Xingzhou City (12)
Niu Che Shui is Singapore’s Chinatown, named after the ox carts that once filled the streets, hauling water.
But since the majority of Singapore’s population is ethnic Chinese, the existence of a Chinatown there was not quite as unusual.
Tan Guhong and Huo Qiaonan sat on a bench by the roadside, watching the endless stream of traffic and pedestrians passing through the streets. Huo Qiaonan was so stuffed that he could only slump down without a care for appearances, letting out one pained groan after another.
Meanwhile, as Tan Guhong looked at this neighborhood that seemed Chinese and yet not quite Chinese, she could not help but think of San Francisco’s Chinatown again.
The fortune cookies at the Tin Hau Temple, the old gramophone and Master Qi in the little restaurant, and that turbulent night at the police station.
It had only been three months ago, yet looking back, it somehow felt like a lifetime ago.
Far too much had happened in those short three months.
She let out a deep sigh and turned to Huo Qiaonan beside her. “Are you feeling any better? If you really can’t take it, just make yourself throw up.”
“No!”
Huo Qiaonan sat bolt upright, but in the end, his stomach was simply too round, so he slumped back down again. His voice was barely alive, yet he stubbornly insisted, “Once it’s in my stomach, it’s mine. I’m not throwing it back up.”
Tan Guhong was helpless. “Why do you love eating so much?”
He really was the person she had met in her entire life who was most passionate about food.
“Because it’s worth it. Don’t you think eating is the thing in this world with the highest rate of return? If you place your hopes and expectations in other things, whether it’s people or circumstances, they could betray you at any moment. But food never will. A beef burger won’t, and Beijing-style shredded pork won’t either.”
Tan Guhong could not help but burst out laughing, but after laughing, she fell slightly silent.
She had to admit that there was actually a lot of sense in Huo Qiaonan’s crooked theory.
Once you placed your inner emotions in the hands of someone else, everything was out of your control. What appeared the next second might be a pleasant surprise, or it might be hurt, just like gambling.
Then, was a gamble like that really worth it?
“Xiao Hong, are you unhappy?” Huo Qiaonan asked cautiously.
“No.”
“Don’t deny it. I know you’re unhappy.” After all, they had grown up together since childhood, and Huo Qiaonan understood her to some extent. He thought for a moment. “Is it because I said the wrong thing and got us kicked out of the burger place? They were just too stingy. They never even explained the rules beforehand. I was only speaking my mind!”
Tan Guhong found it amusing. “No.”
“Then is it because I accidentally took your shoes yesterday?”
“No.”
“Ah, I know! You’re definitely unhappy because the alpaca got confiscated when you went through customs in Equi... Ecuador. It’s okay, I don’t need the souvenir anyway...”
“What are you even talking about? And I’ve told you so many times, it’s Ecuador... no, wait, was it Er... something... Forget it. I don’t even know the correct name anymore.” Tan Guhong covered her face and sighed in despair.
Huo Qiaonan was puzzled. “Then what are you unhappy about?”
Tan Guhong paused before quietly saying,
“I don’t know whether I should be half an orange or a whole, complete orange.”
“An orange?” Huo Qiaonan scratched his head in confusion. “I still prefer squeezing oranges into juice.”
“...Get lost!”
Tan Guhong turned her darkened face away and decided she was never speaking to him again.
Huo Qiaonan had absolutely no idea what he had done to offend her. After thinking for a long while without reaching an answer, he had no choice but to slump back down again and digest the entire stomachful of burgers.
After a while, he spoke.
“Anyway, Xiao Hong, I still hope you can be happy and be yourself. This conflicted, hesitant look really doesn’t suit you.”
Tan Guhong was slightly moved. She turned her head and saw that he was still slumped there in that completely ungraceful posture, eyes closed as he rested, as though he had merely said it in passing.
“Qiaonan, thank you.”
She could not help but smile softly.
“And don’t call me Xiao Hong. I’m three months older than you.”
Tan Guhong stayed there with Huo Qiaonan, doing nothing at all, for a full two hours. Once the poor guy was a little less stuffed, he immediately began pondering what to have for dinner. One moment he was saying the char kway teow and radish cake on Smith Street were delicious, and the next he was insisting that Lingzhi Yuan’s pork jerky was something they absolutely had to try. It was a textbook example of forgetting the pain as soon as the wound had healed.
While they were discussing it, a white Maserati slowly pulled to a stop in front of them. Tan Guhong did not pay much attention at first. It was not until the window rolled down and the person in the driver’s seat called out,
“Miss Tan.”
She looked up, only then realizing that it was Liang Jiaxing.
Although she did not want to call him Uncle, it also felt inappropriate to call him by his name, so she simply waved as a greeting.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came here specifically to find you.”
Liang Jiaxing smiled meaningfully, took off his sunglasses, and said to Huo Qiaonan beside her, “Qiaonan, would you mind if Miss Tan and I talked alone?”
“Of course I mind! We’re going to eat beef rice noodles!” Huo Qiaonan turned around with a baffled look and asked Tan Guhong, “Who the hell is this poser?”
Seeing Liang Jiaxing’s smile freeze on his face, Tan Guhong suppressed a laugh and said to Huo Qiaonan, “Isn’t he your Fourth Uncle Liang Jiaxing, from your Great-Granduncle’s family?”
“Ohhh...” Only then did Huo Qiaonan realize who he was. “Fourth Uncle, sorry, it’s been so long. I didn’t recognize you.”
What else could Liang Jiaxing say? He could only maintain the dignity expected of an elder, nodding with a dark expression before saying to Tan Guhong, “Miss Tan, there are some things I’d like to discuss with you privately. I hope you’ll do me the honor.”
He paused, his meaning clear. “It’s about Mr. Lone. I think you’ll be interested.”
Tan Guhong’s heart tightened. She gave him a long, hard look before saying to Huo Qiaonan beside her, “Go eat by yourself. Don’t worry about me. I have something to discuss with your Fourth Uncle.”
“Oh, okay.”
Huo Qiaonan could only watch as Tan Guhong got into Liang Jiaxing’s car. Then, as though suddenly remembering something, he leaned against the car window and called out to Liang Jiaxing, who was about to start the car.
“Hey, Fourth Uncle, could you give me a ride while you’re at it? I’m going to that rice noodle place. It’s just up ahead at the intersection...”
“No.”
Liang Jiaxing raised the window expressionlessly, stepped on the gas, and sped away.
The car drove all the way to the bridge by Changi Beach, in the northeastern corner of Singapore, one of the few quiet places in this bustling city.
This had been one of the Japanese army’s main execution sites during the massacres of World War II. Countless eerie ghost stories had originated here over the years. But with the passage of time, it had become a scenic beach park. Perhaps because its history was so horrific, however, there was always a sense of unease here. Compared with the liveliness of East Coast Park, this place seemed much more deserted.
After parking, neither of them got out of the car.
Tan Guhong spoke calmly. “Go ahead. What exactly do you want?”
Although Liang Peiyue had dared to set such a huge trap for Luo Jingming in San Francisco, this was Singapore, after all, under Old Master Liang’s watchful eye. Tan Guhong did not believe Liang Jiaxing would dare stir up too much trouble here. Besides, she was merely an irrelevant outsider. Old Master Liang might favor her, but he had never declared that whoever married her would become the heir to the Liang family.
More importantly, perhaps it was time she heard what Luo Jingming was like from someone else’s perspective.
Even if that person was not exactly friendly, what could she do when Luo Jingming himself refused to tell her?
“Don’t be so hostile toward me...” Liang Jiaxing smiled. “I have absolutely no ill intentions toward you. Father thinks very highly of you, and so do I. I just find it a pity. You’re clearly such an upright and kind girl, so why did you have to get entangled with A-Ming?”
He paused, then slowly said, “A man like him, who is steeped in sin, whose hands are stained with blood, who would even kill his own uncle’s entire family for power and influence. How can someone like that still be considered a human being?”
Tan Guhong’s eyelid twitched. Expressionless, she said, “Is that so? Could you tell me more about it?”
“Of course. Why else would I have come looking for you?”
Liang Jiaxing handed Tan Guhong a folder from the back seat and said leisurely, “I imagine you know at least something about his origins in Chinatown. But you probably don’t know the whole story. From what I know of my nephew, I’m sure he must have downplayed the important parts, distorted right and wrong, and muddied the truth. Those are his favorite tricks. Perhaps these materials can help you understand the real Luo Jingming.”
Tan Guhong opened the folder. Inside were old San Francisco newspapers from ten or twenty years ago, internal police documents and case files, sensational headlines, bloody photographs, one unsolved street case after another, one family massacre after another, one powerful figure after another brought down, one faction after another rising to power. The upheavals in the dark corners of San Francisco during those years were all connected to one name: Mr. Lone of Chinatown.
“Do you know how much blood is on his hands? Do you know how much ill-gotten money he’s made? Now he dresses impeccably and looks every bit the respectable gentleman. You don’t really think his past was just as clean and spotless, do you?”
“Where did you get all this?” Tan Guhong asked with a frown.
“As for where these things came from, I don’t think the source will be unfamiliar to you. That would be Detective Kyle Green of the San Francisco Police Department.”
Tan Guhong looked up at him, only to see him smiling faintly.
“Of course, that was three months ago. After he did his duty and caught a wanted criminal who had been on the run for ten years, the wanted criminal not only swaggered out of the police station the very next day, but Detective Kyle himself was dismissed and investigated. He was even locked up in a San Francisco psychiatric hospital under the pretext of mental illness. Unless something unexpected happens, one of San Francisco’s finest detectives will probably spend the rest of his life there.”
“I’m deeply sorry to hear that.” But she was not surprised in the slightest.
Seeing that Tan Guhong remained unmoved, Liang Jiaxing continued, “All right. If these documents are too confusing, why don’t I sort it out for you?”
“As you know, Luo Jingming’s father, Luo Zhanfei, was the first Mr. Lone of Chinatown. After he died, his younger brother, Luo Zhanpeng, adopted Luo Jingming and became the next leader of Chinatown. Afterward, in the name of avenging his elder brother, Luo Zhanpeng carried out a large-scale purge within Chinatown, and Luo Jingming was his most capable weapon.”
Liang Jiaxing pointed out several sets of documents concerning major criminal incidents in the folder. “How old was he back then? Tsk, tsk. This is merely the tip of the iceberg. Who knows how many more there were that were never discovered?”
“But even that is understandable. He was dependent on someone else, forced by the circumstances of his birth. He had no choice. We can all understand that.”
Liang Jiaxing smiled, his gentle, refined face making him look almost like a reasonable and understanding uncle. But in the next second, his tone changed, and he said coldly, “But his own uncle, Luo Zhanpeng, had adopted him and raised him from childhood, showing him immense kindness. How could he repay that kindness with betrayal and commit such a cold-blooded, ungrateful act?!”
The documents in Tan Guhong’s hands turned to the corresponding section. On the first page was an article from the San Francisco Chronicle eleven years earlier: Chinatown’s Second Mr. Lone Found Shot Dead at Home, His Death Mirroring His Predecessor’s. Curse or Retribution? The police case file classified the incident as a home invasion robbery, arrested some nobody, and closed the case.
It was an utterly ridiculous conclusion, yet Chinatown, which had always been so powerful, raised no objection. Instead, it adopted an attitude of letting the matter rest. Not long afterward, Luo Jingming became the third Mr. Lone, with Master Qi and a group of other senior uncles personally stepping in to protect his succession.
After Luo Zhanpeng died, his wife, children, and two mistresses, nine people in total, moved overnight to an isolated villa by the sea in Monterey. Rather than seeking refuge, it seemed more like they had been placed under house arrest.
Six months later, the villa exploded due to a gas leak, killing everyone inside. Not a single person survived. In the end, the police classified it as an accident, and once again, the matter was quietly closed.
Liang Jiaxing said meaningfully, “Miss Tan, when you put all these things together, do you still think they’re nothing more than coincidences?”
Tan Guhong stared silently at the newspaper clipping of the villa’s ruins for a long while. She drew a deep breath, slowly closed the folder, and asked indifferently, “Is there anything else?”
Liang Jiaxing was taken aback. “You mean this evidence isn’t enough?”
“What evidence is this? There’s no beginning or end, no cause or effect. It’s nothing more than your one-sided speculation. If this evidence were enough, Luo Jingming would have been convicted and sentenced in federal court a long time ago.”
Liang Jiaxing’s expression darkened slightly, and he sneered. “Looks like my nephew really is quite something. He’s managed to bewitch you to this extent, to the point where you can’t even tell right from wrong anymore.”
“Yeah, I can’t tell right from wrong. If you’re so capable, why don’t you take this stuff to someone who can?” Tan Guhong held the folder in her hand, smiling without humor. “Why not take it to the police? Oh, because there isn’t enough evidence. Why not take it to Grandpa Liang? Oh, because he doesn’t believe you at all, or perhaps he already knows everything and simply doesn’t care. I only call you Uncle out of respect for Grandpa Liang. Did you really start thinking of yourself as my elder? You come here trying to drive a wedge between us. Who the hell do you think you are?!”
With that, she threw the folder at Liang Jiaxing, slammed the car door, got out, and walked away without looking back.
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