Xia Liu Yi struggled to raise his head and look at the yellowed black-and-white photograph. Three young men stood shoulder to shoulder: one was Golden Maitreya in his youth; another bore striking resemblance in features and bearing to Azure Dragon, and must have been Azure Dragon’s father; the third looked faintly familiar, yet he could not at once recall where he had seen that face.
The shattered corpse by the poolside, the dim hospital ward, Azure Dragon’s eyes that refused to close in death, the villa burned into a hellish graveyard—all flashed before his mind one by one. Xu Ying, Inspector Hua, the Old Shopkeeper, Golden Maitreya—how many had a hand in Azure Dragon’s death? He had called them brothers, honored them as elders, shared with them untold profits—only to end in utter ruin, his family destroyed?!
Xia Liu Yi let out another roar of grief and fury, lunging toward Golden Maitreya—only to be forced down again by the two death-sworn guards. Blows rained upon his abdomen and head, blood streaming down his face. Pressed to his knees before Golden Maitreya, his bloodshot eyes locked onto him with savage intensity.
“Enough noise. It’s time for you to be on your way,” Golden Maitreya leaned back in his wheelchair, speaking with languid ease. “We’ll start with the elder brother who led the younger astray.”
Ksitigarbha picked up Samantabhadra’s gun, pressed it to his head, and cocked the hammer. Samantabhadra closed his eyes in resignation.
“Bang—!”
The gunshot rang out—blood and brain matter splattered—but the one who fell was a death-sworn guard! In that instant, Ksitigarbha had suddenly turned his gun aside and fired!
At the same time, Xia Liu Yi rolled on the ground, seized another guard by the knees, and slammed him down. One crushing punch snapped his jaw aside; Xia Liu Yi’s hand swept to his waist, drawing the gun—
“Bang—!”
Another thunderous shot—his head burst like a smashed melon!
In the blink of an eye, two guards lay dead. Xia Liu Yi and Ksitigarbha raised their guns in unison, aiming at Golden Maitreya. Samantabhadra rose as well, removing the cast from his neck and pulling a torn, blood-filled pouch from within his clothes.
Golden Maitreya’s eyes split wide with fury. “You…!”
“You talk too much,” Samantabhadra said coldly. “The blood pack was about to run dry—we nearly gave ourselves away.”
“That’s why I pinned you down to block it,” Ksitigarbha added.
“Is that so? I think our performance was flawless,” Xia Liu Yi sneered. “Isn’t that right, Godfather? If we hadn’t staged this little play, how would you have told me the truth about Azure Dragon’s death?”
—Having long lain with an emperor of actors, Xia Liu Yi had mastered deception. He had gauged Golden Maitreya’s temperament, unraveled the grudges among the godsons, and together with Jade Guanyin, sowed discord—writing and performing this perfect little drama in a single flawless take.
He bent down, picked up the blood-stained photograph, wiped it clean, and slipped it into his trousers. “As for the one who tipped you off back then—I’ve guessed who it was. My thanks, Godfather.”
There was no time for further words—
“Bang!”
The door was blasted open from outside—gunfire poured in like rain! The four guards outside, alerted by the disturbance, stormed in with submachine guns, unleashing a barrage upon the three men within!
Samantabhadra and Ksitigarbha rolled aside, taking cover behind the low table, flipping it over to block the bullets. Xia Liu Yi, closest to Golden Maitreya, bent low and took shelter behind the wheelchair. Ksitigarbha slid a dagger across the floor toward him; Xia Liu Yi snatched it up and pressed it to Golden Maitreya’s throat.
“Stop!” he barked in Thai.
The gunfire ceased at once. The four guards and the three men froze in a tense standoff. Yet outside, the clash of gunfire and shouting continued unabated—Ksitigarbha and Samantabhadra’s forces, having heard the signal, had already engaged Golden Maitreya’s men. Private soldiers swarmed the bamboo grove, bullets tearing through the outer hall, reducing it to ruin.
“The entire mountain is mine,” Golden Maitreya said coldly. “Do you think you can escape?”
“I’ll kill you right here and carry your head out,” Xia Liu Yi replied. “Tell me—without a leader, who will they obey?”
Golden Maitreya chuckled. “Even if they turn, these four are my most loyal ‘Divine Generals’. Kill me, and you won’t leave this room alive.”
Xia Liu Yi pressed the blade deeper, drawing a thin line of blood. “Stand aside!”
“They must not!” Golden Maitreya roared. “If I die, they die with me!”
These four “Divine Generals,” raised differently from the “Four Bodhisattvas,” had been trained since childhood solely to protect Golden Maitreya and kill others. Their minds were nowhere near as cunning as his godsons—they could not untangle such paradoxes. They only knew to obey his command absolutely. Like statues, they stood unmoving.
But the longer this stalemate dragged on, the worse it became for Xia Liu Yi’s side. Outside, Golden Maitreya’s forces vastly outnumbered the others. If Ksitigarbha and Samantabhadra’s men were wiped out, this place would be completely surrounded.
“Crash—!”
Suddenly, a window shattered—something burst in from outside. The guards instinctively opened fire—
But it was only a stone wrapped in cloth!
At that very instant, Qin Hao appeared behind them like a phantom, seizing one guard by the head and snapping his neck in a blink!
The submachine gun in the dead man’s hands went off wildly; Qin Hao twisted his arm, sweeping the muzzle toward the others. The remaining guards turned on him, while Ksitigarbha and Samantabhadra leapt out from behind the table, firing.
At the same moment, Xia Liu Yi drew his blade across Golden Maitreya’s throat in a savage stroke.
Gunfire roared, blood sprayed, chaos erupted.
Xiao Ma—who had thrown the stone to create the distraction—leapt in through the window amid the confusion. He shoved a pistol, freshly taken from a corpse outside, into Xia Liu Yi’s hand.
“Boss! You alright?!”
“Go save Jade Guanyin!” Xia Liu Yi shoved him away.
Xiao Ma had long been burning with urgency—he wasted no time, turning and running. With a boss as formidable as this, there was no need to worry; saving his own woman was what mattered.
……
He crouched low, weaving through the storm of bullets. Along the way, he snatched a rifle from a fallen body and followed the path Manjusri had taken, arriving at a wooden hut not far off. The air reeked of blood; the ground outside was stained dark—this had to be the torture chamber.
The door stood ajar. Two guards lay dead in the doorway, bodies fallen inward.
A sense of unease crept into Xiao Ma’s heart. He paused, listening—then kicked the door open and charged inside.
Under the dim light, a twisted corpse hung upon the rack—its head wrenched completely around to face backward, palms nailed with torture blades, the body covered in slashed wounds, as though interrogated before death.
Xiao Ma’s eyes went red. With a roar, he rushed forward—only to realize, mid-stride, he had mistaken it.
The corpse was clothed—and flat-chested.
Not Jade Guanyin.
It was Manjusri.
He let out a breath of relief, cursing loudly, then forced himself to calm down and scan the room. Aside from the corpse, it was empty. A trail of bloody bare footprints led past the body and out the door.
Xiao Ma followed the trail outside—but the blood was quickly swallowed by dirt and leaves, and in the dim light he lost it. Not knowing where Jade Guanyin might have gone in her wounded state, panic seized him. Raising his gun, he shouted:
“Xiao Yu! Jade Guanyin!”
Two private soldiers rushed toward him, firing. Xiao Ma roared and returned fire, but was forced back into the torture hut by the hail of bullets. The two soldiers advanced cautiously—
Suddenly, a figure appeared in the window, gun in hand—only to be riddled instantly by their return fire, flesh exploding apart.
The two soldiers entered to confirm the kill—
Only to find Manjusri’s mangled corpse propped against the window.
Xiao Ma, hiding behind the door, smashed a stone against one man’s head, dropping him. The other stared at him, trembling in terror at Xiao Ma’s towering frame and ferocious face. Xiao Ma snatched his gun and pressed it to his head.
“Where’s Jade Guanyin?!”
The man babbled in Thai.
Xiao Ma understood nothing. “Where is Jade Guanyin?!”
The man trembled, near pissing himself.
“Jade Guanyin! Where?!” Xiao Ma shouted in broken English.
“Nonono! I no!” the man stammered even worse.
They shouted past each other uselessly until Xiao Ma, furious, smashed him unconscious with the butt of his gun.
The moment he stepped out—
A gun was pressed to his head by another soldier. He dropped his weapon and raised his hands.
The soldier barked at him in Thai.
“I… friend! Friend!” Xiao Ma babbled wildly. “I and Golden Maitreya—friend! I no like Jade Guanyin—kill! I want kill!”
The soldier caught only the word “kill” and grew even more agitated. As they argued in mutual incomprehension—
“Bang!”
Blood splattered across Xiao Ma’s face.
“So noisy,” came a voice.
Jade Guanyin stood not far away. She wore a camouflage jacket stripped from a corpse, a pistol hanging loosely at her side. Her body swayed weakly against the wall, blood covering her face no less than his.
“You’re late,” she said tiredly.
Her legs gave out—
—and Xiao Ma lunged forward, catching her in his arms.
…
The fierce battle within the bamboo grove raged on. Suddenly, a burst of submachine gun fire shattered the heavens and earth. Ksitigarbha strode out, holding aloft the “Buddha head” of Golden Maitreya and shouted several commands at the top of his lungs.
The gunfire gradually subsided. Two minor leaders stepped out from among the private soldiers and exchanged a few words with Ksitigarbha from afar. Then, without warning, one of them raised his gun and shot the other dead, before leading his men to throw down their weapons and kneel in submission.
Milk follows the mother; power follows wealth—whoever holds money and influence calls the shots. It was the same everywhere. This internal transfer of power among the drug lords unfolded swiftly and smoothly. Ksitigarbha executed a few of Golden Maitreya’s hidden loyalists in the crowd, then issued orders to collect the corpses and clean up the battlefield.
The internal strife had left heavy casualties; of all those present, only thirty or forty could still stand. Qin Hao’s leg had been grazed by a stray bullet during the melee. Supported by Xia Liu Yi, he sat down on a broken chair outside the tea hall.
At that moment, Xiao Ma came trotting back eagerly with Jade Guanyin slung over his back. “Boss!”
“Still alive?” Xia Liu Yi asked.
Xiao Ma bounced her slightly. Jade Guanyin kept her eyes closed and slapped him across the face in response.
“Alive, Boss!” Xiao Ma replied excitedly. Seeing that the brutal fight had ended and that Jade Guanyin had been brought back alive, he was in high spirits and quickly moved in to flatter, “Boss, you’re truly mighty and wise—took just a few moves to finish off that damn perverted bastard Golden Maitreya! Heh heh… Boss, look, Brother Hao’s injured too—could you get that ‘black gorilla’ to send us a car down the mountain to find a doctor?”
It took Xia Liu Yi a couple of seconds to realize that “black gorilla” referred to Ksitigarbha. Amused, he knocked Xiao Ma on the forehead. “Like you even need to say it?! Golden Maitreya’s private doctor and medical equipment are all here. Ksitigarbha’s already sent someone to grab him—he’ll be dragged back soon to treat them both.”
Relieved, Xiao Ma set Jade Guanyin down, wiping her face and feeding her water. Xia Liu Yi watched as he bustled about, nervously tending to her, clearly having developed real feelings for her. The sight left him both amused and exasperated—and faintly pained. He had never believed anyone would fall for someone like Jade Guanyin, and least of all expected that the one to stumble so hard would be Xiao Ma. A fine lump of horse dung, wasted on a poisonous flower.
…
After taking a couple of sips of water, Jade Guanyin suddenly tilted her head and listened. “Do you hear something?”
Xia Liu Yi immediately stood alert. In the distance came the unmistakable crack of gunfire, echoing through the empty mountain night. The wind howled past his ears—and then he heard it: the thrum of helicopter rotors.
Two helicopters appeared above the cluster of mountain buildings. Blinding beams of light swept down from the sky, and a series of stern announcements blared from loudspeakers. Xia Liu Yi understood—they were declaring their identities and warning them to surrender. His expression changed drastically.
Even Qin Hao’s face shifted in alarm as he quickly scanned everyone present.
Suddenly, several deafening explosions erupted nearby. A military jeep was blasted into the air; its fuel tank ruptured, igniting in a roaring fireball that lit half the sky red. Gunfire and battle cries erupted once more.
Ksitigarbha came rushing back with his men, faces full of panic, shouting frantically at Xia Liu Yi and the others.
“What’s going on?! What are they saying?!” Xiao Ma, the only one who didn’t understand Thai, asked anxiously.
“It’s the Thai police and Interpol,” Jade Guanyin translated, her face deathly pale. “They’ve surrounded the place and blown up the parking area. Samantabhadra fired at them—he’s already been shot dead.”
Gunfire and shouted commands closed in from all directions. Ksitigarbha and his men began firing wildly, determined to resist arrest to the death. Xia Liu Yi hauled Qin Hao to his feet, while Little Ma hurriedly hoisted Jade Guanyin onto his back again.
“Go behind the meditation hut—there’s a hidden passage along the mountainside. Golden Maitreya kept it as an escape route!” Jade Guanyin said. She shouted a few words in Thai to Ksitigarbha, who led his men toward them while firing as they retreated.
The thunder of helicopter blades, the crack of gunfire, the shouted warnings, the blinding searchlights, the choking smoke grenades—amid utter chaos, the desperate drug lords fired back, trying to break through the encirclement. But the police had come prepared, attacking from both air and ground, tightening the net layer by layer.
Echoes rang through the jungle. Piercing screams seemed to come from all directions as one private soldier after another fell. Most were wounded rather than killed, left groaning and writhing like ants thrown into a boiling pot—struggling in a living hell for the sins they had committed.
Smoke drifted into Golden Maitreya’s meditation chamber, shrouding the Buddha shrine in white haze. The Maitreya statue sat cross-legged, its crescent eyes gazing upon the headless corpse of Golden Maitreya in his wheelchair, its great ears listening to the endless screams outside. Its wide smile seemed to mock the inevitability of karmic retribution—and the absurdity of men.
…
Those who managed to break free stumbled into the dense forest, battered and disheveled. The tangled woods and branching hidden paths shielded them for the moment, leaving the gunfire and shouted commands behind.
Ksitigarbha tossed aside his empty gun as he ran, panting, glancing back at the others. But there were hardly any left—aside from two of his trusted men, only Xia Liu Yi, Jade Guanyin, Xiao Ma, and Qin Hao remained.
He had just witnessed Samantabhadra riddled with bullets, seen Golden Maitreya’s mountain kingdom reduced to ruins. The power he had schemed so hard to seize had vanished in an instant. With evidence and witnesses left behind and his identity exposed, he was now a wanted fugitive. Rage surged within him.
He suddenly rushed back, snatching a gun from one of his men and pointing it straight at Qin Hao, cursing furiously in Thai.
“Was it you?!”
“Ksitigarbha! Calm down—it wasn’t him!” Xia Liu Yi barked, stepping in front of Qin Hao.
“He’s the only newcomer here!” Ksitigarbha roared.
“We’re all newcomers,” Xia Liu Yi said coolly, pointing at Xiao Ma and Qin Hao. “None of us have ever been here before. This place is so remote—even if one of us tipped off the police tonight, they couldn’t have arrived this fast. The only possibility is that someone on your side leaked it early, informing the police about tonight’s infighting so they could set up in advance and wipe everyone out in one net!”
His reasoning was flawless. Ksitigarbha panted heavily, then his eyes hardened. He swung the gun toward one of his own men.
The man shook his head frantically in denial. Ksitigarbha pulled the trigger without hesitation—but the gun was empty. The man bolted, only to have a dagger hurled into the back of his neck. He clutched his throat, choking on blood before collapsing.
Expressionless, Ksitigarbha stepped forward, pulled out the dagger, and let the corpse drop with a thud. His murderous gaze shifted to the last remaining subordinate.
The man’s legs trembled violently as he dropped to his knees, begging for mercy.
Bang!
A shot fired into the air halted Ksitigarbha’s raised hand.
“Stop. Don’t kill anymore.” A hoarse voice spoke.
Jade Guanyin slid off Xiao Ma’s back, retreating a few steps to lean against a tree. She raised the only gun left with bullets and aimed it at everyone.
“It was me who informed the police.”
Everyone—except the utterly confused Xiao Ma—stared in shock. Xia Liu Yi had never imagined the informant would be her. “Why?! What do you gain from this?”
Jade Guanyin smiled—a weary, liberated smile. Her pale, delicate face now carried a purity that made her seem like a completely different person.
“Golden Maitreya killed my parents, forced me to call him godfather, ‘remade’ me, trained me into a masochist—made me unable to live without men, forced me to kill, forced me to do every vile, twisted thing imaginable. For twelve years, I haven’t forgotten a single second of what he’s done! No matter how much money or power he gave me, I hated him—to the bone!”
She paused, breathing deeply, then swung the gun toward Ksitigarbha, stopping his attempt to strike.
“You lunatic! If he wronged you, just kill him! Why drag us into this?!” he roared.
Jade Guanyin laughed. “Golden Maitreya deserved to die. Every drug trafficker deserves to die. And we who helped them—we deserve it too! I didn’t just want him dead—I wanted his entire empire reduced to ashes! Three years ago, I became an informant for Interpol. The two undercover agents who were caught—I let them go. Golden Maitreya was cautious; the police couldn’t break through. So I staged a falling-out, stole his evidence, fled to Hong Kong to find Xiao Liu, and set up this internal conflict—so the police could wipe everything out at once…”
“Madwoman! You’re insane!” Ksitigarbha shouted, cutting her off.
“Shut up!” she screamed back. “You’re the mad one! You were taken by him too—have you forgotten?! Do you even remember your parents?! You’ve taken your enemy as your father—if they could see you now, they’d wish they could kill you themselves!”
Breathing hard, she smiled again.
“‘A family should be together, whole and complete.’ Godfather’s dead. Second Brother and Third Brother are dead. Only we’re left. The police know about this passage—the gunshots just now were the signal. They’ll be here soon. Eldest Brother, Fifth Brother… you can’t escape. Surrender.”
Futile Devices Scans 
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