A bad day

Baron breathed his last.

Sinner's Flowers sprouted from his wounds, blooming across his entire chest. Dick seemed oblivious, still gripping the knife and mechanically stabbing the corpse.

As though a little more force could drive away the pain in his heart, as though a little more force could bring his family back from the dead.

Dijie tried to draw his gun and fight back, but the poison had taken effect. His hands shook uncontrollably, and when he finally reached his holster, he found it empty.

He looked up. The girl was holding a gun.

Its dark muzzle pointed at Dijie.

The Ruger GP100 was small enough for an officer to draw and hold with one hand, yet it looked enormous in the girl's tiny grip.

"Be good... give it to me!" Dijie's Adam's apple bobbed as he slowly straightened, trying to take the gun.

But the next second, the girl did something incomprehensible.

She turned the muzzle toward her own forehead.

"You didn't hurt me... you're a good person..."

Before Dijie could stop her, the girl pulled the trigger.

Bang!

Blood splattered.

Dijie could only watch as the girl died right before his eyes. In that instant, the shock hit him even harder than Baron's death.

That bullet took the poor child's life-and Dijie's soul along with it.

Trembling, he took the gun from the dead girl's hand, but he no longer knew what to do.

A jumble of footsteps sounded downstairs. Beside him, Dick was still venting his rage on the corpse.

Dijie thought he knew what he should do now.

"Run! They're coming!"

Dijie's roar snapped the boy out of his frenzy. Dick blinked blankly, unable to understand why the crooked cop who had been in cahoots with Baron just moments ago was now telling him to flee.

But this was no time to puzzle over it. The boy scrambled off the bed and ran back to the rooftop.

That was how he had sneaked into Baron's mansion.

Dijie stared numbly at the gun in his hand.

He remembered someone-the leader of the Red Hood Gang who had nearly drowned in the Chemical Pool five years ago.

When Dijie fished him out with a landing net from the bank, the man's lungs were full of water, and the chemicals had left his skin pale and shriveled.

He was crying.

His swollen eyes swam in bloody tears, his two pitiful eyebrows drooping almost to the corners of his mouth, yet a chilling chuckle echoed in his chest.

"Oh! All it takes to ruin a man is one day... one bad day."

"Puddle water splashing on your trouser legs,

"Fallen leaves drifting down your collar,

"The morning bus you missed,

"Scornful looks,

"Brutal shouting,

"Vicious curses,

"A salary that won't feed your family,

"And a woman lying on a metal table..."

He sang of his past in a broken, disjointed tune, then turned his head. His blazing smile seemed about to melt straight through Dijie's eyes.

"I almost forgot. The child in her belly, too."

It hadn't even taken a day. Dijie felt that his life was already ruined. Clutching his gun, he staggered into the hallway like a walking corpse.

Baron's men came toward him.

"Mr. Dijie, the boss..."

He raised his gun and emptied it in an instant, giving them no chance to react.

Two or three gangsters dropped to the floor with anguished cries.

But he had no backup either, and soon fell under the gangsters' return fire.

Mold flourished on the hallway ceiling, shifting like the inkblots on the Rorschach Mask with each rise and fall of his chest.

"What a bad day."

Dijie let out his final breath.

The doorbell woke Qin Wei. Rubbing his temples, he went downstairs to answer it.

"Forgive the intrusion, sir. The work you requested is complete. Please take a look."

Paul, the butler, had already shown the staff from the Asset Appraisal Center around the estate. Now he had come to discuss the selling price with Qin Wei.

He handed Qin Wei a document.

Qin Wei skimmed it. The Asset Appraisal Center had valued the property at around $180 million.

"What do you think?" he asked Paul.

"That depends on whether you need the funds urgently, sir. If so, we could lower the asking price to $173 million. That would ensure a sale within five years..."

"Five years is too long. Three days, at most."

"Three days..." The butler's brow twitched. "In that case, you could perhaps sell the estate to the Asset Appraisal Center at a reduced price. The transaction could be completed immediately, but the price..."

"Stop dragging it out. Tell me."

Paul's contract was about to expire. The sooner the estate sold, the sooner he could sign a new one, but as a professional butler, he had to explain the pros and cons to his employer.

"It would probably fetch only around $120 million. Of that..."

Qin Wei didn't want to hear it.

The estate was a hot potato. Whatever it sold for now would go into his pocket, but once Maroni fell and the estate went up for judicial auction, it would sell for even less-and the money would be confiscated.

He slapped the document against Paul's chest.

"I'm leaving it all to you. Take kickbacks, line your own pockets, whatever-I don't care. Just don't forget to keep the cars in the garage."

The house was useless, but the cars were worth having. The steering wheel in Oswald's car had blown up, and it was still being repaired. He could grab a car from Dodge's garage to get around in.

Then he thought of Selina.

Didn't Catwoman like motorcycles? I wonder if there are any good ones in the garage, like a Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14R or a Suzuki Hayabusa. If there are, I'll send a few over to get closer to her.

The stronger his friendships with the main-story characters, the better.

After giving instructions for the remaining matters, Qin Wei returned to the second floor and patted Oswald, who was snoring like thunder.

"Wake up. Time to get to work!"

"Huh... work? What work?"

Oswald's sleepy eyes were half open, and his hair stuck straight up as though he'd been electrocuted, adding several inches to his height.

"Check your phone. See if anyone's sent you a message about something big happening in the Lower District."

Oswald unlocked his phone and jolted awake at the screen full of missed calls. Almost all of them were from his "uncle," Royce. He had also sent plenty of texts, the latest only five minutes ago.

"Where did you go? Why aren't you answering? The boss gave us a firm order: catch the killer within three days!"

He scrolled through the earlier messages and finally learned that Baron the Madman was dead.

"Baron's dead?! You knew this would happen!"

Oswald stared at Qin Wei in disbelief. Even if Qin Wei had correctly predicted that Dick would seek revenge, how could he have known the boy would succeed?

"Why are you making me sound like some fortune-telling fraud? Didn't we agree from the start? If Dick could kill Baron, that would prove he had some ability and was worth recruiting." Qin Wei fixed his hair in the full-length mirror, then picked up a bottle of styling spray from the cabinet and gave it a few spritzes.

"A fraud? Oh, no, no, no! You're selling yourself short! To me, you're as great and mysterious as a prophet. Give me a chance to kneel and kiss your shoe, and I'll lick right through it."

"You're disgusting. You're not gay, are you?" Qin Wei lashed out with a kick, which Oswald nimbly dodged.

"Joking aside," Oswald said, turning serious, "you want to recruit Dick, but the entire Lower District is hunting him right now. Even people from the Diamond District might get involved. We only just managed to ease Maroni's suspicions. If we openly recruit someone who killed a gang leader now, wouldn't that be declaring war on him?"

"That's true enough."

Qin Wei tossed the styling spray to Oswald and grabbed his jacket from the couch.

"But does Baron really matter to Maroni?"

After spending so much time with Qin Wei, Oswald had grown considerably sharper. A small hint was enough for him to work it out. "You mean Maroni doesn't care who the killer is, as long as someone can take the blame?"

"Exactly. Don't forget the Casino Massacre. The two of us nearly became scapegoats."

"I see. Then let's go!"

Oswald fixed his hair and started downstairs, only for Qin Wei to grab him.

"Where are you charging off to? There's an elevator on the second floor that goes straight to the garage. Don't you want to see what treasures are parked in there?"