Special District 9 Chapter 91: Deal the Finishing Blow, or Offer a Helping Hand?

“Is your information reliable?” Qin Yu asked.

“Should be,” Ma Lao-er replied with a frown. “I grabbed his friend right away and held him hostage. I reckon that he won’t dare to lie to me.”

“Come back first. Let’s discuss how we should deal with this matter.”

“I’m already at North Station,” Ma Lao-er said as he glanced at his watch. “I’m boarding the railway in ten minutes.”

Qin Yu was flabbergasted to hear those words. “You’re already leaving? Aren’t you being too hasty?”

“What other choice do I have? That old man views his honor higher than his life. If the other party gets to Little Qu before us, there’s no way we’ll be able to cleanse our reputation anymore,” Ma Lao-er replied. “I’m the one who allowed this to happen, so no matter what, I have to put things back right.”

“But we should still talk things over first. We won’t be able to make any preparations if you suddenly rush over like this!” Qin Yu said worriedly.

“There’s no guarantee that Little Qu will remain in one place for too long,” Ma Lao-er replied. “If he heads elsewhere after dropping by Fengbei, finding him again would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. I have already thought things through. Even in the worst-case scenario, he’s only a few hours ahead of me. I should be able to get to him as long as I move fast.”

Qin Yu fell silent.

“That old man is still fuming at me, so I won’t call him for now,” Ma Lao-er said. “Help me inform him that I’m bringing Liu Zishu, Little Liu, and Maozi with me. Once I get my hands on Little Qu, I’ll try to get a car and drive back to Songjiang.”

“You’ll need your identification documents to get on the railway,” Qin Yu said with a frown. “If you cause any trouble in Fengbei, your name will surely be taken down. By then, things can get really troublesome. After all, you already have a case on you.”

“No worries, I’ll liaise with a dealer to settle the customs,” Ma Lao’er said. “As long as I spend some money, it should be possible to get things done.”

“I still don’t recommend you to head over there all of a sudden.” No matter how Qin Yu thought about it, he still didn’t think that it was safe to do this.

“Qin Yu. As long as we have this matter on us, the Ma Family will never be able to raise its head in Songjiang,” Ma Lao-er said earnestly. “The brothers under us are counting on the medicine route for a living. I can’t destroy their lives just over some alcohol I have drunk. I cannot afford to hesitate here.”

“… Remain in contact then. Call me if there’s anything,” Qin Yu instructed.

“Get a new phone, I’ll contact you through it,” Ma Lao-er said with rare meticulousness. “This way, if anything happens to me, I won’t implicate you.”

“Take care of yourself.”

“I know. See you.”

After Ma Lao-er hung up the call, he headed into the train platform. Soon, a middle-aged man dressed in a tuxedo walked out from the VIP room and beckoned him over, “Follow me.”

…

In the Police Bureau.

The more Qin Yu thought about it, the more uncertain he felt about this matter. So, he gave Old Cat a call.

“Hello?”

“I need you to come over to Squad 3 right now.”

“Roger that.”

After hanging up the phone, Old Cat took only five minutes before he arrived at Squad 3’s working space.

Qin Yu dragged Old Cat into one of the private meeting rooms and locked it from the inside before telling him, “Ma Lao-er has gone to Fengbei.”

“For what?” Old Cat asked in astonishment. “Isn’t he planning to catch Little Qu?”

Qin Yu crossed his arms as he replied solemnly, “He received a lead that Little Qu had headed over to Fengbei. Ma Lao-er is worried that the latter would either not stay there for too long or be done in by the Yuan Family, so he got himself a train ticket to Fengbei right away.”

Old Cat gave the matter some thought before asking, “Is Ma Lao-er’s information reliable? What if it’s another goddamned trap the Yuan Family prepared?”

“That’s what I’m worried about too!” Qin Yu exclaimed in agreement.

“Little Qu is a small player in the grander scale of things, but the problem here is that we know too little about him. We don’t know whether he has been colluding with the Yuan Family since a long time ago, or that he has only been recently bribed by them as a one-off affair. If it’s just a one-off affair, it still isn’t too bad. There are only just two possibilities if that’s the case—either Little Qu has already taken the money and run away, or that Yuan Hua has silenced him for good in order to seal the Ma Family’s fate. But if Little Qu has been colluding with the Yuan Family all this while, the circumstances might just get even worse…”

“What you mean to say is that if Little Qu is loyal to the Yuan Family, he might have prepared other traps over at Fengbei for the Ma Family to walk into?” Old Cat immediately got the crux of the issue too.

“That’s right,” Qin Yu nodded in agreement. “Even a fool will be able to tell that the only way for Ma Family to salvage its reputation is to capture the culprit, Little Qu. So, all they have to do is to find a reasonable channel to leak Little Qu’s whereabouts to the Ma Family, and the latter is guaranteed to make a move.”

Those words made cold sweat trickle down Old Cat’s back as he realized just how grave the situation was. “If that’s really the case, we’ll be in deep trouble. Ma Lao-er is decisive in his actions, but he lacks meticulousness when it comes to the details. His reckless personality is a bad fit against the Yuan Family, who is skilled in playing mind games. If this is a ploy of theirs to do Ma Lao-er in, it’s unlikely that he’ll be able to protect himself.”

“Yeah.” Qin Yu clicked his tongue in frustration. “If it was in Songjiang, at least there is still Old Ma and us to keep a lookout for him. But if he heads over to Fengbei by himself, there’s only so much that we can do for him.”

“What’s your current intention?” Old Cat asked.

Qin Yu didn’t respond right away. He took out his e-cigarette and took a deep puff of smoke before he finally replied, “I’m thinking of heading to Fengbei.”

Old Cat was taken aback by those words. “Holy shit, are you serious? No matter what, we are still people who have titles on us. Fengbei is not like the Development District, you know! If anything happens there, Old Li will be hit hard too. Practically everyone knows that we are his men!”

“What else can we do then?” Qin Yu replied in annoyance. “If something happens to Ma Lao-er, the medicine route we built up will be ruined… Our effort will have been in vain.”

Old Cat fiddled with his short hair before asking with a slightly softer voice, “Do you understand what Old Li’s take on this matter is?”

“I get it,” Qin Yu replied without any hesitation. “He has already made it pretty clear. The Ma Family isn’t the only distributor we can work with. Even if they are gone, we can still groom another group of people on the streets to work on our behalf. The link with the supplier is in our hands after all.”

Old Cat raised his head to look at Qin Yu as he said, “Then you should know that he won’t agree to us heading to Fengbei.”

“Old Cat. there are only the two of us here, so I’ll be very frank with you over here.” Qin Yu revealed his thoughts without hiding anything at all. “I want to bail the Ma Family out, and I have pragmatic reasons behind that.”

“Tell me.”

“Our partnership with the Ma Family is a connection that we have built up with our own effort. They are relying on our goods, so they are obliged to cooperate with us as far as possible. As long as they are around, we’ll have some say in Songjiang. But if Old Li were to switch the Ma Family with another bunch of people, our influence over these people will be greatly diminished. Do you get what I’m saying?” Qin Yu didn’t bother beating around the bush with Old Cat. He made his point very explicit over here.

“I’m not saying that Old Li is plotting anything behind our backs, but imagine this. What if the higher-ups backing Old Li specifically names a group that we have to work with in replacement of the Ma Family… What can we do then? Nothing at all, right? We can only obey and cooperate with them as far as possible… But this is utterly pointless to me. As long as we don’t have control over the streets, we would remain as nothing but mere intermediaries. We would just remain a chain in the entire medicine route.”

After listening to what Qin Yu had to say, Old Cat was silent for a long while before he said, “Aren’t you afraid that I would tell all of this to Old Li?”

“Old Cat, I am not a person who trusts others easily. I met a lad during my time in the Development District, and we stayed with one another for eight months. When we sleep every night, there would only be a meter between the two of us. Yet, every night before I fall asleep, I would place my money beneath his pillow and my gun within the reach of my right hand. It might look like we’re brothers in arms, but in truth, he’s nothing more than a colleague whom I can work with to earn money. Before we parted, he also told me that he was unable to see through me either, so he could never feel safe around me,” Qin Yu looked at Old Cat intently before he smiled slightly.

“But once I have opened up to you, I won’t hide anything from you no matter what it is. I’ll speak whatever that’s on my mind frankly. Perhaps you might not like it, but this is the sincerity and honesty I have to offer you. That’s why I told those words to no one else but you… This is simply what’s on my mind at this moment. As for how you want to deal with it, that’s your problem.”

Old Cat was overwhelmed for a moment before he shook his head and said, “… Actually, in terms of taking positions, I should be obliged to heed Old Li’s words. But from a personal point of view, I really don’t wish to see the downfall of the Ma Family either. Just like what you said, if Old Li’s connections were to arrange for their own people to take over this business, that will cause a great deal of trouble for us when our interests diverge in the future.”

Qin Yu looked at Old Cat for a moment before nodding slowly, “I’ll leave you to make up your mind. I need to drop by Old Li’s office first.”

“You are determined to head to Fengbei?”

“… I can only try my best to help the Ma Family on this matter,” Qin Yu said as he looked out of the window and sighed. “In the entire Black Street Sector, they are the only ones with the tenacity to stand against the Yuan Family. If they fall here, Songjiang’s skies will always remain dark to me.”

…

In Majestic Palace Entertainment City.

Yong Dong was listening to relaxing music while smoking on a cigar. With the airs of a boss, he ordered the subordinate standing by the side of the room, “What’s the point of tracking Little Qu’s bank records? He’s a ruffian who earns money on the streets, so there’s no way he would slip up here! Check his interpersonal relations instead. An escapee would pull all of the connections he has to find a place to seek refuge at.”