The Old City, evening.
The sky had already darkened considerably, but the streetlights in the alley had yet to come on.
Xu Yangeng was hunched in the innermost corner of a shabby hole-in-the-wall restaurant, head lowered as he wolfed down the dan dan noodles in his bowl, picking at them with his chopsticks.
After only a few mouthfuls, he would raise his head to glance toward the entrance, checking whether anyone had followed him.
His current situation could be summed up in four words: surrounded on all sides.
No—more accurately, surrounded by thugs on all sides.
To understand how things had come to this, they had to go back to the previous week.
That day, following the address his childhood friend Zhou Ming had given him, Xu Yangeng found a kraft-paper envelope taped beneath a windowsill at a rented apartment in an old tube-shaped residential building in the Old City.
Inside the envelope was a USB drive and seven or eight developed photographs.
The photos showed scenes deep inside a mine.
In them, emaciated miners with vacant, dazed eyes dug for coal in the darkness like walking corpses.
With only a single glance, Xu Yangeng understood everything.
That bastard Zhou Ming had stirred up another hornet’s nest—an enormous one.
And this time, he probably really wasn’t getting out.
Xu Yangeng’s first reaction upon seeing the evidence was to call the police.
But at the last moment, he stopped.
He remembered the final words Zhou Ming had said to him over the phone: “The waters here run too deep. Don’t just hand this stuff over to anyone. Find someone familiar—someone you can trust.”
So he changed his mind. He planned to return to the provincial capital first, then find a police officer he knew and trusted and hand the evidence over in person.
However, the moment he arrived at the bus station, he realized something was wrong.
There were large numbers of tough-looking men loitering around the station plaza. They weren’t lining up or buying tickets. They simply stood there, studying the faces of everyone entering or leaving the station.
For his own safety, he had no choice but to abandon his original plan and hide temporarily in Jinchuan’s Old City.
Over the past few days, he had changed hotels three or four times and even removed the SIM card from his phone. Like a frightened rabbit, he had scurried from place to place through Jinchuan’s streets and alleys.
He could finally understand why Zhou Ming had not dared return home for so many years. The feeling of being watched was truly suffocating.
It was as though someone had pulled a plastic bag over your head and slowly tightened it, making you feel fear, then despair.
And just as he feared, the worst came to pass.
Xu Yangeng had just set down his chopsticks and was preparing to leave when he noticed two men in black through the greasy glass window of the restaurant.
The two young men in black were standing across the street, looking around as if searching for something.
“Damn it. They still found me.”
Xu Yangeng quickly pulled his cap lower and silently told himself, Don’t panic. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Maybe they’re only a couple of salesmen.
But in the next second, his last shred of wishful thinking was shattered.
He saw two more men in black appear across the street. After the four of them regrouped, one pointed toward the noodle shop, and the other three immediately turned their heads in unison to look at the little restaurant where Xu Yangeng was sitting.
His mind exploded with a buzz.
He hurriedly lowered his head, flipped up the hood at the back of his jacket, and pulled it over his head, covering himself as thoroughly as possible.
“I can’t just sit here waiting to die. Run!”
He slapped a ten-yuan bill onto the table, turned around, and dashed toward the restaurant’s kitchen.
This was something he had learned during the past few days of hiding. Small eateries in old neighborhoods usually had a back door leading to the rear alley, which was used for deliveries. At critical moments, it could double as an escape route.
Xu Yangeng swept aside the plastic curtain leading into the kitchen. Under the astonished gazes of several older women sitting on little stools and sorting vegetables or washing dishes, he squeezed through the narrow passageway, shoved open the metal back door, and fled into the alley behind the building.
He ran as fast as he could, taking several turns before finally making it back to the residential building where he was staying temporarily.
He raced up to the fourth floor, pushed open the door, locked it from the inside, and leaned against the door panel, gasping for breath.
But before he had even caught his breath, he glanced down through the window, and his heart instantly sank halfway into his stomach.
Several more young men dressed in black had appeared in the narrow alley below. They were spreading out in pairs and groups, searching for someone. One of them even looked up toward the building, sweeping his gaze across the upper floors while pointing here and there. Xu Yangeng couldn’t make out what he was saying.
Xu Yangeng hurriedly pulled his head back inside, his spine pressed tightly against the wall, cursing under his breath.
Black clothes again!
Damn it, why were there people in black everywhere?!
Countless men in black had suddenly appeared throughout Jinchuan over the past two days. Wherever he went, he ran into them, like they were swarming flies.
There were some at the railway station, some at the bus station, and even some around this rundown residential building where he was hiding.
What was more, all of them wore the same style of black clothing. Anyone could tell they belonged to the same group.
“Oh no, oh no. They’ve mobilized the entire criminal underworld of Jinchuan to hunt me down!”
“I’m a dead man!”
Leaning against the wall, Xu Yangeng closed his eyes in despair.
His mind was filled with images of Old Zhou being tortured in every way imaginable.
He had never actually witnessed any of it, but he couldn’t stop himself from imagining it.
The more he thought about it, the more frightened he became; the more frightened he became, the more he thought about it. The cycle went on and on.
“Old Zhou, you really went and made a mess of things this time!”
“You’re going to get me killed too!”
After crouching in the corner for quite some time, Xu Yangeng vigorously rubbed his face with both hands, forcing himself to pull it together.
“No. I can’t wait here to die.”
He stood up, quietly turned the lock, and crept toward the stairwell.
There were no lights in the corridor. It was pitch-black, save for a motion-activated light at the far end that flickered on and off.
He had barely taken a few steps when a dense chorus of footsteps suddenly rose from below.
He looked down and saw seven or eight men in black running up the stairs. Startled, he quickly pulled back, turned around, and ran in the opposite direction.
This tube-shaped residential building had an old-fashioned ring-shaped layout, with two stairwells at opposite ends—one on the east side and one on the west.
The men in black were coming up from the east, so he ran toward the west.
But just as he reached the western stairwell, he heard another burst of hurried footsteps coming from below.
Xu Yangeng slammed on the brakes, nearly tumbling down the stairs.
There were people on the west side too!
He was trapped in the middle!
“After living for more than forty years, I, Xu Yangeng, have conducted research, published papers, and even won a National Science and Technology Progress Award. Am I really going to meet my end in some dilapidated residential building today?”
Xu Yangeng looked left and right. Gritting his teeth, he pushed open the half-closed door of a nearby apartment and slipped inside.
The family that had lived there had moved out long ago. All that remained in the room was a broken bed with one leg collapsed and an old wardrobe missing half its door.
Without a second thought, Xu Yangeng pulled open the wardrobe door and climbed inside. He pulled the door shut behind him, held his breath, and sat perfectly still.
The wardrobe was thick with dust, making his nose sting repeatedly. He almost sneezed.
But all he could do was clamp his hand over his mouth and nose and force himself to endure the discomfort.
The footsteps outside drew closer and closer, finally stopping at the doorway.
Soon, voices drifted in from outside.
“I clearly saw someone run this way just now.”
“Split up and search. Check every room—don’t miss anything.”
“Move it! We can’t let that bunch get there first!”
“...”
Hearing the exchange, Xu Yangeng’s heart sank once again.
That bunch?
What did they mean?
Had different gangs put a bounty on him?
Yes! That had to be it!
That mob boss must have put out a hit on him, sending every gang in Jinchuan out to search for him. Whoever found him first would collect the money.
No wonder he kept running into men in black wherever he went.
This was bad. He really wasn’t going to get away now!
Outside the wardrobe, the footsteps had already entered the room. He could even hear them rummaging through things.
Xu Yangeng shut his eyes and began frantically reciting in his mind: “Prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony... rule of law...”
Just as he reached “rule of law”—
Bang!
Someone yanked the wardrobe door open from the outside.
Xu Yangeng came face-to-face with the man in black who had opened it.
The man was clearly stunned as well. He obviously hadn’t expected a living person to be hiding inside that battered wardrobe.
The two of them stared at each other, wide-eyed, for several seconds before the man finally came to his senses. He turned toward the hallway and shouted, “Found him! He’s with me!”
“It’s over.” Xu Yangeng was utterly despairing.
At that critical moment, another burst of rapid footsteps came from the doorway. Yet another group had arrived.
“Who are you? Hand him over!”
“Hand him over? Why should we? We found him first!”
“Cut the crap. Lord Tiger said whoever captures him gets double the reward. We’re taking him!”
“Double? What do you mean, double? You’re not with that bunch?”
“What bunch? Which side are you with?”
“We’re Lord Tiger’s men. Who are you?”
“The Wanlong Society!”
The air suddenly fell silent.
The two groups of men in black faced each other in a standoff in the hallway.
The next second, both sides attacked at once.
Crouched inside the wardrobe, Xu Yangeng could only hear a chaotic burst of banging and crashing from outside. People screamed, cursed, and shouted as everything descended into pandemonium.
