RTCBM 41

The sudden kiss caught Mu Yuan completely off guard. His mind had been entirely focused on how to deal with the situation outside. He hadn’t expected Wen Shang to suddenly pull something like this.

Before he could process it, the wardrobe door was yanked open. Wang Hao stood there, one hand gripping the doorknob, the other holding a gun. What met his eyes was the sight of two grown men squeezed inside the wardrobe, locked in an embrace, kissing. Of all the scenarios Wang Hao had imagined, this definitely wasn’t one of them. He froze.

Mu Yuan shoved Wen Shang away and shot him a fierce glare. That look clearly said: what the fuck are you doing. But this wasn’t the time to deal with him. Mu Yuan turned quickly to face Wang Hao, raised both hands, and tried to de-escalate things with a calm voice.

“Big bro, don’t shoot. Let’s talk this out. We can talk this out.”

Wang Hao stared at him with full alertness. His gaze swept across Mu Yuan, then paused as if something clicked. He spoke with a hint of doubt.

“Mu Yuan?”

Mu Yuan was surprised. Wang Hao might have been his second uncle’s protégé, but they’d never had direct contact. How did the man recognize him?

“What are you doing in my apartment?” Wang Hao lowered the gun. He seemed fairly confident Mu Yuan posed no physical threat.

“I…” Mu Yuan faltered. He had a lot of questions for Wang Hao but couldn’t decide where to begin.

“You’re here because of your second uncle, aren’t you?” Wang Hao more or less guessed the reason.

Mu Yuan didn’t say anything. He just nodded slightly, a nervous knot twisting in his chest as he waited for a response.

Wang Hao turned and left the bedroom, heading toward the living room. As he walked, he said to the two still standing inside the wardrobe, “Stop squeezing in there. Come out and say whatever you want to say out here.”

Mu Yuan and Wen Shang sat down at the dining table, took the tea that Wang Hao handed them, nodded politely, and said, “Thank you.”

“It’s just some tea I grabbed from the supermarket, nothing fancy. Hope you don’t mind,” Wang Hao said.

“That’s fine, Hao-ge. I can’t tell good tea from bad anyway,” Mu Yuan replied with a laugh, waving it off.

“Just call me Uncle Hao. I’m already in my forties, no need to pretend I’m still young.”

“Oh. Uncle Hao,” Mu Yuan corrected himself.

Wang Hao looked at Mu Yuan, then shifted his gaze to Wen Shang, who sat beside him. He hesitated a moment before asking, “And this is…?”

Before Wen Shang could respond, Mu Yuan jumped in. “He’s my underling.”

Wen Shang shot him a sidelong glance but said nothing.

“Underling?” Wang Hao repeated with a doubtful tone. The scene he had witnessed earlier in the wardrobe flashed back in his mind, and the look in his eyes turned more peculiar as he looked at Wen Shang.

“Ahem. Let’s not get into that now. Uncle Hao, I’ve actually been looking for you for a long time.” Mu Yuan got straight to the point. “All these years, I’ve been trying to find the truth about my second uncle’s shooting. From the case files the police collected, I saw that you were one of the witnesses. You used to stay close to my second uncle. About that night, how much do you know? Who did my uncle offend? What kind of grudge made someone go that far and insist on killing him?”

Wang Hao fell silent for a moment, then slowly said, “That matter has already been settled. Someone avenged your uncle. The person who killed him is already dead.”

“Who was it?”

After a pause, Wang Hao asked, “Have you heard of ‘Qi Tai’?”

Mu Yuan nodded. “I’ve heard a bit. One of the four major triads back in the day, but it was disbanded later.”

Wen Shang suddenly remembered. Shen Dandong had also mentioned Qi Tai to him that afternoon.

“Hua-ge’s death was directly linked to Qi Tai,” Wang Hao said as he began to explain everything he knew.

In this day and age, many triads have sought to reinvent themselves in order to continue operating, branching out into finance, tech, cultural industries, and other areas. But back when Mu Huafeng was around, most of the organizations were still relying on gray-area businesses as their main source of income.

Most of the gray-area industries in Xinyue City were controlled by the four major triads—Sheng Yi, Yuan Shun, Quan Xing, and Qi Tai. These groups were both competitors and collaborators.

Back then, Qi Tai had experienced a fierce internal power struggle. Yuan Lixuan killed his own older brother, Yuan Liwu, and replaced him as the new leader of Qi Tai.

Unlike his brother, who favored a steady leadership style, Yuan Lixuan was aggressive and ambitious. He wasn’t satisfied with Qi Tai’s current standing. He wanted to dominate the city. To surpass the other three triads, he started a mass recruitment campaign, even poaching people from rival groups.

There had been a verbal agreement between the four triads that no group would interfere in territories outside their own control. But Yuan Lixuan broke that pact. He brazenly began seizing turf and business from the others.

Chasing profit through risk, Yuan Lixuan didn’t stop at sex work, gambling, or loan sharking. He started dealing drugs. Qi Tai’s drug business eventually crept into Mu Huafeng’s territory, severely disrupting the local order. The two sides had already clashed several times due to Qi Tai’s repeated encroachments, and this time, Mu Huafeng decided he would not let it go.

He led his men to beat the hell out of the drug runners operating on his turf and confiscated all their goods.

The next day, customs received an anonymous tip. At the port, authorities raided a shipping container zone and seized a large batch of unregistered smuggled narcotics. Yuan Lixuan immediately lost several tens of millions in product. The timing was too perfect to be coincidence, and Yuan Lixuan became convinced that Mu Huafeng had tipped off the police.

Driven by hatred and revenge, Yuan Lixuan hired a professional hitman and had Mu Huafeng killed.

The night Mu Huafeng died, he had gone out for dinner with Wang Hao and a group of Sheng Yi brothers at a roadside food stall. There, they ran into people from Qi Tai. Tensions from past conflicts boiled over, and the two groups ended up in a brawl. Amid the chaos, a gunshot rang out from an unknown direction. When the brothers turned around, Mu Huafeng was already lying in a pool of blood.

News of the death of Sheng Yi’s most renowned Red Pole spread quickly across the triads. Mu Huafeng had always been loyal and just. On the day of his funeral, even members from other triads outside of Sheng Yi showed up voluntarily to pay their respects. His death sparked outrage among many, all of them wanting to avenge him. But with no solid evidence, they couldn’t bring Yuan Lixuan to justice.

Half a year after Mu Huafeng’s death, the police, acting on a strong anonymous tip, uncovered concrete proof of Qi Tai’s drug trafficking operations. The entire syndicate was taken down in one sweep—except for the biggest fish, Yuan Lixuan, who managed to escape. But his good luck didn’t last. Just days after a warrant was issued, Yuan Lixuan’s body was found dumped in a garbage site. There wasn’t a single intact patch of flesh on him. Police had to rely on the tattoo on his back and DNA analysis to confirm his identity.

No one knew who did it. Not until one day, Wang Hao got caught up in a serious gang dispute. A man named Bai Wei stepped forward to pull him out of trouble. This stranger claimed to be Mu Huafeng’s sworn brother. He told Wang Hao that he was the one who avenged Mu Huafeng’s death and even showed him photos taken shortly before Yuan Lixuan died as proof.

Bai Wei said Mu Huafeng had told him Wang Hao was a brother who’d been through life-and-death with him. If anything happened to Wang Hao, he should step in and help.

Mu Yuan couldn’t hold back. He suddenly cut in and asked, “Who exactly is this Bai Wei?”

To be able to take down someone like Yuan Lixuan, he couldn’t have been a nobody. But Mu Yuan had never heard of such a name in the underworld.

“He’s the founder of Renhe Triad.”

Mu Yuan and Wen Shang both looked surprised.

“Hold on. From what I know, Chang Yunxuan was the head of Renhe from the very beginning. No one’s ever mentioned Bai Wei,” Mu Yuan said, confused.

Wang Hao explained, “Chang Yunxuan was just a stand-in. Not many people know the truth. What I’ve told you today, keep it to yourselves. Don’t go spreading it.”

Wang Hao didn’t reveal much about Bai Wei. All he said was, “What happened back then has already been settled. For your second uncle’s sake, just keep living your life as you are.”

There was a quiet weight in his tone.

Then, as if remembering something, Wang Hao took off the string of prayer beads on his wrist and placed them in Mu Yuan’s palm. “I came back this time just to visit some old friends. I’ll be heading back to Canada in a couple of days. I didn’t prepare anything for you, but please take this. Your second uncle used to wear it. Later, he gave it to me. I’ve kept it with me all these years like a protective charm. Now I’m passing it on to you. Keep it safe.”

As they walked out of the apartment building, Mu Yuan didn’t feel at ease. He glanced back at Wang Hao’s place, then looked down at the beads in his hand, tightening his grip.

“That guy Wang Hao seems to be hiding something,” Wen Shang suddenly said.

“I thought so too,” Mu Yuan replied.

Wen Shang was curious. “How could you tell?”

“I never met him before, but my second uncle talked about him often. I clearly remember him saying, ‘The funniest thing about Fat Bear is that whenever he lies, his ears twitch.’ I’ve remembered that all this time. And just now, when he was talking to us, his ears were twitching.”

“You seriously use that to judge people?”

“What about you?” Mu Yuan asked, and gave Wen Shang’s waist a good pinch. “How did you know he was hiding something?”

Wen Shang grabbed his hand and held it firmly in his palm. With a calm, unaffected tone, he said, “Too many things didn’t add up. He glossed over a lot of details he should’ve explained more clearly.”

Then he listed them out. “How did he recognize you right away? And how did he immediately guess you came because of Uncle Hua? Why did he choose to immigrate in the first place? And who exactly is Bai Wei? When you asked about Bai Wei, he clearly dodged the question. There’s just too much that doesn’t make sense.”

Mu Yuan didn’t say anything. Wen Shang thought he was deep in thought, processing everything he’d just said. But the next second, Wen Shang felt a sharp pain shoot up his leg as Mu Yuan stomped down hard on his foot, making him clench his jaw.

“Why were you holding onto me like that?”

Wen Shang: “…”

“And you better give me a proper explanation. Just now, with everything going on, what the hell were you doing kissing me in that damn wardrobe? Are you out of your mind?!”

Wen Shang thought he’d made himself clear by now. Even if Mu Yuan was dense, surely he should’ve figured it out. But clearly, he was dead wrong. Seeing Mu Yuan still so oblivious, Wen Shang’s frustration shot straight to the top.

“Explanation?” Wen Shang bared his perfectly white teeth in a sharp grin. “Fine. I’ll give you an explanation right now.”

He grabbed Mu Yuan by the face and aimed straight for his lips. But this time, Mu Yuan was ready. He blocked him with everything he had, refusing to let him anywhere near. The two wrestled and shoved, fighting it out to see who’d give in first.