Chapter 104 Faking Death to Escape

As dawn broke, the pit was dug open, and it was found to be empty.

"Perhaps it's buried at the very bottom," the search and rescue team leader said.

But everyone knew that the hope was slim.

Fang Che knelt beside the ruins, his fingers digging into the soil, his nails breaking, blood mixed with mud.

Li Hanzhou hugged him from behind, his arms wrapped tightly around him, as if afraid he would jump in with him.

"Seventh Brother, he..." Fang Che's voice was hoarse.

“I know,” Li Hanzhou’s voice pressed down on his shoulder. “I know.”

Lu Che stood aside, wiped the dust off his face, and waved to the search and rescue team: "Keep digging. We need to find them alive or dead."

By noon, they had only unearthed half a shattered submachine gun and a blood-stained strip of prison uniform.

Those are Qi's clothes.

Fang Che stared at the strip of cloth, and the last words of Qi's mouth flashed before his eyes... "Protect him."

This silent killer, this man who called himself a dog, traded his life for theirs.

"Let's call it a day." Lu Che sighed. "Jiang Kun's remaining forces are gathering here; we have to retreat."

Li Hanzhou pulled Fang Che up gently, but Fang Che's back injury hadn't healed, and he still groaned.

"Can we walk?" Li Hanzhou asked.

Fang Che nodded, but tears fell onto the back of his hand: "Brother Li, Seventh Brother, he..."

“He’s not dead.” Li Hanzhou said decisively. “That kind of person is tough. Even the King of Hell wouldn’t dare take him.”

These words were said to Fang Che, but also to himself.

But both of them knew in their hearts that the chances of surviving that landslide were extremely slim.

A ward on the top floor of a private hospital in Bangkok.

A week later, the stitches on Li Hanzhou's gunshot wound in his shoulder were removed, and the infection in Fang Che's waist was under control.

The doctor advised that I should rest for at least another month.

"A month?" Fang Che sat up in bed. "The situation in Hong Kong is on fire!"

Zhou Wenxuan pushed open the door and came in, holding an encrypted folder in his hand, his expression not very good.

“The house is on fire, that’s the least of it.” He put the folder on the table. “Jiang Tianqi has gone mad since he found out Jiang Kun is dead.”

The folder contains photos and briefings.

Half of the shops on Portland Street were smashed, with broken glass everywhere, and the signboard of Wo Yee Tong was splashed with red paint.

Less than a day after being transferred out of the ICU, Ah Gui was attacked again in his ward, and the assassin was shot dead on the spot.

Cheng Tieniu's case is stuck in the judicial process. The evidence of drug trafficking is "conclusive," and his bail application has been rejected three times.

Xi Rong and her group of homeless children have completely disappeared without a trace.

“Jiang Tianqi has planted informants at the airport, the docks, and all the border crossings.” Zhou Wenxuan looked at Li Hanzhou. “If you go back to Hong Kong now, you’ll be walking into a trap.”

Li Hanzhou silently flipped through the photos, each one feeling like a stab to his heart.

That was his territory, his brother's territory.

Fang Che leaned closer to look and saw Ah Gui's pale face wrapped in bandages, and his eyes reddened.

“Lu Che suggests,” Zhou Wenxuan said in a low voice, “that you cannot return to Hong Kong.”

“Then we won’t go back.” Fang Che blinked, then suddenly slapped his thigh. “Brother Li, how about we smuggle ourselves back? We can disguise ourselves as laborers, take a seafood transport ship, and go around the Philippines…”

Zhou Wenxuan sighed, "Fang Che, that's a TV drama."

"Art imitates life!" Fang Che straightened his back. "Besides, if we can't go back openly, we'll just 'die' in front of them!"

Li Hanzhou raised his head.

"What did you say?"

“Fake death.” Fang Che’s eyes lit up. “Zhou sir, can you stage a car accident and explosion? Leak photos of our ‘corpses’ and DNA samples to the Hong Kong media. Jiang Tianqi is suspicious; he’ll definitely send someone to Thailand to verify, and then…”

“We’ll use the prepared 'charred corpses' to fool them then,” Zhou Wenxuan replied, his eyes lighting up. “Actually, you’ll take the smuggling route and sneak back to Hong Kong. This plan… is feasible.”

Li Hanzhou stared at Fang Che for a long time, then suddenly smiled.

“Ah Che,” he ruffled Fang Che’s hair, “you’re really good at this sometimes.”

Fang Che raised his chin: "That's right! Northeastern men are not only good at fighting, but also at strategizing!"

The plan is set.

Three days later, a tanker truck "exploded" on a remote road outside Bangkok.

Footage captured by local media shows two charred bodies being pulled from the wreckage, with passport fragments and personal belongings scattered around them!

Li Hanzhou never takes off his ancestral wolf head ring.

A DNA test report was "leaked" to Hong Kong media, and the comparison results showed that it was indeed Li Hanzhou and Fang Che.

When the news reached Hong Kong, Jiang Tianqi was keeping vigil in front of Jiang Kun's funeral hall.

In the black and white photo, Jiang Kun's smile is sinister.

Jiang Tianqi was dressed in a black suit, holding incense in his hand, when his subordinates hurried in and whispered in his ear.

Jiang Tianqi's expression went from solemn to astonished, and then to ecstatic.

He suddenly threw the incense stick to the ground and laughed three times.

"Li Hanzhou, Li Hanzhou," he raised his glass to the portrait, "you still died after my father in the end!"

He downed half a glass of champagne, and his eyes suddenly became deep and mysterious.

"Fang Che..." he murmured, "That pretty little thing... died too?"

The subordinate nodded: "The report says the two were in the same car and were killed in the explosion together."

Jiang Tianqi fell silent.

He recalled the first time he saw Fang Che; he stood in the firelight, handsome and captivating!

He once told his father that after killing Li Hanzhou, he would "recruit" Fang Che.

Jiang Kun scoffed at the time, saying that indulging in frivolous pursuits leads to the loss of ambition.

Now both of them are dead.

A sense of irritation welled up in Jiang Tianqi's heart, like a collectible he had his eye on had been shattered before he could even touch it.

"I want to see him alive or dead." He coldly ordered, "Ah Long, take some men to Thailand and confirm it with your own eyes. Especially Fang Che... I need to see conclusive evidence."

"Yes, Young Master Jiang."

Jiang Tianqi walked to the window of the mourning hall and looked at the neon lights outside.

He smiled.

Li Hanzhou is dead, so Portland Street is his now.

As for Fang Che... it's better that he's dead, so I won't have to worry about him.

But for some reason, there's always an emptiness in my heart.

Two days later, Jiang Tianqi's men arrived in Bangkok.

The "charred corpse" prepared by Zhou Wenxuan lay in the morgue freezer, burned beyond recognition, but the DNA matched, and the personal belongings also matched.

Ah Long took photos and videos, including close-ups of his face... although you couldn't really see his face at all.

The message came back: death confirmed.

Jiang Tianqi stared at the photo for a long time, and finally set the close-up of the lighter as his phone's screen saver.

“What a pity,” he said softly, then put away his phone. “Pass the word down: take full control of Portland Street. Li Hanzhou’s old subordinates, those who are willing to surrender, keep them; those who are not… get rid of them.”

He paused, then added, "Go find that girl named Xi Rong, and her bunch of brats. Fang Che doted on them when he was alive, maybe... we can find out something."

He didn't want to admit that he was still thinking about the person who was already "dead".

And on the very night he held his victory celebration banquet—