After the birthday banquet, Azure Dragon did two major things. The first was getting married, and the second was taking Liu Yi to Thailand to pay respects to the Golden Maitreya. Golden Maitreya took a liking to Liu Yi’s cleverness and alertness, taking him in as a godson.
Shortly after Azure Dragon’s wedding, Liu Yi proposed that he wanted a private life and to move out of the villa to live on his own, using the reasoning that he had reached the age of adulthood and had become a “Red Pole” capable of holding his own. Xiao Man was extremely surprised by this request and tried hard to dissuade him, while Azure Dragon remained as silent as Liu Yi was.
Liu Yi eventually moved out, purchasing a small two-story village house not far from the Walled City. The layout and furnishings were similar to the village house where the three of them grew up—that village house had long been demolished because it was stained with too much human blood on the night of Azure Dragon’s father’s death. From then on, he lived alone, living solely in the memories of his youth.
The title of “Blood Asura” was gradually replaced in the jianghu with “Twin-Blade Red Pole”. This young red pole possessed extraordinary combat skills, a agile mind, and a swift and resolute style of execution, making him no less capable than his elders. His elder sister was gentle, virtuous, and strikingly beautiful, also widely known in the jianghu as ‘Madam Azure Dragon”‘ Under the leadership of the cautious and introverted big boss Azure Dragon, the Xiao Qi Hall was quietly becoming a formidable force in the Walled City, with its influence spread across brothels, drug dens, gambling dens, and various other entertainment venues.
In 1987, when Liu Yi was twenty-two years old, the British Hong Kong government reached a demolition agreement for the Gaau Lung Walled City with the Beijing government. Although demolition work made no progress over the next few years due to obstruction by various forces within the Walled City, this agreement still heavily shook the areas inside and outside the Walled City. Some residents within the walled city began to slowly and successively move outward. To survive, the jianghu gangs that had been living freely here for decades and centuries also accelerated their process of expanding outside the walled city.
In that year, Azure Dragon ordered A’Ying to open the first disco under the Xiaoqi Hall in Mong Kok. At the end of the year, the Deputy Hall Master Uncle Yuan suffered from mobility issues due to a stroke and requested to resign from his post, retiring behind the scenes to act as the chief elder. On Azure Dragon’s recommendation, the then thirty-two-year-old A’Ying was promoted to be the new Deputy Hall Master, with expansion and development outside the Walled City entirely under his command and responsibility.
Naturally, there were existing forces outside the @alled City, so how could they allow some brat from another family to trample on their turf? With Azure Dragon’s tacit consent, A’Ying gradually unleashed his ruthless and arrogant nature, returning to his old trade of smashing, looting, and burning to pioneer new territory and shed blood for the Xiaoqi Hall out there—of course, seeking a little personal profit for himself along the way was also out of the question.
In 1988, Azure Dragon further ordered Cui Dong Dong, who had already been promoted to chief steward of the Xiao Qi Hall at that time, to open a high-class business club in Kowloon Tong. It was named Tan Xiang Pavilion, specifically used to entertain various jianghu big bosses interacting with the Xiao Qi Hall, as well as various high-society figures who had been patronizing the business of the Xiao Qi Hall for years.
The more the branches and leaves of the Xiao Qi Hall grew outward, the more they offended not just jianghu figures; police attention also began to focus on this emerging power. The times were changing daily. As the date for the end of the lease term approached step by step, the British authorities’ control over Hong Kong weakened day by day. Citizens’ democratic awareness soared, and the outcry demanding direct elections to produce Legislative Council members grew increasingly fierce. Successive heavy blows from the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) over the years also greatly turned around the situation of corruption in the Hong Kong government. The “care” of the inspectors became more and more inadequate, and weakened gangs were heavily hit or even disintegrated by the police one after another…
Under this series of pressures and changes, Azure Dragon gradually realized the limitations and future dead end of the triad, and he conceived the intention to clean up his act. The biggest obstacle to Xiao Qi Hall’s cleaning up its act was its biggest partner—Golden Maitreya. This drug lord living in seclusion in Thailand had started with a crate of goods requiring no principal capital and had single-handedly fostered Xiao Qi Hall to its current flourishing state, so how could he easily give up one of his main distribution channels in the Asia-Pacific region?
At the beginning of 1989, Azure Dragon began to secretly investigate Golden Maitreya’s weaknesses and his life history—and to ensure safety, he did not mention any of this even to A’Ying and Liu Yi. When he found out that Golden Maitreya had stayed in Hong Kong for a period of time over a decade ago, he recalled that Dragon Head Ledger inherited from his father’s hands—containing the major transaction records and tribute records of Xiao Qi Hall over the years.
In the very first entry on the first page, he found a suspected first cooperation between his father and Golden Maitreya, and inadvertently extracted an old photograph from the crevice of the ledger’s cover. It was precisely this cooperation and this photograph that made him vaguely guess the origin of the sworn brothers relationship between Golden Maitreya and his father, and consequently generated suspicion regarding his father’s bizarre death back then.
The events of back then were only best known to those involved at the time. He took that photograph to find Uncle Yuan—this chief elder with a broad and steady temperament was once his father’s most trusted brother. After his father’s death, he had overridden all objections to push the young Azure Dragon onto the Dragon Dead Boss Throne, and had always guided and assisted him with all his heart and soul. He trusted this closest elder.
However, this closest elder expressed great shock at this photograph, having never seen it before, and told him to calm down, saying he would go to investigate and verify secretly, and asked him to wait for his news.
Two days later, behind Azure Dragon’s back, this closest elder knocked on the door of A’Ying’s residence in the dark of night.
A’Ying opened the door for him personally, looking left and right, finding no one else besides Uncle Yuan.
Leaning on his cane and with his body half-crooked, Uncle Yuan slightly extended his head to look at the empty house behind him, and then asked calmly, as if just having trivial family small talk with him: “Xu Ying, do you want to be the Dragon Head?”
A’Ying looked at him in a daze, and after a moment, his face turned to a look of bone-chilling coldness, “Uncle Yuan, I respect you as an elder. But have you gone senile? Do you know what you are saying!”
Uncle Yuan looked down at A’Ying’s left hand reaching toward the dagger at his waist, not caring at all as he said, “You respect me as an elder, but you are not inviting me in before speaking further?”
With an ashen face and after hesitating for a long time, A’Ying finally took a step back and gave way at the door.
…
Uncle Yuan sat on the sofa in A’Ying’s home, scrutinizing the decorations and collections throughout the room that appeared low-profile but were actually extremely expensive. “I remember at that time Azure Dragon wanted you to solely bear all the settlement fees for the people Liu Yi slashed, causing you to live in a broken rented house for a full two years, right?”
“Back then, those people were out to kill me, and thus Azure Dragon and Liu Yi were implicated. It was my responsibility, and I let both of them down.”
Uncle Yuan shook his head and sighed, “Why did those people from the Liao Family Hall try to kill you? It was because you killed their big boss. Why did you kill their big boss? It was to help Azure Dragon pioneer new territory. You were originally full of loyal and brave spirit, so why in the end did all the faults fall on you alone?”
“…” A’Ying kept a gloomy face and did not say a word.
“How many years have you followed Azure Dragon? Over ten years?”
“Twenty years.”
“Twenty years. How many people have you helped him kill, and how many injuries have you suffered for him? Has he ever felt grateful to you?”
“I am his Deputy Hall Master, his most trusted brother.”
Elder Yuan shook his head again and began to laugh hoarsely, “Xiao Ying, oh Xiao Ying, since I dare to come to your place tonight to say these words, what is it that you do not dare to say to me? An old wreck like me came to your place alone, could I still beat you? You know clearly in your own heart who the person he has trusted most these past few years is. Not to mention things far off, let us just talk about the present. Matters outside the walled city have always been managed by you, but I recently heard that he wants to give the newly opened nightclub to Liu Yi.”
“…” A’Ying still remained silent.
“You still do not know yet, do you? Old Ge probably did not mention it to you, for fear of breaking your heart. Back then, before Azure Dragon took Liu Yi to Thailand to see the Buddha Master, he once said to us old fellows: ‘Liu Yi has both courage and strategic mind, and is capable of great use. Xu Ying has too much scheming, and cannot be fully trusted’. These past few years, he has been guarding against you. Otherwise, why is it that you are clearly the Deputy Hall Master, yet every time he goes to see the Buddha Master, he only takes Liu Yi?”
A’Ying’s palm clenched the dagger at his waist, the veins on the back of his hand bulging one by one.
“Over all these years, you have paid so much for him, going through mountain of daggers and sea of flames for him. All of us old fellows have seen it in our eyes, and we all feel it is not worth it for you. Are you going to wait until the day he gets completely tired of you, and wait until the day that wet-behind-the-ears kid Liu Yi completely replaces you, or are you going to strike first to gain the advantage and take back with your own hands what should have belonged to you?”
Uncle Yuan fiddled with the head of his cane in his hand, looking at A’Ying’s increasingly ugly expression, and leisurely added the final knife blow.
“To put it bluntly, I recently heard some rumors. That little thing Liu Yi has had no interest in women since he was a child. A prostitute he ‘kept’ several years ago told me that his going to her place was all just to put on a show. She suspects him of liking men.”
A’Ying suddenly raised his head, glaring his sharp gaze toward Uncle Yuan. Uncle Yuan did not change his expression, with a mocking smile at the corners of his mouth as he continued, “A while ago, I asked Big Mouth Cheng to introduce a psychological doctor from Britain to that Madam Azure Dragon. That Western doctor told me that the sexual life of the couple is very uncoordinated, and usually Azure Dragon has never had any desire toward her, causing the lady to be in self-doubt and depression for a long time. According to that Western doctor’s speculation, if Azure Dragon is not impotent, he just does not have much interest in women… Think about it, why did Azure Dragon marry his elder sister, who looks similar to Liu Yi? If the two of them really share this kind of relationship, on what basis can you still compare to that kid, and do you still have a day to come out on top?”
…
In the dead of night, A’Ying personally drove to send Uncle Yuan back to his residence. Speeding alone on the streets where no one was around in the middle of the night, he fiercely stepped on the gas pedal to the floor, and the chilling wind rushed in from the wide-open car window, cutting his face like a blade.
The sedan car drove at lightning speed toward the direction of Azure Dragon’s independent villa on the mountainside. However, he eventually stepped hard on the brakes on the mountain road halfway, the car wheels making a piercing friction sound, and he was heavily thrown back into his seat pulled by the seat belt.
He threw away the seat belt, jumped out of the car, and pulled out his dagger to frantically and fiercely slash toward his own car! He did not stop until he had slashed this old model sedan car, which he had driven for eight years and still could not bear to replace, with thousands of scars, leaving it completely unrecognizable!
That was the car Azure Dragon had promised to give him eight years ago, but because that lowlife kid Xia Xiao Liu had tipped off Azure Dragon that he was embezzling gang property, it was converted into cash by Azure Dragon and deducted against him as a warning. He still used that sum of money to buy that same car model Azure Dragon had promised him. Even if Azure Dragon’s trust and affection toward him had changed quality, he still acknowledged Azure Dragon as his Big Boss! He was still willing to go through fire and water go through fire and water for Azure Dragon, and risk his life for Azure Dragon!
Just now, right when he heard Uncle Yuan say that Azure Dragon had betrayed him, the very first thing he thought of was still to find Azure Dragon to report the news, saying that Uncle Yuan harbored evil intentions and that Uncle Yuan was instigating him to commit treason and usurp the throne!
And what about Azure Dragon?! And what about Azure Dragon?! He likes men! He is a passive faggot! He has even taken a fancy to a lowlife embryo like Xia Xiao Liu!
What bullshit eternal sworn brothers, what not seeking to be born on the same day but seeking to die on the same day, it cannot even compare to that wet-behind-the-ears stinking kid! It cannot even compare to that stinking kid who cut in halfway!
“Ah——!! Ah——!!!” A’Ying roared frantically, thrusting his dagger fiercely toward the car’s rearview mirror. The glass made a ferocious shattering sound, reflecting his face that was twisted, deformed, and broken into thousands and millions of pieces. He threw away the dagger, lifted a large rock by the roadside, and smashed it fiercely toward the sedan car, smashing its car windows, its front cover, and its rear trunk into uneven and battered pieces!
“It is mine——! It is mine——!!” He roared in a furious rage, “What I cannot get! No one else should even think of getting it——!!!”
Futile Devices Scans 
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