Midnight (II)

"Tea, please!"

Inside the private room on the third floor, the other three elderly men present also raised their cups.

Each took a light sip of tea, then set their cups down.

The elderly man in a Tang suit who had poured tea for everyone sat back down. His slightly clouded eyes swept over the three men around the round table. His rough fingers lightly tapped the tabletop as he said evenly, "It's been quite some time since the four of us sat down for tea. We're getting old. That leg that got shot back then aches terribly whenever it's windy or rainy, so I don't much feel like going out anymore. Normally, I'd already be asleep by this hour, but the wind and rain outside have been fierce lately. I had no choice but to invite you here to talk face-to-face."

"Brother Zuo, over the years, our Jiang, Zhao, Zhou, and Zheng Families have formed our own banner and advanced and retreated together. If you have something to say, just say it. We're listening."

Seated below the old man in the Tang suit, a burly elderly man in an old-fashioned mandarin jacket spoke in a voice like a bell.

"Yeah, Brother Zuo. All these years, you led us to make a name for ourselves and gave us and the brothers under us a way to make money. Whatever happened, just tell us."

"That's right. If not for Brother Zuo, we wouldn't be where we are today. We'd either be squatting in Stanley or long since dead."

The other two elderly men, dressed in loose suits with their hair combed neatly, chimed in as well.

"There's no need to say such things."

Seeing them speak up, the old man in the Tang suit smiled faintly, his face already deeply lined with wrinkles. Then his expression turned grave. "This matter is different from before. You may not have heard yet, but I've received word that Fatty Tong from West Kowloon was just taken out."

"Fatty Tong is dead too?"

The burly old man in the old-fashioned mandarin jacket, who seemed somewhat hot-tempered, cried out in surprise.

"Fatty Tong may not have been on the level of our four families, but he wasn't weak either. Something actually happened to him?"

"This doesn't look right!"

The other two men's expressions changed repeatedly upon hearing the news.

The old man in the Tang suit nodded lightly, his expression rather solemn. "Old Ghost De was the first to go down. You've dealt with him before—he was the first one to distribute goods for us. Then there was Dao You Cheng a few days ago, and Fatty Tong today. Their territories weren't large, and they didn't amount to much, but with three of them suddenly dead, it's only natural for people to panic."

At that, the old man in the Tang suit raised his teacup and took a faint sip. His gaze quietly swept across the others' expressions before he continued, "And now someone outside is spreading word that all of them were taken out by our people."

"Brother Zuo, it wasn't my people." The burly old man in the old-fashioned mandarin jacket was the first to protest. "You know that over the past few years, I've gotten less and less involved in the drug trade. I've been teaching apprentices at the boxing gym."

"Brother Zuo, our people didn't make a move either. We may be old, but if the people below us did something like that, they wouldn't dare hide it from us two old men."

The other two elderly men explained in turn.

"Of course I trust you."

The old man in the Tang suit raised a hand in a calming gesture. A cryptic smile appeared on his face. "We're all old men now. There's no need to fight and kill like we did when we were young. But if it wasn't us, then someone is trying to frame our families. Heh. Looks like some outsider is coming in to step on our turf."

The men at the table all understood.

There had been many drug operations on the streets over the years, but most had a banner or another force backing them. When one or two occasionally fell, others would take their place.

But for three drug operations to be wiped out in succession, even an idiot could tell someone was stirring things up behind the scenes.

"Alright. It's enough that you understand the situation."

The old man in the Tang suit tapped the table again, drawing everyone's attention back, then brought up another matter. "The others can be ignored, but Dao You Cheng was still a brother under the same banner as us. He's had business dealings with our families over the years. Publicly or privately, now that he's been taken out, we can't simply ignore it."

"This does need to be investigated."

The other three had no objections.

Dao You Cheng had kept a somewhat distant relationship with them over the years. There had been both competition and cooperation in business, but he had once been a brother under the same banner.

This was also an opportunity to take in Dao You Cheng's former forces and territory—an entirely legitimate one.

Seeing that the three had no objections, the old man in the Tang suit stood and refilled each of their cups. Smiling, he raised his own cup. "Tea, please!"

"Tea, please!"

After leaving Sham Shui Po Park Swimming Pool, Yang Chu followed Lai Chi Kok Road and, before he knew it, arrived at Nathan Road.

Compared with the neighborhoods Yang Chu had been in earlier, Nathan Road was still ablaze with neon lights and nightlife even at midnight.

At the late-night food stalls in the markets, people came and went amid the noisy bustle. Outside nightclubs and bars, music boomed, and jewels and glamour glittered.

In slightly more secluded corners, the sounds of fights and brawls occasionally rang out.

On a night like this, everything seen during the day seemed to be magnified once more.

Walking the streets alone, Yang Chu looked at this bizarre, almost cyberpunk city and the various people living within it, and suddenly felt intensely out of place.

"I don't seem to know where I should go either—"

As he passed the entrance of a nightclub on the western side of Nathan Road, Yang Chu lightly kicked away a can on the ground. Its clattering echoes lingered.

Ever since his consciousness had awakened in this body, he had been occupied with resolving the various problems left behind after the body's subconscious vanished. He had never seriously considered what his next step in this world should be.

Under the immense threat of death, his consciousness had also become far more adept at controlling the body's many systems than he had expected.

Like a craftsman growing ever more skilled, he could not only handle work across multiple assembly lines with ease, but also calmly drink water, eat, and chat with others.

As for the problem of being unable to sleep that had worried him before, his experiment tonight at Sham Shui Po Park Swimming Pool had produced remarkable results. In the water, he could use self-suggestion to hypnotize himself into a state resembling sleep.

Moreover, his brain may have entered some sort of active self-cleansing state, because he actually felt more refreshed after waking.

Of course, in that state, he would completely lose awareness of the outside world. It would certainly be dangerous if something unexpected happened, but for the moment, he had a solution. It was no longer a life-or-death issue.

That also made Yang Chu begin to consider where he should go from here.

"But the original owner of this body was still caught up in trouble, and that kick I threw after waking up seems to have escalated it."

Yang Chu had not forgotten that he was far from safe.

When his consciousness awakened within this body, it naturally inherited the body's original social ties. Though he did not know what those ties were, that did not mean they did not exist.

"Hack him to death!"

Just as Yang Chu wandered aimlessly across Nathan Road and entered a dim alley behind the nightclub he had passed earlier, an angry roar suddenly came from outside the alley entrance.