“I started it! I’m killing him today!” Boss Xia shouted, his mouth full of blood and his fury having completely overwhelmed his reason.
Half of Xie Jia Hua’s face had also swollen from the beating, but he was far calmer than Xia Liu Yi. He steadied himself and calmly brushed Xiao Ma and A’Nan’s hands away. Xia Liu Yi was still lunging toward him, trying to stab him, while three subordinates held him back together. Everyone pleaded in unison, “Boss, Boss, you can’t. You really can’t…” Xiao Ma turned and urged Xie Jia Hua, “Why are you still here? Go! Go!”
Xie Jia Hua bent over, picked his coat out of the heap of broken furniture, and dusted it off. “What I said just now was only speculation. I spoke out of turn. I apologize.”
“Get the fuck out—!” Xia Liu Yi roared, his voice cracking.
Xie Jia Hua knew that stab of his had landed both accurately and brutally. He did not stay and pour more fuel on the fire. Turning decisively, he walked out the front door. The afternoon sunlight was fierce. As he crossed the front courtyard, he saw the row of foxtail grass Xia Liu Yi had been planting when he arrived, now wilting and drooping beneath the blazing sun.
Although Xia Liu Yi had not admitted a single word, his violent reaction had already explained everything. Xie Jia Hua’s deductions had been correct. Xia Liu Yi really was avenging Azure Dragon and his father, and He Chu San really was carrying out that revenge in his place. The difference was that He Chu San had probably chosen to do it voluntarily behind Xia Liu Yi’s back, which was why Xia Liu Yi’s guilt and regret had become so explosive.
As Xie Jia Hua followed the rugged path down the mountain, he thought back over his previous encounters with He Chu San, his mood gradually turning grave. On Lunar New Year’s Eve the year before, he had met He Chu San at the exit of the Cross-Harbour Tunnel after Xia Liu Yi threw him out of the car. They had spoken then. Xie Jia Hua had declared that He Chu San and Xia Liu Yi were not walking the same road. He Chu San had replied, “But Inspector Xie, you and I aren’t walking the same road either. I’m only a selfish nobody who wants to save one person. You’re trying to save an entire city. I admire you greatly, but I can’t help you.”
He Chu San, what exactly are you trying to do? Can you really save this man? Will you save him—or will he drag you into the abyss instead?
…
Inspector Xie had lit the fuse and walked away without looking back, leaving Xiao Ma and the others to suffer through putting out the fire. Three grown men clumsily cleaned the wrecked room while chattering nonstop and trying to placate their Boss. Fortunately, Big Sister eventually came downstairs to help and dragged the Boss upstairs.
“What the fuck did that bastard say to make you this angry?” Cui Dong Dong pulled Xia Liu Yi onto the sofa and found a handkerchief to wipe his face. “Why is your mouth full of blood? Spit it out. Let me see.”
Xia Liu Yi screwed up his face and spat half a dental crown into the handkerchief. Cui Dong Dong pinched his chin and carefully examined his mouth. “It’s fine, it’s fine. The flesh is cut. You only knocked off half this crown. We’ll go back to the city tomorrow and get it repaired.”
The prospect of seeing a dentist could not even provoke a reaction from the Boss. Listlessly, he shut his mouth, pulled away from Cui Dong Dong, and went alone to the reclining chair on the balcony. Turning onto his side, he curled his long arms and legs inward and covered his face with the palm-leaf fan lying nearby. His entire body radiated a depressed aura that said, “Go away. Leave me alone.”
Cui Dong Dong sat beside Xiao Luo and whispered, “What’s wrong with him? What kind of bullshit did that Xie bastard say?”
“Did he mention A’San?” Xiao Luo guessed softly.
“That fucker really knows where to stab. Great. Now he’s this angry. Who can possibly coax him?”
“Why not have Xiao Ma call A’San and ask him to coax Boss?” Xiao Luo suggested.
“No one is calling him!!” Xia Liu Yi suddenly roared furiously from outside. “Isn’t he in enough danger already?! Doesn’t he have enough to worry about?!”
“It was only a suggestion! I’m doing it for your own good. What are you yelling for?” Cui Dong Dong snapped defensively on Xiao Luo’s behalf.
“It’s fine, it’s fine. Don’t start fighting with him again,” Xiao Luo hurriedly said.
“He needs somebody to fight with because he’s got everything bottled up inside. Childish idiot!” Cui Dong Dong complained, then immediately redirected her anger. “That Xie bastard comes into somebody else’s house and starts fanning the flames. If we’re not having a good time, neither is he! Xiao Ma? Xiao Ma—!” Muttering to herself, she ran downstairs to find Xiao Ma.
After she left, Xiao Luo set aside her sewing basket, pushed herself upright with the bed, and slowly walked step by step out onto the balcony before sitting beside Xia Liu Yi.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you just now,” Xia Liu Yi suddenly said from beneath the fan.
“It’s all right, Boss. Don’t be too upset. No matter what anyone said, you know A’San loves you very much. Everything he’s doing is so you can put down your hatred and be happy. If you’re unhappy, he’ll be sad too.”
“Mm. I know,” Xia Liu Yi said quietly. “I just… worry about him so much. I’ve wronged him. I was stupid. I dragged him into this. If I’d known things would turn out this way, I wouldn’t have wanted any of it.”
Xiao Luo gently raised a hand and patted his faintly trembling back. “You weren’t stupid. He’s too clever. He knows you could give up revenge for him, but if you did, there would always be a knot of resentment in your heart that could never be untied. Then he would never have all of you. I understand exactly how he feels. We’ve had to love very hard from the beginning, because we’ve had to share one heart with people who are already dead. We love selfishly and greedily. If the heart placed in our hands is missing even the tiniest piece, then it isn’t complete love. Taking that bullet was worth it. Even if I had died, Dong Dong would have remembered me deeply for the rest of her life. As long as I live, I’ll find a way to make her whole heart belong to me from now on. She’ll never be able to leave me again.”
Xia Liu Yi lifted the fan from his face and sat up. He gently stroked Xiao Luo’s pale, cool face, drained by injury and illness, and sighed. “Silly girl. Why are all of you so stupid?”
…
Xiao Ma drove the little truck down the mountain road, flooring the accelerator through a long series of putt-putt-putt-putts before finally catching up with the briskly walking Xie Jia Hua at a fork near the foot of the mountain.
“Hey, Xie! Hey! Hey—!” he shouted from behind while leaning on the horn.
Xie Jia Hua stopped. Xiao Ma jumped out of the cab and strode over, rolling up his sleeves as though he intended to punch Xie Jia Hua first. Then, apparently realizing that he could not beat Inspector Xie one-on-one, he very rationally refrained.
“What the hell did you say to our Boss?!” Xiao Ma demanded with his hands on his hips. “You saw him yourself, didn’t you? Our Boss spends every day growing vegetables and fishing, cultivating… culti—his character… cultivating his body and mind! He hasn’t bothered your O Division, has he? You came all the way to our place, we treated you properly, and then you turn around and say horrible things and start hitting people!”
“He hit me first. He admitted it himself,” Xie Jia Hua reminded him.
“Ahem! He was too angry to think straight! Nothing he said counts!” Xiao Ma waved a hand wildly.
Xie Jia Hua could not be bothered arguing nonsense with him. “What do you want?”
“Our Bo—our Boss told me to tell you: ‘Little bastard! Go home and wash out that filthy mouth of yours! Don’t spend all day with nothing better to do than coming here to wreck our place! Instead of making trouble for us, worry about yourself! The fire in your own backyard is about to burn your rotten ass!’”
“Your Boss was supposedly ‘too angry to think straight,’ yet he still had that much to say?”
“Ahem! Those first lines were what our Boss was thinking. I cursed you out on his behalf! What he actually said comes next. Qin Hao’s situation was not something we uncovered ourselves. The Old Shopkeeper sent someone to tell us. The Old Shopkeeper knew you planted a mole, and he even knew the mole you planted had already risen into the mid-level ranks. Think carefully about how he could know that! Instead of coming here pestering us, go home and investigate him properly! Inspector Xie has worked so hard all these years, but maybe you’re nothing more than one of the old man’s chess pieces—no, one of his house dogs! He tells you who to bite and you bite them. If he doesn’t want you biting someone, you can smack your lips all you want and still won’t get so much as a mouthful of fur! Hahahahahaha!”
Xiao Ma stood with his hands on his hips and laughed arrogantly for a long time before noticing that Xie Jia Hua was simply standing there expressionlessly, giving him no reaction whatsoever.
“Hey?! Did you hear me clearly? Scared stupid?”
“Go back and tell your Big Sister: thank you for the warning. I’ll investigate the Old Shopkeeper. But all of you should watch yourselves as well. Heaven sees everything a person does. Washing your hands and hiding in the countryside to grow a few flowers and plants doesn’t erase it…”
Xiao Ma could not be bothered listening to him chant scriptures like a monk. He slapped his backside and climbed back into the driver’s seat. “Sorry, Inspector Xie! Wind’s too loud! I can’t hear you! Have a nice walk!” He floored the accelerator and drove off with another loud putt-putt-putt-putt.
It was only after he had driven all the way back to the courtyard that something suddenly felt wrong. Fuck! How did that bastard know Big Sister was the one who said all that? Has he got a dog’s nose or something? Did he smell her on it?!
…
At sunset, Xie Jia Hua boarded the ferry back to Hong Kong. Sitting alone at the stern, he turned the little woven shark over in his hands. It had been crushed flat inside his coat, and he tried to piece it back together.
The setting sun stained half his face bloodred. Looking at the little shark in his palm as though it too were soaked in blood, he felt in a daze that he was drawing closer and closer to a bloody truth. Yet the rancid smell of it, now almost within reach, filled him with hesitation and fear. He did not dare lift the thin barrier covering it.
Only he and his superior, Deputy Superintendent Liu, knew that an undercover agent had been planted. As for Qin Hao’s specific identity, Xie Jia Hua had been cautious enough not even to tell Deputy Superintendent Liu. Only officers at superintendent rank or above had the authority to access that top-secret undercover file…
He remembered the first time he met Lu Guang Ming outside Inspector Hua’s blazing villa. The slyly smiling young man had told him, “Chief Inspector Hua, who lived here, is suspected of accepting bribes and colluding with triads… Chief Inspector Hua is not the highest-ranking officer suspected of corruption. There are others above him. One of them… has a certain personal connection to you, Inspector Xie.”
If what Lu Guang Ming said from the very beginning was true, and if what Ma Ru Long just said was also true, then this Old Shopkeeper secretly controlling Inspector Hua and commanding the underworld… No! Impossible! Where’s the evidence? Everything they’ve said is speculation without proof! Where is the evidence?!
Agitated, he shoved the little shark into his bag and looked up. Brilliant lights glittered along both sides of Victoria Harbour, magnificent buildings standing row upon row. Where the multicolored lights intertwined, it seemed as though something enormous and filthy-black lurked inside the shadows…
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