Chapter 10

Chapter 10 Tuzha Street, I Rule This Place With an Iron Fist

Inside the storefront.

A bald man draped in a military coat stood on the wooden staircase, sweeping a cold gaze over the muscular young guy Zhu Wei had knocked to the floor, and asked in a low voice: “Whose dog got off its leash and dared to cause trouble in my place?”

Qin Yu felt beads of sweat forming on his forehead. He turned to look toward the entrance and saw more than twenty people already pushing through the door, blocking the exit.

“We’re from the bureau.” Zhu Wei snapped back to his senses, reached into his pants pocket with his left hand, pulled out his badge, and held it to his chest: “Everyone not involved, don’t move. We’re here to investigate a drug trafficking case.”

“Ha.” The bald man let out a cold laugh: “Who’s selling fake drugs here?”

Zhu Wei gripped his gun and pointed toward the counter: “We saw these people making a transaction with our own eyes when we arrived.”

“You saw it, so you represent the law?” The bald man stood motionless on the steps, raised his hand and pointed toward the entrance: “Ask them — who saw anyone in this place selling drugs?”

At that, the twenty-odd people at the entrance said nothing. They just stepped forward with their weapons in hand, surrounding the group from the third unit in the middle of the room.

Zhu Wei stood there in awkward silence, at a loss for words, and feeling a little scared — because not one of the people who had rushed in looked like someone to mess with.

Qin Yu hesitated briefly, then stepped forward to say something.

“What the f**k!”

Just then, the muscular young guy Zhu Wei had knocked down suddenly sat up, clutching his bloodied head and cursing: “You son of a b*tch, you dare hit me here?”

“Don’t move.” The guy standing next to Qi Lin shouted at him.

“Don’t move? Go f**k yourself!” The muscular guy shot up from the floor in an instant, said nothing, and swung his fist straight into Zhu Wei’s head with a thud: “Waving around a crappy gun — you think you’re scaring your daddy?”

Zhu Wei staggered back three or four steps.

“Don’t start anything.”

“Don’t move — that’s assaulting a law enforcement officer.”

The third unit held together. The moment they saw Zhu Wei get hit, they immediately stepped forward and surrounded the muscular guy.

“So what if I assault you?!” The muscular guy had nearly been beaten to death by Zhu Wei moments ago, and now his rage surged. He spun around, grabbed a box cutter from the counter, and charged forward in two strides: “F**k you all — even if Fat Li sent five hundred more people, if I’m not in the mood, none of you are walking out of here.”

With a roar, the muscular guy lunged at the crowd with the knife.

Qi Lin had been dodging, but he never expected the muscular guy, standing right in the middle of the crowd, to thrust first in his direction. Zhu Wei had seen the knife coming and immediately sidestepped out of the way.

“Sh*t!” Qi Lin cursed, realizing he had no time to dodge and could only thrust his backside out to protect his vitals.

“Thud!”

Just as the knife was about to plunge into Qi Lin’s body, Qin Yu shoved through the crowd and caught the incoming blade with one bare hand.

His palm closed around the blade, and blood immediately gushed out, streaming in a thin line onto the floor.

Qi Lin stumbled back two steps, still shaken, staring at Qin Yu in disbelief.

Silence. After a brief silence, the muscular guy glared at Qin Yu and snarled: “You caught a blade with your bare hand — what are you, f**king bulletproof?”

With that, he yanked the knife back and moved to stab again.

Qin Yu’s left hand shot out like lightning and locked onto the guy’s wrist. He looked up toward the middle-aged man on the stairs and called out: “Brother, we didn’t come here to start trouble. The bureau kept getting reports saying fake drugs were being sold here. We had no choice but to come take a look. But the moment we walked in, your guy went for a gun, and my colleague had no choice but to fight back and control the situation.”

The bald man, draped in his military coat, bent down and sat right on the staircase steps, lowered his head, pulled out an e-cigarette, and said nothing.

Qin Yu still had the muscular guy’s wrist in his grip, and continued with a smile: “I just got to Songjiang and don’t know how deep the waters run around Tuzha Street. Since it’s all a misunderstanding and there’s no drug selling going on here, we’ll head back. Does that work for you, brother?”

“If there’s no drug selling here, then what gives you the right to hit people?” The bald man took a drag of his e-cigarette and asked with a smile on his face.

Qin Yu went quiet for a few seconds: “Brother, it’s because of people like you that we have a job. We depend on each other — nobody has it easy. So it’s best if neither side makes things hard for the other. Don’t you think?”

“And if we do make things hard for you, what are you going to do about it?” The muscular guy demanded with a fierce glare.

The bald man took a drag of his e-cigarette, turned his head and spat out a yellowish glob of phlegm, still saying nothing.

Qin Yu paused briefly, kept the smile on his face, and turned to address the bald man: “Brother, we might not be able to crack any cases on Tuzha Street — but once you step off Tuzha Street, don’t you still have business to run?”

The bald man’s arm paused slightly at those words before he opened his mouth: “Let them go.”

“Just let them walk? Then getting hit was for nothing?” The muscular guy shot back at the bald man, then glared at Qin Yu and the others: “You want out? Fine. Strip off your tops and frog-jump your way out of Tuzha Street.”

“Who the f**k do you think you are?!”

Guan Qi, who was normally the most introverted person in the third unit, gripped his gun and shouted.

“Smack!”

Qin Yu heard it and spun around, grabbing Guan Qi’s arm, and said with a serious expression: “Just jump. What’s the big deal.”

Guan Qi replied with frustration: “Team Qin, if we don’t go out, do you think they’ll be doing fine? Fk, with this many of us we could fking…”

“I told you to listen to me.” Qin Yu glared and barked.

Guan Qi clenched his teeth and said nothing more.

“Take off your tops and frog-jump out.” Qin Yu turned and called out to his own people.

Up on the staircase, the bald man suddenly asked in a quiet, measured tone: “There are plenty of people in this line of work — why’d you come after us here on Tuzha Street specifically?”

Qin Yu paused and replied: “We got some reports, and the higher-ups told us to come check it out. I don’t really know the details either.”

The bald man slowly rose to his feet, stepped up toward the second floor, and spoke with his back to Qin Yu: “Tuzha Street is a bit rough — and it doesn’t take kindly to strangers. Don’t come poking around here when there’s nothing going on. With all the people out there, one stab each, and where would your bureau even start looking for suspects?”

With that, the bald man disappeared up the staircase.

……

Five minutes later.

All eight officers, including Qin Yu, were shirtless, crouched in a row, frog-jumping their way out toward the edge of Tuzha Street.

Dozens of young men lining the street, weapons in hand, watched them in cold silence without a word.

On the buildings lining both sides of the street, nearly every window was open. Some people smoked, some stood with arms crossed, all watching Qin Yu and the others hop and bounce their way toward the perimeter with blank expressions.

No one knew how long the silence lasted before someone on the building to the right suddenly shouted: “CNM, come back and we’ll kill you.”

The roar echoed long into the night.

Then, a barrage of glass bottles, medicine jars, and discarded junk came crashing down from the upper floors.

“Run!”

Qin Yu was the first to jump to his feet and shout, and the group fled in a sorry state, disappearing into the darkness.

……

Second floor of the storefront.

The bald man sat in a worn wooden chair, frowning at the muscular young guy who was wrapping bandages around his head: “Did everyone clear out?”

“Yeah, they’re all gone.” The muscular guy nodded.

“Get a few guys over here and move the goods.” The bald man said quietly: “Hold off on pushing product for the next few days. Keep a low profile.”

The muscular guy was taken aback: “You scared, Third Uncle? Come on — those guys just now were clearly small-time cops who didn’t know what they were walking into. Do we really need to worry about them? You know what the street price on that stuff is right now — there are sick people all over Tuzha Street counting on us. I shout one word and thousands of people on this street will back us up. Do we really need to bow to them?”

“Do what I tell you, and stop giving me grief.” The bald man crossed his arms and said plainly: “Go get two guys, now.”

“I… I… ugh, the longer we do this the more timid we get.” Ma Lao’er grumbled under his breath with clear resentment, but in the end couldn’t argue with Third Uncle, and headed out the door to call the guys to move the goods.

……

On the street at the edge of Tuzha Street.

Qin Yu first put his shirt back on, then pulled a first aid kit from the car and haphazardly wrapped his injured palm in bandages.

Beside the vehicle, Guan Qi fumed: “F**k, the law enforcement guys couldn’t handle the criminals, and in the end they stripped us and made us frog-jump out of there… this is too humiliating. If word gets back to the unit, we’ll never live it down.”

“We shouldn’t have backed down — if we hadn’t taken off our clothes, what could they have actually done to us?!” Zhu Wei, now full of bravado, turned on Qin Yu: “You’re just too gutless. Let me tell you, cases in Songjiang aren’t handled like this… you’re the team leader, and at the critical moment you didn’t step up…”

Qin Yu bit down on the bandage to tighten it, looked up at everyone and said: “Gather around. I need to say something.”

“What for?” Guan Qi asked.

“Get over here!” Qin Yu frowned and barked.

Everyone exchanged glances, all in low spirits — some even a little impatient — as they walked over to Qin Yu.

“Check your ammo. Anyone without a vest, grab one from the car. Lao Hei and Xiao Liu, stay on the vehicles…” Qin Yu gave instructions to everyone without any expression on his face.

Everyone listened to Qin Yu, looking completely baffled.

……

About ten minutes later, inside the storefront.

Ma Lao’er stood at the back door directing three guys around his age: “The car won’t be here for a bit — once you’re done loading up this room, go check the third shop. There’s more stuff there.”

“Where are we taking the goods?” someone asked.

“Back to the warehouse first.” Ma Lao’er complained lazily: “Third Uncle is just being a coward — all this pointless shuffling around. If you ask me, just leave the stuff here and keep selling…”

“Tap tap!”

Before he could finish, footsteps suddenly came from the left side of the back door.

Ma Lao’er turned around with his cigarette in hand, and Qin Yu came charging in wearing a light green bulletproof vest and holding a riot shotgun over half a meter long.

“Sh*t!”

“Bang!”

Qin Yu’s gaze was ice cold. He raised his right leg and drove his foot straight into Ma Lao’er’s chest.

“Whoosh!”

“Thud!”

Ma Lao’er flew back half a meter, his back crashing into three crates of goods, and he hit the ground in a daze.

“Don’t move. Move and I’ll put you down.” Guan Qi pressed his gun to Ma Lao’er’s head.

“Crash!”

Qin Yu didn’t stop for a second — he yanked open the door and stormed into the storefront, heading straight for the second floor.

Inside the second-floor room, a walkie-talkie crackled with static as a drug dealer running downstairs shouted: “Third Uncle, those people are back.”

Third Uncle froze, then stood up and reached for his gun.

“Clack!”

Qin Yu racked the slide and stepped into the room, tilting his head at Third Uncle: “Tuzha Street’s layout is too complicated — we were jumping for a long time and still couldn’t find our way out. Brother, come with us and show us the way.”

Third Uncle stared at Qin Yu in stunned disbelief: “A reversal…!”