Some time earlier, he had come into conflict over business with a minor leader from the Sha Family Gang.
A group from the Sha Family Gang had gone to one of Xia Liuyi’s gambling houses to wreck the place.
Xiao Ma, who was managing it, had acted quickly. He gathered up the money and withdrew with his own men, leaving behind only the two irritating plants that Deputy Hall Master Xu had inserted into Xia Liuyi’s ranks.
After smashing up the entire gambling house, the Sha Family Gang still found almost no cash.
They therefore gave the two unlucky men a vicious beating.
The following day, Xia Liuyi personally visited the two “brothers from his own gang” at an underground clinic.
He lifted their blankets and admired their appalling injuries.
Then, as a matter of course, he replaced them with his own men.
With perfect justification, he led his brothers to wipe out three of the Sha Family Gang’s operations and looted more than a hundred thousand dollars in cash from their tills.
The Dragon Head Boss of the Sha Family Gang called Qinglong and demanded an explanation.
Qinglong first made it clear that this was merely a minor grievance between members of the younger generation, and that it would be inappropriate for men of their rank to interfere.
He then gently soothed Boss Sha for a while.
“Even so, Liuyi does listen to me. How about this? I’ll have him show me some respect and withdraw our brothers from your establishments. From now on, neither side will interfere with the other.”
Boss Sha was so furious that he nearly vomited blood.
They had beaten his men and taken his money, and now they wanted to say neither side would interfere with the other.
What a fucking performance!
Unfortunately, his losses in the conflict had been severe, and it would be difficult for him to recover.
He could only swallow his broken teeth along with the blood and silently record the debt against Xia Liuyi.
Xia Liuyi had been delighted as he counted the money.
He had also strengthened the gang’s reputation and brought honor to Boss Qinglong.
Why would he care about a little resentment from Boss Sha?
He had entered the underworld at fourteen, living with his tongue against the edge of a blade. After ten years in the jianghu, the number of debts written against his name had long since become impossible to count.
Sitting on the table and eating beef offal, Xia Liuyi mentally calculated the accounts.
He beckoned to Xiao Ma, who was standing guard at the edge of the set, intending to have him distribute the money so that the brothers could enjoy themselves.
Xiao Ma came trotting over in tiny, rapid steps.
Before he could draw near, he suddenly opened his mouth wide, pointed at the ceiling, and released a terrified scream.
“Brother Liuyi, watch out!”
For the second time that day, He Chusan was so startled that his pen flew from his hand.
He instinctively looked up.
Directly above him, a section of iron crossbeam attached to two long fluorescent light tubes had broken loose.
The enormous mass of metal, weakened by years of neglect, came crashing downward with a thunderous roar.
He Chusan’s seat was against the wall, and his stool was wedged tightly in place.
In that single blink of an eye, it was already too late to push the stool aside and escape.
He could only watch helplessly as the enormous metal frame plummeted toward his head.
In that very same instant, Xia Liuyi, who could easily have jumped aside, instead lunged forward.
He bent over and pulled He Chusan into his arms, simultaneously driving one fist upward.
Bang!
A tremendous impact rang out.
With brute force alone, Xia Liuyi sent the mass of metal flying away.
He Chusan stared in shock, his face buried against Xia Liuyi’s chest.
His nose was filled with the scent of beef offal clinging to the villain’s body.
The weather had recently turned cool, yet the villain still wore only a thin tank top.
He Chusan’s warm lips brushed against a small, hard protrusion on Xia Liuyi’s chest.
Cold sweat immediately broke out all over him.
That particular spot on Xia Liuyi was unusually sensitive.
His face darkened as he shoved He Chusan away.
“What are you rubbing against me for? Trying to nurse?!”
Still dazed, He Chusan looked at him.
Then he lowered his gaze toward his own shoulder.
A bloody handprint had been left there.
A crowd of underlings rushed over, shouting in alarm.
“Brother Liuyi!”
“Are you all right?!”
“You’re bleeding!”
There was blood on Xia Liuyi’s hands, arms, and forehead. The metal frame had scraped him in several places.
Xia Liuyi himself did not think the injuries were serious, but his subordinates were utterly panicked.
They crowded around him and insisted on taking him away to have the wounds bandaged.
They had barely gone a few steps when a woman’s piercing scream rang out.
“Ah Hao!”
Xia Xiaoman shoved through the crowd as though she had gone mad.
Her ten fingers, their nails painted bright red, dug deeply into Xia Liuyi’s arm.
She screamed as though her heart were being torn apart.
“Ah Hao! What happened to you? Don’t die! Ah Hao! Waaah…!”
She wrapped both arms around Xia Liuyi and began sobbing uncontrollably.
Her frenzy was so severe that she did not resemble a normal person at all.
The underlings exchanged glances, watching helplessly as Xia Liuyi, even if he did not die from his injuries, seemed likely to be strangled to death by her.
In the end, Xiao Ma gathered his courage and cautiously stepped forward to pull at her.
“Sister-in-law.”
“Aah!”
Xia Xiaoman released a shrill scream that startled Xiao Ma into stumbling backward.
“Don’t come over! Stop hitting him! Stop hitting him!”
Xia Xiaoman released Xia Liuyi, curled herself into a ball, and began trembling violently.
After screaming twice, she suddenly crawled back.
Using her small, thin body, she shielded Xia Liuyi as tightly as she could.
“No! Hit me! Hit me instead! Don’t hit Ah Hao! I’m begging you! You’re going to beat him to death! Sob… Ah Hao…”
“I’m fine, Sis,” Xia Liuyi said weakly, nearly unable to breathe from how tightly she was holding him.
“Sob… Don’t die… Ah Hao… Sob…”
“I’m really fine, Sis. You’ve been frightened. I’ll take you home.”
“Sob… Ah Hao…”
Xia Liuyi turned his face aside and signaled with his eyes.
Several underlings came forward to help support them.
Xia Xiaoman continued clinging tightly to his injured arm and refused to release it.
Xia Liuyi’s face turned blue with pain, but he showed no intention of pulling free from her.
Instead, he placed his other hand soothingly over the back of hers.
With one of them hanging from the other, the two were escorted away by the underlings.
Xiao Ma remained behind to deal with the aftermath on the film set.
He caught hold of an older underling and lowered his voice.
“Hey, why did Sister-in-law call Brother Liuyi ‘Ah Hao’ just now?”
“It seems that was Brother Liuyi’s old name,” the man replied quietly. “I heard he wasn’t called Liuyi before he began following Boss. He changed his name only after joining Boss.”
They had all forgotten He Chusan, who was still sitting perfectly upright before the table.
The unfortunate young man, who had only just escaped death, stared blankly at the plate of beef offal on the table, now stained with blood.