Chapter 10

Yu Congyi was greatly alarmed, but observing Tang Zefei's expression, he realized that Tang Zefei had only asked casually, as if flirting, half-truthfully, saying that he was probably this kind of person all along. Thus, he knew that it was not convenient for him to reveal his true identity at this moment.

Looking away into the distance, he calmly replied, "Young Master Tang, you're overthinking it. I'm not." Tang Zefei asked, "Then what are you doing here?" "Can't I come here?" Yu Congyi answered frankly.

Tang Zefei looked at his face, her lips twitching slightly, her words less ambiguous, but her eyes conveying something: "Commander Yu doesn't seem to be that kind of person."

"We've only met twice, how could Young Master Tang know what kind of person I am?" Yu Congyi didn't want to say anything more to him. Thinking of Lu Jin, whom he had been desperately tracking, who had already disappeared, he intentionally transferred his anger to Tang Zefei. However, there were many people and eyes at the entrance of the dance hall, and he abandoned the idea after only a moment's thought. Meanwhile, Tang Zefei took out a cigarette case from his pocket and handed it to Yu Congyi.

"Thank you, but I don't smoke." Yu Congyi shook his head, and Tang Zefei lit his own cigarette, leaning back slightly against the wall. Yu Congyi didn't look at him again, standing by the roadside. Thinking about what had just happened, he felt he should thank her, but hesitated to speak. He didn't have the habit of standing by the roadside in the cold wind, so he said softly, "If you have nothing else to do, I'll be going now." Tang Zefei reached out a hand, as if to pull his arm, but Yu Congyi reacted quickly, not noticing. He stepped slightly to the side, blocking her with his shoulder, and said, "It's getting late, Young Master Tang, please go back and rest."

Tang Zefei lowered his arm and slowly leaned against the wall. Yu Congyi didn't look back at him again and walked away. Tang Zefei leaned there and stubbed out his cigarette, only then did the trembling subside slightly. The chills and fever that had tormented him for so long had finally subsided. Yu Congyi wouldn't look at him, but he insisted on looking at Yu Congyi. He watched the other's back until it disappeared from sight before Tang Zefei stood up, took out his pocket watch, and glanced at it. It was almost ten o'clock.

Yu Congyi returned to the Military Police Headquarters. As he expected, the lights were still on in the building. It was late at night and the dew was heavy. The guards at the gate saw him hurrying in, looking cold, and greeted him several times, then draped an overcoat over his shoulders. Yu Congyi quickly climbed the stairs. The young guard on night duty was sitting at his desk, propping his head up with his hand and dozing off, completely unaware of what was happening. Yu Congyi tapped his finger twice on the table in front of the door.

"Boss, boss." The young guard jolted awake, turning around to see Yu Congyi standing at the door. He instantly snapped out of his drowsiness. "Why are you back?" "You can go now." Yu Congyi didn't wait for his explanation, instructing him as he went into the inner room, draping his coat over the back of a chair. The man dared not skip work, thinking Yu Congyi was going to punish him for his laziness. Terrified, he immediately stood up, stammering an explanation. Yu Congyi spoke first, ordering, "Go back now. I have things to do." He walked to the table, rummaging through a pile of materials.

After waiting for a while without any sound behind him, Yu Congyi turned around and saw the young guard standing to one side, looking hesitant to speak. He lowered his voice and asked, "Xiao Xu, is there anything else?" "No, no, thank you for your hard work, boss. You should get some rest too!" The soldier, confirming that Yu Congyi didn't intend to blame him, relaxed, saluted him, and left quite happily.

Yu Congyi turned and watched him leave before returning to the door and closing it. He then took out a gilded brass pocket watch from his pocket and examined it closely. The watch case was gleaming silver, with half of the gilding worn away, leaving the other half intact. This was likely due to the countless times the user had opened and closed the watch, creating a unique color on the cover. The room was dimly lit, so he opened the cover and looked at it against the light. Inside, it appeared no different from other pocket watches, except for a subtle engraving of what seemed to be an English name. After a moment's thought, Yu Congyi deciphered it as the name of a foreign woman. He pondered for a while, then turned and searched through a nearby bookshelf. Unable to find what he was looking for, he went to the adjacent materials room.

He returned alone to the military police headquarters, and it was unclear how long he would be busy there; meanwhile, at the entrance of the ballroom where many scandalous events had occurred that evening, Lu Jin inexplicably returned, pacing back and forth. The pocket watch his master, Madame Merrick, had given him was nowhere to be found. Lu Jin suspected it had been accidentally dropped during the chaos at the ballroom, but he had no concrete evidence. The pocket watch was usually kept deep inside his breast pocket; how could it have fallen out so easily? It must have been caused by some kind of struggle. Lu Jin began to recall the details of the ballroom incident, and a person appeared in his mind.

He felt this person looked vaguely familiar, yet he couldn't quite place when he had seen him before. Was he Young Master Tang's male concubine? If so, why did he look so unfamiliar, as if he had never seen him before? But if not, why was Young Master Tang so intimate with him? Lu Jin couldn't figure it out. Because he couldn't figure it out, he wouldn't know where his lost pocket watch was. After hesitating for a long time, he still found nothing. In the end, he returned home disappointed. Losing Madam Tang's pocket watch made him feel as if he had lost his soul and spirit.

Lu Jin had been with Tang Zefei since he was seventeen, and it had been almost ten years since then. He would never forget the kindness of the Tang family mistress who had shown him such favor when he was in such a sorry state.

At that time, he was just a street thug who worked odd jobs in dance halls. He was expelled from military school for assaulting a classmate and spent his days in a daze, degenerate and hopeless. He had no family background; his father had died early and his mother had run off with someone. His only way to make a living was to work as a errand boy or a thug for rich young men.

That day, he was hired to be a henchman for Superintendent Li's son. Superintendent Li's son, Li Changyue, was an idle and good-for-nothing who spent his days taking advantage of his father's power to commit crimes and run amok, leading a group of thugs to do whatever they wanted. He had recently had a falling out with Boss Ding's brother, so the two agreed to have a showdown that night near the Linhe Factory.

Li Changyue had a hundred men under his command, but he only sent about twenty; the rest were all hastily recruited. He promised each of them a silver ingot if they won, and even if they lost and fled, they would still have a chance to survive. Lu Jin went for that silver ingot. But no one expected that Boss Ding's younger brother, Ding Qiangmu, would be such a ruthless person. At that time, the unwritten rule among the thugs in the Yi Lease Hailing Street was that fights were never fought with guns or clubs, relying entirely on brute force. However, when Li Changyue's men met Ding Fang, they were all dumbfounded—this Ding Qiangmu had no regard for honor or loyalty; he led his henchmen armed with knives and guns, and Li Changyue himself led the charge, carrying a terrifying longsword!

No matter how brave and skilled Li's men were, they were no match for those armed men and were utterly defeated as expected. Some who valued their lives ran away when they were slashed, never daring to risk their lives again, while others, desperate men, fought back with their own flesh and blood against the enemy's iron, ending up battered and bruised beyond recognition.

Lu Jin belonged to the former group. He valued his life highly and would never risk everything for a single ingot of silver. While fighting with Ding, he had been conserving strength, the ability to escape at any moment. Unexpectedly, he failed to escape, and a sudden gust of wind came from behind, a long blade hurtling towards his shoulder! Lu Jin realized that this man was determined to kill him! He quickly rolled to the side to dodge, but Ding Qiangmu was relentless, and he and two or three of his men, armed with daggers, pursued him fiercely.

Lu Jin was a skilled fighter, but even with his bare hands, he couldn't defeat someone armed. He was stabbed several times, but ignoring the pain, he fled in panic. As he ran, he saw a swiftly flowing river below a steel fence on his left. He could no longer think of anything else and jumped in.

The river was swift, but fortunately, Lu Jin was a strong swimmer and survived. The thugs chased him to the bank, deciding it wasn't worth risking their lives by jumping into the river to chase him alone. Lu Jin had thus escaped with his life. After finally reaching the other side, he dragged his wet clothes and wounds along the street. Night had fallen, and the streets were sparsely populated. Those who did pass by glanced at him sideways, avoiding him in fear. Knowing he had nowhere to go, Lu Jin could only linger in a small teahouse to escape the cold wind.

The teahouse huddled timidly on the riverbank, its interior small and dimly lit, with wooden doors, tables, and thresholds. The oil lamps were extinguished. The owners, an elderly couple, were closing for the night when they were startled to see a tall, wounded man sitting on the threshold. They were terrified, unsure of his identity. Lu Jin reached out to ask for some tea, but before he could utter a word, he collapsed—fainted from exhaustion and blood loss.

The elderly couple at the teahouse screamed in horror. They quickly turned on a lamp to examine him closely and found that his wounds and wet clothes were intertwined, making it impossible to distinguish between blood and water. The old man touched his chest and saw that the man was still breathing. Fearing they might get into a murder case, the two of them discussed it and together they managed to pull Lu Jinsheng up, hoist him onto their backs, and dragged him for several miles to the clinic across the street. After placing him at the clinic entrance, they silently returned home.

The next morning, Lu Jin finally woke up and looked around. He didn't know where he was. He was lucky that he hadn't died. The clinic was probably closed for the day and hadn't opened yet. So he continued to drag his body forward, stumbling and staggering.

He didn't know how long he had walked, but he leaned against some stone steps to rest. In the distance, he saw a rickshaw parked by the roadside. Lu Jin was barely breathing. Looking at the woman in the distance, he felt she was very different from others. He could tell at a glance that she was a noblewoman from a wealthy family, and she looked like a foreigner. He thought that perhaps she wouldn't care about his filthy appearance and would take pity on him and rescue him. Merrick was dressed in gorgeous clothes, with a fox fur scarf and a long velvet dress. She was holding a handkerchief in her right hand and was sitting in the rickshaw by the roadside with her maid, whispering to each other. She was about to get off the rickshaw but hadn't quite gotten off yet.

Lu Jin approached the foreign woman, but before he could speak, she covered her mouth and nose with a handkerchief and took a step back, her brows furrowed, looking startled. Lu Jin quietly explained his background, his tone extremely earnest. The woman hesitated for a moment, then whispered something to her maid. Lu Jin assumed she disliked him and felt both ashamed and embarrassed. Before he could react, the maid took a pouch from her pocket, stepped forward, and slipped a silver ingot into his hand.

This amount of money was astronomical to him at that time. Lu Jin stood there, holding the silver coins, wanting to express his gratitude, but he felt that he had no words to say. He had been uneducated and had hardly studied any books, let alone foreign languages. He just watched awkwardly as the foreign woman walked to the rickshaw, gave some instructions to the driver, and then hurriedly walked away with her maid.

The driver took the money and turned to Lu Jin, saying, "Hey, what are you standing there for? That rich lady told me to take you to the hospital. Hurry up and get in! Tsk, what happened to you..." Lu Jin thanked him repeatedly and looked ahead. By then, the woman had already turned into a clothing store and disappeared from sight.

"Master, who is that woman?" Lu Jin couldn't help but ask. "Her husband is quite capable, you've heard of him, right? Boss Tang, the wealthy Italian businessman who lives by the Haihe River!"

Lu Jin was secretly surprised and remembered this kindness very well. After he recovered from his injuries, he thought that he was still a nobody, so he was willing to go and serve his benefactor. You can probably guess what happened next. Lu Jin got lucky and climbed up the social ladder by marrying Madam Tang. From then on, he followed that woman and obeyed her every command.

That concludes the account of Lu Jin's past. Now, after taking Lu Jin in as her subordinate, and learning that he was a military academy graduate with considerable experience, Merrick no longer treated him merely as an ordinary servant. Driven by a hidden agenda, she kept Lu Jin like a hunter keeping a hound; for this reason, Lu Jin, as her henchman, assassinated many people she disliked and hated. But that will be discussed later.

Three to five days passed after that. On this day, Jiang Fengming mentioned to Yu Congyi at the dinner table that he wanted to meet his uncle, Mr. Yang, who was in the French Concession, to purchase half a ton of tobacco on Sunday. The meeting was at Tianjin Port, and he asked Yu Congyi to accompany him. Yu Congyi never said "no" to these kinds of things, and when he heard it was Yang Xiang, he only frowned slightly before quickly agreeing.

"Yang Xiang, he is your..." Yu Congyi paused, about to speak in a low voice.

“I know,” Jiang Fengming interrupted him. “I know what I’m doing.”

Yu Congyi didn't know what kind of "knowing" Jiang Fengming had in mind, but even if Fengming had said so, he felt it was inappropriate to say anything more. Several more days passed, and finally the agreed-upon day for delivery at the port arrived.

The morning mist was thin and hazy. Winter had arrived, and the weather was getting colder day by day. When Jiang Fengming got out of the black Chevrolet wearing a coat, he was hit by the sea breeze and sneezed.

The attendants on either side surrounded their leader, showering him with concern. Jiang Fengming pushed open the car door, rubbed his nose, waved to indicate that he didn't care, adjusted his collar, and strode towards the agreed location.

The Yang family was already waiting there. In the hazy mist, a large group of people dressed in black stood in the shadows cast by the huge cargo ship at the port, some talking in twos and threes, others smoking, making them difficult to see clearly. As Jiang Fengming approached, he realized that the leader of the group was not Yang Xiang himself—Yang Xiang hadn't come today.

Yang Ruinian—the only son of Boss Yang Xiang—stepped forward first and stood in front of Jiang Fengming, saying, "You must be Brother Jiang? It's an honor to meet you."

Jiang Fengming stopped, raising his head as if scrutinizing the other man, without uttering a word or making any move. A few seconds later, he suddenly extended a fist and swung it forward, striking Yang Ruinian squarely in the chin!