Golden Scale [EN]: Chapter 163

The Confrontation

“Only thinking about myself? I’m only thinking about myself?” Yuqian’s voice was full of disbelief.

“Isn’t it?”

“I’m only thinking about myself?” Yuqian felt extremely wronged. She had traveled thousands of miles to America to see the man she loved, but he didn’t appreciate it at all. She hadn’t heard a single kind word; instead, she was being scolded. This was unbearable for her, and she felt greatly hurt.

If it were any other time, Hou Longtao would definitely understand what the girl was thinking, but he was different now. “Ru Yun and the others care about you so much. You disregard them and only think about yourself? Didn’t I tell you not to come to America to find me? Can’t you listen for once?”

Zhiji shook the man’s arm, trying to get him to watch his attitude.

“What does it matter?”

Hou Longtao shook off Zhiji’s hand. “I’m not here in America for tourism. You don’t know how dangerous the situation is now. The mafia, Tian Donghua, they’re all watching me like hawks. I don’t have time to take care of you. You’re just too immature, completely an undeveloped girl, good for nothing but causing trouble.”

“Who said I came to find you!?” Yuqian’s tone suddenly rose. “I know more than just you in America! Who do you think you are!? Who do you think you are!? You’re the one who called me! I didn’t come looking for you!”

“You’re just being unreasonable! When will you ever change this temper of yours!? Where are you right now!? I’ll send someone to pick you up immediately! You’re taking tonight’s flight back to Beijing!” Hou Longtao shouted hoarsely. He was indeed furious, but only a fraction of it was directed at the girl. The psychological pressure he had been under lately was simply too great, and today he had found an outlet, albeit an improper one.

“You bastard! Hou Longtao! You don’t even know how good I am to you!” Yuqian burst into tears. “You bastard! You jerk! I gave you Auntie! I gave you my mother too! And all you do is scold me! You bastard! You bastard! Go to hell! I hate you! I hate you to death! I never want to see you again in this life! Do you hear me!? Never again!”

With a “beep,” the girl hung up the phone. Hou Longtao threw the phone against the wall, smashing it to pieces.

“Brother Tao, don’t be like this.” Zhiji hugged the man’s waist, her eyes already filled with tears. “Sister Qian didn’t mean to make you angry, Brother Tao. Don’t blame her, Brother Tao.”

Her previous understanding of the word “home” was only superficial. It wasn’t until she came to China that she had the opportunity to feel that word with her heart. She truly regarded Yuqian as her sister, as family. Her lover and her sister arguing made her feel scared. She could kill ten people without batting an eye, but now she was terrified.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Hou Longtao gently stroked the girl’s long hair with affection.

Zhiji handed over another phone.

Hou Longtao pressed the redial button. “Sigh…”

“What’s wrong?”

“She turned off her phone.”

“Then…”

Hou Longtao gently pushed the girl away, lit a cigarette, and walked onto the huge balcony.

The Xingyue sisters exchanged glances and didn’t follow. They knew their lover needed to be alone for a while.

Hou Longtao now began to seriously consider Yuqian’s words. It was obvious that she had discovered the special relationship between him and her mother. On second thought, there was nothing to be surprised about. She was already full of tricks, and with the examples of He Liping and Xue Nuo’s mother and daughter, even if she didn’t have solid evidence, she could probably guess.

The discovery of his “affair” with Feng Jie by Yuqian could no longer be considered Hou Longtao’s main problem. Originally, only Long was missing, but now Yuqian was also “missing.” It was truly a case of when it rains, it pours.

Hou Longtao tightly gripped the top railing of the balcony with both hands, his arms trembling from excessive force, and all the muscles in his body tensed up. The expression on his face was one of extreme pain. He was worried about Long’s well-being and Yuqian’s safety…

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“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” Linda and Nina rushed into the room from outside. They had heard Yuqian’s shouting.

This time, Yuqian wasn’t pretending. She was genuinely angry. Her face had turned white with rage. She stomped her foot and plopped down on the bed, continuing to sob.

“What happened?” The two American girls also sat on the bed.

“Damn men!”

“Oh, it’s about a guy?” Linda put her arm around Yuqian’s shoulder. “We have plenty of other things to do, and we have lots of handsome guys. We’ll go to the mall in a bit, and then to a bar tonight. You don’t have to worry about not finding a man.”

“Get out of here.” Yuqian stood up, wiped away her tears. Although she was angry, she still knew that she loved Hou Longtao wholeheartedly. If he was good for nothing but causing trouble, then she would help him get things done, give him a surprise, and make him proud of her. She wanted to see how he would praise her and apologize to her then.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.” Yuqian dialed the phone again. “Hello, it’s me.”

“Yuqian?”

“I’m in America.”

“Really? Where are you?”

“Los Angeles.”

“Los Angeles? With Hou Longtao?”

“No, I’ll come find you to hang out in a couple of days. Are you happy to have me?”

“Of course, I’m happy to have you.”

“Don’t tell him about me.”

“Don’t worry.” The man’s tone on the other end of the line was full of joy…

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“Brother Tao.”

“What?”

“There’s an email from the state police.”

“Oh?” Hou Longtao turned around.

Zhiji placed the laptop on the white table on the balcony.

Hou Longtao sat down in front of the computer and opened the photos in the attachment. The first one was a front shot of Tina’s upper body, her eyes sunken, her face pale, and her lips blue and purple. The remaining photos were of the man’s corpse and the ransacked room.

The content of the email was entirely the police’s on-site investigation record. It was initially determined to be a case of burglary, rape, and murder. The external deduction was that the perpetrator had been targeting the female victim for some time, having learned that she would gamble at the casino until 1:00 AM before returning to her room. On the night of the incident, the female victim met a man at the bar, and the two returned to the room early, disturbing the perpetrator who was in the process of committing the burglary, leading to the murder to silence her, and the rape was triggered by the female victim’s beauty.

All the casinos and hotels in Las Vegas have very large electronic monitoring systems. Although the surveillance cameras captured footage of two suspects entering and leaving the female victim’s room, and based on this, a large number of images of the two suspects were found, they never showed their faces in front of the cameras. It could only be seen that they were two short Asians.

Judging from the modus operandi [method of operation], the thorough preliminary preparations, and the cold-blooded and cruel methods, the murderer was likely a professional habitual offender, and definitely a habitual offender with violent tendencies.

The police investigation had not yet yielded any clues, but Hou Longtao possessed information that the authorities did not know. Although it was still unsubstantiated, he naturally linked everything to the Sankou-gumi [Japanese mafia]. Obviously, for some reason, the Sankou-gumi did not harm Tina when they kidnapped Long, and now they felt she was unsafe, so they killed her to silence her, disguising it as a burglary gone bad.

“I can’t wait any longer!” Hou Longtao suddenly stood up from the chair and punched the table…

Hou Longtao spent the entire day calling Yuqian’s phone, but it was always turned off. He was like an ant on a hot pot [extremely anxious], restless.

In the evening, Feng Jie called. “Qian said she’ll be staying with her classmates in Los Angeles for a few days, and then she’ll travel around the United States with them. She told me not to worry, and that she’ll keep in touch with me.”

“Phew, sigh, that girl is really immature.” Hou Longtao shook his head helplessly, but at least he knew his wife’s plans, which eased his mind a little.

“Did you two quarrel again? She was cursing you on the phone.”

“Sigh. By the way, are you alone right now?”

“Hmm? Yes.”

“Yuqian guessed about our relationship.”

“…” Feng Jie was silent for a moment. Like Hou Longtao when he first found out, she didn’t feel particularly surprised. In fact, she had subconsciously hoped that her daughter would know. She didn’t want to lie to her daughter, and she also hoped to share her happiness with her.

“She seems to be able to accept it.”

“I’m going to America.”

“What for?”

“Of course, to find my daughter.” Feng Jie’s understanding of the situation was much clearer than Yuqian’s. She knew that her daughter was in a precarious situation, and she also needed to explain her relationship with Hou Longtao to her as soon as possible.

“Okay, come on, but bring Yunyun with you. It’s better to have her with you.” Hou Longtao didn’t refuse Feng Jie like he had refused others. Although her coming wouldn’t help at all, and if he couldn’t find Yuqian, she would have even less of a chance, unless Yuqian wanted to see her, but Hou Longtao also understood that he couldn’t stop a mother no matter what…

“Look, look, look! They’re coming out! They’re coming out!” Long nudged Glen beside him. They had followed Hou Longtao from the restaurant to Mary’s manor last night and had been guarding outside all night.

Glen immediately sat up from the reclined passenger seat. He saw twenty or so black SUVs file out of the main gate of the manor. “What the hell are they doing?”

“Call headquarters and tell everyone monitoring the other gates to come over.”

“I know, you follow them quickly.”

The mighty convoy dispersed into groups of two or three on the highway, some even taking different routes, but after more than an hour, they all converged outside another large manor in another part of the city…

Sankou Ryusei was reading a book in his room when one of his female attendants walked in. “Master, there is a Russian woman named Yekaterina who wants to see you. She has brought over a hundred people, all armed.”

“Yekaterina.” The man put down the book and narrowed his eyes.

“Yes, and there is also a Chinese man with her named Hou Longtao.”

“What!?” Sankou Ryusei suddenly stood up, his facial muscles contorting. “Hou—Long—Tao? Hahaha, good, he has some guts.”

“How should I respond?”

“Open the gate, but only allow them to bring five people in. Take them to Chang Le Pavilion.”

“Yes.” The woman bowed and retreated.

Hou Longtao and the others waited outside the gate of the manor for about thirty minutes before two women in kimonos walked out, their eyes lowered. “Our master invites Sister Yekaterina and Mr. Hou to enter. They may bring five bodyguards.”

“No, we must bring at least twenty people in.” Yekaterina’s bodyguard didn’t dare let his boss take such a risk.

“Don’t be afraid,” one of the kimono women raised her hand, and the two large iron gates opened with a “creak.” She pointed to a large Japanese-style pavilion not far away. “Our master is there. All of you may enter the gate, but only seven people may approach the pavilion.”

Hou Longtao could clearly see everything inside the pavilion from outside the gate. There was already someone inside. It seemed that the other party didn’t intend to play any tricks, and even if they did, he wasn’t afraid. “Okay, we’ll do as you say.”

“Please.” The two women stepped aside.

Hou Longtao, Mary, the Xingyue sisters, and three large Russians arrived at the pavilion. Inside, there was a low table with a wooden Go board on it. A man in a black and gray kimono was kneeling on a cushion, arranging a game. His left hand only had four fingers. Opposite him were two cushions, the meaning of which was obvious.

Hou Longtao and Mary knelt on the cushions. “Mr. Sankou Ryusei?”

Sankou Ryusei didn’t even look up. “Mr. Hou, do you play black or white?”

“I don’t know how to play Go [a strategic board game].” Hou Longtao was slightly surprised by the other party’s fluent Chinese.

Sankou Ryusei gave a contemptuous “hmph” and glanced at Hou Longtao. “It’s truly sad. You Chinese people are truly sad. Most of you don’t value the things left behind by your ancestors. Instead, we Japanese are constantly studying them.”

“Hehehehe,” Hou Longtao had heard this kind of statement more than once, but he had never argued with someone face to face before. “China has five thousand years of history, leaving behind countless cultural treasures, all of which are the crystallization of the wisdom of our ancestors. Modern people can master one or two of them, which is already a great achievement. Who can master them all? Japan was originally a discarded child of China, using Chinese characters and believing in Chinese religions, yet they groundlessly feel superior to the Chinese. A dwarf not only sees that a giant is shorter than himself, but also truly believes that he is taller than the giant. That’s what’s truly sad.”

“Chinese people have always been arrogant, flaunting the achievements of their ancestors. Your words just prove this point.”

“It seems that your middle school education wasn’t good enough. If you don’t understand what I’m saying, don’t pretend to understand.”

“Hmph, stupid Chinese.” Sankou Ryusei cursed in his heart. He understood that he hadn’t gained the upper hand in the argument just now and didn’t need to continue to dwell on it. He switched to English. “The two of you are strangers to me. What brings you here today with such a menacing aura?”

“I think you know.” Mary’s face darkened.

“I don’t know.”

“Hand over my brother now, and I’ll let you die quickly.”

Sankou Ryusei raised his head.

The four eyes of the two men met, their gazes both extremely cold. They stared at each other like two stone Buddhas, motionless.

Mary didn’t have the patience to stand there and stare. She wasn’t just there to watch. “Mr. Sankou, you killed my people and kidnapped my friend. You really don’t take the Russian mafia seriously, do you? Have you not thought about the consequences?”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” Sankou Ryusei was still staring intently at Hou Longtao.

“Release my brother. If you have any problems, come at me.”

“I didn’t capture your brother. Why are you blaming me?”

“Let me search your basement.”

“What?”

“I want to search the basement in your yard.”

“Hmph, you’re too arrogant, aren’t you? Search my basement? Do you think this is your backyard?”

“Are you afraid?”

“Afraid of what? This is my territory. If you want to search, then search. Where would I put my face? Aren’t you Chinese people the ones who understand the importance of face the most? Besides, my mansion is so big. You don’t want to look anywhere else. Why do you insist on looking at the basement?” Even if Sankou Ryusei was beaten to death, he wouldn’t have imagined that his manor had already been searched from top to bottom.

“I don’t have time to waste these words with you. Are you taking me there or not?”

“Then,” Sankou Ryusei turned to point to the mountain road outside the manor’s wall, where a white medium-sized truck was parked. “Do you see that car?”

“I see it.”

“That’s the LAPD [Los Angeles Police Department] sent to monitor me. Under the eyes of the police, what can you do to me?”

“I don’t plan to do anything to you. I just want to see your basement.”

“Let’s be clear. I know you killed my brother,” Sankou Ryusei raised his left hand. “I cut off my own finger and vowed to avenge my brother. I will definitely kill you, but I will never let you die quickly. I will torture you, torture you until you are more miserable than death. If your brother is in my basement, I will definitely tell you. You are so close to him, but you can’t save him. It must be very painful. I won’t miss this opportunity. Unfortunately, your brother is not in my basement.”

“Then I’ll be honest too,” Hou Longtao looked at Sankou Ryusei coldly. “My biggest flaw is that I like to act impulsively. Although I know it, I can’t change it. My emotions always overcome logic and reason. I think you’ve also investigated me. There’s no need to give too many examples. I killed your brother because of a friend who wasn’t even that close to me. I’m now convinced that my brother is in your basement. If you don’t let me search, I don’t care if there are LAPD people monitoring, and I don’t care if this is your lair. I’ll kill everything that breathes here right now, and then think about how to retreat.”

“Is that so,” Sankou Ryusei smiled coldly and clapped his hands. “I don’t want to die. I’m afraid. You’re welcome to go and see.”

The two female attendants who had been outside the pavilion walked to the entrance of the pavilion.

“You can’t go.” Mary held Hou Longtao’s hand. “You two go and take a look.”

“Yes.” The two Russian giants walked out.

“Zhiji, Huiji.”

“Okay.” The Xingyue sisters also followed.

“Sankou Ryusei, now, regardless of whether my people were killed by you or not, Hou Longtao is a good friend of my father and me. To be his enemy is to be our enemy. You know how much the Sankou-gumi is worth.”
The muscles under Sankou Ryusei’s eyes twitched slightly. He didn’t respond to Mary’s words. Although what she said was true, the Sankou-gumi had only started strengthening its “business” in the United States in recent years. Its strength was naturally no match for the Russian mafia, which had been operating for almost a century, but this was not within his scope of consideration at all. Otherwise, Long wouldn’t have been kidnapped.

“I know you want to take revenge on me. I can understand,” Hou Longtao put a cigarette in his mouth and glanced at Sankou Ryusei. “But I will make sure you don’t succeed.”

“Chinese pig, spit,” Sankou Ryusei spat to the side in disdain. “Bring it on.”

“Japanese brat, just get by.”

The Xingyue sisters and the two Russian giants returned to the pavilion. They hadn’t been gone for very long.

Zhiji shook her head at Hou Longtao.

“Chief Sankou,” Hou Longtao stood up and straightened his clothes. “I’ll take my leave now. I believe we’ll meet again soon.”

“That’s right.” Sankou Ryusei lowered his head and stopped looking at Hou Longtao.

“Let’s go.” Hou Longtao waved to Mary.

Sankou Ryusei watched the gate close behind “them.” He suddenly shouted “Wah wah” and raised his fist, punching the Go board several times. He had been enduring so painfully just now. The enemy who killed his brother was right in front of him. He should have pounced on him and devoured him alive, but in the end, he let him leave swaggeringly…

“That basement isn’t very big. It’s just a warehouse. I saw a small amount of weapons, and probably some drugs, but Long is definitely not in there.” Huiji sat in the third row of the SUV, reporting to the man.

“What do you think?” Mary also looked at the man.

“Long is definitely in the hands of the Japanese. I can feel it, but he’s not in that manor.” Hou Longtao stroked his chin. He had appeared very calm just now, but he was actually very anxious because he didn’t know how to rescue Long, let alone how much suffering he had endured.

“Capture Sankou Ryusei and let him see our methods. I don’t believe he won’t talk.” Mary’s beautiful face was also full of coldness.

“No,” Hou Longtao shook his head. “He won’t. He wants to drink my blood and eat my flesh. I can see it in his eyes. He won’t talk even if he dies. Besides, I can’t take that risk. If I capture him, Long is doomed.”

“This isn’t just about your brother anymore. He’s challenging us. He must die. We can’t drag this on indefinitely.”

“Not now. Let me think of a countermeasure.” Hou Longtao understood his situation very well. Although these Russians were his “friends,” he couldn’t really control them, let alone completely trust them. They were all cruel gangsters.

“Okay.”

“Can you help me investigate the Sankou-gumi? If Sankou Ryusei is the former leader’s son, and his brother had such a strong relationship with him, then he should be the best candidate to take over after his death. He’s not in Japan handling the organization’s affairs, but he’s been messing with me here for a long time. I think it’s a bit strange.”

“Okay, I’ll send someone to investigate.”

The bodyguard’s phone in this car rang. After he answered it, he turned to Mary. “Sister Yekaterina, the people in the car behind us are FBI. They’ve been following us since we came.”

“Let them follow. A bunch of useless people. They’ve been investigating for so long and haven’t found anything. All they know how to do is follow us all day long. They’re like flies, annoying.” Mary frowned and cursed…

Hou Longtao returned to the hotel and went into the bedroom alone. He heard the sound of water in the bathroom, so he pushed the door open and went in. He saw that several outlets on the huge bathtub had been opened, and the bathtub must have been filled with bubble bath powder, as a layer of white bubbles had formed.

A pistol was pressed against the back of the man’s head…(The Goldfish is not a thing in pond)