Special District 9

“He’s pressing against the door,” the Russian man standing on the left said with a cold glint in his eyes. “Give me some space.”

The other two quickly retreated a few steps to the side.

Bang bang bang!

After several gunshots, the center of the wooden door was punctured with eight, glaring bullet holes.

Peng! Huala!

One of the Russian men who had retreated to the side lifted his leg and kicked at the center of the door, smashing a gaping hole through it.

Inside the room, there was a cupboard that stood between Qin Yu and the door, so it was already too late for him to approach the door by the moment the fixers had smashed a hole into it.

Three guns were swiftly inserted through the hole that the Russian man had kicked open.

“Goddamnit!”

With reddened eyes, Qin Yu held onto the sides of the cupboard, and exerting all of his strength, he pulled it up strenuously.

The cupboard quickly rose up to a diagonal position, moving to cover up the hole that had just been created by the fixers a moment ago.

Gunshots echoed in the corridor. Pilipala, the bullets struck the cupboard and the smell of gunpowder wafted in the air.

Pushing his feet against the wooden panels on the ground that were stained with his blood, Qin Yu used his back to prop up the cupboard all the way to a standing position, finally blocking off access to the room once more.

“Fuck!” the woolen cap man cursed. He turned to his companions and asked, “Did you bring grenades?”

“We didn’t,” the other two Russian men shook their heads and replied.

“Hurry up and ram it down!”

The three men had lost their line of sight into the room. The cupboard blocking their path had a thickness of around half a meter, and even though the center part of the cupboard was hollow, there were two thick wooden panels at the front and the back.

When they shot the cupboard, the outcome was entirely dependent on luck. Some of them were able to pierce through the cupboard whereas others would be lodged into the back wooden panel.

Qin Yu had scrimped for many years in the Development District in order to get here. It wasn’t easy for him to find a place where he could live peacefully and stably, so there was no way he could die just like that. Using all of the strength he could draw from his tall and resilient physique, he desperately held the cupboard in place, hoping that it could bring him a sliver of hope to survive.

This situation continued for around three minutes before everything went silent. It was at this moment that strength began flowing out of Qin Yu’s body. Having lost too much blood from the gunshot, he felt his head spinning around him. Despite so, he still continued holding the cupboard in place while shaking his head violently to keep himself conscious.

On the first floor.The woolen cap man had gone down to take the fire extinguisher ax from the entrance area of the shophouse when he saw two cars cruising over at an extremely fast speed.

Eeeeee!

The screeching sound of car tires echoed as the two cars braked sharply by the roadside.

“Damn it!” the woolen cap man cursed. He immediately turned to his companions and shouted, “That lad called for reinforcements. Let’s go!”

The two Russian men quickly rushed out from the shophouse as they fired decisively toward the two cars.

After a series of intense gunshots, Qin Yu’s phone finally rang.

“Hello?”

“We encountered them below…” Zhu Wei said. “Don’t panic, we’re rushing up right now.”

Hearing those words, the tension in Qin Yu’s body finally loosened.

…

At the intersection between Dirt Street and Fortune Road, dozens of police vehicles were parked by the side, and three hundred policemen armed with bulletproof vests and riot shields rushed forward.

“All teams, listen to my commands. Disperse those who are causing trouble in the area,” the vice superintendent of the Police Bureau ordered through the walkie talkie. “Pay careful heed to your exertion of force. Do not escalate the conflict no matter what happens. I repeat again. Our aim is to disperse them…”

After a series of commands, the three hundred policemen began marching into Dirt Street with their riot shields held upright.

The loud and orderly sound of their marching echoed throughout the snowy Dirt Street. Barely after the policemen marched fifty meters forward in their neat formation, they were already astounded by the sight before them.

Gunfire could be heard everywhere, and self-made Molotov cocktails were thrown around the area. In this narrow street, there were over a thousand people clashing chaotically with one another.

The glass windows on both sides of the road were shattered, and there were quite a few houses that were on fire. Daggers, bats, and all sorts of violent weapons could be seen practically everywhere.

Some were running desperately for their safety, some were groaning on the ground from the injuries they had suffered, and some were busy smashing their weapons into their enemies… It was so chaotic that it felt like someone had brought hell to the living world.

“Platoon 2, advance.”

“Platoon 3, advance.”

“Security troopers, advance.”

“…!”

Each platoon commander in the Police Bureaus were using their own platoon’s frequency to yell orders through the walkie talkie. Just like that, the policemen were slowly advancing forth.

“Put down your weapons and squat on the floor!”

“Hands on your head!”

“Stop moving or we’ll fire!”

“…!

The policemen kept barking orders as they came into contact with the fighting crowd, but both sides had already gone red-eyed fighting one another. With all that had happened recently, this fight ignited all of their suppressed emotions at once. The agitated crowd simply couldn’t be restrained so easily.

At the same time, some of those living in the slums took their self-made Molotov cocktails and threw them down in support of the Ma Family.

Boom!

“He’s on fire!”

“Hold your shields up. There are people tossing things from above.”

“…!”

There were only three hundred people in the Police Bureau in total, and they had received an absolute order not to do anything that would escalate the conflict. As a result, their hands were tied when dealing with these people. After all, they couldn’t just draw their guns and embark on a mindless slaughter.

As a result, shortly after marching into Dirt Street, the policemen were swiftly scattered by the Molotov cocktails and the charging crowd.

Five policemen of Platoon 3 were going to rush forward to hold down a brawny man who was busy hacking at someone when a bunch of helpers who had white cloth tied around their arms suddenly raised their guns and killed one of them.

In the depths of Dirt Street.

A man in charge of the sales of medicine in Yuan Hua’s company led eight people to beat a forty-year-old man to death amidst the dirty alley.

After slicing the neck of this man, the middle-aged man bellowed, “Tell Old Ma that if he doesn’t get out of Dirt Street within three days, I’ll have his whole family massacred!”

…

At the entrance of a storage facility located in an alley, Old Ma took off his military coat as he roared furiously with reddened eyes, “Those bunch of fuckers want to have a go at it, huh? Fine, let’s go to hell together then! Everyone, hear my words. If you still want to make a living out of the medicine route, pick up your weapons and charge to the Majestic Palace Entertainment City. If we fail to stand our ground, we won’t have a place in Songjiang anymore!”

“Get those bloody assholes!”

“Go, let’s march to the Majestic Palace Entertainment City.”

“…!”

Over a hundred people who were living off the Ma Family’s medicine route roared in agreement.

…

At the entrance of Fortune Road.

In less than ten minutes after charging into Dirt Street, the three hundred policemen were forced to retreat tragically. Dozens had been injured, and there were three casualties.

Standing by his car, the vice superintendent called Old Li’s number with an awful look on his face.

“How is the situation?”

“It’s worse than I thought. They have lost their rationality. I sent the platoons in, but they ended up getting squeezed out,” the vice superintendent replied with a sigh. “We should call the headquarters to have them send reinforcements. It’ll be hard for us to curb this riot by ourselves.”

…

On the second floor of the villa in New Epoch Road.

Yuan Hua was currently playing mahjong with three bosses of his company’s subsidiaries.

“If this thing blows out of proportion, won’t it be hard for us to resolve the situation too?” a bald man asked with a frown. “I have already received many calls from our connections over at the Police Headquarters, and it feels like they are starting to lose their temper.”

“If we don’t do this, Old Ma wouldn’t know who he is messing with,” Yuan Hua replied calmly. “Tell our brothers that if they were to lose their life, I’ll compensate their family handsomely. If they get captured, I’ll use all of my connections to get them out. What is the use of having money and connections when we don’t use them when we need to? We’ll let Old Ma know that he’s nothing more than an ant before us through this!”

“What about our connections with the Police Headquarters? Are you going to return their call?” the bald man asked.

“Don’t bother,” Yuan Hue replied with a cold sneer. “If they want to get a share of profits from the medicine trade, they would do well to clean up behind us. Why should I give money to them if they don’t do their work? Keep them on hold. We’ll get to them once this is over.”

…

In the Police Bureau, Superintendent Li personally made a call to Old Ma, but the latter didn’t pick up the call. This caused Superintendent Li to fly into a rage. He smacked his table as he roared, “Give a call to the military! I don’t believe that those medicine smugglers would really be able to flip the heavens around!”

“According to the standard procedures, we should first inform and seek the directive of the headquarters first,” the senator representing the Police Bureaus advised out of goodwill.

In response to that, Superintendent Li waved his hand and replied, “Yuan Hua has connections with the headquarters. If we go by the standard procedure, it’s likely that those above will keep us waiting with their lengthy bureaucratic procedures. By then, who knows how many people would have died in Dirt Street by then? And at the end of all of this, who do you think will be the one to shoulder the responsibility? It would be me!”

The senator was stunned for a moment before nodding, “Yes, you’re right.”

“Give a call to Mateo of the military. Tell him that I, Old Li, need a favor from him to suppress the chaos,” Superintendent Li said anxiously. “We need to resolve this quickly. We can’t risk any further complications.”

“I’ll head over right now!” the senator nodded before leaving.