Futile Devices Scans

“Knock knock knock! Knock knock knock!” “Boss Liu Yi!”

Xia Liu Yi jolted awake from a nightmare and frowned toward the door. Xiao He sprang up with him, quickly stripping off her own clothes and messing up her hair to make it look like a chaotic scene after sex.

Xia Liu Yi opened the door. Xiao Ma nearly crashed straight inside, his face full of panic. “Boss Liu Yi! Bad news! The boss and sister-in-law had a fight. Sister-in-law stabbed the boss…”

“How badly is Eldest hurt?!” Xia Liu Yi anxiously cut him off. Without even putting on a shirt, wearing only a pair of trousers and barefoot, he rushed out the door.

Xiao Ma hurried after him. “It didn’t hit anything vital. He’s already been sent to the hospital! But sister-in-law, she…”

“Which hospital?!” Xia Liu Yi roared.

“Gaau City Hospital, the one beside the Walled City! Boss Liu Yi! Sister-in-law, she…” Xiao Ma ran after him, terrified as he reached out to pull at him, hesitating.

“What happened to her?!” Xia Liu Yi shouted furiously.

“She… after she stabbed the boss, she jumped from the villa rooftop…”

Xia Liu Yi’s body froze halfway into the car. The car keys in his hand fell to the ground with a clatter.

The sedan sped all the way forward, tearing into the night like lightning. At the end of the road was a fork: left led to the Gaau Lung seaside villa, right led to Gaau City Hospital.

At the intersection, Xia Liu Yi hit the brakes. Expressionless, he took a breath, then wrenched the steering wheel hard and drove left.

He slammed the car door and rushed barefoot into the villa. Several servants left behind hurried up to stop him. “Boss Liu Yi! Boss Liu Yi!”

“Move!”

Behind the building, beside the swimming pool, a white cloth covered a thin body lying beneath it.

Xia Liu Yi rushed to the corpse and knelt down. The moment he lifted the white cloth and glanced beneath it, the hardness on his face shattered completely. Trembling, he bent over and collapsed onto Xia Xiao Man’s body. After a long silence, a suppressed gasp finally escaped him. “Sis…”

The butler and several servants chased after him, hesitating as they stood far away, not daring to come close and provoke him.

Xia Liu Yi knelt there for a long time, eyes bloodshot, his whole body trembling. In a low voice, he asked, “What happened?”

The butler hesitated. “I only arrived afterward too. A’Wen, you tell him.”

A servant who had been present at the time trembled and said, “Madam and Master started arguing. I-I heard from outside the door. It seemed Madam suspected Master had someone outside. Master said no, but Madam didn’t believe him. She even called Master ‘perverted’ and ‘shameless.’ In the end, she said something like, ‘What you really like is…’ Before she could finish, Master slapped her. Then Madam stabbed Master with a fruit knife. We were busy rushing Master to the hospital. Just as we got him to the doorway, we heard a sound. Madam had jumped…”

Xia Liu Yi curled in on himself and lowered his head, clutching the white cloth tightly. As if heaven and earth had suddenly collapsed, he let out a hoarse, agonized growl.

After a long while, Xia Liu Yi sniffed hard. When he raised his head again, his face was expressionless. Bracing himself against the ground, he slowly stood and said to the butler, “I’ll leave this place to you for now. I’m going to check on Eldest.”

He left slowly, one step heavy and the next unsteady. No one dared call after him. At that moment, one of the servants quietly slipped away from the others, went into the inner room, and made a phone call.

……

Xia Liu Yi drove back along the same road and returned to the fork again, this time turning toward Azure Dragon. When he stopped at Gaau City Hospital, a crowd of Xiao Qi Hall underlings had already gathered at the entrance. Xiao Ma had also arrived and followed behind him with several brothers. “Boss Liu Yi, Boss Xu is inside. He won’t let us in.”

“Xiao Liu, your sister stabbed the boss. Isn’t it inappropriate for you to go in and see him?” Xu Ying said, blocking the entrance to the ward.

“My sister was ill. She couldn’t control herself,” Xia Liu Yi said with an icy face, his eyes filled with crisscrossing red veins. “I followed Eldest when I was ten. I kowtowed and joined the gang when I was fourteen. Eldest’s kindness to me is as heavy as a mountain. I would never harm him. I only want to go in and see him. Move.”

Xu Ying met his gaze for a while, then suddenly smiled. “True. You’re so filial toward the boss. I shouldn’t stop you. Go in. The boss just fell asleep. Don’t wake him.”

The room was dim and filled with the scent of blood and the sharp smell of medicine. A floor lamp glowed in the corner, illuminating Xia Liu Yi’s bare feet.

Azure Dragon lay quietly on the bed, face up, eyes slightly closed, as though he was only resting from exhaustion.

Xia Liu Yi closed the door, quietly circled around the bed, and sat by the window.

He tilted his head back and looked at the shadowy trees outside. The night wind lashed at them fiercely, the branches and leaves trembling as they struggled toward the sky.

“Eldest,” Xia Liu Yi said softly, “was I wrong?”

“Back then, I shouldn’t have begged you to marry her.”

“Neither of you did anything wrong. The wrong one was me.”

He lowered his head and buried his face in both hands, saying hoarsely, “But what could I do? She loved you so much. She thought about you every day. She couldn’t live without you. She was my sister. She treated me so well and protected me since we were little…”

After that, he could no longer continue. His mouth opened, but not a sound came out. He panted several times, hurried and hoarse, his hands digging deep into his hair.

After a long while, he barely forced his emotions back under control and raised his head slightly. “Eldest…”

Then his breathing stopped.

In his blurred and dim vision, something was continuously dripping down along the edge of the bedsheet.

He rushed forward in one stride and threw back the blanket. The fresh, metallic scent of blood rushed into his face. Azure Dragon’s half-open eyes stared toward the ceiling, his expression shocked and frozen.

And the Azure Dragon Twin Blades that Azure Dragon had spent a great sum to have specially forged and gifted to Xia Liu Yi for his twentieth birthday—one was stabbed into his chest, the other into his abdomen. They had pierced through the bed board and sunk in to the hilt, leaving only the handles visible.

Trembling, Xia Liu Yi placed his fingers beneath Azure Dragon’s nose. A moment later, he suddenly let out a shrill, grief-stricken scream. “Aaaah—!”

Then he violently shoved the iron bed holding Azure Dragon’s corpse toward the door.

At the same time, violent kicking sounded from outside. Xu Ying was shouting “Boss!” from the hallway, trying to break in.

Half-kneeling on the ground, Xia Liu Yi desperately braced both hands against the bedframe. Under the continuous violent impacts, he lowered his head and took one last deep look at Azure Dragon. Then, in agony, he turned his face away, clenched his teeth—

He suddenly let go, gripped the twin blades embedded in Azure Dragon’s body with both hands, and yanked them out, spraying blood all over his face.

Then he turned and shot away like an arrow, smashing through the window and falling from the second floor.

Xu Ying led his men in after breaking the door down, only to be met by the cold wind blowing straight in. His expression complicated, he glanced at Azure Dragon’s corpse, then at the shattered window frame, and roared through gritted teeth, “Spread the order! Xia Liu Yi killed Boss Azure Dragon to avenge his crazy sister! Xiao Qi Hall, mobilize everyone! Capture the traitor, dead or alive!”

As soon as he finished speaking, another crash came from outside—the sound of a window breaking.

“What’s going on?!” Xu Ying shouted furiously.

“Seems like Xia Liu Yi’s lackey jumped out the window and ran too!” a subordinate beside him said.

“Fuck, what are you standing around for? Chase him!” Xu Ying cursed.

When it came to slipping away and running for his life, Xiao Ma had always been number one. The moment he heard Xu Ying talking nonsense, he decisively jumped through the corridor window. The few lackeys under him had also inherited their boss’s true teachings. Relying on their low status and unfamiliar faces, they quickly split up and scattered into the crowd, pretending to be innocent bystanders. Then they blended into the massive Xiao Qi Hall army chasing after Xia Liu Yi before escaping halfway through…

……

Xia Liu Yi held a blade in each hand and sprinted through the woods at high speed. He wore no shoes, and sharp stones on the forest floor pierced his feet. Even so, it was as though he felt no pain at all, expressionlessly charging forward.

The place that hurt was not his feet. It was his heart. His heart already hurt so much that he could no longer feel anything. In one night, within two hours, the two most important people in his life had both died before his eyes. Xia Xiao Man’s empty eyes staring at the sky. Azure Dragon’s half-open, half-closed eyes—

Dead with grievances unavenged. Dead with grievances unavenged.

Xia Liu Yi’s hands dug deeply into the hilts of the blades, making a savage creaking sound.

He gritted his teeth, held his breath, and ran wildly. Behind him, faint and distant shouts of pursuit echoed. Though Xu Ying’s men were chasing relentlessly, the end of the woods was Gaau Lung Walled City. Over five hundred high-rise buildings, thirty thousand people, boundless blackness—once he vanished inside, it would be like a stone sinking into the sea.

Sudden agony shot through both knees. His entire body pitched forward and crashed heavily to the ground.

Between several large trees near the forest exit, a row of trip ropes had been tied.

A group of men carrying machetes emerged from deep within the woods. The man at the front had a wide forehead and a large mouth, with a curved blade resting on his shoulder. It was Xiao Qi Hall’s Straw Sandal, Big Mouth Cheng.

Xia Liu Yi swayed as he supported himself against a tree. His knees trembled. He had been running too fast earlier and had nearly snapped both legs. At this moment, he had no feeling from his thighs downward, and even supporting his own body was difficult.

“Big Mouth,” he said through gritted teeth.

Big Mouth Cheng patted the flat of his blade with his palm. “Brother Liu Yi.”

“You and I have no grudge,” Xia Liu Yi panted. “Why help Xu Ying?”

“I don’t have a grudge against money either,” Big Mouth Cheng said. “Of course I follow whoever pays more.”

Xia Liu Yi took a deep breath and slowly said, “My sister’s antidepressants were prescribed by a Western doctor you introduced. You tampered with them.”

“Oh, it wasn’t me,” Big Mouth Cheng said. “Boss Xu arranged it. I was just following orders. I heard your sister took them very happily?”

“Cheng Si Quan!” Xia Liu Yi let out a hoarse roar.

Big Mouth Cheng tilted his head, looking as frail as a willow in the wind, then lazily reached up to pick his ear. “Xia Liu Yi, you can barely stand. Save your strength. If you obediently come back with me, take three blades and six holes, kneel before the boss’s memorial tablet, and beg the elders for mercy, maybe you’ll still have a chan—”

His final syllable scattered into the wind. None of the men around them saw clearly what happened. In the blink of an eye, his wide-open mouth had already been sliced horizontally in two by a sharp blade.

The Azure Dragon Blade flew past and buried itself deep into the tree trunk behind him. Half of Big Mouth Cheng’s head was pinned to the blade, while the lower half of his head and his body slowly collapsed together.

Leaning against the tree, Xia Liu Yi braced himself with his remaining blade and said coldly, “Who else?”

The underlings all sucked in cold breaths and shook their heads desperately, their legs trembling even worse than his. They could only watch as he leaned on the blade and limped toward Gaau Lung Walled City.

Just then, chaotic footsteps sounded from deep within the woods. The pursuers had arrived. Xu Ying’s loud shout came faintly through the trees. “Whoever kills Xia Liu Yi gets one hundred thousand!”

The underlings exchanged glances. Dizzy with bloodlust and the promise of reward, no one knew who moved first. Someone shouted and swung at Xia Liu Yi’s back.

……

It was exam season near the end of the semester. He Chu San got up early and climbed the dim stairwell to the rooftop of the tenement building. Among the colorful ragged clothes and torn bedsheets of various households, he stood in horse stance for half an hour, then slowly pushed through a round of palm movements at turtle speed. Feeling he had practiced enough, he went downstairs, tidied up his books at home, and prepared to go to school for self-study.

Carrying his little schoolbag, he turned into the familiar dark alley—the very same alley where he had once been snatched away in a sack by those thugs. Every day when he reached this place, he felt uneasy, worried that those villains might suddenly get inspired to film a sequel and, without a word, sack him up again.

He straightened his back, pretended to be calm, and hurried forward. Just as he was about to leave the alley and run toward the light, something tripped him. With a thud, he fell flat on the ground like a sprawled frog.

Supporting himself awkwardly on his elbows, he was just about to get up when his shoulder went cold.

An icy blade rested against his neck. In the darkness, someone was panting quietly.

He stiffened and did not dare move. He only felt the person search him, as though looking for something. When that hand touched his shabby little schoolbag, it paused.

By then, relying on the faint outline in the darkness and the intense breathing, he had already recognized the person. “Brother Liu Yi?”

“Fuck, it’s you.” Xia Liu Yi cursed breathlessly, his voice very low.

Then with a clatter, the Azure Dragon Blade fell to the ground. He toppled forward and fainted onto He Chu San’s back.

He Chu San carried a blood-soaked gang boss home on his back, nearly scaring his father into a brain hemorrhage.

This unlicensed dentist, who had spent decades honestly surviving in the dark zone, was completely at a loss looking at such a famous tyrant. He Chu San, on the other hand, had once been brutally and mercilessly ravaged by Brother Liu Yi and was much tougher at heart than his father. He hurriedly instructed him, “Dad, close the door quickly. Don’t let anyone see.”

“How did you get involved with someone like this? And you even brought him home!” Father He locked the door from the inside, trembling as he paced around the room in panic. The wind stirred by his movements made the candlelight sway.

With no other choice, He Chu San steeled himself and confessed, “He saved me before.”

“What did you do that he had to save you?!” Father He asked anxiously.

“I was stopped by some people. They tried to rob me.” He Chu San did not want him to worry, so he only told half the truth.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk…” Dentist He was so anxious, angry, and panicked that only this sound remained.

“Dad, hurry and check him. Is he going to die?” He Chu San said.

Dentist He rolled up his sleeves and acted as an unlicensed veterinarian. He counted seventeen or eighteen knife wounds of varying depth across Xia Liu Yi’s body. His kneecaps were also somewhat dislocated. But none of these were fatal. The fatal issue was the bullet hole beneath Xia Liu Yi’s shoulder. The bullet was lodged inside, and the wound had likely been there for a day or two. It was filled with pus, the surrounding flesh torn open. The sight was extremely horrifying.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk…” Dentist He said.

He Chu San ran back and forth fetching water and gauze, helping his father treat Xia Liu Yi’s wounds. In truth, he had no favorable feelings toward a terrible villain like Xia Liu Yi. There were plenty of bastards like this in Gaau Lung Walled City. If one died, another bastard would rise to replace him. But this man had saved him after all, and as an innocent law-abiding citizen, He Chu San truly could not watch a living person die before his eyes.

Dentist He studied the wound for a long while with a magnifying glass and said, “A’San, my eyes are blurry with age. I can’t see clearly. You remove the bullet for him.”

“Will it hurt?” He Chu San asked nervously.

“Of course it’ll hurt!” Dentist He said. “But he’s unconscious, so we even save on anesthetic! Hurry!”

The moment He Chu San poked the tweezers inside, he heard Xia Liu Yi let out a hoarse groan in his coma. He immediately froze in nervousness.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, doing his best to recall how, a few months ago, Xia Liu Yi had grabbed him by the collar and smashed his head against a table; how he had kicked him flying; how he had beaten him with a stool leg; how he had said, “Even if you die on the roadside, I won’t spare you a glance”…

When He Chu San opened his eyes again, his heart was filled with surging courage. With one hand, he covered Xia Liu Yi’s unconsciously groaning mouth. With the other, he firmly stabbed the tweezers down.

Dentist He watched with his own eyes as his gentle-natured son calmly pulled the bullet from the gushing blood without so much as changing expression. The boy’s composure made a chill run down his spine, and he began to suspect there might have been a problem with his parenting direction.

Should his son have studied medicine instead?

When Xia Liu Yi woke, he was lying on the narrow little iron bed in He Chu San’s second-floor room. A candle burned inside the room. The damp ceiling was covered in black mold, giving off a rotten smell. He lay on his stomach, a pillow under his chest to keep the gunshot wound on his shoulder from touching the bedsheet.

He Chu San was lying on a wooden stool beside the bed, with a smaller stool under his rear, studying by candlelight.

Xia Liu Yi took a deep breath and realized that aside from his fingers, he could not move a single part of his body.

“Hey,” he said hoarsely.

He Chu San leaned closer and heard the first word he said after waking.

“Beef offal.”

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