Chapter 48 Failing to Play Fair

What is one most afraid of after getting injured?

Qian Hao used to think that the most terrifying thing after an injury was the pain. So, he had taken two painkillers in advance, and the agonizing wound finally stopped hurting so much!

But now, Qian Hao felt his head beginning to grow dizzy. Reaching up to touch his forehead, dammit! He was actually running a fever!

Shaking his somewhat muddled head vigorously, just as he regained a shred of clarity, Qian Hao made the helpless discovery that the patrols on the roads leaving the city had not decreased at all—they had actually increased!

Rounding a street corner, Qian Hao was shocked to see his own face plastered on a wall!

No! To be more precise, it was a photograph printed on a wanted poster!

Only, the bounty column listed a mere two thousand yuan, which felt somewhat insulting to the word "bounty."

Qian Hao hurriedly pulled down the brim of his hat, hunched his neck, and scuttled along the base of the wall toward the corner. He had naively thought he could make a clean getaway, only to find that the entire city of Tianhai had been turned into an airtight fortress.

Finding a small pharmacy, he bought a bottle of fever reducers. After swallowing two pills, he slapped a cooling patch onto his forehead, and the throbbing heat in his dizzy head finally subsided into a slight chill.

Stepping out of the small shop, Qian Hao constantly felt as though a pair of eyes was locked onto him. The sensation was far too distinct to be a hallucination! Walking purposely up to a large bus, Qian Hao used the rearview mirror to glance behind him, and sure enough, he spotted a shadowy figure acting suspiciously.

Had he been spotted already? His luck was simply atrocious!

Qian Hao deliberately circled the block a few times before ducking into a narrow alley, only to discover, to his utter misfortune, that it was a dead end.

Glancing back, Qian Hao realized that lady luck had utterly abandoned him. The person following him wasn't just a single individual, but a whole gang of young men. Their eyes gleamed with excitement, and they were closing in fast.

Resigning himself to his fate, Qian Hao pressed his back against the wall and slid his hand into his waistband.

The year 2000 was a magical era. The streets were always teeming with idle youths who possessed an excess of restless energy, just as Hong Kong culture was experiencing a massive boom. In particular, the *Young and Dangerous* film series played in every single video parlor, instantly becoming the hottest trend, with countless youngsters vying to copy them.

Every city, every street, and every school had its own "Chicken" and "Chan Ho-nam," with the occasional person who fancied playing "Puff" or "Tai-Tin."

Qian Hao's luck was truly dismal to have been targeted by this bunch of punks, among whom were Ho-nam from Tianhai Ninth High School and Chicken from the Tianhai Mechanical Institute. Surrounding the pair were a pack of red-eyed minions, all of them calculating how to spend the ten-thousand-yuan reward money if they managed to claim it.

Qian Hao's furtive appearance on the main avenue had drawn considerable attention. First, Chicken from the Mechanical Institute locked onto him, and then, as Qian Hao wandered around trying to shake his tail, Chicken called in Ho-nam from the Ninth High.

As it happened, Ho-nam was out on the school playground kicking a football, so he brought along a whole crew of brothers. And just like that, a mob of young men had cornered Qian Hao in a dead end.

If Qian Hao had realized he was being tailed and simply bolted from the start, he would at most have had to deal with Chicken alone! But now it was too late for regrets. Facing a pack of ferocious, wolf-like youths, Qian Hao flashed a dagger, muttering as if to pump himself up, "Taking two down breaks even, taking three means I'm making a profit!"

The life of a hardened veteran of the underworld was, after all, worth a bit more than those of greenhorns just cutting their teeth in the streets. At least in Qian Hao's mind, gutting two half-pints meant he wouldn't lose out, and every extra one he took down was pure profit.

Unfortunately, times had changed. The older generation might possess experience that surpassed the newcomers, but the newcomers undoubtedly possessed a raw brutality the veterans lacked.

The moment Qian Hao flashed his blade, Ho-nam from the Ninth High and Chicken from the Mechanical Institute exchanged a glance, and Ho-nam was the first to whip out a glass soda bottle, hurling it straight at Qian Hao.

The others followed suit, pulling out glass bottles and hurling them forward—not aiming at Qian Hao himself, but smashing them onto the ground.

*Crash! Smash!* Shards of glass littered the pavement, dense and razor-sharp. Qian Hao, who had been about to charge forward, was forced to check his stride. If he got impaled by those glass fragments, he would be completely unable to run!

Chicken lit a cigarette, then pulled a modified firecracker from his pocket. The red firecracker was as thick as a thumb, wrapped tightly in transparent tape, with nails, steel ball bearings, and broken glass embedded inside...

Lighting the fuse, Chicken tossed it toward Qian Hao. Amidst a series of sharp explosions, Qian Hao—who had just moments before been fierce and ready to fight to the death—was forced to cradle his head in his arms and curl up on the ground.

Young people's brains really worked fast; such a simplified yet vicious trick was something only they could come up with. A firecracker packed with steel ball bearings—while not quite matching the destructive power of a grenade—was infinitely more lethal than a simple knife.

First, using broken glass to restrict Qian Hao's movement, and then blasting him with firecrackers. The boss of the Xiling Gang had thus been bombed into a dog, curled up on the pavement, completely abandoning any notions of taking two down to break even or three for a profit.

Ho-nam had no intention of letting Qian Hao off that easily. Waving his hand, he summoned a young man carrying a backpack. Ho-nam pulled out a string of firecrackers from the bag, lit them, and hurled them directly at Qian Hao.

*Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop...*

Not only was Qian Hao curled up on the ground, but the earth was covered in shattered glass. As the firecrackers detonated, smoke filled the air, and shards of glass were blasted in every direction—a truly gruesome and tragic sight!

Just when Qian Hao thought he was going to die right there, the sound of the firecrackers finally ceased. A fishing landing net thrust forward, dragging Qian Hao like a dead dog. Then Chicken and Ho-nam pinned his arms from left and right, tying him up securely on the spot!

Panting heavily as he lay on the ground, Qian Hao had only one thought left in his head: these youngsters played completely without honor, resorting to underhanded tricks instead of fighting him fair and square with real steel!

How humiliating! Yet amid the intense vexation, an endless surge of relief rose from the depths of his heart. He was still alive; the feeling of being able to draw breath was simply wonderful.

...

Qian Hao had been captured and locked up in the Old Factory Street. Word was that a group of young men had caught him, and they sent a message through Wang Xichuan, explicitly demanding to see Xiao Ziguang.

Zhou Huajian was fiddling with a homemade firearm improvised from square steel tubing. Once the fifty thousand yuan in funding arrived, Zhou Huajian had purchased a massive quantity of materials.

He understood the old adage: an artisan must first sharpen his tools if he wishes to do good work. In the small cellar, tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition had already been stockpiled, and Zhou Huajian had even used his personal connections to buy two bulletproof vests.

Hearing that Xiao Ziguang intended to head to the Old Factory Street, Zhou Huajian quickly tried to stop him: "Don't go. That place is crawling with punks. They watch too many gangster flicks, and they're all brawn and no brains."

"They're fickle and volatile, and some of them even dabble in drugs. If you rush over there rashly, you're bound to be plotted against. You might not even get to see Qian Hao, and instead suffer a massive loss."

Xiao Ziguang frowned in contemplation, carefully recalling who the notorious thugs of the Old Factory Street were in his past life, and what reputations Ho-nam from the Ninth High and Chicken from the Mechanical Institute held.

As a rebirth survivor, Xiao Ziguang was like a prophet with map-hack enabled, capable of deducing the most advantageous choices from the most fragmented clues.

Searching through his memories, he finally matched those two individuals to the figures from his past. Clapping Zhou Huajian on the shoulder, Xiao Ziguang said, "Stop letting conspiracy theories run wild every day. What kind of malicious intentions could youngsters possibly have? They want to see me, probably because they want to climb the ladder."

"This is a good thing, not a bad one. If you're really worried, you can just wait for me outside."

Zhou Huajian didn't say anything more. Instead, he picked up the van keys and waited closely by Xiao Ziguang's side.