Chapter 46
Chapter 46
Liu Wenhe swore and pleaded, confessing everything he could think of while making every possible excuse for kidnapping Zhao Xiuming.
One moment he claimed Huang Jinsheng had ordered it; the next, he said Dahu was working for Huang Jinsheng.
When neither Zhao Xiuming nor the masked man reacted, he turned to gods and spirits. “What kind of deity are you?”
“I’ll burn incense for you every day. Just spare my life. However many people you want to kill, I’ll find them for you.”
“Did the Second Marshal send you? I knew that old bastard was scheming. Whatever he offered, I’ll double it. No, I’ll give you five times as much.”
“You’re really human, aren’t you? A gu sorcerer from Southeast Asia?”
Zhao Xiuming still didn’t respond. The masked man had found a radio and cassette tapes somewhere and was fiddling with them.
Liu Wenhe talked until his mouth was dry without getting an answer.
The building had fifteen floors, the same height as the other apartment blocks.
But parties were often held on this roof, so it wasn’t cluttered with junk. The view was reasonably open.
Behind them, Liu Wenhe changed tactics again and began sobbing for sympathy. “I’m just a lackey working for the gang. All those terrible things were orders from above.”
“I can’t fight back. I’ve got elderly relatives and a child to support. My son’s only four.”
“If I don’t obey, they’ll put my family in concrete and sink them in the river!”
Seeing that neither man was watching, Liu Wenhe kept crying while secretly dragging himself away on his elbows.
He had barely moved when the masked man stepped down and broke his lower spine. A metallic sweetness rose in his throat, and he spat blood.
The masked man reacted as though disaster had struck. He hastily bent to wipe the splashed blood off the radio-cassette player, treating it like a treasure while ignoring the living man wailing beside him.
Liu Wenhe swore bitterly, then tried dragging others down with him. “Whatever sort of god you are, whatever you’re after, I swear I’ll do anything you say if you just give me a way to live.”
“This whole city is full of criminals. Why only come after me?”
“Plenty of people have done worse things than I have. If you’re here to punish evil, I’ll turn over a new leaf.”
“I’ll give you a list of every one of them. Whoever you want dead, we’ll kill them. I’ll help you, I swear.”
It had taken only half an hour for his confident calculation to collapse into desperate babbling.
Zhao Xiuming showed no sign of having come to negotiate or interrogate him. He wasn’t nervous, nor did he seem eager for answers.
He simply stood on the roof, looking around and breathing the fresh air. He even had the leisure to ask, “It looks like rain… Where’s the whale?”
The masked man made a gesture. Apart from responding to Zhao Xiuming, he neither spoke nor acknowledged anyone.
Perhaps finally tired of Liu Wenhe’s noise, Zhao Xiuming looked down. “Be quiet.”
“I want to hear about those mainlanders. The ones you took to Spirit Medium Hall.”
Before Liu Wenhe could answer, he added, “You can lie, of course.”
“Whatever you like. I have a way to tell what’s true.”
“You don’t have elderly relatives to support. Or a four-year-old son.”
“Nobody forced you to do anything.”
Liu Wenhe suddenly realized that all those wasted words must have been nothing but a joke to the person in front of him.
Had they really brought him here just to get information?
Luckily, he still had something to fall back on.
“Nobody’s answering at Liu Wenhe’s. Are his boys too busy playing cards to hear the phone?”
“He agreed to deliver the goods at five. What time is it now? He’s usually punctual. Anything involving money, and he’s the keenest of the lot.”
“There are two phones in his building, and he always keeps a pager stuffed down his trousers. If we can’t reach any of them, something’s wrong. Send someone to check. Dahu! Dahu!”
Dahu was pale and covered in bandages. Normally, an injured man like him wouldn’t have been sent.
But everyone knew he had caught Liu Wenhe’s eye. Sending him would be a gesture of respect to Liu Wenhe.
Dahu himself was willing. He hadn’t felt at ease since delivering Zhao Xiuming to Liu Wenhe’s turf.
This would give him a chance to see whether Liu Wenhe was mistreating him, and to offer whatever help he could.
He was just heading out with his four boys when Ah Hao and Shuai Zai, who had been waiting by the entrance, pulled him aside for a drink.
The two had been at a nearby dance club. They greeted him with overwhelming warmth. “Where are you going? Come have a drink. Don’t insult me by saying no.”
Dahu raised his injured arm. “I really can’t drink with these injuries. Otherwise, I’d be happy to have a few with you, Ah Hao.”
Shuai Zai grew anxious. “You can stay and join the fun even if you can’t drink. Where are you going, anyway?”
Dahu didn’t want to say. Shuai Zai immediately raised his voice. “Liu Wenhe’s? Dahu, I hate to say it, but of all the people you could follow, why choose that piece of shit? He’s an animal.”
“We went there for your sake today, and he made us suffer for it. You have no idea how low he’ll stoop.”
“He actually had someone empty a toilet over our heads. Made us a laughingstock.”
“And now you’re going back to that old bastard? Don’t want to be friends with us anymore?”
Their followers listened from behind them, faces twisted in bewilderment. They had never had bosses like these.
They had been drenched in shit, and instead of hiding it, they were broadcasting it as if afraid somebody might not know. Weren’t they ashamed?
As people turned to stare, the boys wanted to bury their heads in the ground.
With a cigarette between his lips, Ah Hao asked cautiously, “We’re not trying to make things hard for you. Just tell me why you’re going there.”
Dahu gave a bitter smile. “It’s not personal this time. It’s gang business.”
He explained that nobody could reach Liu Wenhe by phone. Though both men reeked of alcohol, their eyes widened sharply.
Shuai Zai grabbed him. “Then you definitely can’t go.”
Dahu pushed him aside and called to his followers, “Shuai Zai’s drunk. Hold him up.”
He had dropped even the respectful tone. Shuai Zai tried to persuade him again, but Ah Hao caught his arm. “Leave it.”
“You can’t talk sense into someone determined to die.”
Dahu felt there was something very wrong with those two today. They had been acting strangely ever since they saw Zhao Xiuming at Liu Wenhe’s.
Especially their reaction to seeing him, and now those questions and warnings.
Unease gripped him. The closer he got to Liu Wenhe’s turf, the faster his heart beat and the grimmer his face became.
With his injuries, he should have been slower than his four followers. But anxiety drove him onward, faster and faster.
As he approached the building, he spotted a corpse on the ground and froze.
Liu Wenhe’s turf lay toward the west. The nearer one got to the gang’s area, the fewer people there were.
Ordinary residents didn’t dare live alongside thugs. Besides, Liu Wenhe had obtained this whole building by forcing its residents out.
Gang members with nowhere to stay often lodged here. It wasn’t as crowded as the residential areas, but it was usually lively. Now it was deathly silent.
Dahu went closer to inspect the body. It had been severed at the waist.
One of his boys pointed up and cried, “Who’s that? Is that Zhao Xiuming?”
Dahu looked toward the roof. Sure enough, he saw a figure that looked like him.
Without stopping to think, he rushed into the building.