Saigon River (1)
A basin of cold water came crashing down over her head.
Tan Guhong jolted awake from the long, oppressive darkness. Enduring the splitting pain in her head and the soreness throughout her body, she struggled to open her eyes.
Around her was a run-down warehouse piled high with miscellaneous junk. The air was thick with the foul, rotting stench of heat. There were no windows, only a dim light bulb swaying overhead.
Her hands were tied behind her to a chair, and a tall, broad-built man stood in front of her, casually tossing aside the bucket in his hand.
“You’re Luo Jingming’s mistress?”
The man asked in a heavy Cantonese accent.
She narrowed her eyes, trying to make out his features, only to be slapped hard across the face the next second.
“Talk!”
“I’m nobody’s mistress.” Tan Guhong turned her head and spat out the blood in her mouth. Looking at him, she said coldly, “Why did you kidnap me? Money, or revenge?”
“Hard bones.”
The man gave a quiet laugh, then leisurely sat down on another chair in front of her, crossing one leg over the other, his posture relaxed and casual.
“I’m Luo Qingyang. If that heartless bastard of a younger brother of mine hadn’t killed my father back then, perhaps even now I’d still have to call you sister-in-law.”
Tan Guhong’s pupils contracted.
Luo Zhanpeng’s son, Luo Qingyang? Wasn’t he supposed to have died in the explosion at that seaside villa eleven years ago?
The man before her was in his thirties. He wore an old military-green short-sleeved shirt and dirty camouflage pants, with a close-cropped haircut. His features were rough-hewn, his skin dark. At first glance, he looked completely different from Luo Jingming. But looking closely, there were indeed one or two points of resemblance between their brows and eyes.
Seeing the changes in her expression, Luo Qingyang gave a cold laugh. “That’s right. I didn’t die. So Luo Jingming’s time to die has come.”
“You want to use me to threaten Luo Jingming? Then I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong idea.” Tan Guhong gave a faint, almost indifferent laugh. “I have nothing to do with him.”
“Is that so? Then why did I hear that you’re the only woman who’s appeared by his side all these years, and that he cares a great deal about you?” Luo Qingyang’s face was full of mockery. “My little brother has always had a strange personality. He could have a top-notch beauty like Polina right beside him and remain completely unmoved. I used to think he was a gay man. Now it seems the thing between his legs isn’t just for show after all.”
“You heard? Who did you hear it from?”
A Chinese-speaking pregnant woman, the security guards and cleaners who had been arranged in advance, the perfectly timed ambulance. This was a trap designed entirely around her. It seemed he had been plotting his revenge for more than just a day or two.
But Luo Qingyang was highly guarded and did not let anything slip. He only said, “You don’t need to know that. All you need to know is that Luo Jingming will pay the price for what he did back then. I’m going to make him pay with his life for my entire family.”
“And how exactly will he pay? By taking me hostage? You’re wrong. He won’t risk his life for me. I’m not that important to him.”
Luo Jingming was unmoved. He gave a cold laugh. “Then we’ll wait and see together how exactly he dies at this time tomorrow. But don’t worry. No matter what, you won’t escape either. I’ll make sure the two of you become a pair of dead lovers in the underworld. Two people in exchange for the nine lives of my family. He’s getting off cheap!”
Tan Guhong’s face remained expressionless as her mind rapidly worked through her options. She had no idea whether Luo Jingming would come for her. Besides, she had no intention of simply sitting around and waiting for him to rescue her. She shouldn’t have been unconscious for more than a day. Was she in Cambodia now, or somewhere else? Did Luo Qingyang have accomplices? What were the odds that she could escape...
As she was thinking, a hand clamped around her chin and slowly lifted her face. Luo Qingyang rose and stood before her, smiling without quite smiling.
“You’re very calm. A woman who encounters something like this and doesn’t cry or make a fuss, who doesn’t even change expression, is rare. At first, I thought that finding Luo Jingming a firewood girl like you, with no chest and no ass, meant he really was a gay man. But now it seems he does have some taste after all.”
His gaze roamed over her from head to toe, full of ill intent. “To prevent him from failing to show up on time tomorrow, shouldn’t I give him a little warning?”
Tan Guhong’s heart sank, but nothing showed on her face. She lowered her eyes, curled her lips, and asked with a soft laugh,
“How do you want to warn him?”
Luo Qingyang was very interested in her reaction. He raised his brows slightly, slowly reached out and touched her thigh, then bent down and leaned close to her neck, speaking in a low voice.
“Sleep with his mistress. How do you think he’ll like that warning?”
“I don’t think... that’s a very good idea!”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Tan Guhong thrust out her leg and kicked hard at Luo Qingyang’s knee, while at the same time slamming her head into his.
Luo Qingyang cried out in pain and staggered back several steps. The chair behind Tan Guhong also toppled backward from the force. Her hands were still tied to the chair and she could not break free, so she rolled with the momentum and managed to get herself and the chair back upright.
“Looks like you’ve got some skill after all. I underestimated you.”
Luo Qingyang kicked at her without mercy. Tan Guhong ducked beneath it. As soon as she straightened, Luo Qingyang attacked again. Tan Guhong swung the chair behind her and smashed it into him. The two of them went down hard in a tangled heap, and the already-flimsy wooden chair instantly broke into pieces.
Tan Guhong ignored the pain in her arms, broke free of the loosened rope around her wrists, and ran toward the door.
Luo Qingyang leaped to his feet and chased after her. From behind, he grabbed her in a crushing hold and dragged her back, pinning her against a row of dust-covered wooden crates beside them.
When she tried to struggle again, he grabbed her head and slammed it into the wooden crate. A tremendous bang rang out at the impact.
A sharp pain shot through Tan Guhong’s head. Her vision went black, and she nearly passed out from the pain. She bit down hard on her lower lip and instantly tasted blood.
When Luo Qingyang went to smash her head against the crate a second time, Tan Guhong seized the moment and grabbed him by the collar. She crossed both hands and pulled hard, following with a left hook and a right elbow strike. Just as she moved in to follow up with a knee, Luo Qingyang thrust an arm through beneath her knee and hoisted her up, then swung her through the air in a circle and flung her aside, sending her crashing into a pile of miscellaneous junk.
Seeing Luo Qingyang walking toward her step by step, Tan Guhong’s internal organs felt as though they had been knocked out of place from the pain, and she had no strength left to fight back. In the panic, her hand suddenly felt a shard of glass beside her. Without making a sound, she hid it in her palm, her entire body taut as she waited for him to come close enough to deliver a fatal blow.
“I was going to be gentler at first. Looks like you brought this on yourself.”
Luo Qingyang grabbed her by the collar and dragged her onto the floor, his expression vicious. He reached out and was about to tear open her shirt when—
“Stop.”
A cold, indifferent voice suddenly rang out.
The two of them looked toward the sound, only to see a woman standing in the doorway, her long hair swept up high, wearing a traditional Vietnamese dress. Her features were striking, carrying a cold, alluring beauty. Her snow-white gown was completely out of place amid the filthy, chaotic surroundings, seeming both pure and distant.
“A-Cui.”
Luo Qingyang seemed somewhat afraid of her. When he saw her walking over, he hurriedly got to his feet and explained, “I only wanted to use this to take revenge on Luo Jingming—”
Before he could finish, he was slapped hard across the face.
“I told you, no one is allowed to bully women on my territory.”
Luo Qingyang covered his face, the veins on his forehead bulging as he forced himself to hold back his anger.
“I’m doing this to avenge your father and my entire family too. I want to make Luo Jingming wish he were dead. Letting him pay with only his own life would be far too easy for him!”
“One life is enough. The revenge we seek is for my father, while your entire family died because of you.” The woman cast him a disdainful glance and said coldly, “Don’t take matters into your own hands. Remember, you’re nothing more than a dog I took in.”
Luo Qingyang’s expression twisted, but he forcibly swallowed his anger, obediently lowering his head as he said in a low voice,
“Yes, I know I was wrong.”
Tan Guhong quietly concealed the shard of glass, struggling to get back up and steady herself.
The woman called A-Cui walked up to her and looked straight at her.
“What’s your name?”
Tan Guhong coughed twice, wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, and replied,
“Tan Guhong.”
A-Cui nodded and said indifferently,
“I like your name, and I admire your backbone too. I’ve always liked women who can fight. This is between us and Luo Jingming. It has nothing to do with you. As long as you behave and listen, I won’t make things difficult for you. But if you refuse to cooperate, I have plenty of ways to make you wish you were dead.”
She spoke threateningly, yet her expression remained indifferent. Beneath her calmness was a confidence and certainty that she would have her way.
“Are you the one who gets to decide?”
Tan Guhong’s words carried an implication. A-Cui followed her gaze toward the grim-faced Luo Qingyang and gave a cold laugh.
“My name is Nguyen Thi Thuy. As long as it happens along the Saigon River, what I say goes!”
The Saigon River. So this was Vietnam.
Tan Guhong had never heard of Nguyen Thi Thuy. But based on the conversation between the two, she guessed that perhaps this woman was the daughter of Nguyen Thieu Hung, the former leader of the Vietnamese gang in San Francisco. She had no idea how she had come to meet Luo Qingyang, but clearly, the two were now working together to take revenge on their common enemy.
She gave a cold laugh inwardly. Luo Jingming, this is the third time. How much longer are those old debts of yours going to drag me into them?
Nguyen Thi Thuy kept her word and did not make things difficult for Tan Guhong. She took her out of the filthy, disorderly warehouse and settled her in another room. But to prevent her from escaping, she still had her hands and feet bound and ordered her subordinates to keep watch over her.
Everywhere on Tan Guhong’s body hurt. Her internal organs, even her bones, ached. She lay limp on the bed, taking deep breaths as she tried to rest and recover.
The room she was in was like a single room in a run-down hotel. The bed was old and yellowed, but still fairly clean. It was already night, yet there was still a faint, ceaseless din outside the door.
During the transfer just now, although her eyes had been covered, she could smell the strong stench of cigarettes and alcohol and the scent of cheap perfume in the air. She could hear the sounds of drinking games, dice rattling, and the debauched moans of men and women. This should be somewhere like an underground casino or nightclub.
She didn’t know whether Luo Jingming would travel all the way to Vietnam for her. If Luo Jingming didn’t come, once she had lost her usefulness, she would certainly meet a bad end. But if Luo Jingming did come, was she really going to passively wait here to be used as a hostage?
She had to find a chance to escape, and quickly. On the one hand, according to what Luo Qingyang had said, the time he had arranged to meet Luo Jingming was tomorrow. On the other hand, her left ear had begun to ring intermittently. She had probably injured it during the fight with Luo Qingyang just now.
Her right ear was already deaf. If she could no longer hear with her left ear either, her chances of escaping would be greatly reduced.
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m&m: hello its been a while since my last update & honestly i could’ve finished uploading the whole novel much earlier last month but i lost some motivation (again) that i was seriously considering dropping everything altogether lol anyways, its back! hopefully i can get through the rest of the chapters by the end of this week zzz
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