Great Prospects

Eleven years ago, when Dao Dali was still part of someone else's regular band, he had a bit more hair than he did now. He had faced a similar situation back then, standing before a closed door. Back then, dissatisfied with the band leader's conduct and how spoils were distributed, he had wanted to strike out on his own. A younger brother in the band, a Grade B fighter not even twenty years old, wanted to leave with him. Dao Dali had always remembered that day. He had knelt in supplication at the base of another building for a long time before he was finally permitted to go upstairs. The difference was that on that day, there had been many people in the corridors, and men were standing outside the tightly shut door. His former teammates had merely stared at him, none of them speaking to him. He had pushed open that door with his own hands. Blood covered the floor. The younger brother who had planned to strike out with him lay in a pool of blood, already dead—slowly bled to death. That day, Boss Dao lost the first little brother of his life. He was an amusing kid, never very serious but full of sincerity, who loved to brag and daydream with him, saying that once they struck out on their own, their fortunes would soar. The scar across his face had also been left behind then. If that band hadn’t happened to be ambushed by enemies that very night, Dao Dali himself wouldn't have survived either. He survived. Eleven years had passed in the blink of an eye, and he had never made much of himself... Nor had he become a good person. "Fuck your ancestors!" Putting his activated apparatus into standby and stepping across the blood on the floor, Boss Dao cursed under his breath through clenched teeth and shoved the doors open. If his two little brothers were still alive, he could kneel and beg, so long as he could bring them back. If they were dead... *Creeeak... slam!* The massive doors flew wide, slamming against the walls behind them. Boss Dao froze in the doorway. "Ho... ly fucking shit." The words came out slowly, caught in his throat. Boss Dao couldn't immediately spot Ah Jing and Ah Xi—the scene before him was simply too chaotic. Inside a space of at least five to six hundred square meters, white walls, concrete pillars, and a concrete floor... bodies covered the ground, and blood pooled everywhere. Blood was splattered across the white walls and concrete pillars as well. None were dead. Standing at the doorway, searching the room in anxious, dazed sweeping glances, Boss Dao realized that among all the people sprawled across the floor, not a single one was dead. They lay scattered in haphazard disarray, not daring to struggle, not even daring to wail aloud, but every single one of them was indeed still breathing. In the end, Boss Dao followed the terrified gaze of Shelvey, who was sprawled on the ground off to the side, and finally spotted Ah Jing and Ah Xi. Following Shelvey's gaze, he slowly turned his head and looked into the distance. Those two rascals were sitting on the floor against the white wall directly opposite him, looking his way. The kid Ah Jing was even smiling at him. Boss Dao didn't say a word. He turned back and shut the doors first. Then he turned back around to double-check. The floor was covered with fallen bodies; only the two of them were sitting up. So the situation was fairly obvious: the two of them had wiped the floor with everyone here, including Shelvey, including Soda... Bodies lay at their feet too; their sabers were resting on the ground, and streaks of blood marked the white wall behind them. "Boss," Han Qingyu called out with a smile as their eyes met. "Yeah." Boss Dao's tone was flat, sounding almost indifferent. After grunting his acknowledgment, he fell silent for about ten seconds... "Fuck! I knew it! I kept feeling like something was fucking off lately." "Everyone said I was lucky, and I thought I was just lucky too..." "Turns out I really fucking am!" When he finally spoke again, his emotions were complicated. Boss Dao sounded half as if he were talking to Ah Jing and Ah Xi, and half as if muttering to himself. Because he spoke in Huaxian, not many of the people on the floor could understand him, and the few who could didn't dare make a sound. The clever ones kept their heads down and pretended not to hear, while two even sharper ones struggled across the floor and dragged a large armchair over. "This... was you two, wasn't it?" Boss Dao really did need to sit down; otherwise, he was afraid he might start shaking. As he walked over, he confirmed it one last time. Han Qingyu smiled. "Yeah." "Good. Well done. You two have a huge future ahead of you!" Boss Dao turned around and sat down in the armchair, planting himself squarely with an air of swaggering bravado. With both hands resting on the plush armrests, he turned his head to double-check: Shelvey was down, Soda was down, every last one of them was down... So unless something bizarre had happened, at least one of those two rascals possessed top combat power. And the other couldn't be far behind. In the City of Iniquity, there were currently around twenty or so openly acknowledged figures with top combat power. Even if they weren't big bosses themselves, almost all of them were the most prominent, vital figures serving under the paramount bosses. "Ahem. Ah Jing," Boss Dao said after clearing his throat. "Yeah?" "You guys..." "Have a huge future ahead of us!" Han Qingyu cut in with a grin. "Thanks, Boss." "Right." Boss Dao hesitated, then asked in a whisper, "So what now? How do we handle this?" "Some of them might want to follow you from now on, Boss Dao." "Oh, that's worth considering. What about the rest? Should we just chop them all down?" Boss Dao said. "Cut the grass and pull up the roots!" Desperate, terrified squirming broke out all around the room. "But they still owe us money," Wu Xu said earnestly. It was rare to hear Ah Xi speak, and Boss Dao was caught off guard. "Huh? How do they owe us, and how much?" "Compensation for kidnapping us. Sixty metal blocks," Han Qingyu supplied. Boss Dao was speechless. *...No wonder not a single one was beaten to death!* Discussing money so openly didn't seem quite right, so Boss Dao got up and walked over to join the huddle, his eyes burning with eagerness. "It was supposed to be more, but they said even if they died they couldn't scrape together any more," Wu Xu whispered to him. "Like hell you should believe them," Boss Dao dropped into an Asian squat on the spot and whispered, "The Three-Band Alliance has been doing very well for the past seven or eight years. They do all kinds of dirty work." Understood. Han Qingyu nodded with a grin. ... The Three-Band Alliance's five-story building suddenly shook violently for a moment. People on the street looked up, bewildered and tense. Suddenly, a clamor arose from the street to the west. "Boss Park is back with his men!" Amid a flurry of hasty scrambling to make way, a group of people stepped out of their vehicles and looked up at their headquarters. *Hummm...* Their source energy apparatuses all activated, yet they were in no hurry to charge in. Park Jae-ri's band was the true top-tier band of the Three-Band Alliance. His cautious reaction left the onlookers along the street thoroughly perplexed. "Surely that's unnecessary..." "Yeah! It's just Dao Dali." *Click!* On the fifth floor, another black-tinted glass window was pushed open. To everyone's astonishment, the figure standing by the window was none other than Boss Dao. "Come on up," he said calmly, looking down at Park Jae-ri and the twenty-odd men behind him. Park Jae-ri hesitated a moment, then led his men upstairs. *Clang, smash, boom, thud...* The five-story building shuddered violently once more before settling into silence. *The construction quality of this building is seriously impressive...* The people waited, their eyes fixed on the entrance. About ten minutes later, Boss Dao's figure appeared there. He walked out calmly with his saber on his back, followed by his two little brothers.