May 1997.
Inside a bright, spotless office building in Tsim Sha Tsui, men and women in business attire hurried in and out. Hong Kong’s return to China was just over a month away, and this moderately well-known exhibition company had taken on numerous conventions and trade exhibitions for local chambers of commerce and commercial partnerships between Hong Kong and mainland China. Business was in full swing.
Mounted beside the entrance to the floor was a company sign bearing a row of gleaming gold characters: EVERYBODY GETS RICH COMMERCIAL SERVICES LIMITED. Upon closer inspection, traces of another line of writing could be seen beneath the sign, with the words Xiao Qi Investments still faintly visible where the old lettering had been scraped away.
Inside the chairman’s office at the end of the floor, the furniture remained arranged exactly as it had been four years earlier. However, the desk and cabinets now held a vast collection of decorations. At a glance, everything was pure gold: golden Buddha heads, golden lions, golden toads, golden bats, golden pixiu… A golden sycee the size of a human head occupied the center of the desk. The entire room blazed with the splendor of wealth.
Elio’s Notes: A pixiu is a Chinese mythical creature associated with attracting wealth and good fortune, and is commonly used as an auspicious ornament.
The man seated in the executive chair hummed while picking at his gleaming gold front tooth with a golden toothpick. His gaze remained fixed on a wooden picture frame that looked utterly out of place among the surrounding gold ornaments. The frame was old, its corners worn. The photograph inside showed a group of young men and women standing arm in arm beside the sea. At the center was a large young man with a scar on his face, forcibly wedging his substantial body between two handsome men who were holding hands. He bared a full row of white teeth and grinned with radiant arrogance.
The man stared at that mouthful of white teeth for a long time before shuddering. Disdainfully, he squeezed a single word through the gleaming gaps of his golden teeth. “Tacky!”
Someone knocked noisily outside. The man raised his head, revealing a mature, heroic, ruggedly masculine face. An old scar crossed his angular features, giving him a vicious and unruly appearance. He possessed none of the air of a businessman. Instead, he resembled a wild beast wearing the skin of a suit.
“Come in!” the man said impatiently.
The door opened, and a young man poked his head inside. He had two enormous protruding ears and bounced around like a monkey. Behind him followed a timidly shrinking handsome youth who looked skinny, frail, and thoroughly dispirited.
The monkey-like young man announced delightedly, “Boss Ma! I brought my cousin from the countryside! Do you remember him? He’s the hardworking, promising country cousin I’m always telling you about! I brought him for you to look over. What do you think? Not bad, right? He just arrived in Hong Kong and has nowhere to stay, so please arrange a job for him!”
The man frowned and examined the handsome youth from head to toe. “Is he even an adult?”
The monkey-like young man slapped the handsome youth on the head. “Hurry and tell Boss Ma how old you are!”
“Twenty-one.”
“What the hell do you mean, twenty-one? Sixteen, maybe!” The man glared at him. “Tell the truth!”
The handsome youth could not speak for a long time and sniffled several times. Just as the man was about to impatiently urge him on, the youth suddenly released a thunderous shout and tore his shirt open with a loud rip, exposing a heavily muscled upper body. He was exceedingly thin, yet every muscle stood out across his frame like bars of steel.
“Boss Ma, I’m telling the truth!” he shouted with a flushed face and puffed-out chest. With trembling hands, he pulled a card from his pocket and presented it with both hands. “Th-This is my identification. I’m twenty-one this year! My granduncle is a martial arts master! I began training at six and traveled north and south with him. I possess extensive experience, excellent moral character, and a willingness to work hard. I hope to make my humble contribution to Boss Ma! Whatever Boss Ma requires, this lowly one will exhaust his mind and strength—”
“Stop, stop, stop!” Boss Ma interrupted impatiently. “Are you performing opera?! What’s all this ‘exhausting your balls while riding a donkey’ nonsense? I can’t understand a word! Tell me what skills you have. What are you good at?”
The handsome youth snapped to attention and thrust out his chest. “Fighting and brawling! Collecting debts and robbing people! Whatever you can imagine, Boss, there’s nothing I can’t—”
“Stop, stop, stop!” Boss Ma’s eyes widened ferociously. “What the hell do you think this place is?! ‘Boss’ this and ‘Boss’ that—what era do you think this is? There aren’t any bosses anymore! Ask your cousin what you’re supposed to call me!”
His cousin slapped him on the head again. “Idiot! Call him Chairman Ma!”
“Greetings, Chairman Ma!”
Chairman Ma waved impatiently. “Enough, enough! ‘Fighting, brawling, collecting debts, and robbing people’?” He pulled open a drawer, took out a thick stack of banknotes, and slapped it beside the golden sycee. “Master Ma has this much money. Why the hell would I need to rob anyone?! These are peaceful times. You young people need to change your way of thinking. All you do is talk about fighting and killing. Did all that fighting make you any money? If it did, why are you still starved as skinny as a chick?!”
The handsome youth wilted under the scolding, lowering his head with a dejected expression.
“Raise your head and let Master Ma look at you!” Chairman Ma ordered. “Good. Turn around. Turn around and stick out your backside for Master Ma.”
“Fine.” After examining him several times, Chairman Ma told his cousin, “His raw material isn’t bad. Send him to Big Fool. Fatten him up so he’ll be ready to take clients.”
The handsome youth looked ready to cry. “Chairman Ma, d-do you want me to become a male prostitute?”
“In your dreams!” Chairman Ma glared. “I’m sending you to train at the security company! You’ll work as a bodyguard! Did all that stupid muscle grow into your brain?”
Having secured a job, the handsome youth cheerfully thanked the chairman and fled. His cousin could not escape and remained behind to be scolded. “You call that pathetic creature promising? Is smoke rising from your ancestral grave?!”
The monkey-like young man had followed Chairman Ma for three years and had already lost two layers of scalp from all the scolding. Completely impervious, he grinned shamelessly. “Hehehe, Boss Ma, don’t say that. He’s only a youngster. Educate him for a while and he’ll learn. He isn’t bad at heart.”
“He isn’t bad at heart—you are! You know I spoil you, so you brought me another freeloader!”
“Boss Ma, don’t put it that way. After a few months of training, he’ll start earning money for the company. Hehehe.” The monkey-like young man eagerly came forward to massage Chairman Ma’s shoulders and pound his legs. “Boss Ma is good, Boss Ma is wonderful, Boss Ma is our golden sycee! Oh, right, Boss Ma, I heard several models have recently started working at Fat Monk’s nightclub. Shall I treat you to some fun tonight, as repayment for recognizing my cousin’s potential?”
Chairman Ma remained unmoved. “Boring. I’m not going.”
The monkey-like young man leaned over and whispered into his ear, “I heard one of them has especially huge tits…”
“How huge?” Chairman Ma lazily lifted an eyelid.
“This huge. This huge.” The monkey-like young man gestured in front of his chest.
Chairman Ma studied the familiar dimensions. At last, he sighed reluctantly. “Mm. Then I suppose we can go take a look.”
“Wonderful, Boss Ma! I’ll call a few more brothers so we can make it lively!”
That evening, the nightclub’s private room blazed with colorful lights, and empty plates and cups lay scattered everywhere. Chairman Ma was extremely drunk. With one arm around the heavily made-up model with enormous tits and a microphone in his other hand, he bellowed the popular Heavenly King’s newly released hit song, If Only You Loved Me for One Day.
“If you loved me with all my feelings for one day, I’d let time stand still and wait for you for ten years… Ahhh, awww, awww… Awww, waiting for you to fulfill it… Awww, someday…”
He had forgotten the lyrics but refused to open his eyes and look at the screen. His face was flushed and burning as he closed his eyes and howled like a man under a spell. When he reached the most emotional section, his voice began choking up. One hand tightly clutched the model’s breast as tears and snot streamed down his face. “If you lived with my feelings for one day, you would understand how every day feels like a year… Boohoo… Wind and rain fill the sky… Boohoo…”
His group of underlings, their faces red as monkeys’ backsides from drinking, applauded and howled below. “The Chairman sings wonderfully! The Chairman sings wonderfully!” “The Chairman is a true man of genuine emotion!”
The chairman was indeed a man of genuine emotion. When the song ended, he finally lost control and burst into sobs while hugging the model. “You heartless little bitch! Master Ma was willing to throw away his life for you! Who the hell told you to leave once your injuries healed? Did you discuss it with Master Ma?! Boohoo! Four years—it’s been four years! I couldn’t find you anywhere! Are you trying to make your Master Ma die from missing you? Boohoo… You heartless wretch! I’ll smear you to death! Smear you to death! I’ll cover you in my snot!” As he cried, he rubbed his tears and mucus all over the model’s enormous breasts.
The newly arrived handsome youth cautiously poked his cousin. “Who is the Chairman crying about?”
“His wife. I heard she was a beautiful woman with huge breasts who ran away several years ago for some unknown reason…”
The model was terrified by the chairman’s tears and snot. She wanted to struggle but could not break free. Watching a huge glob of mucus about to drip into her cleavage, she involuntarily screamed, “Ahh—!”
At the same moment, someone kicked open the private-room door from outside!
“Police inspection!” “Police! Nobody move!” “Take out your identification!”
The group of underlings looked at one another before obediently handing over their identification. Chairman Ma remained where he was, his face covered in tears and snot. In a tearful voice, he asked, “Officer, what’s the matter?”
“Ma Ru Long, you are suspected of participating in triad activities, holding an illegal gathering here, and collectively consuming narcotics! Come next door for a blood test!”
“Test my ass! Who the hell is taking drugs? I haven’t even finished crying!” Ma Ru Long was still unsatisfied and refused to release the model’s breast. Several officers forcibly pried open his hand amid his twisting and shouting, then carried the drunken man away.
The remaining underlings stared at one another. The newly arrived handsome youth trembled. “C-Cousin, what do we do?”
The monkey-like young man slapped him on the head again. “Do my ass! The cops are obviously looking for trouble!” Turning toward two other young men, he cursed, “Hurry and call Consultant He!”
Reeking of alcohol, Ma Ru Long was carried into a private room at the end of the floor. There was no music inside, and the lights were bright. Several officers helped him onto the sofa, turned around, and locked the door. Two figures emerged from the corner and stood over him, examining him from above.
Ma Ru Long’s hair was disheveled, and wet tracks covered his entire face. When he opened his mouth, one glittering gold tooth shone brightly. Curled into a ball on the sofa with a cushion in his arms, he continued crying and muttering incoherently, looking as wretched as anyone possibly could.
Xie Jia Hua frowned. “How did he get this drunk? I’ll find something to sober him up.”
The other young man standing to his right stared at Ma Ru Long’s gold tooth and laughed. “No need.” As he spoke, he picked up a glass of cold water from the coffee table and threw it directly into Ma Ru Long’s face.
Ma Ru Long shuddered and opened his eyes in confusion. Xie Jia Hua bent over him. “Hey, wake up. Boss Ma, do you still recognize me?”
Ma Ru Long studied him carefully before waving a drunken hand. “No, no, Deputy Superintendent Xie. I haven’t been a boss for many years.”
Seeing that he had regained some reason, Xie Jia Hua continued, “Ma Ru Long, there is nobody else here, and there are no listening devices. Let’s speak frankly. I didn’t come here today to cause trouble for you.”
Ma Ru Long narrowed his eyes and slapped his own face several times, but failed to dispel the drunken haze inside his head. He asked vaguely, “Oh. Then may I ask why Deputy Superintendent Xie came to see me?”
Xie Jia Hua went directly to the point. “The Hong Kong police require you to fulfill your civic duty and assist with a criminal investigation. We are cooperating with Interpol on a transnational drug-trafficking case. One of the leads points toward the local Dong Yang Society. We discovered that the society conducts business with Xiao Qi Hall and that you have some friendship with their boss, Fat Monk. I would like you to serve as an intermediary and place an Interpol informant inside the Dong Yang Society.”
Ma Ru Long narrowed his eyes and considered this for a long time. His face wrinkled. “Deputy Superintendent Xie, did I hear you correctly? I thought I heard you asking me to help the police plant an undercover agent.”
“That is correct.”
“Have I gone insane, or have all of you?”
Xie Jia Hua also believed the idea was rather insane, but he continued nonetheless. “Boss Ma should meet the undercover operative before deciding. Allow me to introduce a consultant with Interpol’s Thailand office…”
He stepped aside. The young man behind him bent toward Ma Ru Long, who lay on the sofa, and spoke in fluent Cantonese. “Mr. Ma, it is a pleasure to meet you.”
The instant Ma Ru Long heard his voice, his entire body jolted as though struck by electricity. Every pore exploded open, his blood boiled, and his heart thundered like a drum. His drunkenness vanished completely. He immediately struggled upright and stared blankly at the man before him, who appeared simultaneously impossibly familiar and impossibly strange.
The young man was exceedingly handsome, with smiling eyes. He extended a hand toward Ma Ru Long. “This is our first meeting. My name is Susin.”
Ma Ru Long remained utterly motionless, as though he had turned to stone.
The young man smiled again. A faint blush colored his peach-blossom face, and he called out somewhat shyly, “Brother Ma.”
Heat rushed into Ma Ru Long’s ears. In an instant, all three souls and seven spirits returned to his body. Trembling, he pressed both tiger paws against the other man’s chest. Beneath his claws was a barren wasteland containing only two slightly raised patches of firm flesh. He curled his fingers and squeezed. The texture was solid and springy—unmistakably pectoral muscles.
He suddenly released a heartrending, agonized howl from the depths of his internal organs.
“Where did the tits go?!”
…
… The Story of Xiao Ma, End. …
…
If there were still to be a continuation:
Late that same night, at Chairman Ma’s home.
“Where are the tits?!”
“Brother Ma, I’m sorry. Back then, Kun Zhang offered a huge reward for my head. His people nearly captured my friend and even traced things back to Liu Yi and you. I realized that I couldn’t hide forever while continuing to endanger all of you, so I had surgery to become a man again and entered the Golden Triangle as an undercover operative. It took me four years to gain Kun Zhang’s trust and lure him out of the Golden Triangle so he could be arrested. He’ll appear before an international court in a few days…”
“Stop talking nonsense! Where are the tits?!”
“They’re gone. Why don’t I put two padded inserts into my shirt for you to play with?”
“I don’t want fake ones! I want the two real ones from before!”
“The real ones are gone.”
“Boohoo… My tits… The tits I missed for four years… Those were my tits! You didn’t even discuss it with me… How could you be so cruel? Boohoo…”
“Didn’t you say back then that you didn’t care whether I was a man or a woman? Do you love me or my tits?”
“Boohoo… The tits, obviously—Ahhh! That hurts, that hurts! Let go! Let go! I love you, I love you, I love you!”
“Do you still want the tits?”
“No, no, no! I want you, I want you, I want you! I was joking, baby. I missed you to death! I love you more than anything! You’re my lifeblood! Could you release Brother Ma’s balls first? We can discuss everything peacefully… Wait. Why are you tying me up?”
“I don’t believe that you truly love me. Prove it.”
“H-How do you want me to prove it? Wh-What are you doing? What is that in your hand? Isn’t that the thing you used before? Why are you pulling down my trousers?”
“Hehehe. I’m a man now. What do you think I want to do?”
“N-No! Ahhh! Help! Ah… Ahhh… Ah…”
Smack! Smack, smack! Smack!
…
… The Epilogue to the Story of Xiao Ma, End. …
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