A crisp knock pattered like rain on glass. “Come in.”
At the voice from inside, the door slid open like a leaf drifted by a breeze. The necklace-wearing kid stepped in, a box of fried rice steaming like an incense coil in his hand.
“What do you want?” Hu Fei sat in a boss chair like a rock in a river, watching the news twist his deeds into fog for the clueless crowd. He turned the chair, and his stare landed like a blade on the newcomer.
“Boss Hu Fei, your fried rice. Please enjoy.” The necklace kid set it down as carefully as placing a teacup on ice, chopsticks gleaming like twin reeds.
“Wuying sent you?” The scent rose like a warm tide, and hunger thawed his mood like sun on frost.
“Yes.”
“Got it. Go handle your tasks.” Hu Fei nodded like a judge with a gavel and picked up the chopsticks like twin wings.
“Right, something flared up in the western block. Wuying-ge already took men to check.” The kid’s words fluttered back like a loose flyer at the door.
“Noted.” Hu Fei shoveled a mouthful in like coal into a furnace. “The west, huh? Maybe more people like me showed up. Now that’s interesting.”
He took two more bites, chewing like a millstone. “Smells divine.”
—
Wuying-ge armed his boys like crows gathering shiny trinkets, then moved west like a shadow riding dusk.
“Wuying-ge, you should see this.” A lackey held up a tablet like a mirror catching lightning, fear clouding his face like mist on a pond.
“What’s got you spooked?” Wuying tucked his pistol at his back like a hot coal and clipped a cigarette to his ear like a pale reed. Then he took the tablet like a fisherman lifting a net.
On screen, a teen boy and girl stood ringed by west-side thugs like a lone tree in a wolf pack. The lead thug mouthed off, and bang—like a thunderclap, the girl shot him dead as clean as a falling star.
“Damn, that fierce?” Wuying’s brow knotted like twisted rope, and more shots cracked like dry branches snapping. After a few fell like cut wheat, the rest finally fired back like a panicked hive.
Then it turned stranger. Bark rose around the pair like armor from an ancient oak, catching the bullets like rain on a roof. A green light flashed like spring lightning, and the survivors were bound by branches that surged from the ground like serpents from a bog. The two walked off like wind over grass, leaving wreckage behind like a broken nest.
“You know where this is?” Cold sweat beaded on Wuying’s brow like dew on stone.
“I do, Wuying-ge. You sure you wanna go?” The lackey’s voice trembled like a thin wire in wind.
“We gotta look, or we’ve got no trail at all,” Wuying said, bracing like a man before winter water. “Maybe there are survivors.”
At the scene, the air hung like smoke in a temple.
“You go first. See if anyone’s alive.” Wuying pointed his gun at the alley mouth like a spear toward a cave and barked.
Some of the boys, clueless as chickens in snow, wandered in like sleepwalkers. Screams ripped out a moment later like claws down a door, and the crew outside jolted like startled horses.
They stumbled back out, crying like gulls in a storm. “W-W-Wuying-ge, inside—inside—” One boy’s words snapped mid-branch, and he fainted like a puppet with cut strings.
Wuying swallowed, the sound dry as gravel. He looked at the rest, and they staggered back like reeds in a sudden gust.
“You kidding me? You’ve got guns—guns! Know what a gun is?” He raised his arm and fired at a shop, glass bursting like ice on a river, the TV inside dying in a spray of sparks like fireflies snuffed out.
“Get in there. Tell me exactly what the hell is going on. Anyone comes out like that again—” he pointed at the sprawled bodies like stones after a flood, “I’ll be merciful, but this gun won’t.”
“Okay, okay—we’re going.” They skulked in like cats approaching a bath, then crept back out shaking like leaves, faces drained like old paper.
“What’s the situation?” Wuying’s face darkened like a sky before rain.
“Like hell,” the spokesman said, shuddering like a dog in sleet. “Besides the ones shot dead, the rest are trapped in there, skin blue and purple like bruised plums. They were strangled. Every face looks… ghastly.”
“I see.” A chill licked his spine like a night wind. He weighed the thought like a stone in his palm: tell Hu Fei, or let the river run cold. Those two clearly came for Hu Fei like hunters on a trail. If Hu Fei hid, the storm might pass with no blood on his hands.
“Maybe I go harder. But it’s a gamble.” His eyes flicked like fish under dark water. He replayed the video in his mind like a drumbeat—two people cutting down a dozen armed men as easy as slicing bamboo. Who knew how deep their well ran?
“You’ve followed me a long time,” Wuying said, turning to his boys like a father to sons. “I treat you like brothers. We ate in this city like wolves on a ridge.”
He drew a breath, hot as pepper smoke. “Men die for fortune, birds for grain. We swallowed pride to follow Hu Fei, but now fate’s come knocking like thunder at his door.”
The boys traded glances like lanterns flickering at dusk. “Two people came for Hu Fei,” Wuying pressed on, voice rising like a drumline. “You saw the west-side corpses. Those two did that.”
“Died that miserably,” someone muttered, voice thin as ash.
“Those two ain’t devils, are they?” another whispered, eyes wide like moons.
“So it’s our turn to flip,” Wuying said, words sharp as frosted reeds. “We help them. We kill Hu Fei. Maybe the government pins medals on us like spring flowers, and our names wash clean like rain on stone.”
“But what if those two can’t beat Hu Fei?” Doubt fluttered like a moth at a candle. They’d seen Hu Fei’s strength like a mountain in fog.
“They won’t be sent to die for nothing,” Wuying said, shaking his head like a bell. “The government isn’t stupid. Even if Hu Fei lives today, when he dies someday, we still get nothing. For our future, we have to do this.”
Agreement settled over them like snow on eaves.
“Here’s the plan,” Wuying said, voice clipped like a blade. “Some of you report to Hu Fei. Say we caught the intruders. Lure him to North Plaza like a fish to bait. I’ll talk to the two outsiders like a bridge between banks. The rest of you sweep up every valuable like crows to coins. Then we rally at North Plaza.”
“Got it, Wuying-ge!”
