“Li ge, you don’t have to come personally,” said the Xiao Di[1] with his stylish hairdo and an expression riddled with terror, “It would be enough if you let Lin ge and Hong Tou [2] ge come.”
Xiao Li took a quick glance at the narrow entranceway of the abandon and ghetto living area in front of him. But still he did not say anything.
Lin Zi who stood to his side slapped the Xiao Di’s head: “When Xiao Li makes a decision, don’t say any bullshit.”
“Are you positive he’s inside?” asked Xiao Li.
“Absolutely,” said the Xiao Li as he covered his head and firmly reported, “We’ve been keeping an eye on him for three days. Lao Bing Gui[3]. He’s walled up in there. But that place is really big and the small alleyways is a mess with all its twists and turns. We….there’s only three of us, guarding outside but we didn’t dare to go in. We were afraid that if we acted recklessly and didn’t pay attention, he’d slip away.”
“Lin Zi, take some men and guard here,” Xiao Li calmly instructed, “I’ll head inside with them and search.”
Lin Zi glanced at the Xiao Di. In a low voice, he also said some nonsense to Xiao Li: “Li ge, you don’t need to personally go in okay?”
“Don’t worry,” laughed Xiao Li, “I’ve lived in his area for ten years. I’m quite familiar with this territory.”
After they finished their briefing on their strategy, Xiao Li and several subordinates quickly dispersed. In the alley wrung with twists and turns and around the broken and crude buildings, they searched around.
Underneath their feet stuck the weeds from the cracks and broken cement on the ground. Shattered pieces of stones, bricks and glass were thrown about. Both sides of the walls were bottled with dirt and filth, even more so, the body of the walls were broken in with cracks.
Xiao Li cautiously inspected two abandoned rooms before turning into a narrow corner.
Up ahead was a wall that had collapsed some time ago. Weeds had grown all over it, while piles of bricks and earth blocked up the passageway, stopping him from going through. On top of it was the corpse of a cat that had been left to dry in the sun from a long while ago. The smell of the dead corpse attracted tons of flies that swarmed around it.
Xiao Li was just about to turned away and leave, but then he stopped in place. In spite of the flies and the faint smell of rotting corpse. He approached it and leaned in for a closer look at the corpse before frowning.
Then step by step, he cautiously climbed over this slope of debris. Placing his hand against the wall for support, he looked at the courtyard from atop the slope.
It was a place of abandoned building materials; the door to the rooms were wide open and windows were broken and fallen down to the ground.
Xiao Li pressed his body against the wall to determine if it was solid and secure enough before he leaned against it and jumped down into the area below.
Carefully he moved around the trash, stooped down, entered the building and searched around.
There was a pile of large and small bottles, cans and jar at the further corner of the room outside, covered in dust. Even the windows without glass was full of those stuff.
Xiao Li’s eyes became very alert. In the quietness of the place, he stuck to the side wall and quickly leaned his body to one side before slowly peering into the window.
As expected.
Through the cracks in the bottles and jars that sat along the windowsill, there was the shadow of a small man’s back facing him. The man bend forward; who knew what he was doing moving about like that.
Xiao Li crouched down and quietly moved some bottles that were blocking him. Making sure not to make any sounds, he carefully inched closer, all the while his hand slowly stretched toward the dagger that was hidden near his waist —–
“Buzzzzzzz………”
Suddenly the phone in his pocket vibrated causing Xiao Li to be startled. He was just about to take out his dagger and rushed in to the room.
He raised his head for a quick look toward the window but the small man was already alerted and had swiftly charged out a long while ago. A huge shadow rapidly flew toward Xiao Li and crashed above his body.
Xiao Li lifted his arm up, but then ‘clang!’, a bottle broke right on top of his head. The once silent place broke out in rustling sounds.
“Fuck.”
Unable to check his own wound, Xiao Li fly kicked the man, which caused him to move several feet back. Without much trouble, the man conveniently grabbed an iron rod nearby and charged forward again. In the eerie surrounding the two fought each other. Xiao Li was quick and versatile with his movements. He blocked with skills, he ducked and danced around the man with strength and ease. In just a quick moment, Xiao Li was able to seize the iron rod. His firm fist struck the small man countless times until he laid flat on the ground, groaning.
The cell phone was still buzzing.
Xiao Li pressed his foot heavily on the man’s back, keeping him down before he took out his phone and answered it.
“Xiao Li, it’s Qi Xiu Yuan.”
The sound of this voice was gentle, sweet to the ear and also contained some kind of joyfulness.
What great timing, thought Xiao Li before he replied, “Hello Qi Laoshi.”
It seemed like Qi Xiu Yuan had laughed on the other side, “I’m currently out of the city right now. I’ll be returning tomorrow and wanted to invite you for a meal. Would you be able to come?”
The middle aged man that was pressed down to the ground face first by Xiao Li, took a quick glance around before carefully stretching his hand out, just far enough, toward a piece of broken glass.
All the while, Xiao Li was still on the phone: “You don’t have to be so polite, if there’s something just say it directly.”
“I’m not being polite. I just want to talk with you about something.”
“Did something happened?”
“It’s nothing. I only wanted to have a meal and chat, that’s all.”
Xiao Li hesitated for a moment. If Qi Xiu Yuan said, ‘Thank you for helping me last time,’ he would naturally refuse. If he said, ‘I wanted to ask you for help,’ then he could try his best and help him out. But, never had anyone said such crafty words to him before. It was possible that he still had some matter for him to help with but found it hard to say out loud.
Xiao Li laughed, “Okay then. Tomorrow, I’m don’t have anything going on in the afternoon and evening”
“Got it!” Qi Xiu Yuan’s voice was wrapped with excitement and his joyous mood increased by tenfold.
“I’ll send you a text message of the specific time and place in a moment.”
“Okay.”
“See you tomorrow.”
By now, the small man had already hidden the broken piece of glass under the palm of his hand and was just about to grip it more firmly. But in that slight moment, the pressure on his back lightened, then once again a foot pressed heavily and severely down, crushing his hand and that piece of glass within it —Now the glass has melted into his hand, crushed painfully into one uniformed piece.
The man was in so much pain, he was unable to shout out. His whole body weakly broke out in cold sweats as he gasps for air. All he could hear now was the refined and courteous sound of Xiao Li’s voice.