Before long, I was beaten black and blue, my vision swimming.
But they weren't finished. Someone was tugging at my arm—my right arm.
A thought flashed through my mind: that short guy just said his boss wanted one of my hands.
My blood ran cold. These two bastards were getting ready to slice my hand tendons.
I struggled with everything I had, but there were two of them, and my head had taken such a beating that I was dizzy and disoriented.
All I could do was flail my arm left and right in a desperate, final struggle.
But it was futile. Seeing how hard I was fighting, the man pinning me down raised his fist and smashed it into my nose again.
My head slammed heavily against the floor. My eyelids felt like they were filled with molten iron; they kept drooping, refusing to stay open.
Just when I thought my hand was done for, a furious roar exploded like a clap of thunder.
"Fuck your mothers! Get the fuck off! Let go of my brother!"
Xu Rang grabbed the short guy, hurled him aside, and then kicked the man sitting on me right in the head.
It was like a sudden surge of adrenaline—a last burst of energy before death. I fought free from the guy holding my hand and scrambled to my feet.
"Brother, are you okay? Brother!"
In my life, I've had many nicknames: Second Brother Chu, Old Second, Brother Two, Boss Chu...
But before Xu Rang, not a single person had ever called me "brother."
Blood was trickling from the corner of my mouth, and my body was in agony, but my spirit was incredibly high.
"I'm good, I'm good. I'm fine. Xu Rang, brother, let's kill the three of them."
"You got it. Let's kill the three of them."
The guards had clearly been paid off beforehand. We were in that cell beating each other's brains out, yet no one came to stop us.
The short guy Xu Rang had thrown aside, along with the man who had been pinning me down, lunged at us again.
Xu Rang took on two at once and held his own. Meanwhile, I pinned down the man who had been trying to maim my hand. Seeing the panic in his eyes, I let out a savage grin.
Years later, after Chen Qiang and I had fought our way out of Liuxiang Town and made names for ourselves in the county seat—becoming "somebodies"—we had a talk.
It was the night he finally decided to turn on me, forcing me to flee to Vietnam to escape the heat. I had a gun tucked in my waist when I asked him why he had taken me under his wing so suddenly back then.
Chen Qiang's answer was simple: "You, Chu Shanhe, are ruthless and merciless. That day, after you blinded Chen Xiang in one eye, you didn't show a shred of fear. I knew then that sooner or later, you would rise up."
That's a story for another time. Whether I accept that evaluation or not doesn't matter.
But Chen Qiang was right about one thing: I was merciless.
When it was time to strike, I never held back.
I smashed a fist into the nose of the man beneath me. I didn't stop for a second—punch after punch, until the bridge of his nose completely collapsed under my blows.
I don't know who it was, but someone clobbered me on the back of the head. I pitched forward, nearly passing out.
Forcing myself to sit up, I roared hoarsely, "Xu Rang! Keep those two off me! Wait until I kill this one!"
Xu Rang's eye had been split open, but he still hadn't lost ground. He spat a mouthful of bloody saliva and shouted back a loud, "Good!"
I looked down at the man beneath me, his face already beaten to a pulp, and reached out to pry his lips apart.
He didn't know what I was doing and tried to resist, but the blood flowing from his nose was pouring back into his eyes, blinding him.
He couldn't see my posture. His hands just flailed wildly in the air, trying to grab onto something.
The hardest parts of the human body are the knees and elbows—comparable to concrete.
I read that in a book. Today was the first time I put that knowledge to use.
I clamped his head with both hands so he couldn't move.
He had no idea what was coming. In that moment, the only sound was the heavy, ragged breathing of two men.
Once his head was fixed in place, I lifted my leg, bent my knee, and drove it hard—right into his blood-filled mouth.
That blow loosened at least half the teeth in his head. It was as if scalding water had been poured over him; he screamed and thrashed uncontrollably.
And because he was screaming, his mouth was open when my knee came down a second time.
This time, he spat out not just four teeth, but a bloody chunk of something else.
A piece of his tongue.
His mouth turned into a small fountain, blood gushing out uncontrollably. In an instant, a large patch of the floor was stained red.
This scene terrified Xu Rang. It also terrified the short guy and the other thug.
I swayed to my feet, dragging my battered body forward two steps.
I kicked the head of the man lying on the ground, exposing his neck.
Then, eyeing his throat, I prepared to drop my knee right onto it.
If this hit home, he was dead for sure.
Xu Rang reacted the fastest. He dove at me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and tackled me to the ground.
"Are you fucking crazy?! He's dying! Don't you know that?!"
I struggled to breathe, pushing at Xu Rang, and stuttered out:
"Yeah... yeah, he's dying. But he's not dead yet, is he? Help me up. Let me finish him off."
Horror filled Xu Rang's eyes. For a moment, he didn't know what to say.
Only then did he realize that when I told him to hold off the other two so I could kill this one, it wasn't just tough talk.
I really intended to kill him.
A few seconds later, Xu Rang exploded in anger, roaring at the short guy standing nearby.
"The fuck you looking at?! Go call someone! If he keeps bleeding like that, he's actually going to die!"
The short guy let out a couple of "Oh, ohs" before snapping out of it. He scrambled to the iron gate and started screaming at the top of his lungs.
"Help! Someone come quick! Someone's dying in here!"
After several shouts, the sound of footsteps finally echoed from outside. I knew the guards were coming.
I gave up on trying to stand. I just lay on the floor and closed my eyes.
Before I completely blacked out, I understood a fundamental truth.
As long as you are ruthless enough, people will fear you.
As long as you don't care about your own life, everyone will fear you.
Of course, the prerequisite for all this is that the power gap between you and your opponent isn't too wide—that you belong to the same stratum of society.
When the guards came in, they gave Xu Rang, the short guy, and the others a thorough beating with their batons.
Then they sent us to the hospital.
It wasn't until I got out that I learned the man I beat was named Zeng Zhichao, twenty-one years old at the time.
Those two knee strikes didn't just cost him seven teeth (three more fell out at the hospital) and a piece of his tongue.
They also shattered his nerve. After he got out, he never did another job for his boss. He went back to the countryside and lived honestly as a farmer for the rest of his life.
He later married and had children, living a mundane life.
I don't know if that was fortune or misfortune.
In my eyes, he escaped the sea of suffering early. He was the lucky one.