The Game

"…" Lu Feng punched himself hard in the forehead to make sure it wasn't a hallucination. Even more incredulous, he looked at the figures sprawled on the ground. "What happened here?" "I don't know." Lu Ling choked back sobs and shook her head, her eyes red. "They charged at me and tried to grab me, trying to drag me into a car. I ran, and they kept chasing me." "And this...?" Lu Feng pointed to Little Niuma panting frantically beside them, tongue lolling out, struggling to make sense of it. "Is this... our scooter?" "I don't know." Seeing Lu Feng draw his gun, Lu Ling hurriedly pulled its "dog head" into her arms. "It's really nice! Don't scare it!" Lu Feng was dumbfounded. Words failed him. After a long while, the blown fuse in his brain seemed to reconnect at last. The instinct for slaughter retreated from the heights of his mind, allowing him to regain some semblance of rational thought. "I'll take you home first. Clean yourself up, and don't tell Mom, or she'll worry herself sick." He reached out and wrapped his arms around the girl, being gentle and cautious, afraid of brushing against her wounds. When he saw the bloody patch on her forehead where hair had been torn out, his gaze lost its focus and color for a brief instant. Soon, under Lu Ling's gaze, he squeezed out a smile. "Don't be scared." He rubbed her cheek. "Just a bunch of lowlife scumbags. Your brother will handle it. And if your big brother can't, there's always your second brother, right?" "Mm." Lu Ling held his hand, no longer afraid. . . Ten or so minutes later, around dusk, Ji Jue was eating his takeout when he heard his phone vibrating furiously in his pocket. He answered without thinking. "Hello, Brother Feng..." Then the smile vanished from his face. "Understood. Yeah. Okay. I'll be right over." He hung up and set down his chopsticks. "What's wrong?" Ye Chun looked up. "What happened?" "Family thing came up. I probably won't be able to work overtime tonight and tomorrow." He gave an awkward smile. "Senior Sister, could I take some time off?" "Come on, you're panicked out of your mind—why pretend?" Ye Chun couldn't help rolling her eyes. "Get lost, get lost. Need some emergency cash?" "Ah, no need. I'm off." Before the words had even faded, Ji Jue had gathered his things. After a brief hesitation, he snatched another portable probe from the toolbox and shoved it into his pocket. "Borrowing a tool for a bit." "Don't pocket it for good! You have to return it!" Ye Chun's voice drifted from behind him, fading into near-silence once the door shut. He broke into a dead sprint toward the factory gate. On the road outside, the cargo van from Dalu Auto Repair Shop was already parked across the street. Through the rolled-down window, Lu Feng could be seen smoking in the driver's seat. Ji Jue yanked open the door and climbed into the passenger seat. "Is little sister all right?" "Scraped skin on her head. Put some iodine on it and she'll be fine. Mostly, she was just terrified." Lu Feng flicked his cigarette ash, looked back, and pointed toward the rear compartment where the dog-shaped motorcycle was joyfully panting, a complicated expression on his face. "In every sense of the word." "..." Ji Jue's expression turned awkward as well. "I can't really explain this right now. Haven't you been riding it for two or three years? Anyway, bottom line is, it's our own." Whose family had a Little Sheep scooter that was this bizarre? It could eat chicken drumsticks, fight, and wipe out an entire gang with a lightning-fast five-hit whip strike. Not that Lu Feng looked down on himself, but he suspected that if he went bare-handed against this thing, he'd get floored right away. After all, humans were made of flesh and bone; nobody could beat composite steel. Besides, the thing was solid iron from head to toe—a dropkick or sliding tackle wouldn't do jack, only serve you up on a platter. "Where are they?" After stashing his bag, Ji Jue asked bluntly. Lu Feng pointed again, toward the rear behind Little Niuma, where something covered under a tarp was squirming and bulging continuously. Ji Jue nodded, tapped the steering wheel, and the van started up on its own, driving according to Ji Jue's navigation. "Hey, look at that trick." Lu Feng clicked his tongue in admiration, following him as they both climbed into the rear compartment. Pulling back the tarp, they saw several men whose faces were so covered in blood they were unrecognizable. Bound with the very ropes they had brought, they thrashed continuously, muffled groans coming from their mouths. Their expressions were vicious. As if still spouting tough talk. "Did you interrogate them?" Ji Jue asked. "Haven't had the chance." Lu Feng reached down, checking their arms and legs, glancing at their tattoos with knowing familiarity. "These guys have probably done hard time more than once. Without breaking out the specialized tools, they probably won't talk." "It's fine. We don't need them to." Ji Jue reached in and rummaged through their pockets. Before long, he pulled out three phones. Then the screens lit up. No passcodes, no facial recognition needed. The phones unlocked faster than an old john dropping his trousers. Right before the eyes of the three men, the screens flickered continuously—call logs, incoming and outgoing messages, social media apps, and various clients, even deleted texts. "Scar Ming? Qi Qin? And... Jiang Jin?" As Ji Jue muttered to himself, call logs and numbers appeared on the screens. Through instant insight, he pieced together everything that had transpired. Had he been targeted all the way back when Sister Wen visited his hospital room? "I see..." He lowered the phones and sighed. "Brother Feng, it's my fault. They were coming for me." Lu Feng paused, then smacked him upside the head with an irritated glare. "Then isn't that coming for our family? What are you beating around the bush for?" Ji Jue was about to reply when his words caught in his throat, his gaze drawn to the photo feed on the screen. Curious, Lu Feng looked over, then froze solid. Across the screens of the three phones, photos flashed by in succession—sordid lighting, single beds in filthy dormitories, grimy sheets, and more... bodies. Some wore tattered rags; some were stripped bare. Some smoked with numb, indifferent smirks; others were curled up in balls, covered in bruises and tangled hair, trying to cover their faces, unable to hide the needle marks on their wrists and purple blotches on their arms... Some locked in cages, some strung up by ropes. And from the videos came the faint sounds of weeping and choked sobs. It made Lu Feng's pupils slowly go hollow. When he looked back at the men, nothing remained on his face except a slowly spreading, feral savagery. "Quite a rich recreational life you guys have, huh." He looked down, studying the terrified faces whimpering beneath the tape and gags, and suddenly asked, "What were you planning to do with my sister?" In front, the man with the mangled face squirmed frantically, spitting out the cardboard stuffed in his mouth, coughing: "Bro, bro, don't! My bad! It's a misunderstanding, all a misunderstanding! I was joking, I—" "Is that so?" Lu Feng smiled. "Hilarious." Ji Jue's expression shifted slightly. "Brother Feng, wait—" *Bang!* He had already pulled the trigger. Gunfire roared, and the face burst into a splatter of shredded gore. Dead hilarious. Next, the muzzle pointed at the second man, but Lu Feng's hand was caught in a tight grip, jerking to a sudden halt. Beneath the barrel, the terrified face of the surviving man flushed with sheer relief and wild ecstasy. "What are you doing?" Lu Feng looked back at Ji Jue, the ferocity in his eyes laid bare. "Are you insane?!" Ji Jue glared right back at him, itching to punch him twice in the jaw. "Is Mother Lu never going to drive this van again? How are you going to fix the bullet hole? Do you have any idea how hard it is to clean up signs of a murder inside a vehicle?! "Couldn't you damn well wait until I drove to the seaside?!" "Huh?" Lu Feng froze. "What 'huh'? Think things through before you act, man!" Ji Jue forcibly wrenched the gun from his grip. Looking at the sticky gore smeared across it, his blood boiled. "Great. On top of sheet-metal work and patch welding, the entire van needs a deep scrub. And this puddle of blood... If someone shines a black light in here later, what are you going to tell them—that you were hauling butchered hogs? Once we buy the chemical reagents, you're scrubbing it yourself!" "...Oh." Lu Feng gave a slightly dazed nod. Now that his fury had subsided, the headache set in—how the hell was he going to explain an extra bullet hole in the van to his mother? But looking down at the side, he couldn't help asking, "What about these two?" Ji Jue looked down at the gun in his hand and sighed. In the end, he cleared the chambered round and slipped it into his pocket. "Forget it. Everyone in the underworld is just trying to make a living. Why does everything have to be life or death?" He patted one of the men on the shoulder. "How does the saying go? 'Once in the jianghu, one is... seldom their own master,' right? I'm not the type to hold petty grudges. If there's an alternative, I don't want to kill people with my own hands either." "Mmph! Mmmph, mmph!" The two men still breathing nodded frantically, squirming in the puddle of blood, tears almost spilling from their eyes. Even the van, which had been hurtling forward, slowly came to a halt. Outside the window, the murmur of crashing waves grew louder. The ocean surface shimmered with rippling glints of light, as if ten thousand tiny suns were dancing upon the water. Ji Jue reached out and slid open the door for them, revealing the blindingly bright world outside. Still bound, they nodded in frantic haste, trying their hardest to flash grateful smiles. Yet their gaze was involuntarily drawn to something unmelting within that brilliance... A pair of eyes like an abyss. Pitch-black. Looking down at the vast, boundless ocean beneath the cliff edge. And so, he made an earnest, sincere request. "Since you're so used to not having a choice, why not force yourselves one last time?" He said, "Could I trouble you two to... jump down on your own?" . . In the late afternoon sea breeze, the tide surged. Having finally managed to wipe away the blood in the back, Lu Feng jumped down from the van, still clutching a grimy cloth headrest cover, at a loss. "Xiao Ji, how do I wash this? The stain won't come out." "Just toss it." Ji Jue sat perched on the guardrail, letting the wind blow over him as he gazed at the scenery. "Show some filial piety for once and buy Mother Lu a new one." "Damn it, why is it that every time you give advice, I'm the one paying, and in the end you're the one who earns all my mom's favor?" Lu Feng grumbled, craning his neck to peer over the edge. Down in the sea breeze, on a lone pine jutting from the cliff face, a man was clutching a branch with all his might, crying and shouting something, but the wind was too fierce to hear. A gust of ocean wind blew past, and the bound man swayed helplessly, dragging along his two companions dangling below him from the same rope. The other surviving companion's lips moved constantly, as if cheering him on, telling him not to give up and to pull them up quickly. Like grasshoppers tied to a single string, struggling in misery. "Whoa, he's still hanging on? I kind of admire the guy." Lu Feng pulled out a cigarette and lit it, thoroughly amused. "How long do you think he can last?" "No idea." "I'll bet twenty bucks on ten minutes!" "Not betting." "Come on, just a casual bet. You're no fun at all, kid... Watch out, you'll never get a girlfriend like that." "Fine, I'll bet. Fifty bucks." "Fifty it is!" No sooner had Lu Feng spoken than he saw Ji Jue hop down from the guardrail, pick up a stone from the ground, and hurl it down below. Lu Feng immediately grew indignant. "Hey, that's cheating!" "You didn't say it wasn't allowed," Ji Jue retorted matter-of-factly. "Besides, can't you stop me?" "..." Lu Feng seemed to mutter a curse. Resigned, he pulled out fifty bucks from his pocket, slapped it against Ji Jue's chest, and took the pebbles from his hand. And just like that, under the setting sun, cheerful pebbles were scattered into the waves. One after another. Just like the most carefree game from a childhood summer vacation.