Top-Notch Enforcer

Chapter 2

Unexpectedly, that day Pang Donggua’s crew ran into someone who didn’t play by their rules. They flashed their blades, but instead of scattering, the other side charged. The kid who had dropped Pang Donggua at the start didn’t flinch. He pulled out a big switchblade and drove it into the thigh of a man swinging at him. The guy screamed.

With that blade in his hand, nobody could get close. He forced several machete-wielding thugs back, then stabbed another man who was hacking at one of his brothers.

Slashing and stabbing are two different things. A s***h rarely kills. A stab can. Seeing how ruthless and reckless the kid was, Pang Donggua’s men started to back off. They were tough, but they didn’t want a body on their hands. Once fear takes hold in a fight, everything flips. Pang Donggua’s crew broke and ran. The kid jumped onto a table, chasing them with his blade, kicking over chairs and tables as he went. Pang Donggua didn’t even dare throw out a threat. He just fled.

Yanzi Yi watched with interest as the kid stood on the table, blade in hand. “Who’s that kid?” he asked his men.

“Yang Lei.”

Yang Lei. Even Yanzi Yi had heard that name. Among the younger street fighters, he was one of the standouts. Fearless, hard-hitting, and stronger when the other side got tougher. He was only eighteen or nineteen, hadn’t sworn loyalty to any boss, and didn’t lean on any big name. He made his reputation with his own fists and his own blade. Around Jiangjun Street, he had become a known young leader. After a few brutal clashes with established players, his name spread even further.

He had grown up reading martial-arts novels and took their code seriously. He didn’t bully people. With his own crew, he had three rules: don’t mess with women, don’t mess with decent people, don’t mess with the weak.

He had offended plenty of men in the underworld, but he was reasonable, and in most of those fights the right side was his. The older gangsters cared about face and reputation. If their own men acted dirty, they couldn’t complain too loudly when they got cut down. That was the street code. So nobody truly moved against him. Bit by bit, Yang Lei’s name rose. In the early nineties, promising young toughs were rare. Someone like him stood out. No wonder Yanzi Yi had heard of him.

“The kid’s got skill,” Yanzi Yi said. Making a veteran like Pang Donggua look that bad was no small feat.

“And he’s got sense.” Yanzi Yi liked that the boy had stepped in for someone else.

Later, there were several stories about how Yang Lei ended up under Yanzi Yi. No one agreed on the details, but not long after the Zhengda Nightclub incident, Yang Lei joined Yanzi Yi, the top boss in Jianghai City. The grudge with Pang Donggua quietly died. After taking that beating, Pang Donggua didn’t dare make noise. Liu Luoguo might have been tough, but even he had to respect Yanzi Yi’s name.

“Lei Ge, I heard there’s a campus beauty at No. 9 High. Wanna go check her out?”

The speaker was Li San, one of Yang Lei’s men. He had a small nose and narrow eyes, giving him a groundhog-like look, but he was loyal.

“What’s so special about her?”

“Long legs. Really fair skin.”

“You’re just horny.” Yang Lei kicked him lightly. Yang Lei didn’t have a girlfriend, but his standards were high. Most girls didn’t catch his eye.

“I’m not going. I’m going to practice guitar.”

“Again?” Li San almost added: that wasn’t guitar practice; it sounded like fluffing cotton. Lately, Yang Lei had become obsessed with playing. Back then, young men didn’t have many ways to look cool, and strumming a guitar while pretending to be melancholy was a favorite trick. Yang Lei had caught the bug too. He borrowed an old acoustic guitar from the neighbor’s older brother and spent his days picking at it, wearing a brooding expression that almost worked.

It didn’t matter much how he sounded. The image alone fooled people. By then, he had earned the nickname “Young Master Yang.” Few knew the real reason at first; the streets only learned the truth years later. Most assumed it came from his looks. He was tall, well over six feet, and handsome in a sharp, masculine way. Later, in the 2000s, male idols would lean soft and androgynous, but in that era, handsome meant strong features and a tough edge. People had little patience for pretty boys. Yang Lei had bright eyes, sword-like brows, clean lines across his face, and a steady, heroic air. His body was lean and tough, without an ounce of wasted flesh, built from years of fighting. As Yanzi Yi once put it, he looked like born enforcer material. So when Yang Lei held a guitar, he looked convincing enough to make girls stare.

A girl from No. 9 High had fallen for him. She was bold, always showing up where he might pass. Yang Lei had never dodged a fight, but he would take a detour to avoid her. The mention of No. 9 High alone gave him a headache. He told Li San and the others to go there themselves while he found a quiet place to “practice.”

He hadn’t been at it long when someone burst into the courtyard, breathing hard.

“Lei Ge! I got beaten up!”

Yang Lei’s eyes turned cold the moment he saw him.

“Who hit you?”

It was Chuanzi, a brother since childhood. His head was split open, blood running down his face, his skin covered in dust. He looked wretched.

“The guys at Guangming Billiards.”

“Let’s go.”

Guangming Billiards was in the city center. In those days, pool halls, arcades, and video rooms were usually backed by local gangs, and Guangming was the biggest and best known in town. Yang Lei gathered his men and headed there fast. Inside, the place was busy, but when they saw the group storm in, everyone fell silent.

Yang Lei stopped at the door. “Chuanzi, who hit you?”

“Him.”

Chuanzi pointed at a young man behind a pool table. He looked about eighteen or nineteen, round-faced, almost cute. He gripped his cue tightly, eyes fixed on Yang Lei.

On the way over, Chuanzi had told his version. He had gone to play alone, asked someone for a game, and the two had started arguing. Words turned ugly, then fists flew. Chuanzi had swung first, but he lost badly. The other guy had smashed a billiard ball into his face and jabbed his scalp with the cue. It wasn’t a serious wound, but the blood made it look worse. Knowing Yang Lei valued fairness, Chuanzi left out the part about starting the fight and made the beating sound much worse.

Yang Lei hated seeing his brothers hurt.

He walked toward the round-faced young man and stared at him. “You hit my brother?”

The boy was afraid, but he didn’t lower his head.

“So what if I did?”

“Apologize,” Yang Lei said.