Special District 9

Old Cat stood up and waved his hand boisterously, “Hey Brother Ma, give me a cigarette.”

“Who are you calling your brother? I am older than your father!” Old Ma was speechless by how chummy Old Cat was behaving.

“We’re all the children of the pugilistic world. It feels more right to call you brother,” Old Cat replied with a grin. “Don’t be stingy and give me one.”

Old Ma rolled his eyes as he took out a box of traditional cigarettes from his pocket as he asked, “So, when will you be able to get Damin and Ma Lao-er out?”

Old Cat snatched the whole box over before replying cheerily, “We’re all standing on the same line now. You can trust us to get it done soon.”

“Give my cigarettes back to me.”

“Don’t be so stingy. It’s easy for you to procure such cigarettes because you meet with people from all walks of life in your line of work… Policemen like us would be counting our blessings if we could even lay our hands on one!” Old Cat replied as he shamelessly placed the box of cigarettes into his pocket. “Thanks, Brother Ma.”

“Scram!” Old Ma couldn’t be bothered to argue with Old Cat anymore. He turned his head to the more mature and reliable Qin Yu and asked, “When can they be released?”

Qin Yu blinked his eyes before replying, “It’s not realistic to release the two of them.”

Old Ma frowned upon hearing those words, “Child, aren’t you reneging on our previous agreement? You told me that you would get Damin and Ma Lao-er out if I helped you, so what do you mean by this?”

“Uncle Ma, you are a smart man, so I won’t waste your time by beating around the bush,” Qin Yu spoke with an earnest look on his face. “You bailed Qi Lin out in hopes that he might have some leads to his older brother’s supply route. I’m not wrong about that, right? If Qi Lin wasn’t related to Ah Long at all, even if I kneeled down and kowtowed to you, you still wouldn’t have gone directly against Yuan Ke back then.”

Old Ma didn’t respond right away.

“To be honest, you benefited quite a bit through this too. In the past, you weren’t able to reach out to our Old Li at all, but after this series of events, we can be considered to be on the same team now, right?” Qin Yu said with a smile.

“We’re all adults here, so let’s not play unnecessary mind games. You should be well aware of the situation surrounding Ma Lao-er and Damin. Smuggling 5 kilograms of drugs is enough to warrant capital punishment, and there must be at least 100 kilograms of drugs based on what we got during the day of the arrest. You also know that this case was under Yuan Ke back then, and now that we have fallen out with him, do you think that it’s realistic for me to get both of them out from his clutches?”

Old Ma’s expression turned livid as he listened to Qin Yu’s words. He subconsciously reached into his pocket to grab his cigarette box, only to remember that it had already been taken away by Old Cat.

“Come come, I have an e-cigarette that I can share with you.” Old Cat took out an e-cigarette that he had used before and passed it over to Old Ma pretentiously.

“Scram!” Old Ma berated. He then turned to Qin Yu and asked, “To what extent are you able to get the matter done?”

“I’ve already reported the matter to Old Li. His advice is to sacrifice one of them and have him carry all of the blame. That way, we can fish the other one out,” Qin Yu replied. “It’s fortunate that Ma Lao-er and Damin have been very tight-lipped so far, so they haven’t given anything away yet. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to get this matter done no matter who you find. After all, the evidence is all in place.”

“Is there no other way? Old Ma asked again.

“There isn’t,” Qin Yu shook his head. “You need to quickly make your choice. We have already fallen out with Yuan Ke. If he were to resolve the case personally, it’ll be hard for us to do anything afterward.”

Old Ma was someone who had braved through many storms and rose through the ranks in a place as complicated as Dirt Street, so he wasn’t the indecisive type. Once he understood the situation, he thought about the matter for two minutes before making his choice, “Get Ma Lao-er out.”

“Alright,” Qin Yu nodded. “I’ll give them a heads up during the interrogation.”

“How long will Damin be sentenced for?” Old Ma asked again. “Can he keep his life?”

“It’ll be hard. The amount of drugs we took in already exceeded the official limit of 5 kilograms. It’ll be hard to fight for life imprisonment,” Qin Yu shook his head.

“No, that won’t do. He mustn’t die,” Old Ma shook his head. “You must keep him alive at any cost.”

Qin Yu scratched his head upon hearing those words before replying, “… If you really want to give it a try, you might have to fork out quite a bit.”

Old Ma frowned upon hearing those words, “Fork out quite a bit?”

“Why are you feigning ignorance right now? We need to pull some strings in the shadows in order to get the job done! How else are we going to get the others to do as we say?” Old Cat rolled his eyes and interjected.

Old Ma glanced at the two of them before sneering, “Playing games with me, huh?”

“What do you mean by playing games? Shouldn’t you be familiar with how the Police Bureau runs by now?” Old Cat replied impatiently. “Even I’d have to pull some connections in order to be promoted, let alone something as major as this!”

Old Ma gnashed his teeth before asking the two of them, “How much will it cost?”

“I think 30,000 should be enough to keep his life.” Old Cat turned to Qin Yu and asked, “What do you think?”

“Do we really need that much? I think 25,000 should be enough,” Qin Yu replied with a frown.

“Are you shitting on me? Just the prosecutor’s side will need at least 15,000, and we still need to make some favors here and there in the Police Bureau. I’m telling you, 30,000 is already the lowest estimate I have come up with!” Old Cat replied firmly. “This is a huge case, you know! It’s not something we can get done just by fooling around!”

“Aiya, that really is a bummer. We can’t possibly ask Uncle Ma for that much money. After all…” Qin Yu looked at Old Ma with a conflicted look on his face, and it looked like he had a lot to say about this matter.

“Enough!” Old Ma bellowed in annoyance. “Drop the act! I’m not interested in watching your little skit.”

The two of them immediately fell silent.

“I’ll fork out the 30,000,” Old Ma replied decisively. “How far do you think you can go with the case?”

Qin Yu pondered for a moment before replying, “Illegal possession of drugs. The first arrest failed, and we didn’t obtain any evidence from the scene. As for the second arrest, we only managed to secure the goods, but we failed to catch you all in the act. As long as Damin insists that he’s just an intermediary for storing the goods, there should be no problem at all.”

“How long will Damin be sentenced for?” Old Ma asked again.

“I reckon around 15 years.”

“…!” Seeing how Qin Yu was able to answer his question with confidence, Old Ma suddenly found himself at a loss of words. A vein popped out on his temple as he cursed, “You bastards have already thought up your lines before calling me…”

“It goes without saying that we would have to make some preparations before talking to someone of your standing,” Old Cat replied.

“You two wily foxes…” Old Ma spat coldly.

The two of them chuckled softly, not replying to the remark at all.

“Fine, we’ll do it this way then. I’ll get my men to send the money to you tomorrow.”

The reason why Old Ma agreed to it was because he knew that he had no choice but to fork out this money. Otherwise, why should the officials protect him? Besides, this was also an opportunity to build up this connection too.

“Uncle Ma, Old Li told you to lie low for the time being,” Qin Yu instructed.

“Got it.” Old Ma nodded before walking away.

…

Half an hour later.

Qin Yu and Old Cat walked down a street together, chatting excitedly with one another.

“How should we split the 30,000?” Qin Yu asked.

“We’ll take 5000 each before giving the rest to Old Li?” Old Cat proposed.

“I want to give a portion of it to the members of my squad too,” Qin Yu said. “Zhu Wei stood on my side that day, and they have put quite a bit of effort into cracking the medicine smuggling case too.”

“Then we’ll give Old Li 15,000, and the remaining 5000 can be split amongst your squad members,” Old Cat replied without any hesitation. He wasn’t the type to get overly obsessed over money, so he wasn’t too concerned about it.

“Sounds good with me.” Qin Yu nodded in agreement.

“I think he would have forked out 50,000 if we had asked for it,” Old Cat grumbled regretfully. “We were too timid.”

“Haha, you greedy bastard!” Qin Yu burst into laughter.

…

Huge crowds were gathered in a certain residence inside New Epoch Road. There were many flower stands placed neatly by the sides. A white cloth hanging before an altar drifted along with the wind, creating a melancholic atmosphere in the air.

“Brother Hua.”

“Boss.”

“Aiyo, Yuan Hua is here?”

“Hua, my friend. Why does your complexion look so bad?”

“…!”As soon as Yuan Hua walked through the entrance, those in the vicinity quickly greeted him. There were people of all races, and their greetings varied from one another. Just from this in itself, it could be seen just how great Yuan Hua’s influence in Special District 9 was.

Yuan Hua nodded his head in acknowledgment. From time to time, he would stop and chat with a few closer acquaintances. It took a while before he finally entered the central room.

“May the guest step forward to offer his incense!” the person managing the funeral shouted.

Yuan Wei’s wife walked over and passed a few joss sticks, which was a rare commodity in this era, over to Yuan Hua.

Yuan Hua first bowed to Yuan Wei’s wife before personally inserting the incense sticks in the pots placed before the photos of the deceased, Yuan Wei and Tiger.

“… Yuan Hua, what do I do from now on?” Yuan Wei’s wife burst into tears as she fell to the floor in despair.

Yuan Hua walked over to support his little aunt back to her feet as he said, “After the funeral, you’ll move over to my home. I’ll take care of you and the kids.”

“Yuan Hua, my husband died a wrongful death!”

“An eye for an eye, your husband’s grievances will be redressed,” Yuan Hua said as he patted his little aunt’s shoulder. “Control yourself a little. There are outsiders here.”

Little aunt bit her lips as she nodded her head.

Yuan Hua glanced at the core members of his group in the room and instructed, “Follow me to the second floor for a meeting.”

…

Ten minutes later.

Yuan Hua sat on a wooden chair and addressed the group gathered before him, “It’ll be hard for us to pry the supply route out of Qi Lin’s hands in the short-run. However, we can still mitigate the threat by getting rid of the Ma Family so that they wouldn’t be able to re-establish this supply route. To do so, we’ll have to shake things up in Dirt Street a little.”

The group in the room nodded in agreement.

“Given the current state of affairs, there’s no need to worry about things blowing out of proportion anymore. We need to settle this problem once and for all,” Yuan Hua said. He put up one finger up before continuing on, “One month. We’ll sweep the Ma Family out of Dirt Street within this period of time.”

“Old Ma is likely to be in cahoots with Superintendent Li. Shouldn’t we take this into consideration as well?” the small-framed man asked with a frown.

Yuan Ke pondered for a moment before replying, “I’ll settle the pressure coming from the officials above. You just need to be responsible for what happens on the ground.”

“We understand.”

The crowd nodded.