Chapter 544: Kneel Three Times and We’ll Call It Even
The moment Huang Daqiang heard the name Scarface, his expression instantly changed.
This man controlled the factory district on the outskirts of South City. Word was he’d opened a roller rink and had quite a vicious reputation in that area. He enjoyed pushing around anyone who rubbed him the wrong way—a true street thug.
Jing Hu saw that Huang Daqiang had lost his nerve and shoved him aside.
“Get lost! Stop being a nuisance, you coward!”
Huang Daqiang nearly slammed into the wall from the push but didn’t dare fight back. Instead, he hurriedly grabbed his mother, who was still trying to argue: “Mom, stop, don’t push back against them. Let’s just drop it. This wasn’t our business to begin with.”
Before Auntie Zhang could say anything, Yaya’s uncle’s group had already reached door 501 and began pounding on it.
“Open up in there! Hand over Yaya right now! Or we’ll call the cops and report you for child trafficking!”
“Hurry up! Open the door!”
Inside, Liu Yutong and the others had heard the commotion from outside.
“Yun Cheng, Ma Da, you two go handle your own business. I can manage this situation myself.”
But Ma Da quickly protested, “No way, Young Mistress! I’m about to leave the country for days. I won’t get any chances to… ahem, to spread some positive energy from our Wanlong Society. Let me handle this, let me.”
With that, he turned and opened the door directly.
Outside, Yaya’s uncle’s family, preparing to keep hammering on the door, jumped in surprise and instinctively stepped back.
They saw a slightly chubby young man standing in the doorway with several black-suited youths behind him.
The chubby youth looked at them and immediately started cursing without ceremony.
“Screaming, screaming, screaming—screaming your mother’s name, eh?”
“Making a goddamn racket in broad daylight—don’t you have any manners?!”
Yaya’s uncle and his family were stunned speechless by this verbal onslaught.
When they finally recovered, they grew furious.
“Who the hell are you? What kind of way is that to talk? I’m Yaya’s own uncle! I’m here to take my niece home! Who do you think you are, blocking us?”
“Her own uncle?”
Ma Da laughed scornfully, dug in his ear with his pinky, then blew on his fingertip, nearly flicking earwax onto the man’s face. “When Yaya’s parents were alive, I didn’t see any of you relatives coming around to help. Soon as they’re gone, you come sniffing around? You some kind of dog?!”
“You—”
Yaya’s uncle, Jing Fu, turned red with anger. His wife Wang Jinhua immediately stepped forward to curse: “How dare you insult us? We’re Yaya’s closest relatives in this world, recognized by law. You shady characters are keeping the child—who knows, maybe you’re planning to traffic her? Get out of the way! Or we’ll call the police!”
“Call the police?”
Ma Da acted as if he’d heard something hilarious, turning to flash a grin at his black-suited companions. “Brothers, they say they want to call the cops!”
“Hahaha…”
“Go ahead and call them then?”
“I’d love to see if the cops will take your side.”
“Let me tell you, Yaya is under our Young Mistress’s protection now. Our Young Mistress is handling all her affairs. Give up on any ideas about the kid and the house. All of you get lost, and if you dare talk back one more time, I’ll make you fly!”
As soon as Ma Da finished speaking, the black-suited men behind him cracked their knuckles with crisp popping sounds.
Yaya’s uncle’s family were all bullies who preyed on the weak but feared the strong. They couldn’t help but step back again.
Despite their earlier bravado, facing these black-suited, clearly-connected men instantly weakened their presence. They were getting scared.
Only their thuggish son, Jing Long, young and brash, was the first to step forward.
He’d just been bragging to Huang Daqiang about knowing some powerful underworld bigshot. If he let some strange fat guy intimidate him now, he’d lose all face.
He had to put these black suits in their place.
“Fatass, who are you trying to scare? You think you’re special just because you’re wearing black? Let me tell you, I know this area. You heard of Scarface? The kingpin who runs the roller rink? That’s my big brother! One phone call and I’ll have him bring dozens of guys over!”
“Scarface? Never heard of the mutt.”
“Kid, if you want to call someone, do it now. Otherwise I’m afraid you won’t get the chance.”
Ma Da turned his head and called into the room: “Young Mistress, please wait a moment. Let me clean up some trash first. I promise it won’t take long.”
Inside the room, Liu Yutong gave a faint “mm” of acknowledgment.
She understood that sometimes, with these street-level punks, reasoning was useless. You had to use rules they could understand.
Jing Long was completely enraged by Ma Da’s arrogant attitude and immediately whipped out his knockoff phone to make a call.
“Hello! Scarface! It’s Little Dragon! Yeah, at Happiness Community. Ran into some tough guys who won’t back down, wearing black suits trying to look tough… Bring more guys, don’t worry, you’ll be taken care of!”
He hung up, his confidence renewed, and pointed at Ma Da. “Just you wait, fatass! Scarface is bringing his crew over. Don’t you run if you have balls!”
Ma Da: “Don’t worry, I’m not running. I’ll wait for your people.”
“Let’s go, we’ll wait downstairs. I want to see what kind of character this Scarface really is.”
“Get them downstairs. The Young Mistress doesn’t like noise.”
“Yes, Brother Ma!” The men immediately moved forward.
“Hey, hey, hey, what do you think you’re doing?”
“They’re beating people in broad daylight!”
“You… you won’t get away with this. My son called for backup, just you wait!”
“Ahhh!!!”
“…”
Yaya’s uncle’s family was no match for Ma Da’s crew. They were dragged downstairs without even the strength to resist.
Upstairs.
Auntie Zhang and her son Huang Daqiang watched this scene, terrified.
They feared the black-suited men might be too violent, and they feared what would happen when Scarface arrived.
“Mom, that kid really called Scarface. That guy has a bunch of reckless hotheads under him who fight like they have a death wish. Should we call the police?”
Auntie Zhang hesitated, because calling the police might work against Yaya—after all, that family were Yaya’s real relatives.
“Let’s watch a bit longer? Miss Liu and her people aren’t ordinary.”
She thought back to what she’d seen at the car accident scene—the number of black suits back then seemed far more, not even a fraction of what she’d seen today.
Before long.
From the closed-off road south of the community came the rumble of motorcycles and the sound of many footsteps.
More than twenty thugs dressed in tacky clothing, wielding steel pipes and watermelon knives, swaggered onto the scene behind a youth with two hideous scars on his face. Leading the pack was Scarface.
Jing Long, who’d been squatting with his head covered, sprang up excitedly at the sight of his backup and pointed at Ma Da. “Scarface! It’s that fatass right there!”
“I gave him your name, but the fatass didn’t show any respect. He said you were some random nobody and that if you dared come, he’d make you fly!”
Scarface had a cigarette dangling from his mouth, his face fierce as he stepped forward and sized up the mere seven or eight black suits behind the fat man.
Though he found them somewhat familiar, he couldn’t place them and decided not to worry about it.
“Fatty, nice suit. Which crew you with? Give me a name. If I know your boss, I might go easy on you.”
Ma Da stood with his hands in his pockets, slowly walking forward until he stood before Scarface. His seemingly harmless appearance now carried an inexplicable pressure.
“Scarface, right?”
“You watch TV, surf the web?”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. I just mean, TV and online news always say the world needs peace, that our society needs harmony and stability. I think they make a good point.”
“So today, I want to resolve this peacefully.” Ma Da pointed at Scarface, then at himself.
Scarface thought he was backing down and laughed. “What? Coming here to beg for mercy?”
Ma Da raised an index finger and wagged it. “NO! NO! NO! You’ve got it wrong.”
“What I mean is—you, and all these people you brought—should kneel down and kowtow to me, Brother Ma, three times, apologize, and say ‘Sorry, Brother Ma, we were wrong.’ Then this matter will be settled. How about that?”
Scarface’s lackeys burst into laughter at Ma Da’s words.
“Hahaha… has this fatass lost his fucking mind?”
“Make us kneel and kowtow to him? Who the hell does he think he is!”
“I’m dying, is this fatty here to tell us jokes?”
Scarface flicked his cigarette to the ground, crushed it underfoot, and jabbed a finger at Ma Da’s nose. “Fatass, are you fucking blind? Can’t you see how many brothers I’ve got behind me? And you dare tell me to kneel and kowtow, you really… really deserve it!”
Thump!
“Big brother, look how quickly I knelt… can we… can we still talk about harmony?”
After speaking these pleading words while kneeling, Scarface looked at the dense black-clad figures that had emerged around them and swallowed hard.
So numerous they seemed to paint the entire block black!