Surrender Means Losing Half

“Do you know what ‘dang dang dang dang dang dang’ is?”

“What kind of dang dang dang?”

“‘Dang dang dang dang dang dang’ is…”

Smack.

The TV went black.

Zhafu tossed the remote onto the coffee table, his brows furrowed enough to hold a French fry between them.

What the hell was this supposed to be?

Since leaving Tibet, he had seen plenty of strange things in the cities—food, clothes, entertainment. Each one was fresher and more bizarre than the last.

But he really couldn’t appreciate this kind of nonsensical movie.

Jiang Yeqiu liked them, though. That gambling hero movie, for example.

Two men on the screen would solemnly spout nonsense at each other until Zhafu’s brain started to ache.

He preferred the old gore flicks from America.

When someone was going to hack or kill, they just hacked and killed. Straightforward.

Unlike this. He couldn’t even tell what they were talking about.

Zhafu picked up his red wine and downed half a glass.

The apartment Jiang Yeqiu had rented for him was in the city center. The living room was spacious, and neon lights from the commercial district glittered beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The glass was polished so cleanly that it reflected his current face.

Rough. Grim. The outline of a man from Tibet still clung to it.

But in Yangcheng, his face was nothing special.

There were all kinds of people here: backpackers, migrant workers, tourists, foreigners. No one paid much attention to anyone else.

He liked that.

But liking it was one thing. He couldn’t stay here forever.

You couldn’t wrap a fire in paper.

Having Jiang Yeqiu procure corpses for him was convenient, but dead people weren’t rotten leaves by the roadside. If one or two went missing, perhaps no one would care.

But as time passed, some link in the chain—hospitals, funeral homes—would eventually expose a loose end.

And once that loose end was exposed, the flames would spread to him.

Changing cities, or even countries, was the proper solution.

Huaxia was vast, but it was also strict.

There were surveillance cameras everywhere.

You might think no one was watching, but the records had already been pieced together behind the scenes.

Leave this place.

As soon as he got out of Huaxia, the sky would be high and the land far away. Who would care which mountain ravine he had crawled out of?

He thought of the people who had contacted him before.

They had claimed they could arrange an identity for him, get him out of the country, and then send him somewhere else.

But lately, they had all suddenly vanished. They wouldn’t answer calls or reply to messages, as though someone had wiped them from the face of the world.

Zhafu didn’t particularly care.

As the alcohol took effect, the apartment began to feel more and more stifling.

Zhafu didn’t like going online or playing games. To him, a phone was merely a way to contact Jiang Yeqiu.

Sitting there alone, his mind kept filling with a jumble of disordered thoughts.

He grabbed his coat and went outside.

The city center at night was lively to an unreasonable degree.

There were still lines outside the lottery shops. People sang at the entrances to shopping malls. Couples huddled beneath shared umbrellas, laughing and chatting. Skateboarders slipped through gaps in the crowds, while curses and honking horns blended together.

Zhafu walked among the people. He was irritated, but his face revealed little of it.

He was used to observing.

Which roads had fewer cameras? Which corners had blind spots?

He wandered casually through the streets, taking in his surroundings.

Living in a place like this meant he couldn’t act recklessly.

Yangcheng was prosperous, but prosperity meant too many surveillance cameras. Every move would be recorded, and if something happened, tracing it back to him would be far too easy.

He made two detours before finally entering a McDonald’s.

The heating was turned up high, and the smells of fried food and sugary cola mingled in the air.

Zhafu ordered a meal.

Back in Tibet, he had eaten barley most of all—hard and coarse, enough to make even his throat grow tired after too long.

The food in the cities might not be healthy, but it had one undeniable advantage: it was delicious.

Snow-white rice, steaming noodles, and fries—when they were fresh from the fryer, that crisp crunch could suppress even his irritation for two whole minutes.

Zhafu picked up a fry, dipped it in ketchup, and muttered a curse.

“Who the hell would want to stay in that godforsaken mountain ditch?”

He swallowed and added:

“I’m going to live a life worth living.”

Zhafu had spoken in Tibetan. Two students at the next table heard him and couldn’t help glancing over.

They couldn’t understand him, so they began whispering to each other.

Zhafu looked up and stared at them.

“Shut up, you snow leopards!”

The two students immediately lowered their heads and started playing with their phones.

Zhafu felt a little better.

City people weren’t all that impressive after all.

A vicious enough face could scare people, but only hard fists were truly hard.

Just then, a young man carrying a tray came over and sat down opposite him.

Zhafu paused.

The newcomer wasn’t very old and was dressed plainly. On his tray was a standard meal: a hamburger, fries, cola, and chicken wings.

After sitting down, he didn’t look at Zhafu. He first tore open a packet of ketchup and squeezed it onto the paper.

Zhafu scanned the surrounding tables.

The restaurant really was full.

Sharing a table was normal here.

But he didn’t like it.

The habits he had brought from Tibet still clung to him. When he ate, he disliked having a stranger sitting nearby—especially a young man who had invited himself over.

Zhafu left the few fries he had eaten on the tray and stood up.

He didn’t get up.

The chair wasn’t broken.

His legs weren’t crippled.

But his body was as if something had pressed it firmly into place. It no longer obeyed him.

Zhafu’s eyelid twitched.

The young man across from him bit into a fry and glanced at his tray.

“Don’t rush. Finish eating before you leave.”

His voice was as light as a reminder not to waste food.

Zhafu’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

A tough one.

He had found Zhafu, and he could immobilize him inside a restaurant. There was no way he was an ordinary person.

The four words “Awakened Yanhuang” surfaced in Zhafu’s mind, and he suppressed his urge to attack.

He wasn’t stupid.

Killing someone in the street and killing someone inside a restaurant were two entirely different matters.

What was more, he might not even be able to kill the man in front of him.

Zhafu placed his hands back on the table and slowed his speech.

“I haven’t harmed anyone.”

The young man raised his eyes.

Zhafu continued, “I only came out of Tibet to see the prosperity of the outside world. If you want to investigate me, I’ll cooperate. I won’t run.”

That was about as honest as he could be.

The young man inserted a straw into his cola and took a sip.

“You’ve memorized that line, haven’t you? Pretty smooth.”

Zhafu didn’t respond.

The young man smiled. “You’re the most obedient villain I’ve ever met. When other people get caught, they at least have to throw out a few threats. But you? You’ve surrendered before the fight even started, huh?”

Zhafu felt as though he had heard that somewhere before, but he had thick skin. He neither admitted it nor denied it.

He had survived this long not because of pride.

Pride couldn’t fill your stomach in the mountains, and it couldn’t stop a knife in the city.

If he could lower his head, he lowered it. If he could play the fool, he played the fool. As long as he stayed alive, there would always be a chance to turn things around.

He made his posture even more submissive.

“I can go with you.”

“Oh? Is that so? Then look me in the eye, you bastard!”

Zhafu raised his head and looked directly at him for the first time.

The young man’s eye color changed.

A hint of purple gathered deep within his eyes. It was quiet, yet impossible to look away from.

Zhafu’s breath caught.

He wanted to close his eyes.

He couldn’t.

He wanted to shout.

Only a faint breathy sound came from his throat.

The restaurant remained just as noisy as before. Someone called out for their order, people laughed, a child shouted for his mother. No one noticed this table.

Zhafu could feel that he was being completely suppressed. Who knew what other tricks the man had up his sleeve? It was better to behave for now. Perhaps there would still be a chance…

Lin Mo looked at him, his tone utterly calm.

“No. You don’t have a chance. Not even a little one.”

The next second, Zhafu sat upright in his seat, his expression firm and resolute, as if he had just been sworn into the Party.

“All right. The venom has been planted. Now all that’s left is to brew the poison into it.”

Lin Mo finished the meal on the table, then casually reached over and took Zhafu’s fries.

After all, wasting food was a crime.

Next, he would track down the Japanese spies hiding among the neon lights of Yangcheng. Someone had to know what was buried beneath Lilin Plaza.