After we got back, the way Liang Chuang and Jiang Qingbo looked at me had changed a bit.
I kept a calm face, but my hands, hidden in my sleeves, couldn't stop trembling.
Liang Chuang held it in for a long time before finally spitting out a sentence.
"Number Two, I've seen people with the heart of a Bodhisattva, but I didn't expect to find someone with the methods of the King of Hell in this world. You might as well have just finished him off with one shot."
My face was pale, but I pretended to be relaxed and said, "Isn't this more of a deterrent than handling him to death?"
Liang Chuang opened his mouth, then swallowed his words.
Jiang Qingbo puffed on his flower cigarette, leaning against the car window, and said indifferently, "Sometimes death isn't necessarily punishment; living is."
Death isn't necessarily punishment; living is!
...
After returning to the tea tower, I locked the door and immediately bent over the toilet, vomiting violently. After vomiting, I washed my hands frantically.
It wasn't until I scrubbed the backs of my hands raw and bleeding that I finally collapsed on the floor and burst into tears.
To this day, I don't know what I'm hustling for.
What is the meaning of doing all these things? Is the meaning just to cling to the big tree that is Sir Niu, letting this Crown Prince be my protective umbrella?
I couldn't find an answer, and I didn't want to think about these illusory things anymore.
One wrong step, and every step after is wrong. If I wanted to turn back, I'd have to wait for the next life.
I lay on the bed and drifted into a groggy sleep. My reopened wounds caused a high fever, and in my half-asleep state, I hazily saw Big Kuizi's face covered in snot and tears.
After daybreak, I used the excuse of a high fever to go out.
Liang Chuang wanted to follow me, but I opened my jacket and showed him the gun in my chest pocket.
"I only make the same mistake once. From now on, even when sleeping with a woman, I'll carry a gun. Don't worry about it."
Liang Chuang didn't insist. After all, this was the city center. If things really got to the point of gunfire, the constables would be more useful than him tagging along alone.
After getting a fever-reducing shot at the hospital, I borrowed a phone at a small shop and dialed Sir Niu's number.
It had been nearly twenty days since our last contact.
This time, the phone was picked up as soon as it rang.
"Hello?"
There was a hint of nervousness in Sir Niu's voice. This landline was installed specifically for contacting me.
If the phone rang, there were only two possibilities: either I had found a lead, or I had been compromised, caught, and unable to withstand torture, had given up the number.
"It's me."
I heard a sigh of relief from the other end. Then Sir Niu asked, "I heard that half a month ago, someone was hacked thirteen times outside Wentong Tea Tower..."
I didn't care if Sir Niu could see me or not; I nodded and said, "That's right. I'm the one who got hacked. But my life is tough; I survived."
"And a blessing in disguise—I made contact with a drug trafficker connected to Jiang Qingbo."
Sir Niu's breathing grew heavy, his tone clearly excited. "Oh? You saw him? What does he look like? If that's the case, you can pull out now. Come over to me, we'll go back to Guizhou and find the best sketch artist..."
I cut off Sir Niu's fantasizing. "Didn't see his face."
Sir Niu was disappointed, but since transferring from Liu Xiang Town, he had long lost his youthful impulsiveness and gained some cunning.
He spoke gently, "It's okay, Shanhe, don't rush. Are your injuries alright..."
I felt disgusted listening to him. If you're going to be fake, at least fake some sincerity.
Only remembering to ask if I'm okay now.
But for an underworld hooligan like me, if he didn't happen to need my help, Sir Niu would never have dealt with me in his life.
So I didn't take it to heart and continued with the business. "I heard his voice. Also, Jiang Qingbo called him Xu Biao. Check for anyone by that name moving across the border."
"As long as he speaks again, I'll definitely recognize him."
Sir Niu gave a heavy "Okay." Without waiting for him to speak again, I immediately hung up.
I walked to a snack stall and ordered a bowl of rice noodles, feeling a wave of exhaustion.
Handling Wang Hai, handling Hunchback, handling Liu Zi, stabbing people at the train station—these were my pledges of loyalty to Chen Qiang.
Coming from Guizhou to Diannan, following Jiang Qingbo, spying on the whereabouts of that drug trafficker, acting as a traitorous mole—this was my pledge of loyalty to Sir Niu.
Collecting debts, chopping off Big Kuizi's fingers, getting hacked thirteen times, crippling Big Kuizi—this was my pledge of loyalty to Jiang Qingbo.
When will I be able to accept others' pledges of loyalty and have them work their hearts out for me...
After finishing the rice noodles in a few bites, I slapped my face to wake myself up.
After that, I spent a period of quiet days. Every day I followed Jiang Qingbo, watching over the venue with Liang Chuang, accompanying him to Old Man Li's for medicinal baths.
Jiang Qingbo's venue was a "clean water" venue, making money solely from raking the pot and loan sharking. The second floor was for casual players, and the amounts weren't particularly large.
The third and fourth floors were for high rollers, mostly people with status in Lincang who knew each other's backgrounds. So I didn't see anything like cheating or hustling.
I had been following Jiang Qingbo for a month, and aside from collecting that forty thousand yuan gambling debt, I hadn't handled a single other thing.
I hadn't had any contact with Xu Biao at all, haven't even heard the name again.
On the fifteenth of the second lunar month, Jiang Qingbo didn't reconcile accounts in his room. Early in the morning, he took Liang Chuang and a few others and went out.
Before leaving, he told me to watch the venue well.
Seeing such a big commotion and them acting all mysterious, I immediately got excited inside.
It seemed Xu Biao was making a move.
If Xu Biao didn't make a move, I really had no way to proceed.
I had always been curious. Jiang Qingbo's venue was very clean, just gambling.
No one was distributing or selling drugs here. Why exactly was he connected to Xu Biao?
A society Big Brother with a stable business—why did he have to touch that head-chopping stuff?
But Jiang Qingbo didn't take me along, so I couldn't guess the answer.
A vicious plan formed in my mind: should I notify Sir Niu to arrest all of Jiang Qingbo's top lieutenants and lock them up for a few months, leaving him with no one to use?
Then he'd have no choice but to take me.
But doing so risked alerting the snake in the grass, making Jiang Qingbo and Xu Biao vigilant. If they stopped all movement and went into hiding, I'd end up stealing the chicken only to lose the rice.
Perhaps Heaven was helping me. Late at night on the sixteenth of the second lunar month, after seeing off the high rollers who had played half the night on the third and fourth floors, just as I was planning to grab breakfast and sleep, a figure stumbled in through the door.
It was Liang Chuang.
He was covered in blood, with two bullet holes in his shoulder.
His face was as pale as someone who had been dead for three days. Rushing into Wentong Tea Tower, he grabbed my hand.
"Number Two, it's bad! Something happened! Something huge happened! Big Brother got handled!"
My vision went black. Handled?
If Jiang Qingbo got handled, then wasn't everything I did before just lighting a candle for a blind man—a complete waste of wax?!