Futile Devices Scans

He Chu San deliberately put on a face mask and clattered downstairs. A regular customer who had come to have his teeth worked on was waiting downstairs for Dentist He to begin. With cheap cotton stuffed in his mouth, he mumbled, “A’San? You’re not going to school today?”

“He caught a cold, so he’s resting at home, haha!” Dentist He hurriedly played along with his son’s mask. He had been badly frightened today, and with such a great Buddha hidden upstairs, he had not wanted to open for business at all. But He Chu San thought suddenly closing the shop would draw suspicion, so father and son had cleaned the bloodstains in the shop early that morning and opened as usual.

He Chu San greeted the uncle hoarsely, then hurried out. He turned into Fat Sister’s snack shop next door and bought a large bowl of curry beef offal, bringing it back steaming hot.

“You’re eating beef offal with a cold?” the regular customer said around the cotton.

“Why can’t someone with a cold eat beef offal? Beef offal nourishes qi and enriches blood. It’s the finest grade among meats!” Dentist He said hurriedly.

How was beef offal meat? He Chu San looked speechlessly at his father, feeling that his father was so nervous he would expose them sooner or later.

Dentist He was indeed nervous to death, just short of running into the street banging gongs and drums while shouting, “There is absolutely no one hidden on my second floor.” Trembling, he watched his son carry the beef offal upstairs, feeling as though his lungs were about to develop holes from holding his breath.

He Chu San helped Xia Liu Yi sit up to eat the beef offal. Xia Liu Yi’s back was covered in blade wounds, so he leaned crookedly against the wall on the side of his uninjured arm, eating expressionlessly. He Chu San squatted back down and continued studying.

Xia Liu Yi slurped and inhaled his way through the entire bowl of beef offal in no time. As though finally regaining some strength, he let out a long breath, leaned against the wall, and stared blankly for a while before suddenly saying, “Water.”

He Chu San poured him a large cup of water and served him while he drank it. Then this lord said, “Cigarette.”

This time, He Chu San shook his head. “No cigarettes. You’re injured. You can’t smoke.”

“Fuck!” Xia Liu Yi said. “Cigarette!”

He watched helplessly as this damn Indian A’San actually showed some backbone, stiffening his neck and sitting back down to read, completely ignoring him.

Xia Liu Yi glared for a while. Finding it pointless, he leaned back against the wall and continued staring into space. The two fell into their own silence, and somehow passed the entire morning peacefully.

At noon, He Chu San closed his book, stood up, stretched his limbs, then asked Xia Liu Yi, “Do you want to eat anything?”

“Beef offal.”

He Chu San took the “writing fee” Xia Liu Yi had given him from the little iron box, clattered downstairs again, and bought him three whole bowls of beef offal. Fat Sister began to suspect whether a packet of “white powder” had fallen into her beef offal pot; otherwise, how could someone be this addicted?

While eating beef offal, Xia Liu Yi observed the room. It was a tiny room of less than ten square meters. Basically, aside from the bed, there was only a large stool, a smaller stool, and a bookcase in the corner. The washed-thin, faded curtains had been pulled shut, making it impossible to see what lay outside the window.

The bookcase, bedside, and floor were densely stacked with books. Most were yellowed and old, looking like they had been dug out of secondhand book stalls. There were also a few large volumes that looked new and exquisite.

He Chu San neatly put away the large books borrowed from the school library and placed them into his shabby little schoolbag. Then he placed a big bowl on the stool serving as a table. Inside were white rice, two thin slices of char siu, and a fried egg.

“Hey,” Xia Liu Yi said, gesturing toward the remaining bowl of beef offal. “Don’t want it anymore.”

He Chu San came over, poured the beef offal into his own bowl, stirred the soup, and began eating loudly.

He finished this long-awaited hearty lunch, then went downstairs to scoop half a ladle of water from the large water vat and carefully washed the dishes and chopsticks. When he returned to the second floor, Xia Liu Yi was still in that lifeless state.

He Chu San could not hold back and asked, “Are you being hunted? What trouble did you get into?”

Without even looking at him, Xia Liu Yi gave him a concise answer: “None of your fucking business.”

Still that rotten gangster attitude! He Chu San obediently shut his damn mouth, packed his schoolbag, put on his mask, and went out to class.

Xia Liu Yi lay expressionlessly in He Chu San’s home for three full days. Aside from “beef offal,” “fish balls,” “rice noodle rolls,” “chicken feet,” “crab roe buns,” and “fuck your mother! Cigarette!” he said nothing at all.

On the third night, after Dentist He closed shop and came upstairs to change the dressing, he expressed immense indignation and condemnation toward the accumulated food bags, bamboo skewers, and various food remains piled around the room. “You’ve only been eating beef offal these past few days?! What’s this, curry fish balls? And spicy food too?! Unreasonable, absolutely unreasonable! Did you drink the medicinal soup I brewed yesterday?”

He Chu San looked honest. “No. He said it was bitter and told me to pour it out.”

Dentist He, with a healer’s parental heart, flew into a rage. In front of Xia Liu Yi, he viciously poked He Chu San in the forehead and scolded, “You only care about studying! Whatever he says goes? Gangsters have no education, but do you have none either? You picked this man up. If he just dies like this, where are you going to throw him? Keep him at home and wait for him to stink?”

Xia Liu Yi was dozing there on his stomach. Annoyed, he cursed and laboriously raised a hand to plug his ears. Unexpectedly, Dentist He rushed over and grabbed his chin.

His eyes widened. With practiced fingers, Dentist He pried open his mouth. His fingers reached in, pinched, and pulled out this gang boss’s tongue, then pointed it out to He Chu San. “Look. See that? The tongue coating is too thick, white and greasy with yellow, liver fire is excessive, qi and blood are deficient, and he’s malnourished. And these teeth—tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk! How filthy! All covered in tartar!”

He Chu San immediately reported, “He hasn’t rinsed his mouth these past few days.”

Dentist He spread Xia Liu Yi’s mouth open with both hands. “A few days?! This isn’t just a few days! He definitely eats and sleeps without brushing his teeth normally! Look at these molars—just a little more and they’d rot down to the roots! Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk!”

As he shook his head with emotion, he shifted the worn waist pouch behind his backside to the front. “Hold him down for me. I really can’t stand looking at these teeth. Let me fix them.”

“Mmmph mmmph…” Xia Liu Yi resisted with all his might. Unfortunately, the vital point of his tongue was being pinched, and he could not pull it back no matter what.

He flew into a rage and had just tried to prop himself up when that little Indian A’San darted over nimbly. Obeying his father’s instructions, he wrapped Xia Liu Yi up with a quilt like a French baguette, flipped him over entirely, and sat his butt down on Xia Liu Yi’s waist.

“Mmmph mmmph! Mmmph mmmph—!!!”

One hour later, Dentist He carried several blackened cavities downstairs with a sigh of emotion. Xia Liu Yi lay miserably on the bed, his mouth stuffed full of cheap cotton, his neck covered in his own drool, hardly able to believe he had suffered such humiliation.

In grief and anger, he pounded the bed board once. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw He Chu San facing away, pretending to study, his back hunched while his shoulders shook violently.

Just as Xia Liu Yi tried to open his mouth and curse, another large puddle of drool flowed out.

Damn it, laugh all you want! Xia Liu Yi clawed at the bedsheet resentfully. Little bastard! Playing dumb, secretly tattling, just waiting to laugh at me! Once I can move, I’ll have plenty of fun with you!

He Chu San laughed until tears came out, secretly wiped them away, then stood up with a serious face. “I’m going to make soup. Dad said from now on you can only drink soup and eat porridge.”

Xia Liu Yi resentfully pounded the bed board again. A tiger fallen to the plains forced to eat dog food!

He had been jointly disciplined by the He father and son, and it was as though his anger had finally reignited some life in him. He broke free from that corpse-like, gloomy aura and became cynical and murderous again. However, he was badly injured; forget a blade, he could not even lift chopsticks. Both sides of his mouth were stuffed with cotton, his new teeth stuck inside like cactus spikes and hurt no matter how they were touched. He could not even open his mouth to curse, and his combat strength had fallen to trash. Xiao Qi Hall’s men searched the large and small alleys of Gaau Lung Walled City every day, and sometimes the faint shouts of thugs could be heard outside the window. Unable to go out and personally cut down his enemies, he could only vent this hatred and killing intent on He Chu San—killing Indian A’San a thousand times a day with his glare.

He Chu San had been tempered by repeated trials into steel. His mind grew tougher and tougher, and he completely ignored those looks that could frighten ordinary people into wetting their pants. Not only that, while taking care of Xia Liu Yi’s daily needs, wiping him down, and changing his medicine, he actually learned to order Xia Liu Yi around.

“Brother Liu Yi, raise your hand.”

“Brother Liu Yi, come on, turn over.”

“Brother Liu Yi, spread your legs a little. I can’t wipe your butt crack. Do you want the front wiped too?”

“Brother Liu Yi, get up and pee. I’m going out to class now. If you don’t pee, you’ll have to wait until evening.”

“……” Xia Liu Yi.

Xia Liu Yi scratched at the bed every day, leaving the sheets full of holes.

……

The people living on this little street were basically honest civilians who survived by their crafts. Along the two sides of the alley, there were only a few unlicensed clinics, snack shops, and raw meat shops. After ten at night, there was no trace of people, and all was silent. The curtains were pitch-black with no light showing through; the room itself was also completely dark.

On the iron bed, Xia Liu Yi struggled to turn onto his side. Propping himself up on an elbow, he sat up, then laboriously stretched out his leg and kicked He Chu San, who was sleeping on a floor mat.

He Chu San sat up groggily. “Brother Liu Yi?”

“Is there a platform on the rooftop?” Xia Liu Yi asked. The cotton in his mouth had already been removed. Aside from some discomfort when speaking, he had basically returned to normal.

He Chu San supported Xia Liu Yi, and the two snuck out like thieves, brushing against the greasy walls of the narrow stairwell as they climbed step by step to the rooftop. There had not been much sun these past few days, and on the cramped, narrow roof, only a single ragged bedsheet fluttered alone.

“There’s an iron spike here. Watch your feet,” He Chu San reminded him, helping Xia Liu Yi step over the sheet and sit down at the edge of the rooftop.

This small tenement building was only four or five stories high, surrounded by several taller buildings, so the view was basically that of a frog at the bottom of a well. Through the gaps between buildings, one could barely glimpse the distant prosperity of Tsim Sha Tsui. Looking up, one could see a bright moon and sparse stars.

Xia Liu Yi sat against the stone railing and instinctively reached for his trouser pocket, only then remembering that he had not smoked in two weeks.

That little bastard refused to buy cigarettes for him even if Xia Liu Yi glared him to death. He had even argued confidently, “My dad and I never smoke. It would make people suspicious.”

He leaned his head back against the railing and took a deep breath. Just as he was about to slowly exhale, he heard a scratch beside him.

He Chu San lit a candle, placed his little schoolbag on the ground as a cushion, and actually sat cross-legged there flipping open a book.

“……” Xia Liu Yi.

“Hey, I asked you to come up and sit with me for a while.” He truly could not help the veins bulging on his forehead.

“You sit, Brother Liu Yi. I won’t disturb you,” He Chu San said respectfully. He had final exams tomorrow, so he naturally had to seize every second to revise.

“……” Xia Liu Yi really wanted to smack him over the head. This damn little fox. Bookworm!

Heaven had eyes and finally looked after Boss Xia once. Not long after, the candle was blown out by the wind. He Chu San took out a match and lit it again. Before long, it went out once more. When he reached for more, there were no matches left.

Xia Liu Yi watched him with the corners of his lips raised. Left with no choice, He Chu San put away his schoolbag and obediently sat beside Xia Liu Yi.

“Are you being hunted? What crime did you commit?” he brought up the topic from two weeks ago again.

This time Xia Liu Yi did not blast him with a “none of your business.” He tilted his head and fell silent for a while. “My sister and the boss were killed.”

He was so calm. In front of Xia Xiao Man and Azure Dragon’s corpses, he had not shed tears. During those two days when he had been hunted like a rat in the street, he had had no time to care. Then he had silently lain motionless in a cold, cramped little room for two full weeks, accepting this reality.

He Chu San was shocked. “Your sister died?”

“Mm.”

He Chu San was stunned for a while. “She was a good person.”

“I know.” Xia Liu Yi looked up at the sky as he spoke.

After a moment of silence, he said softly, “I used to live in Sat Tau Alley, not far from here.”

He Chu San let out an “Eh?”

“What the hell are you eh-ing for? I’m only three years older than you. Maybe we met when we were kids.”

“Did you rob me?” He Chu San said while seriously trying to recall whether, during all the times he had been teased and beaten as a child, this underworld evil star had ever been present.

“What nonsense are you thinking?” Xia Liu Yi said. “When I was little, I didn’t like robbing people. Every day, all I thought about was how to get a mouthful of food. My father was a junkie. He took drugs, gambled, and drank. After giving birth to me, my mother ran off with someone else.”

“Xiao Man was three years older than me. When other children were still learning to talk, she had already learned how to cook flour paste to feed me and carry me outside to sunbathe. Our father beat us every day and forced us to steal for him. If we failed, he beat us half to death. Xiao Man protected me every time and got beaten so badly she couldn’t even get out of bed.”

Xia Liu Yi tiredly rubbed his forehead with his arm. It had been too long since he had thought about those days. “When I was ten, my father wanted to sell Xiao Man into prostitution. I ran away with Xiao Man, but he caught up to us. In a little alley, he nearly beat us to death. Passersby watched, but no one came to save us.”

“Then Azure Dragon came.”

“He brought a group of underlings with him. He looked very impressive. He glanced at my father once, and my father knelt on the ground kowtowing to him. He picked me up and let Xiao Man hold his hand. That was the first time anyone had ever protected us.”

“That day was June 1st. He said that on the mainland, it was June 1st Children’s Day, a holiday for me and Xiao Man, so he would treat us to cake. That was the first time I ever ate cake. I felt that day was the first birthday of my life. I changed my name to Xia Liu Yi and called him Eldest. I told him I would follow him for the rest of my life, because following him meant there would be cake to eat.”

In the dim night, He Chu San saw the smile tugging at the corner of Xia Liu Yi’s lips.

“He let me and Xiao Man live in his home. There was a butler to take care of us, and we had books to study. Neither of us liked studying, so we dropped out after not long. Xiao Man loved singing, so he sent her to learn music. I liked playing with blades and staffs, so he found masters to teach me. When I was fourteen, I thought I had grown up, so I begged him to accept me. I lit incense, entered the hall, and recognized him as my boss.”

“At first, he wouldn’t let me go out and work. He said I was still young and that staying by his side was enough. When I was eighteen, he was ambushed. He had only brought a few people and got trapped in a dead-end alley.”

Xia Liu Yi smiled faintly. “I went crazy. I grabbed two machetes and charged in to save him. I don’t even remember how many people I cut down. I saved him, but he slapped me. That was the first time he ever hit me… the only time in this life.”

“I was sent to the hospital. Xiao Man held me and cried. I didn’t tell her that after Azure Dragon hit me, there were tears in his eyes too.”

“His tears scared me badly, and they also made me happy to death. Aside from Xiao Man, there was actually another person in this world who cared about me.”

He Chu San secretly hugged his arms. The night wind was bleak. Being so clever, sensitive, and meticulous, he had already heard a trace of chill within those words.

The affection between Azure Dragon and Xia Liu Yi had already far exceeded the boundaries between boss and underling. Only now did he understand why, after hearing He Chu San’s second version of the script, Xia Liu Yi had grabbed a stool and beaten him so viciously—this seemingly ruthless gangster had been hiding the panic and wavering in his heart, because that forbidden affection buried deep inside him had been accidentally exposed by an outsider.

“Xiao Man grew more and more beautiful. Many bosses took a liking to her. Azure Dragon wanted to arrange a match for her, but she refused every single one. One night, she secretly told me that the one she liked was Azure Dragon. She wanted to become Azure Dragon’s woman.”

“Whatever she wanted, I would give her. Not long after, it was my twentieth birthday. Azure Dragon asked me what I wanted. I said I wanted Xiao Man to become my sister-in-law.”

He stopped and remained silent for a long while before continuing softly, “Whatever you want, Eldest will give you… except this.”

“I only want this.”

“Do you know what you’re saying?”

“She’s my sister! She likes you!”

“Then what about you?”

“I… I’m your underling. I’m your disciple who has entered the hall. Since I recognized you as my boss, I’ll follow you for life.”

“He married Xiao Man.”

“He also had another pair of Azure Dragon Twin Blades forged for me, took me to meet the gang elders, and told them that I was the disciple he was most proud of, the youngest Red Pole under him, and that he would gradually hand some of his businesses to me.”

“From then on, I was the underling, he was the boss, and Xiao Man was the sister-in-law. I thought that would be how it stayed for the rest of our lives…”

“At the beginning of last year, Xiao Man developed depression.”

“She said Azure Dragon didn’t love her. Even though he treated her well, even better than when we were young, he didn’t love her at all. She suspected Azure Dragon had someone else outside. She asked me if he did. I said no. She said I was lying to her.”

“I begged Azure Dragon to treat Xiao Man better, and he agreed. I begged him to love Xiao Man, and he said he couldn’t.”

As long as it’s something Eldest can do, when has he ever refused you?

—Only this could not be done.

“Xiao Man argued with him…”

He tightly shut his eyes and turned his head away, unable to bear it.

His head hurt as though it might split apart. Black waves churned through his mind as if he were there himself, imagining the scene of their argument—

You have someone outside! Who is that person? Who exactly is it?! Who are you hiding in your heart?!

What nonsense are you saying? Stop imagining things!

Heh, hehe… You can’t say it? You think I don’t know? I’m so stupid. I only understand today… You’re perverted! Shameless! What you like is actually—

Smack!

“He slapped Xiao Man. Xiao Man stabbed him, then jumped from the rooftop…”

“He was sent to the hospital. I chose to go see Xiao Man. By the time I reached the hospital, he had already been killed, with my blades.”

“With the Azure… Dragon… he gave me…”

Xia Liu Yi suddenly let out a hoarse sob. He Chu San, who had been listening intently, looked up in surprise and saw Xia Liu Yi lowering his head, gripping his knees tightly, his shoulders trembling faintly.

He Chu San hesitated, then carefully placed his hand over Xia Liu Yi’s, trying to stop him from hurting himself. He looked as though he were about to crush his own kneecaps.

Xia Liu Yi trembled for a while, then slowly raised his head. His face was covered in scattered tear tracks.

He gently brushed He Chu San’s hand away and continued expressionlessly, “That person is the Deputy Hall Master in the gang. He switched Xiao Man’s antidepressants, worsening her condition and causing her death. Then he killed Azure Dragon, framed me, and brought people to hunt me down. The men searching the alleys during the day are all his subordinates.”

“What are you planning to do now?” He Chu San asked softly.

Xia Liu Yi looked at the sharp iron spike standing upright on the distant ground. “Kill him. Avenge Azure Dragon and Xiao Man.”

That bloody answer did not stir disgust in He Chu San’s heart. He was still immersed in the grief that this seemingly cold-blooded gang boss had suddenly poured out. Looking at Xia Liu Yi’s icy expression with complicated feelings, he asked softly again, “And after that?”

Xia Liu Yi closed his eyes, then opened them again. “Take good care of the brothers Azure Dragon left behind and expand Xiao Qi Hall into the largest gang in Hong Kong.”

When Azure Dragon had been alive, Xia Liu Yi had wronged him. Now that Azure Dragon was gone, this was the only thing he could do for him.

“……”

He Chu San had nothing to say. In his heart, he sighed. The underworld was still the underworld. Their heads were full of nothing but fighting and killing. After one slaughter came an even greater slaughter. Their power expanded, gangs fought, everything became chaos, and in the end, wasn’t it always innocent ordinary people who suffered?

He had grown up in this filthy, lawless slum, seen the coldness of the world since childhood, and as an oppressed honest civilian, he truly disliked such things.

Xia Liu Yi stopped speaking and wiped his face numbly. “Don’t misunderstand. I’m not pouring out my suffering to you. I just wanted to find something to talk to. There isn’t even a cat here.”

He Chu San immediately shook his head to clarify. “I didn’t misunderstand.”

After being sternly criticized over his last misunderstanding, he no longer dared flatter himself.

“I just think it’s strange,” he hesitated, then said, “Why couldn’t you confess to Azure Dragon that you liked him too? Why did you force him to marry your sister? Why did he agree to you? A melon twisted off the vine isn’t sweet. Didn’t you know that?”

If they had been willing to face that relationship despite worldly pressure, perhaps that Deputy Hall Master would never have found a chance to take advantage of their weakness and create such a tragedy.

He had spoken so boldly and directly, yet Xia Liu Yi did not turn on him and beat him like last time. Instead, he was quiet for a while, then calmly raised a hand and ruffled He Chu San’s hair like petting a dog. “Kid, you don’t understand. There are too many things in here that people can’t control.”

He Chu San lowered his eyes and let Xia Liu Yi mess up his hair, but his heart remained deeply confused. In twenty-one years, his romantic life had been as blank as paper. He did not understand what it meant to be unable to control oneself. He only felt that as Xia Liu Yi said those words, his tone revealed deep helplessness and loneliness.

“I’m sleeping for a while,” Xia Liu Yi said tiredly, stretching out his legs and putting his arm behind his head. “Talked too much. Wastes strength.”

He Chu San immediately reminded him, “You’ll catch a cold sleeping here.”

“Shut up, kid! Hurry up and sleep!”

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