Lu Feng slamd a fist against his forehead, just to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. Even then, he still couldn’t process the unbelievable sight before him. Once more, he glanced around at the people on the ground. “What... what happened here?”
“I don’t know.” Lu Ling choked back tears while shaking her head, her eyes red. “They rushed at and tried to grab and drag into the car. I ran, but they kept chasing .”
“And this...” Lu Feng pointed at Horsey beside them, who was panting frantically with its tongue hanging out. “This... is this our scooter?”
“I don’t know.” Seeing Lu Feng reach for his gun, Lu Ling quickly hugged the scooter’s “head” to her chest. “It’s a good boy, don’t scare it!”
Lu Feng was so stunned, he couldn’t find the words to voice his bewildernt. After a long while, the synapses in his brain seed to reconnect. The instinct to kill receded, and a small thread of thought returned.
“I’ll take you ho first. Go clean up, and don’t tell Mom. She’ll just worry herself sick.”
He reached out and carefully hugged the girl in front of him, cautious not to touch her wounds. Seeing the patch on her forehead where hair had been torn off, his eyes briefly lost focus and went blank.
Soon, under Lu Ling’s gaze, he forced a smile.
“Don’t be afraid.” He rubbed Lu Ling’s cheek. “They’re just a bunch of lowlifes, I got it handled. And if I can’t, we still have Ji Jue, right?”
“Mm.” Lu Ling held his hand, no longer afraid.
***
About ten minutes later in the evening, Ji Jue was eating takeout when his phone started vibrating violently in his pocket. He answered out of habit. “Hello... Feng?”
Then the smile vanished from his face.
“I see... Okay, got it. I’ll be there right away.” He hung up and put down his chopsticks.
Ye Chun looked up. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“My family needs , so I probably won’t be able to work tonight or tomorrow,” he said awkwardly. “Can I take a break?”
Ye Chun rolled her eyes. “Co on, enough pretending, you’re already so worked up. Hurry up and go. Do you need to lend you so cash?”
“Ah, no, I’ll just go.” Ji Jue already got to packing his things. After hesitating for a mont, he grabbed another portable probe from the toolbox and stuffed it in his pocket. “I need to borrow this tool.”
“Make sure you give it back!” Ye Chun’s voice ca from behind, barely audible once the door was closed.
Ji Jue sprinted, heading for the factory gate. Outside, the delivery van from Mainland Auto Shop was already parked across the street. Through the rolled-down window, Lu Feng could be seen smoking in the driver’s seat.
Ji Jue opened the car door and slid into the passenger seat. “Lu Ling, are you okay?”
“I just got a little scrape on my head. It’ll be fine after I apply so iodine. I was more scared than hurt.”
Lu Feng flicked the ash from his cigarette, then turned to point at the dog-shaped scooter in the back, which was still panting and running around. With a conflicted look, he said, “In every possible sense.”
Ji Jue’s expression grew awkward. “I... can’t really explain this right now. You’ve been riding it for two or three years, right? Anyway, it’s just... a family pet, that’s all.”
Whose little scooter was this badass? It could gobble drumsticks, throw down in a fight, and even unleash a five-strike combo that wiped out everything in its path.
Lu Feng wasn’t one to underestimate himself. Still, he suspected that if he faced it barehanded, he’d probably be knocked flat in a second. He was just a human with flesh and blood, and there was no way he could beat reinforced steel. And this thing was covered in iron from head to toe. Even a slide tackle[1] wouldn’t help; he’d just sign his own death sentence.
After putting down his bag, Ji Jue cut to the chase. “Where are the attackers?”
Lu Feng pointed behind Horsey, at the lump under the waterproof tarp, which was still wriggling and rising. Ji Jue nodded and gave the steering wheel a pat, and the scooter started on its own, following his navigation as it drove off.
“Heh, so you can do this too,” Lu Feng murmured, following him and climbing into the cargo area.
When they lifted the tarp, they saw the attackers, whose faces were drenched in blood and barely recognizable. Tied up with their own ropes, they were struggling and whimpering. Their expressions were fierce, as if trying to appear threatening.
“Have you interrogated them yet?” Ji Jue asked.
“Not yet,” Lu Feng replied, scanning the tattoos on their arms and legs. “These guys have probably been to prison more than a few tis. Without so professional thods, they won’t talk.”
“No worries. We don’t need that.” Ji Jue reached into their pockets, feeling around for a mont, and soon pulled out three phones.
The screens lit up. The phones didn't require any passwords or facial recognition; they unlocked faster than a regular brothel custor could strip off his pants. Right in front of the three n, the screens flickered nonstop as Ji Jue went through call logs, chat histories, social dia apps, various clients, even deleted ssages.
“Scarface Ming? Qi Qin? And... Jiang Jin?” Ji Jue muttered to himself as he went through the contacts and communication logs on the phones that told him everything he needed to know.
They had been watched even when Ms. Wen ca to visit his hospital room?
“I see now...” He montarily set the last phone down and sighed. “Feng, my bad. They were targeting .”
Lu Feng paused for a mont, then smacked him on the back of the head with exasperation. “If you’re being targeted, that ans our entire family is being targeted. We’re all in this together. What are you apologizing for?”
Ji Jue was about to speak, but the words died on his tongue as he inspected the pictures in the last phone’s gallery. Lu Feng glanced over and froze as he watched Ji Jue rapidly scroll down. On all three phones, the photos showed single beds with filthy and stained sheets in rundown dimly lit dorm rooms, as well as people.
So were dressed in tattered clothes; so were completely naked. So stared blankly, taking a drag of a cigarette with a careless, numb smile. Others were bruised from head to toe, had disheveled hair, were curled up on themselves as they tried to cover their faces, but nothing could hide the pinprick marks on their wrists or the purple bruises along their arms. So had been locked in cages, while so had been hanged.
And in the videos, faint cries and choked sobs could be heard.
Lu Feng’s eyes went hollow. When he looked at the people in front of him, a bestial ferocity slowly took over his face.
“Seems like you guys have quite an... entertaining lifestyle,” he muttered. He leaned down to study their terrified, whimpering faces and asked, “What exactly were you planning to do with my little sister?”
The man with the mangled face squird desperately before spitting out the cardboard shoved in his mouth and coughing violently. “Sir, please, don’t... I’m sorry! It’s a misunderstanding, all a misunderstanding! I was joking, I—”
“Is that so?” Lu Feng smiled. “You’re hilarious.”
Ji Jue’s face darkened. “Feng, wait—”
Bang!
He had already pulled the trigger. The gunfire erupted, and the man’s face exploded into a spray of blood and tissue.
You’re so funny that your little “joke” got you killed, Lu Feng thought.
Then the gun swung toward another man, but Ji Jue grabbed Lu Feng by the hand and stopped him. The twisted face behind the muzzle showed relief and ecstasy.
Lu Feng turned to Ji Jue with ferocious eyes. “What are you doing?”
Ji Jue glared back, so furious that he almost wanted to punch his brother. “Are you out of your mind!? Do you want Mrs. Lu to never drive this car again? Do you even know how to deal with the bullet holes? Do you have any idea how hard it is to clean up traces of blood in a car? Couldn’t you just wait until I drove the car to the beach?!”
Lu Feng froze. “Huh?”
“What do you an, ‘huh?’ Think things through a bit more before acting, will ya?” Ji Jue yanked the gun from his brother’s hand, glaring at the sticky blood on it as his anger boiled over. “Great. Besides panel welding, the entire car needs a full cleaning. And this blood... if soone shines a UV light on it in the future, are you gonna tell them you transported a live pig? When we get the reagents later, you clean it yourself!”
“...Oh.” Lu Feng nodded. Once the initial anger passed, his headache returned. How was he going to explain this hole in the car to Mom? Still, he couldn’t help asking, “And what about these two?”
Ji Jue looked down at the gun, sighed, and finally removed the loaded bullets before tucking the weapon back into his pocket.
“Forget it. Everyone’s out here just trying to make a living. There’s no need to kill them.”
He patted one of the n on the shoulder. “How does the saying go again? Once a person is in the jianghu, they can no longer act at their own will[2]. They probably don’t have control over their own lives. I’m not the type to seek revenge for every little slight. If possible, I don’t want to kill anyone.”
Almost in tears, the two n nodded frantically while wriggling in the pool of blood. Even the van, which had been speeding all this ti, slowly ca to a halt. Outside the window, the sound of waves rose as the sea reflected countless flickering lights, like millions of tiny dancing suns.
Ji Jue reached out and opened the doors for them, revealing that blindingly bright world outside. Restrained, they nodded frantically, trying desperately to show grateful smiles. Yet their eyes couldn’t help being drawn to sothing in the blinding light that refused to lt away...
Those eyes were pitch black, like an endless abyss. They stared down at the vast, seemingly boundless ocean stretching far below the cliff.
With utmost sincerity, Ji Jue said, “Since you’re already used to having no control over your own lives, why not try acting on your own will for once? Would you mind... jumping down yourselves?”
***
In the afternoon sea breeze, the tide roared.
Lu Feng finally managed to wipe off most of the blood in the back of the car. He jumped out of the cargo area, still holding the filthy headrest cover, unsure what to do. “Jue, how do you even wash this? Looks like the stain won’t co off.”
“Just throw it away.” Ji Jue sat on the railing, letting the wind brush past him while gazing at the view. “Be a filial son and go buy a new one for Mrs. Lu!”
“Damn it, why is it that every ti you make a suggestion, I’m the one paying, but you get to earn all of Mom’s good graces in the end?” Lu Feng grumbled, leaning over to look down.
Below, on a lone pine clinging to the cliff, soone struggled to hold onto a branch while crying out loudly, though the wind was too strong to hear clearly.
A gust of sea wind blew, and the person bound to the rope swayed helplessly, pulling along the two companions hanging below on the sa line.
The surviving companion’s lips moved rapidly, as if shouting encouragent, urging him not to give up and to haul himself up quickly. Like a bunch of grasshoppers on a single rope, they struggled in a pitiful, chaotic tangle.
“Wow, he’s still hanging on? I’m kinda impressed.” Lu Feng pulled out a cigarette and lit it, clearly amused. “How long do you think he’ll hold on?”
“Don’t know.”
“I’ll bet twenty Fedra that he’ll only be able to hold on for another ten minutes!”
“No bets.”
“Co on, just once! You’ve got no sense of fun... You’ll never get a girlfriend like this.”
“Fine, I’ll bet fifty.”
“Fifty it is!”
No sooner had Lu Feng spoken than he saw Ji Jue push himself up from the railing, grab a stone from the ground, and hurl it down.
Lu Feng frowned. “Hey! That’s cheating!”
“You never said this was off the table,” Ji Jue argued matter-of-factly. “Besides, couldn’t you have stopped ?”
Lu Feng muttered a curse and dug fifty Fedra out of his pocket before tossing it into Ji Jue’s lap. Then he took the stone from Ji Jue’s hand.
And so, in the setting sun, the happy little stones flew into the waves. Two young n tossed stone after stone, so focused that it was as if they were playing the carefree sumr gas of their childhood.
1. “滑铲” (slide tackle) is a low-to-the-ground, fast sliding movent commonly used in soccer, action-fighting gas, and FPS shooters. Its purposes include closing distance quickly, flanking, dodging damage, or intercepting the ball. ☜
2. The saying “人在江湖，身不由己” literally ans “Once a person is in the Jianghu, they can no longer act at their own will.” It refers to the idea that once soone is imrsed in a complex society, workplace, or specific environnt (the “Jianghu”), many things beco beyond their control, and their words and actions are no longer entirely their own. ☜
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