7
With nothing to do, Lục Phong spent all day hanging around the boxing gym, teasing the dogs and cats and stirring up trouble everywhere.
I was upstairs on the second floor checking the books, while he leaned against the railing below, bragging to a few of the new female customers.
His voice was just loud enough to carry up to me.
“Brother Niên? Yeah, he’s good, all right, but… there’s no fire in him.”
“You girls like that type? Cold as ice. Bet he’d be freezing under the covers, too.”
“I’m different. I’m hot-blooded, and I know how to please a woman…”
The girls below giggled so hard they nearly doubled over.
Upstairs, I nearly snapped the pen in my hand.
One of my men handed me a cigarette, then leaned close and asked quietly:
“Brother Niên, want us to teach Lục a little lesson…”
I exhaled a plume of smoke and narrowed my eyes at him.
He immediately shut his mouth and backed away, embarrassed.
I closed the ledger, stood up, and went downstairs, walking straight over to Lục Phong.
The women scattered as soon as they saw me coming.
Lục Phong was still grinning:
“Brother Niên, need something?”
“Got too much free time?”
“More or less.”
“Come out with me.”
8
I took Lục Phong to an abandoned old auto repair shop on the outskirts.
Tam gia used to bring people here to “settle problems.” He didn’t use it much anymore, but it was still secluded enough.
As soon as he got out of the car, he whistled.
“Pretty secluded, Brother Niên. You planning to do something here—mmph!”
Before he could finish, I punched him square in the face.
I rolled my wrist and looked at him.
“Like my fists?”
Lục Phong tilted his head and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, still grinning like nothing had happened.
Without a word, he lunged at me.
Every blow landed hard. He held nothing back.
He fought like a street brawler—reckless and vicious, with top-tier speed and strength.
I fought with technique and experience, targeting his weak spots.
Dust billowed through the old workshop. All that remained was our ragged breathing and the dull thud of flesh against flesh.
Both our eyes were bloodshot.
At last, I deflected his straight punch, slipped aside, drove an elbow into his stomach, and swept his legs out from under him.
He let out a low groan, lost his balance, and I slammed him onto the concrete floor.
I took the chance to pin him down, one hand clamped around his throat and the other locking his struggling arm in place.
“Had enough?”
A gash split Lục Phong’s forehead, blood and sweat streaming down his face, but he was still grinning.
“Had… my ass.”
He suddenly slammed his forehead into my nose.
I didn’t react in time. My vision went dark, and blood gushed from my nose like a stream.
My grip loosened, and he immediately rolled over and pinned me instead.
His knee pressed into my lower belly, his elbow pinning my chest. He panted, looking triumphant.
“You need a little strategy for everything, Brother Niên.”
I’d been beaten bloody, my face a mess, but my glare was still vicious.
“You son of a—”
Before I could finish cursing, Lục Phong suddenly lowered his head.
His Adam’s apple bobbed, as if something invisible were tugging it down, and his lips slowly drew closer to mine.
Just as our lips were about to touch, a car horn sounded in the distance.
I jerked in surprise and shoved him away at once.
Lục Phong staggered back a few steps and leaned against the rusted frame of an old car, his eyes dark as he looked at me.
“Brother Niên… can you stop pretending?”
I stood up and smeared the blood across my face as I wiped at it.
“Let’s go.”
With that, I picked up my jacket, turned my back, and walked straight to the car without looking back.
The engine roared to life.
In the rearview mirror, Lục Phong stood perfectly still.
I drove away without hesitation.
But as soon as I merged onto the main road, I muttered a curse and swung the car around.
Memories of eight years ago came surging back like a tide, hitting me harder than any punch.
Every step felt like walking on a wound that had yet to heal.
At last, I couldn’t hold back and shouted:
“Lục Phong! What the hell do you want?!”
“It’s been eight years. If you wanted to leave, you should’ve just left for good!”
“I was almost over you. Why the hell did you come back?!”
Lục Phong’s pupils contracted, and at last, that cocky mask of his began to crack.
“What do I want?”
“Because… damn it, I missed you so much I was going out of my mind!”
9
Eight years ago, Lục Phong and I weren’t like this.
Back then, we were the two most notorious mad dogs in the East District.
I started running with the wrong crowd at sixteen, and for five straight years, I couldn’t get out.
I first met Lục Phong just after he got out of juvenile detention—he was eighteen and covered in tattoos.
We first met at an underground fight club. We fought like hell, neither willing to give an inch, until the owner kicked us both out.
We squatted at the mouth of an alley, passing a cigarette back and forth, taking one puff each.
He asked me:
“What’s your name?”
I said:
“Hạng Niên. And you?”
He blew a smoke ring.
“Lục Phong.”
From that day on, it was as if we were tied together by the same string.
We hauled cargo for hire at the docks, worked as enforcers in casinos, and risked our lives side by side.
Life back then—licking blood off the blade—was still thrilling as hell.
I thought we’d live like that forever, until one of us dropped dead in the street.
But then disaster struck.
That night, a deal went wrong. The other side double-crossed us, and the cops showed up, too.
In the chaos, I saw someone holding a gun to Lục Phong’s head.
I don’t know where I found the strength, but I rushed over, shoved him aside, and snatched the gun.
Then… bang—the gun went off.
I had killed someone.
Before I could even collect myself, a blow landed on the back of my head, and I blacked out on the spot.
When I woke up, Lục Phong was gone.
I thought he’d run off and left me all alone.
Until one day, I happened to find an old news clipping in a yellowed newspaper.
Lục Phong had acted incredibly fast.
Before the police arrived, he knocked me out, took the gun, and confessed in my place—then got sentenced to eight years in prison.
In all those eight years, I never visited him once. On the contrary, I stayed angry with him for a long time.
I never imagined I’d see Lục Phong again someday.
So when Tam gia told me to go check out the kid he’d just taken in, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.
I watched Lục Phong from the second floor.
He was darker, taller, more solidly muscled, and more brutal in a fight.
Tam gia asked:
“What do you think?”
I held a cigarette between my lips, somewhat dazed.
“Too vicious. He can’t be tamed.”
It was true. He couldn’t be tamed.
He left without a word back then, and now he’s back without even bothering to give me a heads-up.
Lục Phong has never cared how other people feel.
In his eyes, maybe the fact that he went to prison in my place was something I should be grateful for to the point of tears.
But he didn’t know that while he was in prison for eight years, I’d locked myself in another kind of cage.
For the past eight years, I’ve often dreamed about that night.
Regret. Agony. Guilt. Resentment. Rage. Like living demons, they clung to me without letting go.
But Lục Phong, eight years later, looked as if he was enjoying the game.
He looked up at me from the floor below and grinned:
“Hey, big brother. How would you know if you don’t give it a try?”
I stubbed out my cigarette, anger flaring inside me.
Who the hell said he could call me big brother?!
I went down to the second floor, avoided his burning gaze, and pretended I didn’t know him.
Lục Phong’s face darkened for a moment, then he seemed to realize something.
“You’re Hạng Niên?”
“Did Tam gia send you to kill me or sleep with me?”
I paused for a beat.
A genuine lunatic—afraid of neither heaven nor earth.
10
I stuffed some tissue up my nose to stop the bleeding and gripped the steering wheel with both hands.
Lục Phong rested his head against the passenger-side window, picking at the split in the corner of his mouth.
The air in the car was so stifling it was hard to breathe.
Some things, once torn, can never be the same again, even if you mend them.
Like a pane of clear, thin glass: once it’s pierced, it can never heal.
The smell of blood from the fighting ring still lingered in my nostrils.
Mixed with the memory of his lips almost touching mine just now, it burned through my insides, tearing me apart with pain.
The car stopped in the lot behind the fighting ring.
I turned off the engine but didn’t open the door.
Lục Phong didn’t move either.
We sat in silence for exactly one minute.
He suddenly spoke, his voice hoarse:
“Hạng Niên.”
I didn’t answer.
He went on:
“If that car horn hadn’t sounded just now…”
He turned to look at me, his gaze sharp as a knife, as if he wanted to rip an answer out of me:
“Would you have moved out of the way?”
My fingers trembled.
“There is no ‘what if.’”
Lục Phong clenched his teeth and stubbornly pressed on:
“I’m fucking asking you—would you have moved?!”
I gritted my teeth:
“Yes.”
The arrogant smile at the corner of his mouth vanished at once.
“You coward.”
After cursing me out, he kicked the door open and got out, fury practically radiating from his back.
I didn’t stop him.
Only after he disappeared through the side door did I raise a hand to touch the bridge of my nose, still throbbing with pain.
My fingers were smeared with blood, still warm.
It was from that headbutt just now—reckless, fierce, and utterly without hesitation.
What the hell, did he break out of prison or something?