The computer screen cast a dim blue glow.
Jiang Che rested his finger on the mouse wheel and kept scrolling down.
There were hundreds of reviews, and every last one was a five-star rating.
Not a single one mentioned how the food tasted.
They were all either wishing the delivery rider a lifetime of safety or begging him to stop knocking on their doors.
Something was wrong.
These were nothing like normal food delivery reviews.
Jiang Che picked up the desk phone and called the extension in the lobby on the first floor.
“Send Lei Bao up here.”
“Bring the memory cards from those electric scooters fitted with DV cameras today.”
Back in 2008, portable body cameras weren’t really a thing yet.
To keep those hooligans from causing trouble on the streets, Jiang Che had someone buy a batch of cheap digital DV cameras wholesale at the electronics market.
They were fastened tightly to the handlebars with clear tape.
Officially, it was to conduct spot checks on service standards. It was also to keep evidence in case customers tried to scam them.
A few minutes later, Lei Bao came through the door in that tight, garish shirt of his.
He clutched a handful of black SD cards.
“Boss, here are all the cards.”
Jiang Che said nothing. He took the card reader and slipped a random card into the computer.
He double-clicked the mouse and opened a video file named “Zhang Qiang-002.”
The video appeared, jolting violently up and down.
A rush of wind and static filled the audio.
The timestamp in the lower-right corner showed 12:30 p.m., right in the middle of the lunch rush.
Zhang Qiang was the Top-Tier Red Pole of Chen Dao’s gang branch.
He was a lunatic who fought like he had nothing to lose.
On screen, Zhang Qiang was tearing down Jianguo North Road astride a battered Luyuan Electric Scooter with peeling paint.
The battery indicator on the dashboard flashed red.
A white plastic bag hung from the handlebar hook, holding two portions of Braised Chicken Rice.
Without an insulated delivery box, the bag swung wildly in the wind.
A walkie-talkie was clipped to the lapel of Zhang Qiang’s suit.
Chen Dao’s gravelly roar blared from it.
“Qiangzi! This order’s going to be four minutes late!”
“I’m warning you—if you get a bad review and drag our gang branch to the bottom of the rankings…”
“I’ll skin you alive myself!”
Zhang Qiang didn’t say a word.
He just twisted the throttle with his right hand as far as it would go.
The motor let out a strained whine.
He made that secondhand electric scooter feel like an F1 race car.
He weaved through the dense traffic, darting into every gap in the motor vehicle lanes.
Jiang Che lifted his chipped mug and took a sip of cold water, trying to calm his racing heart.
This wasn’t food delivery.
It was a desperate, life-or-death escape.
The scenery rushed backward, roadside trees blurring into streaks of green.
Up ahead was the intersection at Jiefang Road.
The yellow light was flashing, about to turn red.
In the cross street, a Steyr dump truck loaded with sand and gravel showed no intention of slowing down.
Its massive cab barreled forward with unstoppable force, ready to run the red light.
The dump truck driver leaned on the air horn.
“HOOOONK—”
The deafening blast pierced the DV camera’s microphone and exploded through the speakers in Jiang Che’s office.
Jiang Che’s hand shook around his mug.
Any normal person would have slammed on the brakes and gotten as far away as possible.
But Zhang Qiang didn’t.
He glanced at the cheap mechanical watch on his wrist.
Only three minutes remained before the order was late.
Jiang Che saw the veins bulging on the backs of Zhang Qiang’s hands as he gripped the handlebars.
The electric scooter didn’t slow down. Instead, it hurtled straight toward the center of the intersection.
The two forces were about to collide.
“Screeeech—”
The piercing squeal of tires rang out.
The dump truck driver panicked and stomped hard on the air brakes.
The twelve heavily loaded tires dragged black skid marks over ten meters long across the asphalt.
The air filled with the pungent stench of burning rubber.
The sand and gravel in the truck bed lurched forward, cascading with a clatter.
The enormous cab of the heavy-duty truck ground to a halt less than half a meter from the scooter.
A wave of heat nearly washed over the DV camera’s lens.
On screen,
Zhang Qiang planted one foot on the ground.
The sole of his cheap leather shoe scraped a white streak across the asphalt.
He and the scooter stopped rock-steady right in front of the dump truck.
The camera tilted slightly upward.
Through his cheap oversized sunglasses, Zhang Qiang glared at the driver in the cab, over two meters above the ground.
He was still holding the two portions of Braised Chicken Rice steady in one hand.
Not a single drop of soup had spilled.
Sitting in front of the computer, Jiang Che drew in a sharp breath.
Water went down the wrong way, and he burst into a fit of coughing, tears streaming from his eyes.
What the hell kind of carbon-based life-form could do something like that?
He was willing to risk his life just to avoid Bottom-Rank Elimination!
The video kept playing.
The dump truck door was flung open with a clang.
A bare-chested driver with a filthy towel draped around his neck jumped down.
He gripped a large adjustable wrench used for car repairs.
“You trying to get yourself killed? Are you fucking blind—”
The driver’s shouting cut off halfway, like a duck with its neck squeezed, and suddenly stopped.
He took two steps closer, wrench in hand.
Then he saw the man blocking the truck.
Zhang Qiang wore a tight black suit, with his tie hanging loosely around his neck.
The sudden braking had been so violent that the top button of his suit had popped off.
Through the open collar, a large blue shoulder-to-shoulder dragon tattoo was visible.
The dragon’s claws ran along his collarbone and all the way up to his Adam’s apple.
As Zhang Qiang breathed, the Azure Dragon seemed to writhe beneath his skin.
Zhang Qiang pushed his oversized sunglasses up onto his forehead.
Beneath them was a pair of bloodshot, sharply angled eyes.
He stared at the driver without expression.
He didn’t say a word.
He looked as if he were staring at a corpse about to be stuffed into a sack.
The driver’s hand began to tremble around the wrench.
He’d been hauling freight on the roads for years and had met plenty of vicious hotheads.
But he’d never seen anyone reckless enough to stop a fully loaded dump truck single-handedly.
And he’d never seen a “delivery rider” wearing a black gang uniform in the blazing heat, with a dragon tattoo, and the eyes of a serial killer.
“Clang.”
The large wrench slipped from his hand and hit the asphalt.
The driver swallowed, his legs turning weak as he instinctively took a step backward.
“B-Boss.”
The driver hastily wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, his voice trembling.
“Sorry, I got distracted and didn’t see the red light.”
“You… you go ahead.”
Zhang Qiang pulled his oversized sunglasses down again, hiding half his face.
Without a word, he pressed down with one foot and twisted the throttle hard with his right hand.
The Luyuan Electric Scooter went around the enormous dump truck and sped away.
The driver was left standing in the middle of the road, too shaken to move for a long time.
The computer screen went black as the video ended.
Jiang Che rubbed his throbbing temples.
He finally understood why those reviews were full of desperate pleas for survival.
These Outlaws treated food delivery like a mission that meant risking their lives.
If they couldn’t deliver the food, they’d pay with their lives.
With that terrifying level of execution, they could sweep through the Middle East as mercenaries.
Jiang Che closed the player, pulled the card reader out, and tossed it into a drawer.
What he didn’t know was that behind the windshield of that dump truck, there had happened to be a newly purchased Dashcam.
It had captured the entire scene of Zhang Qiang forcing the dump truck to stop in perfect clarity.
The recording, less than two minutes long, appeared that very afternoon on Xici Hutong, a local BBS forum in Songjiang City.
The poster was an anonymous user.
The title was an attention-grabber.
《A suit-clad thug spotted on the streets of Songjiang! Stops a dump truck with one foot!》
In an era when the internet was just beginning to catch on, a bizarre video like this was a veritable traffic bomb.
It racked up over thirty thousand views in an hour.
The post quickly shot to the top of the homepage, highlighted in red.
Songjiang City's South District.
Inside a repair shop with a battered wooden sign reading “Tongda Logistics.”
The air was thick with the pungent smell of motor oil.
A burly man with a full beard sat in front of a greasy computer.
He stared intently at the video playing on a loop.
He was the boss of another underground syndicate in Songjiang City, controlling most of the freight market.
The bearded man slammed his palm onto the keyboard, sending plastic keys flying.
He pointed a thick, stubby finger at Zhang Qiang’s black suit on the screen.
“Find out what outfit this new river-crossing dragon belongs to.”