Sinister Future

Chapter 1

A sunny afternoon at work can look different for everyone. Some jobs are exhausting, like working on a construction site. Others are comfortable, such as working in an air-conditioned office. And then there are the ones that aren’t tiring but are utterly boring, like handing out flyers on the street.

Zhou Yu and Li Weisi were now standing under the bright Hong Kong sun, distributing brochures for a real estate development.

It was a temporary gig. They’d been at it all day yesterday, and now, on the second day, it was already noon, and the enthusiasm was long gone.

There were no smiles or introductions. Whenever they saw someone passing by, they’d just shove a flyer into their hands without caring whether the person would toss it away immediately.

"These developers are so greedy! The economy’s in the dumps, yet even college graduates like us have to hand out flyers, and housing prices are still sky-high!" Zhou Yu complained to Li Weisi, who wore a pair of old-fashioned, thick-framed glasses, just to pass the time.

Behind the glasses, Li Weisi’s eyes were calm. Unlike Zhou Yu, he didn’t seem bored or frustrated, nor was he particularly enthusiastic. He just quietly continued to hand out the flyers.

"What can you do? More people, less land," Li Weisi replied.

Zhou Yu looked at the stack of brochures in his hand and chuckled bitterly. "At this rate, we’d have to hand out flyers until we’re seventy just to afford a single unit in this development."

Li Weisi pushed his glasses up with a slight smile. "That’s still pretty good. If you want to buy a luxury home, even if you worked until you were a hundred, you wouldn’t have enough. We’d probably need to have started handing out flyers back in the Qing Dynasty."

At that moment, a small truck pulled up beside them. Seeing someone get out, Li Weisi hurried over to hand them a flyer.

The truck driver didn’t even look at it, tossing it aside impatiently.

Li Weisi stepped back. It was normal—many people would throw the flyers away. The real estate company could only ask them not to throw the flyers in bundles; they couldn’t control whether passersby did so.

After handing a few more to passersby, Zhou Yu and Li Weisi leaned against the side of the road and resumed their conversation.

"Xiao Li, what will you do after we finish tomorrow?" Zhou Yu asked. He’d taken this job because he hadn’t found stable work yet, but in his chats with Li Weisi, he learned that Li didn’t seem to have a plan, just going with the flow.

Li Weisi’s eyes flickered slightly. "I don’t know. We’ll see what happens tomorrow."

Zhou Yu shrugged, saying nothing more. He didn’t have a stable job himself and couldn’t offer much help to someone like Li Weisi, who seemed even worse off than he was.

They watched as the truck driver unloaded a wheelchair and helped a young girl into it. He crouched in front of her, whispering something, and after some impatient urging from the girl, he got back into the truck and drove off.

The girl, her hair half covering her face, struggled to wheel herself to the side of the road to check the signpost.

... "I used to cry and cry because I didn’t have shoes, until one day I saw someone without feet..." Happiness is relative. Zhou Yu, who hadn’t found his ideal job after graduation and had ended up doing odd jobs, felt pretty miserable.

But comparing himself to Li Weisi, who seemed a bit lost and silly, Zhou Yu found a sense of balance.

Now, seeing a girl in her prime, just fifteen or sixteen years old, struggling in a wheelchair right in front of him, Zhou Yu felt deeply shaken! Suddenly, his resentment toward fate and the unfairness of society melted away, and he calmly continued handing out flyers to the passing crowd.

~ About ten minutes later, the two were ready to grab lunch before moving to another location to hand out more flyers.

Just as they were about to finish the last few brochures in hand, two young men, cigarettes hanging from their mouths and looking like thugs, stepped in front of them.

"Hey there, pretty boys. You’re out here making money on Brother Blabbermouth's turf without checking in with us first? Don’t you know the rules?" One of the thugs, who had an earring, flicked his cigarette and shoved Li Weisi.

Behind his thick glasses, Li Weisi’s eyes remained calm, and he said nothing.

Zhou Yu, on the other hand, was quick to react. He tilted his head back and shouted, "So what? What’s so great about your Hung Hing? I’m from Tung Sing! We’re just handing out flyers; if it’s a problem, we’ll leave!" The thugs seemed surprised and looked more closely at Zhou Yu, unsure whether he was bluffing or not.

But after all, there wasn’t much they could squeeze out of a couple of flyer distributors, and it wasn’t worth the risk of starting trouble with another gang.

"Alright! Watch yourselves! Don’t let me catch you around here again!" The thug sneered as he squeezed past the two of them and left with his companion.

Zhou Yu exhaled a long breath and patted his chest.

Li Weisi glanced back at the thugs. When he saw them pass by the girl in the wheelchair, they only mocked her, calling her a "cripple," but didn’t harass her further. Only then did he turn away.

"See? You’ve got to learn to handle these guys. If you play it cool, you won’t get hurt."

Zhou Yu watched the thugs leave and then quietly advised Li Weisi, "When they throw out a gang name, you’ve got to immediately drop a rival name of equal stature.

And you have to be confident, even cocky, or they’ll walk all over you. As long as you’re not too unlucky, they’ll usually let it go."

"And... what if they don’t drop a name and just go straight for extortion?" Li Weisi asked casually, glancing over at the girl in the wheelchair.

"Then you better not pretend to be someone you’re not. If they catch you, you’ll be in trouble.

If you’ve got the numbers on your side, stand your ground. If not, just run!

Hell, what you make in a day passing out flyers wouldn’t even cover what they’ll squeeze out of you."

Zhou Yu picked up a bundle of flyers and added, "Alright, let’s call it a day and grab some food."

"Wait for me a minute," Li Weisi said, handing the remaining flyers to Zhou Yu before heading toward the girl in the wheelchair.