Beginning with the Ubume Bird

Chapter 26: Momentum Like Boiling Soup

Editor: Larbre Studio

A severed forearm, dripping with a string of blood beads, spun in the air to trace an arc, and thudded onto the ground.

“Kill those motherfuckers!”

The same fit men from He Liansheng, known as Wang Shui, Yang Hao furiously shouted, along with himself behind him, a group of people with red cloth tied around their wrists.

He Liansheng proudly claimed to have a membership of over fifty thousand people, with fit men spanning over a dozen regions, and today in Kowloon Walled City alone there were a full ten groups!

“Bang! Bang!”

A subordinate of Wu Haoxi clutched his throat, blood continuously flowing from his mouth, slowly falling to the ground with unwillingness in his eyes.

The man in the black windbreaker with two tiger tattoos on his arm spat out and cursed while he was changing the magazine for his pistol, “Fucking hell! Wang Shui, are you out of your mind, using a couple of machetes like targets? Do you think the pistols at your waist are firewood?”

Wang Shui’s eyes bulged, “Scared of what? Right now in the city, there are at least two thousand brothers, we’ll surround and kill every one of Wu’s motherfucking subordinates!”

An uncontrollable voice of delight intervened.

“Xilao has succeeded!”

Upon hearing this, several fit men from He Liansheng all felt a surge of spirit.

“Wu is really dead? The heavens want He Liansheng’s prosperity to blossom.”

Suddenly, the man in the black windbreaker frowned, “Why hasn’t there been any news from Le’s side?”

As if it were an ominous signal, the intense sound of explosions, reeking of gunpowder smoke, spread throughout.

“Da da da da da da…”

The muzzles, spitting out flames incessantly, slowly advanced, and several He Liansheng tough guys, who charged at the forefront, were instantly struck by nearly a hundred slanted bullets, their bodies torn apart like a puppet on strings by the overwhelming kinetic energy!

The shiny black firearms reflected a cold gleam, a German HK product, the MP5K submachine gun.

Before Wang Shui could react, a grenade pulled a white trail of smoke and landed at his feet.

“Get down!”

Blinding flashes and numerous sharp shrapnel blasted in all directions!

After the smoke cleared.

The man with the tiger tattoo struggled to stand up, shaking his head, with streaks of blood seeping from his ears, he looked around blankly, his eyes seeing what was left of Yang Hao, dismembered…

Within the smoke, several figures slowly approached.

The man with the tiger tattoo roared as he stood up and pulled the trigger; a sudden gust of wind dispersed the smoke, revealing the full picture of the opponents in the smog.

Without a doubt, they were men of Wu Haoxi, shouldering RPG-17 rocket launchers, coldly aiming at the man with the tiger tattoo.

“Fucking hell…”

Even the man with the tiger tattoo hadn’t noticed, his words were trembling with terror…

…

“Clatter clatter clatter clatter clatter.”

One by one, the steel balls rolled out of the machine, Li Yan casually grabbed a handful, then let them slip through his fingers, lost in thought.

It was the crazed influx of He Liansheng ruffians into Kowloon Walled City that made him realize something was off.

He Liansheng, known as the largest organization in Hong Kong and Kowloon, had no reason to be foolish enough to establish enemies with both Wu Haoxi and Taishuai, and as he had exited the Fuyi Building with Xu Tianci, they had encountered little resistance. Logically, they should have been informed as soon as they left the building, and Taizi Le and Hua Shanjiu, who were looking for trouble with Xu Tianci, should have immediately sent someone to chase after hearing of his escape. There was no need to argue with Taishuai and nothing to gain from doing so.

Yet, as they made their way out of Kowloon City, not a ghost of a follower was in sight behind them.

The situation that night would either evolve into a three-way battle, or Zhou was just a distraction, and Taizi Le’s real goal that night was to wipe out Wu Haoxi.

Recalling Hua Shanjiu’s dark countenance that day, Li Yan felt that the latter possibility was increasingly likely.

He had no idea what Kowloon Walled City would look like tonight; perhaps it was a moonless and sunless night, hidden beneath the cramped, leaking pipes.

Li Yan wasn’t afraid of chaos in the city; what he feared was its absence. The city now was like a boiling cauldron of water. Such a night was destined for guns and gunpowder. If Li Yan wanted to fish in troubled waters, he also had to be wary of stray bullets. His opportunity would come after the chaos in the city had subsided and before a new order was established.

Li Yan turned the knob, launching the steel balls without paying any attention to the numbers on the machine, the cigarette between his fingers nearing its end.

If Kowloon City got reshuffled tonight, where would that fragment from the committee’s office end up? And that guy, who had been incredibly patient in spying on him, where was he now?

He had wondered if that person was a fighter from the Kowloon boxing arena just like Zhang Mingyuan, given that both their requirements in the Yan Fu incident involved fighting to the seventh round of the Kowloon arena. However, after much thought, Li Yan couldn’t come up with a suitable candidate.

Li Yan had also suspected Xu Tianci. When he kicked Xu Tianci, it was partly because the kid rubbed him the wrong way, and partly to test him; if he was the observer, it made no sense for him to be completely unguarded against him. Moreover, there were no flaws in his acting even after Li Yan made his move.

Besides, whether it was himself or Zhang Mingyuan, their identities were either that of an outsider who had just arrived in Hong Kong, or that of an orphan who had recently lost their parents and came to the boxing arena to make a living. In short, there wouldn’t be anyone too familiar with themselves.

Li Yan had heard Judy mention Xu Tianci, a remarkable person, the biological grandson of Xu Shangtian, who could address Ye Wen as ‘Grand Master’. Li Yan couldn’t imagine how Yan Fu had managed to arrange an identity for such a person; just the change in habits and temperament would give him away to others.

And if the person wasn’t a fighter from the Kowloon boxing arena, it meant his mission was different from Li Yan’s, which is to say… not a fellow traveler.

Caught in the strange and mysterious Yan Fu incident, Li Yan couldn’t think of a more benign term for other operatives than fellow travelers.

If not a fellow traveler, the contradictions would only become more pronounced!

The night had grown deep, and it suddenly occurred to Li Yan that when Mo had brought him here, the night had also been thick and intractable. And in just over ten days, he seemed to have gradually adapted to the life in Kowloon City.

The patchy yet bustling Longjin Road, the cramped high-rises nearly touching each other, the children running barefoot on the concrete rooftops with faces slightly turned upwards.

Red Ghost, Judy, even the shy girl next door.

What kind of strong will was needed to wander endlessly through time and space without weariness? As Mo had said, there was no turning back on this path; after all, he was just a passerby.

“It’s still early.”

He exhaled the last smoke ring, threw the cigarette butt on the ground, and stomped it out firmly, saying so.

…

Fuyi Building

“The smartest thing about you is that you didn’t use firearms on my turf, eh, Qiqi! Uncle Zong, turn down the air conditioning a bit,” Yu Shu said, draped in a black jacket but still sneezing.

Chen Minhong (Red Ghost) had bloodstains on his fists. Dressed in a grey short-sleeve shirt, he was surrounded by four or five unconscious members of the United Victory gang sprawled haphazardly around him.

“The top brass of Kowloon’s red poles are getting worse with each generation, is that all you’ve got?”

“You dare to mess with United Victory, the Kowloon boxing arena will never have peace again,” Hua Shanjiu declared defiantly. He lay on the ground, his meniscus in both knees crushed by Red Ghost, his ever-present metal nunchuck long since lost, and the blood flowing from his head down his neck. Glancing around, one could see the entire tenth floor of the Fuyi Building covered with over a hundred gang members, not a single one able to stand.

A man in a black suit approached Red Ghost.

“Brother Red Ghost, Taizi Le has brought over three hundred guys, and everyone inside the Fuyi Building has been cleaned up. What’s the plan?”

Upon hearing this, Chen Minhong looked at Yu Shu.

“Throw these scumbags out on the street, keep Taizi Le, wait for his father, Chang Shen, to come redeem him,” Chen said.

Liao Zhizong came over with a frown.

“It’s a mess out there. Wu Haoxi’s men are even deploying rocket launchers; the City hasn’t seen firearms in nearly ten years, and with all this uproar now, the Hong Kong British Government won’t let this slide.”

“Are the guests who left okay?” Yu Shu asked.

“They’ve all been sent out of the City.”

“Then it’s fine.”

Yu Shu took a few steps forward and addressed the wealthy guests who had been quietly watching the spectacle from the booths: “You’ve heard about the situation in the City by now. I have to trouble everyone to stay inside the building for now. First thing in the morning, I will personally escort you out of the City. If there’s any inconvenience, I hope you all can understand.”

“Whatever you say goes.”

He Changhong’s face was flushed. The City was small, and he could vaguely hear the explosion from New Street this way, let alone the thrilling melee of hundreds just in front of him, which made this playboy secretly impressed with the reckless behavior of the City’s inhabitants.

Judy looked worried.

“Aren’t you afraid of a retaliatory strike from the incoming United Victory troops if you hold Taizi Le?”

Taishuai shook his head: “United Victory doesn’t have the strength for that anymore.”