Saigon River (4)
Concussion, a perforated eardrum, fractured ribs, a gunshot wound, a dislocated wrist, multiple abrasions across the body, and soft tissue contusions.
Once Tan Guhong fell asleep, she slept for a very, very long time, so long that it felt as if she were going to sleep through all the sleep of this lifetime in one go.
When she opened her eyes again, all she saw was a stretch of white ceiling. She stared at it blankly for a long while. As her consciousness slowly returned, pain of varying degrees came flooding in from every part of her body, and she could not help letting out a groan.
Her throat, long deprived of water, was unbearably dry. The groan came out hoarse and almost soundless.
With difficulty, she turned her neck slightly and saw a nurse standing beside the hospital bed, adjusting the IV drip.
Seeing that she was awake, the nurse bent down to ask about her condition. The nurse was not speaking Mandarin, and Tan Guhong could not immediately process what she was saying, so she could only shake her head helplessly.
The nurse turned and went out. A moment later, she returned, followed by Huo Sixuan, whose expression was full of worry.
The moment Huo Sixuan saw that she was awake, her eyes reddened. She stepped forward to help her sit up, had the nurse pour a cup of warm water, then carefully held a straw to her lips so she could drink.
“How are you, tomboy?”
Huo Sixuan enunciated each word as clearly as she could, shaping her mouth deliberately so that Tan Guhong could understand.
After taking a few sips of water, Tan Guhong caught her breath slightly and managed a faint smile.
“I’m okay. Just a bit dizzy.”
“Poor thing, with injuries all over like this. When Monica saw you, you nearly scared her out of her wits.” Huo Sixuan stroked her head, comforting her. “Don’t worry. Your ear has already been operated on. The doctor said it’s only a traumatic eardrum rupture. With proper treatment for a while, your hearing will recover.”
“Where is this? How long was I unconscious?”
“This is a hospital in Hong Kong. You’ve been unconscious for a full week.”
Something suddenly occurred to Tan Guhong, and she asked anxiously, “Where is Luo Jingming?”
“You’ve been dragged into this state by that bastard, and you’re still thinking about him?” Huo Sixuan sighed. “Don’t worry, he’s perfectly fine. Not a scratch on him. It’s just that he doesn’t have time to come see you for now.”
Only later did Tan Guhong learn that during the week she had been unconscious, a great many things had happened, enough to be called earth-shattering.
Not long after she was taken away by the medical staff that day, she fell into a coma. After receiving basic treatment at a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, she was put on a plane that very night and flown to Hong Kong overnight.
Three hours after she left Vietnam, the police discovered Luo Qingyang’s body on a shallow bank in the lower reaches of the Saigon River. His death was confirmed beyond doubt, and DNA testing verified his identity.
According to the statement given by the arrested Nguyen Thị Thuy, the reason they were able to plan the operation so quickly and accurately abduct Tan Guhong to threaten Luo Jingming was because someone had come to them of his own accord, offering to cooperate and providing detailed intelligence and her itinerary.
That person was Liang Jiaxing.
Luo Jingming returned to Singapore at once and placed this testimony in front of Old Master Liang. At the same time, he presented all the evidence of Liang Jiaxing’s insider trading over the years, colluding with his biological mother Xu Wanting to buy low and sell high, short Yaozhong America, siphon off company profits, and embezzle enormous sums of money.
It was not that he could not deal with Liang Jiaxing. He had simply never considered him worthy of being treated as an opponent.
Old Master Liang flew into a rage on the spot, deciding to strip Liang Jiaxing of all his positions and titles within the group, ordering him to hand over all his shares and revoking his status as a shareholder.
Liang Jiaxing refused to comply. Old Master Liang exposed the true reason for his divorce from Xu Wanting back then, that she had colluded with her lover to seize his property. He had not expected that the son would follow the mother, both of them cut from the same cloth. Liang Jiaxing accused his father of being autocratic, arrogant, cold, and heartless, always harboring prejudice against him. No matter how much he did, in the end he still could not compare to an outsider.
Father and son argued fiercely. By the end, it even turned violent.
No one knew what exactly had happened that day inside the elegant villa on Jiaman Island. Liang Jiaxing had long since quietly figured out the island’s security and defense systems, bribed Old Master Liang’s trusted aides, and upon arrival on the island cut off its water and air transport as well as all external communication, shutting down all surveillance.
All that was known was that after several gunshots rang out, when the bodyguards finally broke down the door and rushed into the study, Old Master Liang had fainted from shock, Liang Jiaxing lay in a pool of blood with a gunshot wound to the head, and Luo Jingming had also been shot in the right hand. Both bullets had come from Liang Jiaxing’s gun, and the gun bore only his fingerprints.
The bullet that struck Liang Jiaxing entered from the lower jaw and lodged in the left side of his brain, damaging his neural system. Although he did not die, the doctor said he would spend the rest of his life in the hospital, reduced to a vacant, childlike state.
An accidental discharge, or suicide. There was no way to verify.
But Tan Guhong had a strong premonition that that shot must have been fired by Luo Jingming. It had to be. She knew he could shoot with both hands.
“Is Grandpa Liang alright?”
Huo Sixuan shook her head helplessly. “Yuexian was slightly injured, and eldest brother’s old illness flared up. Although neither is in serious danger now, this has dealt eldest brother a heavy blow. He has shut himself away and refuses visitors, even me. No one expected Jiaxing would do something like this. This time, the Liang family has truly been shaken to its core, badly weakened.”
Only then did Tan Guhong understand why she had been sent all the way to Hong Kong instead of somewhere closer. With this whole chain of events, Singapore must have been in an uproar. Whether online or offline, the Liang family was probably already surrounded by the media with no way out.
She felt that Old Master Liang might not be unaware of the whole story, of everything Liang Jiaxing had done, everything Luo Jingming had done. But there were many things he could not expose. He was a righteous, patriotic businessman, an elder family friend who had always treated her kindly. Yet at that level of power and wealth, the Chinese shipping magnate could not be simply described as good or bad. Besides, he was old. To preserve the family foundation, the Liang empire, he needed to make choices. He had already made them.
Still, she felt that something was not quite right, as if there were things she had overlooked.
“You’re just upset because that punk hasn’t come to see you,” Huo Sixuan said. “Don’t worry, he only suffered superficial injuries. And it’s not that he hasn’t come. When you were in surgery, he stayed outside the whole time. Only after confirming with the doctor that you were out of danger did he leave. Now that things have come to this, there are many matters on the American side that need to be dealt with, and eldest brother personally appointed him to handle them.”
Huo Sixuan did not think much of it. “That kid has always been like this. Once he starts working, he doesn’t even care about his own life. I don’t like him, but I have to admit, if he hadn’t pushed himself like that all these years, proving his ability, he wouldn’t have made it from a street punk to where he is today. My eldest brother isn’t senile yet.”
Is that really all? Tan Guhong still felt uneasy.
Taking the opportunity, Huo Sixuan went on complaining, “After this, you should see clearly, right? What is so good about that punk? All that messy past, those filthy old accounts, got you into this state, and now he’s so busy with work that he doesn’t even show his face. Well? Regretting it now? Want to try considering Qiaonan instead?”
“Huh? What? Monica, you’re talking too fast, I can’t read it!”
“Tomboy, stop playing dumb with me!”
There was no helping it. After losing her hearing, the only good thing and the bad thing alike was that all sound in the world was indiscriminately blocked out. As for lip-reading, she could understand when she wanted to, and not understand when she did not.
The doctor said that the injuries all over her body would still need some time to heal before she could be discharged. She decided to stay in Hong Kong for the time being and not return home. She did not tell her family much either, only saying that she would stay a while longer in Singapore.
During her recovery, Huo Sixuan often came to take care of her. Old Master Liang also called her over video, offering a solemn apology on behalf of his son and grandchildren. She knew he was someone who had weathered great storms and would not be brought down by this matter, yet even through the screen, it was clear that in just a few days, he had aged considerably.
Huo Qiaonan, on the other hand, stayed with her at the hospital the entire time and kept trying to make her eat pig ears, cow ears, sheep ears, all kinds of ears, claiming that you supplement what you eat. Fortunately, her world was now utterly silent. As long as she closed her eyes and pretended to sleep, she could not hear his noisy foolishness.
But Luo Jingming never appeared.
More than a week later, when her left ear could finally faintly catch some sounds, Li Zhengkai’s arrival at last brought her news of Luo Jingming.
At that time, Huo Sixuan had returned to Singapore to handle some matters in Xingzhou City. Ignoring her objections, Huo Qiaonan had run off to a small shop in Tsim Sha Tsui to buy braised pig ear, who knew whether for himself or for her, and the caregiver had gone to wash fruit and had not yet returned. In the hospital room, there were only Tan Guhong and Li Zhengkai, who always wore a cold, stern expression.
But after seeing him speeding and shooting that day, still formidable with age, Tan Guhong would never again think he was just an ordinary old butler.
Although Tan Guhong repeatedly said that as long as he spoke slowly, she could read lips, Li Zhengkai had no patience for such slow, tedious communication. He brought a small whiteboard and, without a word, began writing on it.
His handwriting was scrawled, a mix of Chinese and English, and as soon as the board was filled, he would wipe it clean and continue writing before she had quite finished reading. It was extremely difficult for her to follow.
Even so, in fits and starts, she barely managed to understand what he wanted to say.
It was a long story, one that had to begin a long, long time ago.
Back then, in the Peace Hotel shooting where Luo Jingming’s parents died tragically, it was his uncle Luo Zhanpeng who was the true mastermind. He had joined forces with certain uncles in Chinatown whose interests conflicted with Luo Zhanfei’s, and colluded with Nguyen Thieu Hung of the Vietnamese gang to plan the murder single-handedly. Their original intent had been to cut the weeds and eliminate the roots, to kill all three members of Luo Zhanfei’s family. Unexpectedly, by a twist of fate, Luo Jingming slipped through the net. In full view of others, Luo Zhanpeng could not act again, so he pretended to be benevolent, took in this nephew, and in the process earned a reputation among the brotherhood for loyalty.
In his younger years, Li Zhengkai had worked as a mercenary in the Middle East. After sustaining a permanent disability, he retired from that life and eventually made his way to San Francisco in the United States, becoming a private bodyguard for the Liang family. After Liang Peishan married Luo Zhanfei, Old Master Liang had him stay by his daughter’s side to ensure her safety. Liang Peishan’s death was the greatest failure of his entire career. Out of professional instinct, he sensed the unusual nature of the incident, that many leads had been cut off in suspicious ways. So he voluntarily remained in Chinatown to investigate the mastermind behind the shooting.
Taking care of Luo Jingming had not been part of his commission. He never did anything unrelated to his assignment. But on one hand, he had watched the boy grow up. Ten years of a comparatively peaceful life in Chinatown had, little by little, washed away the blood and storms of his days in the Middle East, turning him from a killing machine into someone with feelings. On the other hand, after Luo Jingming was taken in by Luo Zhanpeng, his days were far from easy.
On the surface, Luo Zhanpeng merely put on a show, but in private he paid Luo Jingming no attention, leaving him to fend for himself. And his son, Luo Qingyang, whether acting on his father’s instructions or out of his own nature, abused and tormented Luo Jingming to a shocking degree.
Beatings and kicks, hunger and cold, were everyday occurrences. Luo Jingming had once been hung up in a storage room for three days and nights, ignored. He had once been stuffed into a box and rolled down a hillside, smashed until his head was split and bloodied. He had even been tied to a target at a shooting range, his limbs riddled through with bullets, while Luo Qingyang stood by laughing with his brothers.
For the young Luo Jingming to survive those years was simply a matter of sheer toughness, of a life that refused to be extinguished.
Time and again, Li Zhengkai rescued Luo Jingming from those battered, near-death states. In the end, he could not bear it any longer and decided to help him. He began to teach him combat, shooting, how to protect himself and how to fight back. Alongside him was A-Kun, the only person Luo Jingming could truly trust.
At that time, Li Zhengkai had not yet discovered that Luo Zhanpeng was the true culprit. Still, he chose to help Luo Jingming, because he could see that this boy would one day become someone formidable.
From a rich young master, he had fallen overnight to a state worse than a stray dog. Yet he did not collapse, did not cry, did not rage hysterically. Under his cousin’s abuse, he remained silent, wordless, as if a fool. If told to kneel, he knelt. If told to kowtow, he kowtowed. If told to bark like a dog, he barked.
When Li Zhengkai asked him about it, he only said lightly that he was keeping account of it all, and that one day, he would settle it with Luo Qingyang.
But as time passed, the rapidly maturing Luo Jingming, under Li Zhengkai’s guidance, did not recklessly strike back at once. Instead, he began to secretly sow discord between Luo Zhanpeng and Luo Qingyang, while quietly winning Luo Zhanpeng’s attention.
Perhaps out of carelessness, perhaps overconfidence, perhaps disappointment in the useless Luo Qingyang, Luo Zhanpeng truly began to rely on Luo Jingming. Yet even while relying on him, he remained wary, mostly sending him to handle dangerous matters, using him as a weapon.
It was also at this time that one of the perpetrators of the Peace Hotel massacre, who had vanished for years, was recognized in Thailand, thousands of miles away. Li Zhengkai and Luo Jingming led people there to capture him, and the knife man quickly confessed.
A long-dead great-uncle, and Nguyen Thieu Hung of the Vietnamese gang.
But something was wrong, very wrong. Everything felt arranged.
Luo Jingming personally conducted the interrogation for three days and three nights. Even Li Zhengkai, who had seen storms of bloodshed, could not help but frown slightly at his methods. In the end, seeking a quick death, the knife man finally gave up the last name.
Luo Zhanpeng.
At that moment, Li Zhengkai had thought Luo Jingming would be agitated, enraged, would lose control. But Luo Jingming did none of that. He only gave a faint laugh, took off the white shirt soaked red with blood, wiped the blood from his fingers, and walked out calmly.
After that, they returned to San Francisco overnight. The reply they gave Luo Zhanpeng was exactly what he wanted: that it was the Vietnamese gang who had killed his elder brother. And so Luo Zhanpeng immediately became “agitated, enraged, out of control,” vowing to fight the Vietnamese gang to the death in revenge.
At the same time, Luo Jingming’s plan for revenge quietly began. In secret, he befriended Dante, the head of the Catarro family of the San Francisco mafia. Dante already had deep grievances with Nguyen Thieu Hung. The two sides reached an understanding and entered into a temporary alliance, jointly assassinating Nguyen Thieu Hung and wiping out most of the Vietnamese gang’s power.
Because of this, Luo Jingming gained Luo Zhanpeng’s complete trust and became his right-hand man. What the latter did not foresee was that at this very moment, his nephew finally revealed his true aim and turned the muzzle of the gun toward him.
No comments:
Post a Comment