Carrying the burial clothes, Zhou Ruo An walked home along the base of the wall. Painted on the wall in red was one large character: “Demolish.” It seemed to be retraced with red paint every year; once wind and sun faded it, someone would retrace it again. Yet to this day, not a single building had actually been pushed over for redevelopment.
Lin Yi took a photo of Zhou Ruo An. The wall was mottled, the red character striking, and that tall, slim figure was blurred, like a traveler with nowhere to belong. It was weirdly fucking artsy.
Zhou Ruo An was quite satisfied with the photo. “When I die, I’ll put this photo on my tombstone. With that ‘Demolish’ character holding it down, my grave will stand forever.”
Lin Yi had been staring at the person in the photo. Now he lifted his head to glance at the real one, then tapped the screen and deleted it.
Zhou Ruo An frowned. “Lin Yi, have you beaten people so much you beat your own brain stupid? You’ve been getting stranger and stranger lately.”
Lin Yi was too lazy to pay him any mind. He put away his phone and walked forward, taking the burial clothes from Zhou Ruo An as he passed him. “Why did you buy this for Zhang Jin?”
The alley was not wide. With the two of them walking side by side, they took up almost half of it. Children were kicking a ball in the alley, constantly bumping into people as they ran back and forth.
Zhou Ruo An hated every child equally. He pulled Lin Yi to the outer side. “He’s started coughing blood lately. Last night, he nearly coughed himself dry. Who knows when he’ll kick the bucket. When Old Man Ding was about to die, he prepared burial clothes for himself early. He said that after death, you have to put these clothes on right away. Otherwise, when you get to the other side, you’ll be ragged for a whole lifetime, and even in your next reincarnation, you won’t be respectable.”
He stuck his hand into Lin Yi’s coat pocket to rummage for cigarettes. After finding them, he held two between his lips. Once lit, the tobacco slowly curled, and the crimson glow gradually dimmed.
Handing one to Lin Yi, Zhou Ruo An held the cigarette between his fingers and cursed with a laugh. “Put away that saintly look of yours. I’m not that fucking kindhearted. I’m just afraid that if he turns into a vengeful ghost, he’ll come looking for revenge with his ass bare.”
Lin Yi lifted the burial clothes in his hand and examined them. “So you bought him a fifteen-hundred-yuan high-end set of burial clothes, and me beating people up for him was the free bonus?”
Zhou Ruo An bit down on his cigarette and chuckled. “Count it as me owing you. I’ll treat you to a meal another day.”
As he turned his head, he saw a small hair salon. In the urban village, places like this, decorated in such flashy, gaudy style, were all fronts—selling one thing under the guise of another.
Frost flowers had formed on the hair salon window. Through it, one could vaguely see women walking back and forth inside. Their waists were not especially slim, but their chests were very high.
The smile on Zhou Ruo An’s face faded slightly around the cigarette in his mouth. “Zhang Jin said he still hasn’t tasted what a woman is like. If he dies like that, he won’t be able to close his eyes.”
He turned and gave Lin Yi a teasing sidelong glance. “We haven’t tasted it either. If one day you get killed after someone turns the tables on you, and I get trapped in someone’s setup and played to death, wouldn’t it be a loss if we’d never even opened meat?”
There were not many trash cans by the roadside in the urban village, only green dumpsters more than a meter long. Lin Yi flicked his cigarette butt into one. “You want to have a taste?” He lifted his chin toward the hair salon. “Go on. I’ll wait for you.”
Zhou Ruo An never swallowed smoke deeply when he smoked; he only took it into his mouth and then exhaled. This time, however, he did not exhale smoothly and coughed lightly several times.
“Fuck.” He laughed. “With my duration, you’d freeze to death standing here waiting.”
He shoved Lin Yi forward. “Even if I’m going to open meat, I still have to choose. It’s not like I can take just anyone who comes up.”
Lin Yi was tall, and with the bag printed with the funeral goods shop’s name in his hand, he looked even more menacing. Through his clothes, he touched the scar on his chest and said in a low, slow voice, “Then choose.”
Old Man Ding had a bad temper. When he was alive, curses never left his mouth, yet he earned the reputation of a great benefactor. That was only because more than twenty years ago, he had picked up two infants one after another and raised them all the way to adulthood.
Before he turned fourteen, Zhou Ruo An had always lived with Zhang Jin in Old Man Ding’s scrap collection station. At fourteen, he cheated, tricked, and swindled his way into saving a little money, then rented a civilian apartment nearby, saying farewell to that terrible environment where he had shared one room with flies and cockroaches.
Old Man Ding would not live there. He thought the money Zhou Ruo An earned was dirty. But he sent Zhang Jin over, nominally to have him keep watch over Zhou Ruo An so he would not commit crimes, but in truth, it was because he wanted the frail and sickly Zhang Jin to live a little more comfortably.
Some people said Zhou Ruo An resembled Old Man Ding, that his belly held eight hundred schemes. Old Man Ding cursed the ancestors of everyone who said that for eight generations, yelling, “How am I anywhere near as crooked-hearted as that brat?”
Zhou Ruo An was now twenty-one. He had lived in this place for six or seven years. It was a tube-style apartment building from the 1960s, on the second floor, in the innermost unit.
Just as they reached downstairs, sharp-eyed Lin Yi spotted a sneaky figure in the corner.
“She’s here again,” Lin Yi said.
Zhou Ruo An cursed. “Fuck. Do Zhang Jin and his mother think I’m easy to bully? Always using me as the messenger stuck in the middle.” He pulled up his payment QR code and walked toward the corner. “Today, I’ll let her know just how expensive I am.”
After taking a few steps, Zhou Ruo An turned back to look at Lin Yi. “What are we eating tonight?”
Lin Yi glanced upstairs. “How about I cook?”
Zhou Ruo An’s viciousness vanished in an instant. “Don’t make Zhang Jin’s portion. Better he starves to death than dies of illness.”
Pork ribs that had been frozen in the refrigerator for several months were drenched in soy sauce, and the gas stove flame was turned to its highest.
Lin Yi’s cooking could not be called delicious, but unexpectedly, it suited Zhou Ruo An’s taste. Heavy oil, heavy meat—there was no need for refinement, only rich, strong flavor.
It was said this was because Old Man Ding had been harsh. When raising two children, he had caused such a fuss that they could not even see meat once a month.
A phone lay on the worn-out counter. Lin Yi was focused; when the call came, he knocked against the range hood.
The voice in the receiver was somewhat unfamiliar, but the name it announced was impressive. “Lin Yi? Ninth Master wants you to come over for an arena match.”
Lin Yi’s fingertip was burned against the edge of the pot. “Ninth Master?”
People were divided into ranks, and the same was true in gang circles.
Yan City was cut across by a river, dividing it into north and south districts. There were countless small gangs in the city, but only two major ones. With the river as their boundary, they divided the territories.
Lin Yi was under Bai Jiu in South City. Right now, he was only a debt-collecting thug. Although he had made a bit of a name for himself, he was still at the very bottom, not worth looking at.
Naturally, he wanted to climb higher. After greasing palms in all directions, he had met Bai Jiu twice. When he clinked glasses with Bai Jiu, the middleman introduced Lin Yi in only a few words: “Ruthless. Can fight.”
At the time, Bai Jiu had only nodded once. His lips had not even touched the rim of the glass.
The person on the phone clearly took on the bearing of someone in a higher position. After a few brief words, he gave an address. “Hurry over. You’re the third match. Perform well.”
After setting down the phone, Lin Yi pieced together the general situation from that limited conversation.
The big bosses of the southern and northern gangs were meeting, and on a whim, they had arranged an arena-fight “friendly match.”
Though it bore the name “friendly,” in truth, it carried the smell of gunpowder. Each side had selected a few people. Because the other side’s list included a young man who had recently been in the limelight, Bai Jiu’s side could not use old hands to suppress him. Among the hundred or so brothers in the branch halls, somehow Lin Yi had been personally called up by Bai Jiu.
For Lin Yi, this was an opportunity to soar to the heavens in one leap. Yet half an hour before he was due to go on, he received a call from Zhou Ruo An.
With only a pair of shorts and a tank top under a long down jacket, Lin Yi left the venue with one sentence behind him: “I’ll definitely be back before I go on.”
The sound of the car braking was unusually piercing. After pushing open the door and getting out, Lin Yi pulled open the door of the car in front and dragged Zhou Ruo An out of the driver’s seat.
He looked him over once. “Are you hurt?”
Zhou Ruo An seemed not to hear him. After staring at Lin Yi’s face for three to five seconds, he began frantically searching him for cigarettes.
Lin Yi gripped Zhou Ruo An’s wrist and pulled him closer, discovering that his whole body was trembling faintly.
“Can you walk?” Seeming not to intend to wait for an answer, Lin Yi lowered himself and slung Zhou Ruo An over his shoulder. “I don’t have time to waste on you. If you delay me, I’ll kill you.”
He threw Zhou Ruo An into his own car, fished the cigarettes out of the pocket of his down jacket, and tossed over the entire pack.
Bending down into the car, Lin Yi had fifteen minutes left before his match.
He started the car and floored the accelerator.
The light and shadow constantly retreating outside swept across Lin Yi’s face. No one spoke inside the car. There was only the sound of the flint wheel being struck again and again.
Lin Yi held the steering wheel with one hand, while his other hand grabbed the lighter from Zhou Ruo An. With one flick, the metal lid sprang open. His thumb pushed down, drawing out a flame.
The dancing firelight was brought before the cigarette stem trembling continuously between Zhou Ruo An’s fingers. He asked, “What happened?”
Zhou Ruo An leaned over to light the cigarette. After taking a deep drag, he began to cough softly.
The flame went out, and the car interior sank into darkness again. Zhou Ruo An held up the cigarette. The scarlet glow at the tip entered his eyes, setting off a blaze of light. “Zhang Yu Ting is dead.”
“Who?”
“Zhang Jin’s mother.”
Lin Yi frowned slightly. He glanced at the time on the dashboard. “An hour ago, when I left your place, weren’t you still downstairs squeezing money out of her?”
Zhou Ruo An bit down on the cigarette in a hurry, his breathing gradually turning short and rapid. “That woman was hit by a car and died.”
He abruptly looked at Lin Yi. “Right in front of me.”
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