At the Tongda Logistics repair shop.
The stifling smell of motor oil mixed with dry tobacco made it hard to breathe.
The bearded man was called Chen Heizi, the local kingpin of South City’s freight market.
He had forcibly pried the space bar off the computer keyboard and was twirling it in his hand.
On the screen, the video of Zhang Qiang forcing the dump truck to stop was still playing on a loop.
Chen Heizi stubbed out his cigarette on the layer of motor-oil grime covering the desk.
The ember went out with a sharp sizzle.
“Which outfit are these guys from?”
Chen Heizi spat on the floor.
“Showing off their muscle on my turf in South City—they’re making it plain they want to take food off my table.”
A young man with a head of dyed yellow hair was squatting beside him, fiddling with a baseball bat.
“Boss, I think they’re just putting on a show.” Yellow Hair stood up and tapped the table leg with his baseball bat.
A vicious glint appeared in Chen Heizi’s eyes.
“Take thirty brothers and guard the intersection at Jiefang Road.”
“If you see anyone in a black suit riding an electric bike, smash them and their bike.”
“Peel the skin off these outsiders who think they can muscle in on our turf.”
Half an hour later, at Jiefang Road Intersection.
Shouhou, a low-ranking rider in the Delivery Department of Ding Sheng Company, was rushing forward on his electric bike.
Two portions of freshly stir-fried fish with pickled mustard greens hung from the handlebars.
Suddenly, more than thirty people rushed out of a small alley by the roadside.
They were all thuggish sorts, carrying steel pipes and baseball bats.
Yellow Hair led the way, smashing his bat into the front of Shouhou’s bike.
“Bang!”
The plastic shell shattered across the ground.
Shouhou and his bike went tumbling onto the asphalt. A large patch of skin scraped off the back of his hand, and blood welled up.
He paid no attention to his injured hand.
His eyes were fixed on the food containers that had rolled onto the ground.
The lid had come off the fish with pickled mustard greens. Red chili oil and Sichuan peppercorns were scattered everywhere, still steaming.
Shouhou’s eyes instantly reddened.
The order was ruined. The customer would definitely leave a bad review.
A bad review meant Bottom-Rank Elimination!
Yellow Hair stepped forward and planted a foot on the shattered food container.
Red chili oil splashed onto his pair of high-end knockoff Nikes.
“Why are you acting like some big shot in a lousy suit?”
Yellow Hair pointed his baseball bat at Shouhou’s nose.
“Go tell your boss that South City belongs to Tongda. Set foot here again, and we’ll break your damn legs!”
Shouhou clenched his fists.
If this had happened yesterday, he would’ve grabbed the rearview mirror off his electric bike and fought these guys to the death.
But he forced himself to hold back.
Before they left that morning, the Boss had said they absolutely mustn’t cause trouble and had to do business legally.
Shouhou pulled a walkie-talkie from the inside pocket of his suit and pressed the talk button.
“Brother Hu, I’m at Jiefang Road Intersection.”
Shouhou’s voice was thick with tears.
“Tongda’s men overturned our food.”
On the first floor of Ding Sheng Company, in the dispatch hall.
Xu Hu heard Shouhou’s report over the walkie-talkie.
With a loud crash, he kicked the folding chair in front of him flying.
The chair hit the wall and broke into a pile of metal tubes.
The dozens of brothers in the hall all stopped working and stood up in unison.
“Those bastards have come stomping on my turf!”
Xu Hu reached down to lift the bottom panel of the pool table.
Steel pipes and machetes wrapped in newspaper were hidden there.
“Everyone who’s off duty, grab your weapons!”
Xu Hu roared.
“We’re going to South City!”
As soon as the words left his mouth, a cold shout came from the second-floor stairwell.
“What are you doing?”
Jiang Che stood on the stairs with a tea mug in hand, watching the men below with an expressionless face.
The hall fell silent at once.
Xu Hu gripped two steel pipes, the veins in his neck throbbing.
“Boss, Tongda Logistics’ men are blocking our riders at the intersection.”
“They smashed the food, too!”
Xu Hu ground his back teeth. “If we swallow this insult, how are we supposed to get by in Songjiang from now on?”
Jiang Che descended the stairs at an unhurried pace.
He tapped his tea mug against the pool table beside him, producing a clear clink.
“Put the weapons down.”
Jiang Che stared into Xu Hu’s eyes.
Xu Hu’s chest heaved. He gripped the steel pipes tightly and didn’t move.
“Did you take what I said this morning for idle talk?”
Jiang Che’s voice was quiet, but it carried an icy firmness that brooked no argument.
“We’re a legitimate company. We work in the service industry.”
“This is a rule-of-law society. Grabbing weapons and fighting to the death at the drop of a hat is what petty thugs do.”
Xu Hu was so anxious his face turned red.
“Then what are we supposed to do? Just watch our brothers get beaten without fighting back?”
Jiang Che walked over, took the steel pipe from Xu Hu’s hand, and casually tossed it to the ground.
Clang.
The steel pipe rolled a long way across the terrazzo floor.
“When there’s a dispute, you communicate. You reason with them.”
Jiang Che patted Xu Hu on the shoulder.
“Win people over with virtue. Understand?”
Xu Hu froze, his mind filled with the words “reason with them.”
Jiang Che stepped back and swept his gaze across the more than two hundred people in the hall.
“Anyone who strikes first and gets into a fight will be fired on the spot.”
“And you’ll lose your entire bonus for the month.”
Those words worked better than any family rules.
Everyone instinctively put their hands behind their backs.
Xu Hu took a deep breath and straightened his black suit.
“All right, Boss. I understand.”
Xu Hu turned around and swept his hand through the air.
“First Team, come with me.”
“We’re not taking weapons. We’re going to give our friends at Tongda a lesson and talk some sense into them.”
Twenty minutes later.
At Jiefang Road Intersection in South City.
Yellow Hair and more than thirty men were still surrounding Shouhou and cursing at him.
Suddenly, a faint tremor ran through the ground.
Pedestrians across the street scattered into the shops on either side as if they’d seen a ghost.
Even the cart selling roasted sweet potatoes had vanished.
Yellow Hair stopped swearing and turned around.
At the far end of the street, a mass of dark figures appeared.
Two hundred burly men in cheap black suits.
They marched toward them in four neat columns.
Not a single person raised their voice.
Not one of them carried a weapon.
Hundreds of leather shoes struck the asphalt in a heavy, uniform rhythm.
Like muffled thunder, each step pounded against Yellow Hair’s chest.
Xu Hu was at the front.
The scar on his face glinted menacingly in the sunlight.
The flesh on Yellow Hair’s face began to twitch uncontrollably.
He swallowed dryly. The baseball bat in his hand suddenly felt as hot as a red-hot iron.
The thirty-some thugs began backing away without realizing it.
They kept retreating until their backs hit the brick wall of a dead-end alley.
There was nowhere left to go.
White powder from the wall smeared all over them.
The two hundred men in black suits stopped at the mouth of the alley.
Their footsteps stopped instantly.
They formed a semicircle, trapping the thirty-some men tightly against the wall.
Two hundred men stood in silence. Not one of them even breathed loudly.
Xu Hu remembered the Boss’s parting instruction to “win people over with virtue,” along with the service industry’s motto: “Serve with a smile.”
He clasped his hands in front of his lower abdomen and struck a standard security-guard stance.
Then Xu Hu forced the corners of his mouth upward.
The fleshy lines of his face bunched together, making his smile more frightening than a grimace.
The two hundred men behind him followed his example.
They all placed their hands in front of themselves and forced stiff smiles at the thugs in the corner.
No foul language.
No knives drawn, no fighting.
They simply stood there, wearing eerie smiles and staring fixedly at their opponents.
The air grew so thick it seemed ready to solidify.
The immense, wordless psychological pressure pressed down on the thugs like a mountain.
Yellow Hair’s legs went weak.
Clang.
The baseball bat slipped from his hand and struck his toes.
He didn’t even dare cry out in pain.
The pants of several younger thugs were already wet, and the stench of urine filled the air.
With a trembling hand, Yellow Hair reached into his pocket.