Game

"Lu Feng punched himself hard in the forehead, confirming that this wasn't a hallucination. Even more incredulous, he looked at the people on the ground. "What the hell happened?"

"I don't know."

Lu Ling choked back a sob and shook her head, her eyes rimmed red. "They rushed over and tried to grab me. They wanted to drag me into the car. I ran, but they kept chasing me."

"Then what about this..." Lu Feng pointed at the calf-horse beside them, which was lolling out its tongue and panting furiously. He struggled to make sense of it. "This... is this our family's vehicle?"

"I don't know."

Seeing Lu Feng draw his gun, Lu Ling hurriedly hugged its "dog head" to her chest. "It's fine! Don't scare it!"

Lu Feng stood there, dumbfounded.

He couldn't make a sound.

After a long while, the snapped wires in his mind finally seemed to reconnect. His killing instinct retreated from the heights of his thoughts, and he more or less regained some ability to think.

"I'll take you home first. Get yourself cleaned up, and don't tell Mom. Otherwise, she'll only worry herself sick."

He reached out and embraced the girl before him, moving with utmost care, afraid of touching her wounds. When he saw the injury on her forehead where her hair had been ripped out, his eyes lost their focus and color for an instant.

Soon, under Lu Ling's gaze, he forced a smile onto his face.

"Don't be afraid." He rubbed Lu Ling's cheek. "They're just a bunch of lowlifes. Big Brother will handle them. And if Big Brother can't, Second Brother still can, right?"

"Mm."

Lu Ling held his hand and was no longer afraid.

.

.

Around ten minutes later, in the evening, Ji Jue was eating takeout when the phone in his pocket began vibrating wildly. He answered instinctively. "Hello, Brother Feng..."

Then the smile vanished from his face.

"I understand. Mm, okay. I'll be there right away."

He hung up and put down his chopsticks.

"What's wrong?" Ye Chun looked up at him. "What happened?"

"My family needs me for something. I might not be able to work overtime tonight or tomorrow." He gave an awkward smile. "Senior, can I take some time off?"

"Give me a break. You're practically frantic, and you're still pretending?" Ye Chun rolled her eyes. "Get lost, get lost. Do you need money urgently?"

"Ah, no. I'll be going, then."

Before the words had even left his mouth, Ji Jue had packed up his things. After hesitating briefly, he fished another portable probe from the toolbox and stuffed it into his pocket. "I'm borrowing a tool."

"Don't you dare run off with it! You have to return it!"

Ye Chun's voice came from behind him. After the door closed, it was almost inaudible.

He broke into a full sprint toward the factory district's entrance.

On the road outside, the van from Mainland Auto Repair that was used to haul goods had already stopped across the street. Through the lowered window, he could see Lu Feng smoking in the driver's seat.

He pulled open the door and sat in the passenger seat. "Is Little Sis all right?"

"She got a small cut on her head. A little iodine took care of it. Mostly, she was just frightened."

Lu Feng flicked away some ash, turned around, and pointed at the dog-shaped motorcycle in the back, which was panting and frolicking. His expression was complicated. "In every sense of the phrase."

"..."

Ji Jue's expression grew awkward too. "I can't explain this clearly in a few words either. Haven't you ridden it for two or three years? Anyway, it's one of the family."

What family raised a Little Sheep this damn bizarre? It could eat chicken legs, fight, and even unleash a lightning-fast five-strike whip that wiped out the other side completely.

Lu Feng wasn't underestimating himself. He suspected that if he faced this thing unarmed, it could knock him flat without breaking a sweat.

After all, everyone was made of flesh. Nobody could beat composite steel. Besides, this thing was iron from head to toe. A sliding tackle would be completely useless—he could only offer himself up as a dish.

"Where are they?"

After putting away his bag, Ji Jue asked directly.

Lu Feng pointed again, toward the thing behind the calf-horse's rear end. It was covered with a tarp and still heaved and writhed beneath it. Ji Jue nodded, reached out, and slapped the steering wheel. The vehicle started by itself and drove off according to Ji Jue's navigation.

"Hey, it can do that too?"

Lu Feng clicked his tongue in amazement and followed him into the back of the vehicle.

When they lifted the tarp, they saw several people with faces covered in blood, so battered that their features were almost impossible to make out. They were tied up with the ropes they had brought themselves, struggling constantly and making muffled noises.

Their expressions were ferocious.

As if they were spitting some vicious threat.

"Have you questioned them?" Ji Jue asked.

"Didn't have time yet." Lu Feng reached over and examined their arms and legs. Glancing at their tattoos, he said knowingly, "These guys have probably been inside several times. Without some professional methods, I doubt they'll talk."

"It's fine. We don't need them."

Ji Jue reached into their pockets and rummaged around. Before long, he found three phones.

Then the screens lit up.

No password. No facial recognition.

The phones unlocked faster than an old lecher could drop his pants.

Right before the three men's eyes, the screens flickered rapidly through call records, messages, social media and various apps—even deleted messages.

"Scarface Ming? Qi Qin? And... Jiang Jin?"

As Ji Jue murmured to himself, the call records and numbers appeared on the screens. Through his instantaneous insight, he glimpsed everything that had happened before.

So they had already been watching her when Sister Wen went to visit him in the hospital room?

"I see..."

He put down the phone and sighed. "Brother Feng, this is my fault. They were after me."

Lu Feng froze for a moment, then smacked him on the back of the head in exasperation. "Wouldn't that mean they were after our family? Why are you going around in circles?"

Ji Jue was about to say something, but his words suddenly stalled. His gaze was drawn to the stream of photographs on the screen.

Lu Feng looked over curiously, then stiffened.

Across the screens of all three phones, photographs flashed by one after another—suggestive lighting, or single beds in dilapidated dormitories, filthy sheets, and even more... bodies.

Some wore tattered clothes. Others were completely naked.

Some smoked and gave a numb, unconcerned smile. Others were covered in bruises, their disheveled hair hiding their curled-up bodies as they tried to cover their faces, but unable to conceal the needle marks on their wrists or the purple bruises on their arms...

People locked in cages. People hung up by their limbs.

Faint cries and sobs came from the videos as well.

Lu Feng's pupils gradually emptied.

When he looked at those men, all that remained on his face was a slowly spreading, bestial savagery.

"Quite the rich entertainment life, huh."

He lowered his head and studied the three terrified faces making muffled noises. Then he suddenly asked, "What were you planning to do with my sister?"

At the front, the man with the ruined face struggled to writhe his way free and spat out the cardboard stuffed in his mouth. Choking and coughing, he said, "Bro, bro, don't! I was wrong! It's a misunderstanding, all a misunderstanding! I was just joking, I..."

"Is that so?"

Lu Feng smiled. "That's hilarious."

Ji Jue's expression changed slightly. "Brother Feng, wait—"

Bang!

He had already pulled the trigger. The gunshot erupted, and the man's face exploded into a spray of blood.

That was fucking hilarious.

Then the muzzle swung toward another man, but Lu Feng's hand was seized and stopped mid-motion. Beneath the gun, the surviving man's crumbling face filled with relief and wild joy.

"What are you doing?"

Lu Feng turned to Ji Jue, making no effort to conceal the viciousness in his eyes.

"Have you lost your mind?"

Ji Jue glared back at him, matching him blow for blow, looking as if he wanted to punch him twice. "Is Mom ever going to drive this vehicle again? How are we supposed to deal with the bullet holes? Do you have any idea how hard it is to clean murder traces out of a car?

Couldn't you at least wait until I'd driven it to the seaside?"

"Huh?" Lu Feng's expression froze.

"What do you mean, 'huh'? Think about Big Brother when you're doing things!"

Ji Jue forcibly yanked the gun from his hand. Seeing the sticky blood coating it, his anger flared again. "Great. Besides repairing and welding the body, we'll need to deep-clean the entire vehicle. And there's this pool of blood... What if someone shines a UV light on it someday? What are you going to say—that you were hauling a slaughtered pig? Buy the reagents later and clean it yourself!"

"...Oh."

Lu Feng nodded blankly. Once his anger had passed, a headache set in. How was he supposed to explain the new hole in the vehicle to Mom?

But when he looked to the side, he still couldn't help asking, "What about these two?"

Ji Jue lowered his head and looked at the gun in his hand. With a sigh, he finally removed the chambered round and slipped it back into his pocket.

"Forget it. We're all just trying to get by. It doesn't have to be a matter of life and death."

He patted one of the men on the shoulder. "How does that saying go? A person in the martial world is... is helpless to control his own fate, right? I'm not the kind of person who holds a grudge over every slight. If possible, I don't want to kill anyone either."

"Mmph! Mmmph, mmmph, mmmph!!!!"

The two men who were still breathing nodded frantically, writhing in the blood, almost crying tears.

Even the van, which had been speeding nonstop, slowly came to a halt. Outside the windows, the sound of waves gradually rose. The sea shimmered with rippling light, like ten thousand tiny suns dancing across its surface.

Ji Jue reached out and opened the doors for them, displaying the dazzling expanse of light outside.

Bound as they were, they nodded frantically, desperately trying to show grateful smiles. Yet their gazes were drawn to something in that light which refused to melt...

A pair of eyes like an abyss.

Pitch-black.

Gazing at the vast, boundless ocean beneath the cliff.

Thus, with utmost sincerity, he beseeched them.

"Since you're used to being unable to control your own fate, why not force yourselves one last time?"

He said, "Could I trouble you to... jump down yourselves?"

.

.

In the afternoon sea breeze, the tide rolled and surged.

Lu Feng finally jumped out of the back of the vehicle after barely wiping away the bloodstains. He was still clutching a filthy headrest cover, utterly at a loss. "Little Ji, how do I wash this? I don't think the color's coming out."

"Just throw it away."

Ji Jue sat on the railing, enjoying the breeze as he gazed at the scenery. "Show Mom a little filial devotion for once and buy her a new one!"

"For fuck's sake, why is it that every time you make a suggestion, I'm the one who pays, and in the end you're the one who earns all the goodwill with my mom?" Lu Feng complained as he leaned over to look down.

In the sea breeze, on a lone pine tree beneath the cliff, someone was clinging desperately to a branch and shouting something. But the wind was too strong to make out the words.

A gust of sea wind blew past, and the bound man swayed helplessly, dragging along the two companions hanging below him from the same rope.

The surviving companion's lips kept opening and closing, as if cheering him on and urging him not to give up, to pull himself up quickly.

The grasshoppers tied to the same rope struggled in utter disarray.

"Wow, he's still hanging on? I'm starting to admire him." Lu Feng took out a cigarette and lit it, watching with great interest. "How long do you think he can last?"

"I don't know."

"I'll bet twenty yuan—ten minutes!"

"I'm not betting."

"Come on, just one round now and then. You've got no sense of fun at all... Be careful, or you'll never find a girlfriend."

"Fine. I'll bet fifty."

"Fifty it is!"

No sooner had Lu Feng finished speaking than he saw Ji Jue rise from the railing, pick up a stone from the ground, and toss it downward. He immediately grew furious. "Hey, that's cheating!"

"You never said I couldn't."

Ji Jue retorted as if it were only natural. "Besides, couldn't you have stopped me?"

"..."

Lu Feng seemed to curse under his breath. Helpless, he took fifty yuan from his pocket and slapped it into Ji Jue's arms. Then he snatched the stones from Ji Jue's hand.

And so, beneath the setting sun, happy little stones were cast into the rolling waves.

One after another.

Just like the most carefree game of a childhood summer vacation.