Cui Dong Dong followed the sound of the singing for half a street, finally stopping under a building of a brothel in the red-light district. She had Liu Yi act as a stepping stone at the bottom and, stepping on Liu Yi’s shoulders, climbed up to the window to look inside through the dense iron bars.
She originally thought it would be a beauty with an extraordinary bone structure, but was disappointed to see a disheveled yellow-haired girl instead. The little girl, wrapped in a thin garment of indistinguishable color, was curled up in a corner of the room. A dim, flushed small wall lamp, commonly used in brothels, hung in the room. It was late at night and all was quiet, yet she was still humming and singing. She was singing that song Gypsophila by Xiao Man.
Cui Dong Dong climbed down in frustration and said to Liu Yi, “Tch, just a kid.”
They were about to leave when they heard the sounds of beating and scolding from inside the room. Cui Dong Dong quickly stepped on Liu Yi and climbed up again, only to see the room door being opened and the bright light from the corridor shining into the room. A man who looked like a thug was grabbing the little girl’s arm, forcibly tying a tourniquet on her, and insisting on sticking a drug injection into her thin arm. The little girl was so thin that her cheeks were sunken and she was extremely weak, but she struggled desperately with both hands and feet, scratching and biting. She was slapped several times in a row by the man, and her head was slammed against the wall by her hair being yanked.
“Not good, that bastard is giving her a shot, I’m going to save her!” Cui Dong Dong jumped down from Liu Yi’s body, bent down to pull out the dagger at the foot of her boot, and threw a bunch of car keys to Liu Yi, “Go back and ride my motorcycle here!”
Liu Yi turned and ran without saying a word. Five minutes later, carrying twin blades on his back and riding a motorcycle as bright red as a raging fire, he rushed back. He saw right ahead: Cui Dong Dong bursting out from the side door of the brothel!
Cui Dong Dong was dragging the little girl’s arm with one hand and frantically waving the dagger with the other hand to force back several big men chasing after her. Liu Yi skillfully executed a big drift and screeched to a halt in front of them. The three of them were squeezed onto the motorcycle like a sandwich burger, with a string of big men chasing, shouting, and hacking behind them, rushing all the way through the empty small streets and alleys in the dead of night.
Guarding the little girl in her arms, Cui Dong Dong turned her head and gave the chasing big men a “FUCK” gesture, leaving them a string of arrogant and wild laughs.
…
Having ridden a long way off, Liu Yi only then managed to turn his head and ask, “Whose territory was that?”
“Heh, no impression.” Cui Dong Dong said.
“It’s… it’s He Sheng Society,” the little girl said weakly, “They will… will kill you… You guys shouldn’t care about me anymore.”
“What nonsense are you talking about?” Cui Dong Dong said, “The chicks this old lady snatches are never returned! Besides, they didn’t recognize me just now, hahaha!”
As soon as she finished speaking, a van chased out from a slant. The head of a big man popped out from the passenger seat, roaring, “It’s that Cui girl of Xiao Qi Hall! It’s her who smashed our territory! Chase after her and take her out!”
“…” Cui Dong Dong.
A van also appeared at the intersection ahead, and four or five big men got off the vehicle, blocking the narrow intersection. Seeing that they were attacked from both front and back, Liu Yi slowed down the motorcycle. Cui Dong Dong urged him, “What are you afraid of! Crash through!”
“Big Sis, there are three people squeezed on our motorcycle! If we crash through, will the three of us fly off together?” Liu Yi said.
“Fuck, then what should we do?”
“Get off! Fight them!”
“Damn it!” Cui Dong Dong said, “Let’s do it then!”
They got off the motorcycle in the middle of the road. Four or five big men also got off the van behind, pulling out machetes from the vehicle one after another. Cui Dong Dong shielded the little girl behind her, took out her dagger, and struck a dueling pose. She was full of murderous intent, watching them rush over with machetes with her own eyes—and then quickly retreating backwards with their machetes.
“It’s the Blood Asura! It’s Twin-Blade Xia!”
“He alone can hack forty!”
“Run! Run fast!”
A group of big men chirped and shouted, going back to where they came from. With a blast of the accelerator, they fled rapidly.
Cui Dong Dong looked back at Liu Yi quite speechlessly. Liu Yi stood in the middle of the road holding two Azure Dragon Blades. At first, he was even more bewildered than she was, and after reacting, he gradually showed a proud expression.
“What are you pulling off? Is being able to hack people a big deal? Who was it that got drunk and cried like a dog just now?”
“You didn’t cry? Your stinky snot is still on my clothes!”
“Where did the new blades come from? Let me see.”
“No! Go away!”
“Tsk tsk tsk, given by Azure Dragon, right? Go back tonight and sleep while hugging it and crying.”
The two of them bickered all the way and took the little girl to a private hospital. Her original name was Xiao Luo. She looked tender, but in fact, she was only two years younger than them, having just turned eighteen that year. The test results showed malnutrition and drug abuse, with many new and old scars on her body. Her family owed a high-interest debt to He Sheng Society and her father used her as goods to pay off the debt. She refused to receive clients, struggled to the death, and went on a hunger strike to resist. In the end, she was forcibly injected with drugs—fortunately, because of her mortal resistance, she was only injected twice, and the concentration was very low, so a serious drug addiction had not yet formed.
“Tsk tsk, growing up so shabbily and yet still dragged to receive clients, so miserable.” Cui Dong Dong whispered to Liu Yi outside the hospital ward.
Liu Yi couldn’t tell beauty from ugliness and didn’t discuss this boring topic with her. “What are you going to do with her?”
“You raise her?”
“Is that possible!”
“That’s right, then isn’t it only up to me to raise her. Are we going to send her back to her unscrupulous old dad to be sold again?”
…
This pair of disreputable friends smashed someone else’s territory in the middle of the night and snatched someone else’s chick, causing the Azure Dragon Boss to have to go to a “meeting” with Boss Fat Seven of He Sheng Society on the second day of his newlywed life. Ultimately, with the Azure Dragon Boss’s stepping forward to provide face, and Sister Cui who caused the trouble paying the money, they compensated He Sheng Society with three times the “payment for goods,” which was considered as “buying” this little girl back.
Cui Dong Dong rarely didn’t get lustful thoughts and provided Xiao Luo with good food and drink, raising her as a future thug girl: first accompanying her to quit drugs, then personally guiding her in racing, fighting and killing, smoking, drinking, gambling, and hanging out at bars, gathering crowds to brawl, and extracting confessions by torture. She taught whatever was wild and raw. Xiao Luo was smart and diligent, refusing nothing, and learning whatever was fierce and bold. In just half a year, a dragon-spirited and tiger-vigorous thug girl was raised.
Xiao Luo had a petite build. She didn’t like carrying big blades and liked to play with guns. Cui Dong Dong spent a big sum of money to get her a good gun and found a quiet and deserted place to serve as a firing range for her, with real bullets loaded one by one. Today, Cui Dong Dong excitedly brought Liu Yi to see Xiao Luo shoot empty bottles, watching a row of bottles in the distance burst into pieces one by one with Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Awesome, right? Awesome, right?” Cui Dong Dong showed off to Liu Yi.
At this time, Liu Yi had already been a Red Pole for half a year and had gone to Thailand with Azure Dragon, growing by leaps and bounds. He was already very capable of putting on airs. He let out a cold and indifferent snort, “It’s not that you yourself are capable of fighting, what are you proud of?”
Xiao Luo put down the gun and walked over, calling out softly and gently, “Sister Dong, Brother Liu Yi, I’m done practicing.”
Liu Yi observed her words, deeds, and dress, and vaguely felt a bit strange in his heart. Xiao Luo had been fed and raised to be a bit chubbier over the past half year, her small round face puffing up pink and rosy—Liu Yi didn’t care about beauty or ugliness, but admitted that this was indeed much more eye-catching than when they first met. She clearly had a very generous and lovely face, but she deliberately spoke in a soft and gentle voice, and her hairstyle and makeup both made him feel somewhat familiar.
Liu Yi lacked the thick-lined and careless traits of straight men and had a more sensitive mind. He always felt that Xiao Luo was not of such a gentle and shy temperament as she appeared—his sister was the one who was truly gentle and shy, and he could tell the difference.
Later he found an opportunity to discuss it with Dong Dong alone, but it was already too late by then.
…
“Too late for what?” He Chu San asked curiously.
Lady Boss Cui covered her face very shyly, “Your Sister Luo has already slept with me.”
“Cough, cough cough,” He Chu San was choked by the coffee, “I thought, cough, no, wasn’t it you who took the initiative first?”
“How is that possible! I was wholeheartedly thinking about Xiao Man at that time. She is not as beautiful and gentle as Xiao Man, only her singing resembles Xiao Man, and besides, she was brought out by my own hands. A rabbit doesn’t eat the grass near its own burrow, I had never thought about sleeping with her.”
“Cough, cough, then she…”
Cui Dong Dong held her face shyly, saying with intoxication and aftertaste, “One night when I was drunk, she tied me up, and then did this and that, that and this… Your Sister Luo was so fierce!”
“???” He Chu San.
“Sigh, I later said to Liu Yi, ‘You learn from Xiao Luo, sleep with whoever you set your eyes on by tying them back, how sharp.’”
“???” He Chu San. Good kids can’t learn this, right! Although Brother Liu Yi was not a good kid…
“But didn’t he tie you back a few years later anyway.”
He Chu San asked somewhat uneasily, “How did Brother Liu Yi know about me at that time?”
“Your dad had set off firecrackers, the first college student in the Walled City, so famous! Hey, but, let me think…” Cui Dong Dong rubbed her forehead hard, “He seemed to have really seen you before…”
He Chu San leaned forward even more, subconsciously fiddling with the diamond ring on his left ring finger gently, “Sister Dong Dong, when was it seen?”
Cui Dong Dong frowned and thought for a good while, “It seemed to be the day your father set off firecrackers. I remember that I was on the scene with him and Xiao Luo… Oh! Oh, Xiao Ma was also there that day!”
…
Speaking of Xiao Ma, that was another story. But since He Chu San was very impatient about the matter of the first meeting, Cui Dong Dong made a long story short. She only said that Xiao Ma was a relative of a butcher’s family in the Walled City, coming from the mainland countryside. His parents died when he was young and he had no way to survive in the countryside, so he came to Hong Kong to seek refuge with his old uncle. This kid was born big and burly, but was extremely timid and cowardly. Once he was blocked in an alley by a group of thugs to rob his money, vainly trying to escape through clever talking. As a result, it was of no use—he was beaten up quite badly, and was finally saved by Liu Yi, who happened to pass by.
Cui Dong Dong later teased Liu Yi, saying that according to the convention that he liked Azure Dragon and Xiao Luo liked her, Xiao Ma should like him. The young man’s looks were a bit ordinary, but he excelled in being lively and honest, so they might as well just be a pair of gay brothers—this suggestion was scoffed at by Liu Yi, and naturally vanished into thin air after Cui Dong Dong witnessed Xiao Ma’s persistent pursuit of the big breasts of beautiful girls.
That year Liu Yi was twenty years old. He single-handedly facilitated the marriage between Azure Dragon and Xiao Man. Under the mentality of disappointment, pain, and being unwilling to disturb their happiness, he moved out of the villa and went to live alone in a village house. Azure Dragon equipped him with a sedan car. On an early summer evening, under the blow of the warm sea breeze, this young Red Pole, who had no big boss to discipline him, drove the car, carrying a group of chirping, laughing and frolicking friends—Dong Dong, Xiao Ma, Xiao Luo—crashing and charging wildly through the narrow and cramped small streets and alleys of the Walled City.
“Boss, Boss! The road ahead doesn’t go through!” Xiao Ma, who knew this stretch of road, grabbed the seat belt in the passenger seat and screamed.
“Who cares! Drive in and crash through the wall! In this vast world, where is there a place we can’t go!” Dong Dong, who was holding a cigarette in the back seat, gave orders proudly. Xiao Luo hugged her arm and pretended to be obedient and afraid, but her eyes held excitement that couldn’t be suppressed.
Liu Yi laughed loudly, and amidst the roaring of Dong Dong and the screaming of Xiao Ma, really crashed straight through the dilapidated enclosing wall at the end of the alley, bursting out from the backyard of another resident’s home! Amidst the chasing and scolding of the residents, he extended his arm out of the window and generously scattered a large stack of paper money.
“Woo-oh—! Wow—! Hahahaha!” Cui Dong Dong climbed onto the roof window of the car, leaned out and shouted while opening her arms to the wind, “WE ARE THE WORLD!”
“Don’t speak bird language!” Liu Yi’s voice floated out from the driver’s seat window.
“I love you guys—! Hahahaha—!”
They made a big scene and paraded through the Walled City, indulgently squandering their youth that seemed to be forever endless. Suddenly, a series of firecracker sounds shook the entire dark city, and the echoes buzzed continuously between the closely packed buildings.
“It’s right nearby! Go take a look! See if someone died or someone got married!” Cui Dong Dong instigated.
The alley by the roadside could not accommodate the car. Several youths jumped off laughing and ran through the alley, arriving at a dilapidated residential building. Quite a number of onlookers had already gathered. Cui Dong Dong blocked her ears, stood on tiptoe, and looked forward—a strong man dressed in worn but clean clothes stood in the middle of the crowd, holding the joss sticks used to light firecrackers, his face unable to hide his joy.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Cui Dong Dong nudged a passerby and asked loudly.
“A top scholar has come out! The son of Old He got admitted as a college student!”
“Which college student? Where is he?”
“There! Behind his dad!”
Cui Dong Dong craned her neck and finally saw behind the man a slender boy holding his ears and smiling faintly—already about to enter university, yet still not looking like a grown man, thin and pale, a bookworm at a glance.
“Tch, what’s so good about a college student!” Cui Dong Dong, who had never attended school and relied entirely on self-study to become a chief steward, said disdainfully. She had never believed in formal education.
Turning to call her companions to leave, she found Xiao Ma and Xiao Luo uninterested, while Liu Yi still stood rooted in place, staring fixedly at that boy who was about to step into university life.
“What’s wrong?” Cui Dong Dong patted him. “Love at first sight?”
Liu Yi came back to his senses and smiled awkwardly. “No. Just think that being able to study is pretty amazing. I only know how to fight and kill—I don’t even recognize many words. Look at how good his dad is to him, raising him to study and even setting off firecrackers for him.”
“What’s so amazing about a nerd,” Cui Dong Dong pushed him along. “You are the youngest Red Pole in the Walled City. Can you not compare to this kid who read himself silly?”
“I saw his eyes just now. Very bright. Very spirited. He doesn’t look silly.”
“Alright, alright! Let’s go! He’s a clean scholar, and we’re thugs walking the jianghu. The wide road leads to the sky—each walks his own path. Stop looking!”
…
He Chu San lowered his head, smiling as he gently rubbed the diamond ring on his finger. “So he remembered me back then?”
“Of course he remembered. That’s why later he specifically named you to write scripts. Probably wanted to see up close what a scholar really looked like.” Cui Dong Dong laughed. “And then he fell for you at second sight.”
He Chu San’s smile turned bitter. “What kind of second love tears off nails and breaks fingers to show me? He even beat me later… But he also treated me to beef offal and watched TV with me that day. Much later I realized all his fierceness was just an act. He had to be a Red Pole, had to be a big boss, so he had to look like someone who could bite people. He wanted to help Azure Dragon, so he had to go out fighting every day. But actually, his temperament is very lazy. He doesn’t like those bloody things, doesn’t even like killing fish. He just likes lying on the sofa watching TV, eating snacks, staying in bed, helping me wash dishes, going to the cinema…”
He stopped, lowering his head and stroking the ring. After a long while, he spoke again.
“Thank you for talking with me today, Sister Dong Dong. A few days ago, when he refused to see me again, I really felt like I couldn’t hold on. Three years… he can really harden his heart. I thought I was going to break. But hearing these past stories, I understand now why he’s always so foolish. Many times, he doesn’t even know what he wants himself. You’re right—he just needs to be struck hard to wake up. Doesn’t he want me to live well? Then I’ll live well for him to see.”
“Sister Dong Dong, next time you visit him, please tell him… I have a girlfriend.”
Cui Dong Dong sighed. “Do you think he’ll believe it?”
“If he doesn’t believe it in a day, a month, or a year—he will eventually. One person saying it isn’t enough. But if Xiao Ma says it, and Xiao Luo says it, and more people say it—he will believe it eventually. And if words aren’t enough, there are photos, letters… even a marriage certificate.”
“…Even if he believes it, then what?”
He Chu San raised his eyes. Just as Liu Yi once said—his eyes were bright, full of spirit. Even in darkness, he could carve out his own light. Even in loneliness, he could preserve a trace of gentle hope.
“It’s enough as long as he’s willing to see me. All these years, it’s not that he doesn’t want to see me—he doesn’t dare. He knows that as long as we meet, I have many ways to deal with him. He’s afraid that if he sees me… he won’t be able to hold back.”
He Chu San smiled, calm and certain.
“He knows how much he loves me. I know it too.”
…
Past Events of the Walled City, END.
Futile Devices Scans 
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