Top-Notch Enforcer

Chapter 3

"f**k your mom, who the hell do you think you are?"

If Fatty had claimed he struck first, Yang Lei might have actually tried to reason with him. But this guy clearly had backing, and he was deliberately provoking him. The two curse words were particularly vile—the filthiest profanity imaginable. The syllable for "thing" hadn't even faded before Yang Lei made his move.

The details of the fight didn't matter; what mattered was that within just a few moves, Fatty was curled up on the floor, clutching his head, taking a beating without any chance to fight back. No one else stepped in—it was just Yang Lei dealing with him alone. He kicked him, blow after blow. With every kick, Fatty let out a miserable scream, so blood-curdling that everyone in the pool hall stood far away, too terrified to approach. Just listening to it was enough to send shivers down their spines.

"You dare to hit me! ... Do you even know who my cousin is?" Fatty screamed, still talking tough despite the beating.

"I don't give a damn who your cousin is!" Yang Lei kicked him even harder. He hated it when losers resorted to the "Do you know who my [relative] is?" line—it was pathetic.

Some of the pool hall's staff rushed out to help, but there weren't many of them; the others must have been out running errands. The numbers were no match, and Yang Lei's crew made short work of them, leaving the pool hall in a complete mess.

Yang Lei was about to stop, thinking it was enough, when he heard the blood-soaked Fatty let out a shriek toward the entrance: "Brother!"

Yang Lei turned around. In that split second, a brick whistled through the air and smashed into his head. He hadn't even sensed anyone approaching from behind. Blood poured from his forehead, blurring his vision. Through the red haze, he saw a man—tall, lean, and impeccably clean. With a blank expression, the man slammed a second brick into Yang Lei's face.

Looking back years later, the deepest impression burned into Yang Lei's mind was that man's white shirt. It was dazzlingly, purely white—spotless. Rarely did fighters dress so neatly; most were either shirtless, in tank tops, or wearing baggy bell-bottoms. But that white shirt was soon stained red—Yang Lei's blood.

Yang Lei hadn't brought any weapons. He regretted it. The other guy wasn't armed with a knife either; they were fighting bare-handed. Yang Lei knew grappling; in a one-on-one, he was a master. The two bricks had only ignited his ferocity. He reached out to grab the man's hair and lifted his leg, aiming a devastating kick at the man's knee. In countless fights, this move had rarely failed—it was a fight-ender; one kick to the knee, and the opponent would be down, unable to get up.

But now, perhaps because his eyes were blurred with blood, or perhaps because the man was too fast, Yang Lei's grab missed completely. Instead, his arms were twisted back, and a vicious knee strike slammed brutally into his gut. The blow left Yang Lei dizzy. Several more brutal knees followed, each hitting a vital spot.

There was a technique to knee strikes. Amateurs might push hard, causing only surface pain, but a true expert drives the knee into the internal organs—ruthless and precise. If the force isn't controlled, it can rupture organs, cause internal bleeding, and even kill. As an expert himself, Yang Lei knew instantly that this man was aiming for his organs with zero hesitation or error. As the saying goes, you know a master by his first move. Yang Lei knew immediately: this was no ordinary street thug.

By now, a crowd had rushed in. The pool hall's main force had returned with the man in the white shirt, and the tables had turned—now it was Yang Lei's crew getting beaten down. The man in the white shirt let go of Yang Lei, and several others stepped forward, flashing large machetes and hacking at him. But Yang Lei was a tough bastard. He didn't beg for mercy. With every s***h, he spat out a curse: "f**k your uncle." He endured it all.

Yang Lei’s brothers were used to seeing him dish out beatings; they had never seen anyone take Yang Lei down in a single exchange. But they were loyal—none of them abandoned Yang Lei to flee. They were cornered in the pool hall and surrounded, taking a brutal beating. As the blades fell on Yang Lei, he screamed at the top of his lungs, "I’m the one who beat up your brother! Don’t you f*****g touch my men!"

"Enough!" The man in the white shirt called a halt.

"You’ve got guts." The man in the white shirt looked down at Yang Lei. Several deep gashes from the machetes marred Yang Lei’s back, and blood streamed from his head and face, making him look terrifying.

Yang Lei struggled to his feet. Covered in blood, his eyes still burned with defiance as he stared silently at the man in the white shirt.

"Get lost," the man said.

"Cousin! You’re just letting him go?" Fatty wasn’t ready to let it go.

"Let them pass!" The dozens of men scattered, clearing a path for Yang Lei’s crew.

It was the most crushing defeat Yang Lei had suffered since entering the underworld. He had clashed with tough opponents before, but he had never taken such a massive fall. Would Yang Lei swallow this humiliation after suffering such a huge loss? Absolutely not! He wanted revenge.

After lying in the hospital for a few days, Yang Lei got an earful from Yan Ziyi.

"You have no sense of proportion!" Yan Ziyi was exasperated by Yang Lei’s recklessness. "You went in fighting without knowing who owns the Guangming Pool Hall? Even I avoid provoking them!"

In truth, Yang Lei did know. No one in the underworld was unaware. Guangming Pool Hall belonged to Luo Jiu. Luo Jiu was a major underworld boss, a name on par with Yan Ziyi. Known as "Brother Jiu" in the streets, he had fled to Fujian and Guangdong in the 1980s with a murder charge on his head. When he returned, he served time in prison, where he gathered a band of brothers who would die for him.

After his release, the underworld treated Luo Jiu with a mix of respect and fear. Unlike the mild-mannered Yan Ziyi, Luo Jiu was a ruthless character who always left his opponents injured. However, he was a man of honor and rarely struck first. After getting out, he opened Guangming Pool Hall and several arcades, commanding a large crew. He and Yan Ziyi had both dominated the Jianghai underworld in the 80s; no one dared to mess with them. Though Luo Jiu’s business empire wasn’t as large as Yan Ziyi’s now, his reputation was just as formidable, and the two had always shared a mutual respect.

The fight Yang Lei started at Guangming Pool Hall was likely the first time since its opening that a low-level subordinate had dared to cause trouble. It was like digging up the grave of the God of Death—Yang Lei was bound to make a name for himself, whether he wanted to or not.

"He ambushed me first! Otherwise, he wouldn’t have landed a hit!" Yang Lei remained unconvinced. Just thinking about those two bricks from the man in the white shirt made his blood boil.

"He wouldn’t have feared you even in a fair fight!" Yan Ziyi was annoyed by the young man’s narrow view of the world. "You think you’re the only one who can fight? Do you even know who you were fighting?"

"Who?"

"Fang Yu!"

...

Yang Lei fell silent.

Any thug with even a slight presence in Jianghai knew that Fang Yu was Luo Jiu’s number one general, his ace enforcer. A gangster who hadn’t heard of Yan Ziyi and Luo Jiu must be deaf. A gangster who hadn’t heard of Fang Yu’s name had at least one deaf ear.

How formidable was Fang Yu? The new recruits to the underworld wouldn’t know, as Fang Yu rarely fought personally anymore. But for those who had been around for a few years, mentioning Fang Yu sparked endless conversation. The bloody battle at the plastics factory, the solo duel with Nan Batian, the furious destruction of the Seafood Grand Hotel—each was a major underworld event. Gangsters in Jianghai loved to recount the details of these incidents. To have experienced them, or even just witnessed them, was a badge of honor that commanded respect and earned one the title of "Big Brother" from the younger generation.

And Fang Yu, the protagonist of these legends, was a name known to all.

Of course, Yang Lei knew the name. But he had imagined Fang Yu to be some middle-aged thug in his thirties at least. He had never connected the man in the white shirt with the legendary ace enforcer. The shock was immense, primarily because Fang Yu looked only a few years older than him!

But was Yang Lei the type to back down? Absolutely not. For an ordinary person, losing to Fang Yu wouldn’t be considered a defeat—it was nothing to be ashamed of. But Yang Lei was different. He didn’t care who his opponent was; a loss was a loss, and he only cared about the result. His brothers had been slashed and injured to varying degrees. Even if he wasn’t fighting for himself, he had to settle this score for them.

So, as soon as he was discharged from the hospital, Yang Lei went to find Fang Yu alone, keeping it secret from both Yan Ziyi and his own brothers. He knew if anyone else found out, they would have stopped him.

Yang Lei wore a jacket with sleeves long enough to conceal a triangular bayonet in his hand, with a large switchblade tucked in his pocket. He had tracked down Fang Yu’s residence and lay in wait at the entrance of the alley. Yang Lei was patient. He knew that Guangming Pool Hall was too crowded for him to get close to Fang Yu; he needed to fight him here, one-on-one, with real weapons.

He waited until around eight or nine in the evening, when Fang Yu finally returned alone on a motorcycle. Yang Lei watched him closely. Fang Yu was wearing a white shirt again, as if it were his signature. Yang Lei gripped the bayonet tightly, his eyes cold and calm. Yan Ziyi had once described that look as the eyes of a "wolf cub"—the natural gaze of a born fighter.

However, Fang Yu stopped his bike before reaching Yang Lei’s ambush spot. He was talking to an old woman selling sunflower seeds.

"How much for the seeds?"

"One yuan per kilogram," the old woman replied weakly. Her hair was snow-white, and her shriveled, tiny frame shivered in the autumn wind as she sat on the ground.

Fang Yu handed her ten ten-yuan bills—one hundred yuan in total. "I’ll take it all."

He picked up the remaining plastic bags of seeds from the ground. "Go home," Fang Yu said to the old woman.

"Young man, here’s your change."

"Keep it."

As Fang Yu turned to leave, the old woman spoke up. "Are you Yu-zi? Yu-zi, when is my Da Hu coming home? He’s a good boy. He called me before he went into custody. He said he’d be out in a few days, coming back to celebrate the New Year with me." The old woman’s face was filled with longing.