Futile Devices Scans

With difficulty, Xia Liu Yi lifted his face and looked at the old, yellowed black-and-white photograph. It showed three young men standing shoulder to shoulder. One was Golden Maitreya in his youth. Another bore a striking resemblance to Azure Dragon and was presumably his father. The third looked faintly familiar, but Xia Liu Yi could not immediately remember whom he resembled.

The broken corpse beside the swimming pool, the dim and gloomy hospital room, Azure Dragon’s eyes staring open in death, and the villa burned into something resembling a graveyard in hell appeared before him one after another. Xu Ying, Detective Hua, the Old Shopkeeper, Golden Maitreya—how many people had participated in Azure Dragon’s death? Azure Dragon had treated these men as brothers, respected his elders, and shared untold profits with them, yet in the end, his family had been destroyed and he had died such a horrific death!

Xia Liu Yi released another grief-stricken roar, forced himself upright, and lunged at Golden Maitreya. The two death warriors pinned him down once again, landing several brutal kicks and punches against his abdomen and head. Blood streamed down his cheek as they forced him to kneel before Golden Maitreya, his bloodthirsty eyes fixed upon the old man.

“That’s enough. You’ve made enough of a scene. It’s time for you to be on your way.” Golden Maitreya leaned comfortably back in his wheelchair and spoke in a languid, airy voice. “Let’s begin with the older brother who led his younger brother astray.”

Ksitigarbha picked up Samantabhadra’s gun, pressed it against his head, and pulled back the hammer. Samantabhadra closed his eyes, resigned to his fate.

Bang!

Blood and brain matter sprayed through the air after the gunshot, but the person who collapsed was one of the death warriors. Ksitigarbha had suddenly raised the gun and fired at the man beside him. At the same moment, Xia Liu Yi rolled across the floor, wrapped both arms around the other death warrior’s knees, and slammed him down. One heavy punch knocked the man’s jaw crooked. Xia Liu Yi swept a hand across his waist, drew his gun, and fired. With another deafening bang, the man’s head burst like a smashed melon.

In the blink of an eye, both death warriors lay dead. Xia Liu Yi and Ksitigarbha raised their guns and aimed them at Golden Maitreya. Samantabhadra also stood, removed the plaster sling from his neck, and pulled a ruptured blood bag from beneath his clothing.

Golden Maitreya’s eyes bulged with fury. “You…”

“You had far too many lines,” Samantabhadra said impatiently to Xia Liu Yi. “The blood bag had nearly drained dry. We almost gave ourselves away.”

“That’s why I pinned you to the floor and blocked the view,” Ksitigarbha interjected.

“Really? I thought our performance was excellent.” Xia Liu Yi sneered. “Wasn’t it, Godfather? Unless we put on this little show, why would you obediently tell me why Azure Dragon died?”

The Boss, who shared a bed every night with a Best Actor, had accurately judged Golden Maitreya’s personality and untangled all the grudges between him and his godsons. Working together with Jade Guanyin, he had sowed discord and written and performed this little drama himself. They had completed it perfectly in a single take without one cut.

He bent down, retrieved the bloodstained photograph, wiped it clean, and slipped it into his trouser pocket. “I’ve also guessed who called to inform on Azure Dragon back then. Thank you, Godfather.”

There was no time for further conversation. The door burst inward with a tremendous crash, and a storm of bullets poured into the room. The four death warriors stationed in the hall had heard that something was wrong and charged inside with submachine guns, unleashing fierce gunfire upon the three men.

Samantabhadra and Ksitigarbha rolled behind the low table and overturned the solid wooden furniture to shield themselves from the bullets. Xia Liu Yi was closest to Golden Maitreya, so he ducked behind the old man’s wheelchair. Ksitigarbha slid his dagger across the floor toward him. Xia Liu Yi caught it and pressed the blade against Golden Maitreya’s throat.

“Stop!” he shouted in Thai.

The gunfire ceased abruptly, leaving the four death warriors and the three rebels locked in a tense standoff. Outside, however, the fierce gunfire and battle cries continued without pause. Ksitigarbha’s and Samantabhadra’s men had heard the signal and begun fighting Golden Maitreya’s forces. Golden Maitreya’s private soldiers swarmed toward the bamboo grove from every direction. Bullets tore through the outer hall, reducing it to chaos.

“This entire mountain is filled with my men. Do you truly believe you can escape?” Golden Maitreya asked.

“If I kill you here, carry your head outside, and leave your people without a leader, whom do you think they’ll obey?” Xia Liu Yi replied.

Golden Maitreya’s wrinkled face broke into a smile. “Even if those men outside turn against me, these four are Divine Generals utterly loyal to me. Kill me, and you’ll never leave this room.”

Xia Liu Yi pressed the blade more firmly against his throat, drawing a thin line of blood. “Move aside!” he ordered the death warriors.

“Don’t move!” Golden Maitreya shouted. “If I die, they’ll die with me!”

As members of the Twelve Divine Generals, the four death warriors had been raised very differently from the Four Great Bodhisattvas. Since childhood, they had been trained solely to protect Golden Maitreya and assassinate others. In intelligence, they could not compare with even a tenth of Golden Maitreya’s godsons. Unable to reason through the paradox of who would die first if someone killed someone else, they knew only to obey Golden Maitreya completely. They stood as motionless as stone guardian statues, and the situation fell into a deadlock.

The longer the stalemate continued, however, the worse it became for Xia Liu Yi’s side. Golden Maitreya’s private soldiers greatly outnumbered the others outside. If they wiped out Ksitigarbha’s and Samantabhadra’s forces and surrounded the room, Xia Liu Yi and the others would clearly be defeated.

Crash!

The window of the meditation chamber suddenly shattered as a dark object flew through it. The four death warriors instinctively opened fire upon the intruder, only to discover that it was merely a stone wrapped in clothing. At the same moment, Qin Hao appeared behind them, caught one man’s head in his hands, and snapped his neck in an instant.

The dead man’s submachine gun discharged uncontrollably. Qin Hao seized his arm and swung the muzzle toward the others. The remaining men attacked Qin Hao, while Ksitigarbha and Samantabhadra leapt out from behind the low table and opened fire. Xia Liu Yi slashed Golden Maitreya’s throat with one brutal stroke. Gunshots thundered, blood sprayed, and the room descended into utter chaos.

Xiao Ma, who had thrown the stone to distract them, took advantage of the confusion and jumped in through the window. He pressed a handgun he had taken from a corpse outside into Xia Liu Yi’s hand. “Boss! Are you all right?”

“Go save Jade Guanyin!” Xia Liu Yi shoved him away.

Xiao Ma had been desperate to reach her all along. He immediately turned and ran without lingering to fight. The Boss was so mighty and brilliant that he would certainly survive. Saving his own Madam Ma was far more urgent.

…

Keeping his body low, Xiao Ma ran through the crossfire. On the way, he stripped a rifle from a corpse and followed the direction in which Manjushri had taken Jade Guanyin. Before long, he found a wooden building nearby. A heavy stench of blood filled the air, and the ground beside the entrance was stained red. This had to be the torture chamber.

The door stood slightly ajar. Two guards lay dead across the veranda, both positioned as though they had been charging inside. Xiao Ma sensed that something was wrong. He listened carefully for movement, then rammed the door open and charged in. Beneath the dim glow of a yellow bulb, a corpse hung twisted upon the torture rack. Its head had been wrenched completely around to face backward, and a torture knife had been nailed through each palm. Numerous wounds crossed its body, suggesting that someone had interrogated it before death.

Xiao Ma’s eyes instantly turned red. He charged forward with a furious roar, only to realize after two steps that panic had made him see incorrectly. The corpse was not only clothed but also had no breasts. It was not Jade Guanyin. It was Manjushri.

Relief flooded through him. He cursed loudly several times, forced himself to calm down, and looked around. Apart from the corpse, the room was empty. A trail of bloody bare footprints passed Manjushri’s body and led outside.

Xiao Ma followed the prints out of the building, but the soil and fallen leaves soon concealed the blood. In the darkness, he could not distinguish the trail and had no idea where the badly wounded Jade Guanyin might have gone. Standing there anxiously with his rifle raised, he shouted, “Xiao Yu! Jade Guanyin!”

Two private soldiers charged toward him while firing. Xiao Ma roared and fired two shots in return, but the fierce volley forced him back into the torture chamber. The two soldiers cautiously approached. A figure holding a gun suddenly appeared at the window, and they immediately riddled it with bullets.

The soldiers entered to inspect the result, only to find Manjushri’s mangled corpse propped against the window. Xiao Ma, hidden behind the door, smashed a stone into one man’s head. The soldier released a strange cry and collapsed. The other man stared at Xiao Ma in mutual shock. Intimidated by Xiao Ma’s massive body and savage face, he began trembling. Xiao Ma snatched away his gun and pressed it against his head.

“Where did Jade Guanyin go?”

The soldier stammered a stream of Thai.

Unable to understand a single word, Xiao Ma roared, “Where did Jade Guanyin go?”

The soldier looked as though he might wet himself and repeated the same incomprehensible Thai.

“Jade Guanyin! Where?” Xiao Ma shouted in English.

“No, no, no! I no know!” The man’s English was even worse than his.

After arguing at cross-purposes for some time, Xiao Ma angrily struck him unconscious with the butt of the gun. The moment he rushed out of the torture chamber, another private soldier pressed a weapon against his head. Xiao Ma had no choice but to drop his gun and raise both hands.

The soldier shouted a question in Thai.

“I no know!” Xiao Ma lied wildly. “I and Golden Maitreya, friend! Friend! I no like Jade Guanyin. Kill! I want kill!”

The soldier understood nothing except the word “kill” and began shouting even more furiously. After several more sentences of mutual incomprehension, a gunshot suddenly rang out, spraying blood across Xiao Ma’s face.

“So noisy,” Jade Guanyin said from nearby. She wore a camouflage jacket stripped from a corpse and held a handgun loosely at her side. Leaning weakly against a wall, she was nearly as covered in blood as Xiao Ma.

“What took you so long?” she asked wearily. Her legs gave way, and Xiao Ma rushed forward to catch her.

…

The fierce battle in the bamboo grove continued. Suddenly, a burst of submachine-gun fire shook the earth. Ksitigarbha emerged holding Golden Maitreya’s “Buddha head” aloft and shouted several sentences. The gunfire gradually subsided. Two junior commanders stepped out from among the private soldiers and exchanged several words with him from a distance. One suddenly raised his weapon and shot the other dead, then led his men in throwing down their guns and kneeling before Ksitigarbha.

Whoever fed them became their mother, and whoever held money and power called the shots. It was the same everywhere. The transfer of power within the drug syndicate proceeded quickly and smoothly. Ksitigarbha executed several of Golden Maitreya’s remaining loyalists hidden among the crowd, then ordered the others to collect the bodies and clean the battlefield.

The internal conflict had caused heavy casualties. Only thirty or forty people remained standing. A stray bullet had grazed Qin Hao’s leg during the melee. Xia Liu Yi supported him onto a damaged chair outside the tea hall. At that moment, Xiao Ma came trotting back with Jade Guanyin on his back. “Boss!”

“She’s still alive?” Xia Liu Yi asked.

Xiao Ma bounced Jade Guanyin slightly on his back. Without opening her eyes, she slapped his face in response.

“Alive, Boss!” Xiao Ma answered excitedly. The bitter fight was finally over, and he had brought Jade Guanyin back alive, leaving him in excellent spirits. He moved closer and began flattering Xia Liu Yi. “Boss, you’re truly wise and mighty. You took care of that rotten old pervert Golden Maitreya in no time! Hehe, Boss, Brother Hao is injured too. Could you ask that black gorilla to send us a car so we can get down the mountain and find a doctor?”

Xia Liu Yi needed two seconds to realize that the “black gorilla” meant Ksitigarbha. Amused, he knocked Xiao Ma on the forehead. “Do you think I need you to tell me? Golden Maitreya’s private doctor and medical equipment are already here. Ksitigarbha sent men to capture him. They’ll drag him back shortly to examine both of them.”

Reassured, Xiao Ma lowered Jade Guanyin and hurried around wiping her face and feeding her water. Watching him fuss over her in obvious panic, Xia Liu Yi realized that Xiao Ma had genuinely developed feelings for her. He found it both absurd and exasperating, with a trace of profound dismay. He had never believed that anyone could fall for someone like Jade Guanyin, much less imagined that Xiao Ma would be the one to stumble into that pit. Such an excellent heap of horse manure had been needlessly adorned with a poisonous flower.

…

After drinking two mouthfuls of water, Jade Guanyin suddenly tilted her head and listened. “Do you hear something?”

Xia Liu Yi rose alertly. Gunshots sounded in the distance, especially distinct amid the empty mountains at night. As the wind swept past his ears, he heard the low thrum of helicopters.

Two helicopters appeared above the mountain settlement. Dazzling beams of light suddenly swept down from the sky, accompanied by a series of stern announcements over loudspeakers. Xia Liu Yi understood enough to know that the speakers were identifying themselves and ordering everyone to disarm and surrender. His expression changed dramatically.

Even Qin Hao looked startled and quickly scanned everyone present.

Several explosions suddenly erupted nearby. A military jeep was blown into the air. Its fuel tank ruptured and exploded in flames, illuminating half the sky in red. Gunfire and shouts of battle began once again.

Ksitigarbha rushed back with a group of men, his face filled with panic as he shouted at Xia Liu Yi and the others.

“What happened? What are they saying?” Xiao Ma demanded. He was the only person present who could not understand Thai.

“It’s the Thai police and Interpol,” Jade Guanyin translated, her face deathly pale. “They’ve surrounded this place and bombed the parking area. Samantabhadra fired at them and has already been killed.”

The gunshots and shouted commands closed in from every direction. Ksitigarbha and his men began firing back while roaring, clearly determined to resist arrest to the death. Xia Liu Yi pulled Qin Hao to his feet, while Xiao Ma hurriedly hoisted Jade Guanyin onto his back again.

“Go behind the meditation house. There’s a secret passage along the mountainside that Golden Maitreya prepared as an escape route!” Jade Guanyin said. In a hoarse voice, she shouted several sentences in Thai to Ksitigarbha. He and his men followed while continuing to fire.

The roar of helicopter blades, gunshots, shouted commands, blinding white light, and choking smoke grenades engulfed the desperate drug traffickers as they returned fire and attempted to break through the encirclement. The police had arrived fully prepared and attacked from both the ground and the air, pressing inward layer by layer. Echoes rolled through the forest. Screams that pierced the eardrums seemed to come from every direction as the private soldiers fell one after another. Most were wounded rather than killed, leaving them alive to moan and struggle like ants dropped into a boiling pot, writhing within the endless hell created by their own crimes.

Smoke drifted into Golden Maitreya’s meditation chamber, and white mist shrouded the statue of Maitreya Buddha upon the altar. The large-bellied bodhisattva sat cross-legged, his long, curved eyes gazing upon Golden Maitreya’s headless body in the wheelchair. His broad ears listened to the unending screams outside, while his mouth remained open in laughter—laughing because good and evil received their just deserts, and laughing at the ridiculous people of this world.

…

Those who escaped the encirclement stumbled wretchedly into the dense forest. The tangled woods and branching secret paths sheltered them, temporarily leaving the gunshots and shouted commands behind.

Ksitigarbha tossed aside his empty gun and looked back at the others while running and panting. Calling them a group was generous. Apart from two of his trusted subordinates, only Xia Liu Yi, Jade Guanyin, Xiao Ma, and Qin Hao remained.

He had watched Samantabhadra be shot dead. He had watched Golden Maitreya’s mountain kingdom become a wasteland. The power he had schemed so painstakingly to obtain had vanished in the blink of an eye. Vast amounts of evidence and numerous witnesses remained behind, his identity had been exposed, and he was about to become a wanted fugitive. Hatred overwhelmed him. He rushed back several steps, snatched a gun from one of his men, aimed it at Qin Hao, and cursed furiously in Thai.

“Was it you?”

“Ksitigarbha! Calm down! It wasn’t him!” Xia Liu Yi shouted, stepping in front of Qin Hao.

“He’s the only newcomer here!” Ksitigarbha roared.

“We’re all newcomers.” Xia Liu Yi pointed toward Xiao Ma and Qin Hao and analyzed the situation calmly. “None of the three of us has ever been here before. This place is so remote that even if one of us informed the police tonight, they could never have arrived this quickly. The problem could only have come from your own people. Someone must have warned the police long ago that an internal conflict would occur here tonight, allowing them to prepare in advance and capture everyone at once.”

His analysis contained no obvious flaw. Ksitigarbha breathed heavily, then his gaze suddenly hardened and he swung the gun toward one of his trusted subordinates. The man shook his head frantically in denial. Ksitigarbha pulled the trigger without hesitation, but the gun was also empty. Having narrowly escaped death, the subordinate turned and fled. Ksitigarbha hurled his dagger through the air into the back of the man’s neck. Clutching his throat, the man made wet, choking sounds as blood poured from his mouth.

Ksitigarbha walked forward without expression and pulled out the dagger. The corpse fell heavily to the ground. His murderous gaze then shifted toward his other subordinate.

The man’s legs trembled so violently that he immediately dropped to his knees, pleading desperately.

A gunshot fired into the air stopped Ksitigarbha’s raised dagger.

“Stop. Don’t kill anyone else,” a hoarse voice said.

Jade Guanyin struggled off Xiao Ma’s back and retreated several steps until she could lean against a tree. She raised the only gun among them that still contained bullets and aimed it at the group. “I was the one who informed the police.”

Apart from Xiao Ma, the only person present who did not understand Thai and was now both anxious and bewildered, everyone stared at her in profound shock and suspicion. Xia Liu Yi had never imagined that Jade Guanyin was the informant. “Why? What do you gain from this?”

Jade Guanyin smiled, looking both exhausted and liberated. At that moment, her beautiful, pale face held an expression so clean and pure that she seemed like a completely different person.

“Golden Maitreya killed my parents, forced me to acknowledge him as my godfather, ‘remade’ me, trained me, and turned me into a masochist who couldn’t live without being used by men. He forced me to kill and made me do every disgusting, perverse thing imaginable. I have never forgotten a single one of his crimes for even one second during these twelve years. No matter how much money or power he gave me, I hated him. I hated him to the marrow of my bones!”

Weakness forced her to pause. She drew a deep breath, then turned the gun toward Ksitigarbha when he attempted to sneak closer, forcing him to stop.

“You’re insane! Golden Maitreya ruined your life, so killing him should have been enough. Why drag the rest of us into it?” Ksitigarbha cursed.

Jade Guanyin smiled. “Golden Maitreya deserved to die. Every drug trafficker deserves to die, and those of us who served as his accomplices deserve punishment too. I didn’t merely want Golden Maitreya dead. I wanted his entire criminal empire reduced to ashes. I became an Interpol informant three years ago. The two undercover agents who were supposedly captured were actually released by me. Golden Maitreya was cautious and heavily guarded, so the police could never find an opening. I deliberately broke with him, stole evidence of his crimes, escaped to Hong Kong, and sought refuge with Xiao Liu. Then I engineered this internal conflict so the police could capture everyone at once…”

“Lunatic! You’re completely insane!” Ksitigarbha roared, interrupting her.

“Shut up!” Jade Guanyin screamed. “You’re the lunatic! Golden Maitreya abducted you too. Have you forgotten? Do you even remember what your parents looked like? You acknowledged the man who destroyed your family as your father. If your parents’ spirits are watching, they must wish they could beat you to death themselves!”

After shouting, she panted and smiled again. “‘Nothing is more important than having the whole family together.’ Godfather is dead. Second Brother and Third Brother are dead too. Only we remain. The police know about this secret passage. That gunshot was a signal to them, and they’ll arrive soon. Eldest Brother, Fifth Brother, you cannot escape. Surrender.”

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