New Guys

Siu Jai Ming had dared to speak so openly about switching sides, which clearly meant he had enough courage to bear the price that came with it.

This made Song Ren look at him in a new light.

Siu Jai Ming's eyes were filled with undisguised admiration for him. It was simply too obvious.

Siu Jai Ming's fighting skills were only average, and he had been physically weak since childhood, so he respected anyone who could fight.

He had some reputation in Zhong Yi Xin, but he had earned it entirely through sheer, fearless ruthlessness.

The moment Song Ren entered Stanley, the two consecutive fights he had gotten into had attracted far too much attention.

Not to mention Siu Jai Ming—even quite a few low-level thugs probably had the same idea.

They simply lacked Siu Jai Ming's nerve. They hadn't dared to enter Song Ren's line of sight at the first opportunity and bring up switching sides themselves.

But Song Ren didn't nod. Instead, he said, "I never planned on taking on any underlings, and I never planned on joining a gang."

Siu Jai Ming was directly rejected by Song Ren, but he didn't take it to heart. Instead, he broke into a bright grin:

"Brother Ren, you might change your mind after you get out."

"I really admire you."

"If you ever decide to go out and establish your own territory, you have to contact me first."

Song Ren gave no definite answer and turned to leave.

After finishing work, Song Ren returned to the cell.

Only then did he meet the four new cellmates who had moved in.

Two of them were Fierce Ghost's men from Fu Yi.

Bald Rong and Lai Pei Leung were both around thirty, about the same age as Song Ren and Yau Kong Ngau.

Besides those two, two other new cellmates had arrived. They had both only recently been arrested after getting into trouble.

Both had freshly shaved crew cuts, and their prison uniforms were still new.

However, the two newcomers behaved in completely opposite ways.

One sat with his legs crossed on the upper bunk's metal bed.

His back rested against the wall, and he looked completely idle.

He seemed to feel nothing extra about being locked up in Stanley Prison, as though he had merely returned home.

He was the very picture of doing whatever he pleased and taking it easy.

The other was far more restrained. He sat properly on the lower bunk, a pair of gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. He looked every bit like an educated man, yet he didn't even dare raise his head.

When Song Ren entered, Fierce Ghost immediately put an arm around his shoulders and cheerfully introduced him: "Hey, Baldy, Leung, aren't you going to greet him?"

"Brother Ren!"

"Hello, Brother Ren!"

Bald Rong and Lai Pei Leung immediately hurried over:

"Brother Ren, you're finally back. Your reputation has spread throughout all of Stanley by now."

"Yeah, Brother Ren. Those lunatics from Zhong Yi Xin have all shrunk back."

Yau Kong Ngau also came over and extended his hand. "Brother Ren, welcome back."

Song Ren nodded at the others before shaking Yau Kong Ngau's hand. He smiled and joked, "Brother Ngau, how have things been? Nothing happened again these past few days, right?"

"Just call me A Ngau." Yau Kong Ngau then added,

"Thanks to you, Brother Ren, no one from outside dares provoke anyone in our cell anymore. It's saved me quite a bit of trouble too."

After chatting idly for a while, Fierce Ghost introduced them again to Song Ren. "A Ren, we've got two new cellmates here. Get to know them."

With that, he turned toward the bunks by the doorway and shouted, "Hey, didn't you hear me? Come over and say hello, you idiots."

The man with the gold-rimmed glasses on the lower bunk shrank his neck in fright, but still obediently shuffled over.

"B-Brother Ren, hello. My name is Chan Ka Lok. Just call me A Lok."

The other new cellmate, who had been dozing on the upper bunk, merely raised his eyebrows and snorted while shaking his leg. "Fierce Ghost, I don't remember acknowledging you as my boss."

Fierce Ghost's expression darkened, but he still restrained himself. His tone, however, was displeased. "A Hu, you sure talk loudly."

A Hu leaned against the wall and continued shaking his leg. "I've always talked loudly. What about it?"

Lai Pei Leung quietly explained to Song Ren from the side, "Brother Ren, that guy's called A Hu."

"He's the third of the three brothers from the Vietnamese Gang."

"They've been very prominent outside recently, especially Tony, the second brother and the public face of the three."

"They don't have many men, but every last one of them is willing to throw their life away. Whenever they make a move outside, it's like they're gambling with their lives. They give other people no way out, and they don't leave one for themselves either."

"On top of that, their methods are vicious. Murder, arson, kidnapping, extortion—they use every means available. They don't follow any rules of the underworld."

A Hu, Tony...

Song Ren froze when he heard those two names and turned his head. "Their eldest brother is called A Cha, isn't he?"

Lai Pei Leung nodded. "That's right, Brother Ren. You've heard of them too?"

Song Ren didn't answer. Instead, he recalled the final film in the trilogy—Flash Point.

These three brothers were the villains in Flash Point.

The second brother, Tony, was the strongest fighter.

The third brother, A Hu, had plenty of brute force but weaker skills, while the eldest had the sharpest mind but was the worst fighter.

Even so, all three brothers were ruthless characters who had come out of a refugee camp.

That place was similar to the former Kowloon Walled City, perhaps even worse. It housed a massive number of Vietnamese refugees.

And what the enormous refugee camp brought wasn't just people, but even more crime.

That was how these three brothers had come to be. Having escaped that place, they naturally had no desire to return to such a cruel environment.

They shared a deep bond and had an elderly mother. When they were together, they got along extremely well.

But they were entirely different toward outsiders. When dealing with other people, the three brothers were even more inhuman than Wong Po.

Wong Po's ferocity came from the very marrow of his bones, and he could fight, but he still had limits.

The three brothers' limits, however, were so low that they were bone-chilling.

In the movie, during a pursuit with the police, A Hu used an eight- or nine-year-old child in his hands as a hostage and threatened the police into putting down their guns.

Yet after the police discarded their weapons, he still flung the child in his hands more than ten meters away. The child's head struck the curb at the side of the road, leaving him severely injured and unconscious on the spot.

That was truly deranged.

All in all, the humanity of these three brothers only appeared when it came to their own family. Toward outsiders, they had absolutely no bottom line.

But that was also the main reason the Vietnamese Gang had been thriving recently.

Although Song Ren looked down on A Hu, he didn't say anything.

He sat down on the upper bunk and looked at the extremely nervous Chan Ka Lok.

"A Lok, what did you do to get sent in? You look like a fairly refined person."

Chan Ka Lok gave an awkward smile. "Uh, financial crimes..."

Song Ren raised his eyebrows. "What kind?"

Chan Ka Lok answered honestly. "I was involved in both money laundering and financial fraud."

Song Ren said, "Oh? How long were you sentenced to?"

Chan Ka Lok lowered his head. "Life imprisonment."

"..."

Song Ren raised his head in astonishment.

This guy looked timid and shrinking, but who would have thought he had gone this far?

To get life for financial crimes, just how much had he defrauded?

Yau Kong Ngau and the others were clearly hearing Chan Ka Lok's sentence for the first time as well. They were instantly rendered speechless.

All of them were ruthless men, yet even together, they hadn't been sentenced for as long as this refined-looking fellow.

They had underestimated him!