Golden Scale [EN]: Chapter 71

93. New Bund (4)

How could a golden dragon be confined to a pond?

Hou Longtao sat up abruptly, squinting at the woman in front of the bed. “Zhong Chu?” He rubbed his eyes vigorously. “Where’s Long? Where am I? Why are you here? Did Mao Zhengyi catch me?”
“Hmph, young people always ask so many questions,” Zhong Chu slowly climbed onto the bed, as if wanting the man to see every movement of her body clearly. Her face was almost touching his. “Life is short; one should enjoy it while one can.”

The woman’s soft voice was full of temptation. Hou Longtao suddenly felt bewitched and involuntarily reached out, inserting his hands between Zhong Chu’s arms, which were propped up beside his legs. Through the silk nightgown, he cupped her breasts, judging from the weight in his palms that they were as large as Ru Yun’s—truly impressive. The man slightly increased the pressure, his ten fingers sinking into the soft flesh.

“Mmm…” Zhong Chu closed her eyes, her sensual mouth slightly open, a look of intoxication on her face. She leaned in and gave the man a light kiss on the lips. “Want to seize the day?”
“Yes.” He couldn’t possibly refuse when his favorite actress was offering herself. Hou Longtao grabbed the woman’s shoulder straps and tore them apart forcefully. With a “rip,” the silk nightgown was torn in two.

“You’re so rough,” Zhong Chu playfully hit the man’s chest, her hand lingering on his chest, stroking it slowly. “Boys are so strong.” She blew a fragrant, hot breath on the man’s face. Hou Longtao felt as if he had been struck. He leaned back, grabbed the beauty’s long, wavy hair, and pulled her down on top of him, his tongue plunging into her mouth. The kiss was wet and long. Zhong Chu seemed to have been starved of men for a long time, her enthusiasm boundless. Hou Longtao only took the initiative for a few seconds before the woman began to suck on his tongue wildly, then thrust her own tongue into his mouth, her hands groping and kneading his firm muscles. When he was almost out of breath, Zhong Chu began to lick the man’s neck, continuing downwards.

Being “served” by a woman and “serving” a woman were both equally enjoyable. Hou Longtao didn’t care which came first. Judging by “Dou Meimei’s” performance, this place must be safe, and he should enjoy it. Zhong Chu was already kissing the man’s chest, her smooth tongue swirling around his nipples. When they became erect, she took them into her warm, moist mouth and sucked.

“Mmm…” Hou Longtao closed his eyes, feeling the woman’s tongue licking his navel. His “big snake” below had also raised its head. He suddenly remembered Long’s words before jumping. He sat up abruptly, forcing Zhong Chu to kneel upright. “What’s wrong? Not satisfied with my service?”
“Where’s Long? Where’s my brother?”
“That kid who took two knives? He’s next door. I bet he’s having an even better time than you are right now.”

Although Hou Longtao only saw lust in the woman’s beautiful face, with no hint of deceit, he was still uneasy. “Why should I believe you?”

“Because I hate Mao Zhengyi too. You’ve seen the photos of my husband and Yang Gongru, right?”
“How do you know I’ve seen them? Where exactly is this place?”
“If you want to know, you have to make me happy first.” Zhong Chu reached behind her and stroked the erect cock. “It’s not like you really don’t want to.”

“Hmph,” Hou Longtao lay back down. If this really was a trap, there was nothing he could do. “Do whatever you want.” He began to admire Zhong Chu’s body. She was very mature, her breasts huge and firm, something that couldn’t be seen in movies or photos. Looking at her nipples, they were delicate and charming, her abdomen flat, her waist slender, her pelvis wide, and between her legs was a patch of dense, dark hair trimmed into an inverted triangle. She looked exactly like Ru Yun.

Zhong Chu changed her position, sitting on the man’s face with her large buttocks. She stroked his penis a few times with her right hand, then bent over and took the glans into her mouth. “Ah…” Hou Longtao thrust his hips upwards. The woman’s mouth was wet and warm, making him very comfortable. She pinched his snow-white buttocks with both hands. It was strange; even the feel was the same as Ru Yun’s.

Maybe he was just overthinking things, or maybe he missed Ru Yun too much. He had so many questions in his mind, but all he could think about now was fucking “Dou Meimei.” It wasn’t like him at all. Hou Longtao clicked his tongue. “I can’t worry about it anymore.” He pressed his tongue against the woman’s hot labia, licking it up and down. Immediately, a warm current flowed into his mouth—the sweet nectar of the beauty.

In return, Zhong Chu began to suck the man’s cock. She deserved to be called “Big Mouth Beauty.” Hou Longtao’s current size was beyond ordinary, but she could effortlessly take the entire thing into her mouth, making sucking sounds. “Ah, ah, ah…” Hou Longtao was surprised to find that he was about to ejaculate. Usually, even if he didn’t hold back, he wouldn’t “surrender” after just a few licks. “I’m… I’m going to…”

Zhong Chu noticed that the man’s legs were stiff and straight, and he kept thrusting his hips upwards, so she knew he was about to come. Hearing his words confirmed her suspicion, but something illogical happened. Instead of speeding up, she spat out his cock and stopped moving her hands. “Don’t… don’t stop,” Hou Longtao urged anxiously, pinching the woman’s buttocks hard. But Zhong Chu didn’t move, only blowing air on his glans. “What do you mean?” Hou Longtao was a little unhappy. He propped himself up on the bed, moved back a little, and leaned against the wooden headboard. “What are you laughing at?” He could see the woman’s shoulders trembling slightly, obviously trying hard not to laugh.

“Hmph, what do I mean? What do you think I mean?” Zhong Chu’s voice suddenly became deep and hoarse. She turned her head, revealing an old, ugly face—it was Mao Zhengyi. “You returned my things, so I’ll make sure you have no descendants.” A pair of scissors flashing with cold light appeared out of nowhere in her hand, and she slashed them down at Hou Longtao’s crotch, who was already terrified. Blood splattered everywhere.

“Ah!” Hou Longtao sat up abruptly. “Ah!”

He cried out again, this time because of the sharp pain in his arm, but he couldn’t care less. He reached between his legs. “Phew… it’s still there.” Only then did he realize that he was covered in cold sweat. He must have been having a nightmare. “Phew… phew…”
“Fourth Brother, I was worried when you didn’t wake up, but now you’re startling people. What’s wrong with you?”

Hou Longtao turned his head, a smile already on his face. “Damn it, you’re not dead?” Less than two meters away, there was another bed, and a man was sitting against the wall, his upper body wrapped in several layers of gauze. It was Long. “Heh, if you’re not dead, if I had gone first, I don’t know how many good girls would have suffered.”
“Wouldn’t it be the same if you were here?”
“Of course not. If I ruin a few more, there will be fewer for you to ruin.”

“Hahaha, Wang An,” Hou Longtao could tell that Long was fine, and he was genuinely happy. “How did we end up here?” He looked around. The walls here were made of iron and covered in rust. There was a circular window on the upper part of the wall between the two beds and on the steel door. The whole room felt like it was swaying, clearly a narrow cabin on a ship.

“Do you know where we are?”
“Am I stupid? It’s a ship, isn’t it?” Hou Longtao sniffed, and a stench entered his brain. “It’s probably a garbage ship, right?”
“Damn, I’m impressed. You could even guess that.”
“Alright, what happened?”
“Hmph, if you ever try to commit suicide by jumping into the river again, don’t tie your belt to me. I almost got dragged down with you.” Long began to recount what happened after Hou Longtao passed out.

It turned out that Long only suffered superficial injuries. Although he lost a lot of blood and looked scary, it wasn’t too serious. Moreover, when they fell into the water, he was on top, and Hou Longtao was below, so he didn’t suffer any impact and never lost consciousness. Long struggled for a long time underwater to untie his belt before pulling the unconscious Hou Longtao out of the water.

Fortunately, a garbage ship collecting floating debris on the Huangpu River passed by. The people on board saw someone had fallen into the water and used a lifebuoy to pull them onto the ship. Coincidentally, these garbage ships were usually not allowed on the main channel, only allowed to operate near the shore, and only between 11:00 PM and 7:00 AM the next morning. But today, the garbage hatch of a cruise ship had somehow opened automatically during the voyage, so they had to urgently call a garbage ship over.

“This is what you call a narrow escape.” Hou Longtao touched his head, feeling a little dizzy, probably a mild concussion. “Why didn’t you send me to the hospital? Just let me pass out here? Are you even human?”
“Where’s the need to be so delicate? Aunt Qi said your complexion was good and your breathing was steady, so you probably didn’t have any internal injuries. Besides, do you really want to go to the hospital? Old Mao’s people are probably already waiting for us.”

Hou Longtao knew, of course, that going to the hospital would likely be walking into a trap. He was just joking with Long. “Who’s Aunt Qi?”
“The owner of this ship, our savior.”
“I see.” Hou Longtao looked at his arm, the joints fixed with two pieces of wood. “Does she also know medicine?”
“Supposedly, she was a nurse during the Cultural Revolution [a period of socio-political upheaval in China from 1966-1976] and may have treated many victims of factional infighting.”

“How long have we been here?” Hou Longtao glanced at the sky outside the window. It wasn’t particularly dark, so it probably wasn’t evening yet.
“It’s not even five o’clock yet.” Long looked at his watch. “It’s safe here. I think we should just wait for the rescue team.”
“How do you know it’s safe here?”
“Nonsense. The sky was so dark earlier that you couldn’t see us getting on the ship from the bridge. Even if they did see us, do you know how many ships there are on the Huangpu River?”

In fact, if they hadn’t been lucky, they might have been caught already. Their sense of security came from their lack of understanding of the water transport system. When Hou Longtao fell into the water, the ship had just entered halfway under the bridge, so Mao Zhengyi’s people didn’t see it. By the time they arrived under the bridge, the ship that had saved Hou Longtao had already left. Mao Zhengyi’s thugs didn’t care about river navigation rules and called two “Nongkai” speedboats [small, fast boats], but they couldn’t find Hou Longtao and Long.

This futile search lasted for two hours. Everyone thought the targets had sunk to the bottom of the river. They didn’t dare to report to their boss for several hours, after all, Old Mao wanted live people. It wasn’t until after 9:00 PM, when Mao Zhengyi returned to Shanghai from Shenzhen, that he heard the report. He was furious, of course. After calming down slightly, his order was “Bring me the man alive or dead.” A dead Hou Longtao was better than no Hou Longtao. Most importantly, Mao Zhengyi didn’t believe Hou Longtao was dead. Whether it was a sixth sense or whatever, he just felt that the kid wasn’t that short-lived. The first thing he thought of was that Hou Longtao might have been rescued by passing ships, so he immediately called the Shanghai Maritime Administration and asked them to send over the records of ships occupying the channel during that time period.

All of this would happen within the next dozen hours. Hou Longtao and Long didn’t know now, and might not even know later. “Do you have a cigarette?”
“Yeah,” Long threw over a pack of “Weilong.” “Aunt Qi’s son’s.”
“How many people are on this ship?”
“Just three: Aunt Qi, her son, and her grandson.”
“Are they all trustworthy?”
“Her grandson is only five years old, and her son is over thirty, but he’s a little…” Long circled his finger next to his temple. “Take me to meet them.” Hou Longtao put his legs down from the bed.

Just then, the cabin door opened, and an old woman with gray hair, a kind face, and two steaming bowls walked in. “Ah, Hou is awake. Come and have something to eat.”
“Aunt Qi, let me help you.” Long took the bowls and placed them on a table between the two beds. “Please sit down.”
“Okay,” the old woman sat on Long’s bed. “Hou, how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine, thank you for saving us.” Hou Longtao sat forward a little, his face full of gratitude. “Don’t mention it, it was just a small thing. You two haven’t eaten anything since morning. I cooked two bowls of rice porridge, you should drink them. I only have my son’s old clothes, you’ll have to make do with them.”
“Huh?” Only then did Hou Longtao realize that he was wearing a pair of faded blue cloth pants. “Aunt Qi, why didn’t you call the police or take us ashore?”

“Originally, I wanted to call the police when I saw you were unconscious, but I heard you were being chased by Mao Zhengyi’s people. If the police come, you won’t have a way out anyway.” A trace of anger flashed in Aunt Qi’s eyes when she mentioned Old Mao’s name. Hou Longtao noticed it, but quickly glared at Long, blaming him for being too careless. In Shanghai, how could you casually talk about having a feud with Mao Zhengyi? “Auntie, do you know Mao Zhengyi?”

“Know him? I’m so poor, how could I know such a rich man?”
“Then have you suffered at his hands?” Hou Longtao could hear the bitterness in the old woman’s tone. “Since you know you’re being chased for collecting that bastard’s evidence, I won’t hide it from you. Come with me.” Aunt Qi stood up and walked out a little shakily. Hou Longtao and Long exchanged glances and got off the bed. Although both of them were injured, they could still walk.

The three of them came to the next cabin. It was more like a shrine than a cabin. There was nothing inside except a corner of the offering table, two candles, two plates of blackened steamed buns, and two photos in black frames. One was a portrait of an old man, and the other was a picture of Mao Zhengyi cut out from a newspaper.

“This… this is?” Hou Longtao was afraid he was mistaken, so he walked closer. “The old people say that living people will lose their lifespan if they are worshiped. We can’t beat him, and the government doesn’t care about him, so we can only try anything.” Aunt Qi touched the old man’s portrait. “This is my old man [husband].”
“Mao Zhengyi killed him.”
“No, he had cancer.” The old woman sat down on the chair, holding the table. Hou Longtao didn’t ask any further. He knew he would get the answer soon.

“My family has always lived in Pudong, in two mud houses. All the houses in our area were mud houses. A year and a half ago, we heard that Mao Zhengyi was negotiating with the municipal government to buy and develop that land. At first, we were very happy. That kind of big boss shouldn’t be stingy, and we should get a lot of demolition money. To treat my old man’s illness, my family was already heavily in debt. I wanted to use that money to pay off the debt…” Aunt Qi shook her head.

Hou Longtao suddenly remembered what Old Zeng had told him about the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection [an internal control and disciplinary body of the Chinese Communist Party]. “He didn’t give you any compensation, and you were forced to move onto the boat?”
“Yes, not a penny. But moving onto the boat was planned long ago. Even if we got the money, we would have to pay off the debt.” Aunt Qi’s eyes were a little straight. “We didn’t agree, so he took out the government’s compulsory demolition order. We still didn’t agree, so he brought in bulldozers. My son went to stop them and was beaten in the head by his people. The doctor said he only had the intelligence of a ten-year-old child.”

“Damn it!” Long kicked the wall hard, which pulled on the wound on his back, causing him to grimace in pain. Hou Longtao was also very angry. He never believed the nonsense that “one person’s wealth must be built on the blood and tears of others,” and he hated the rich who were unkind and bullied others. “Is there really no one who can control him? Is this still the world of the Communist Party?”

“We went to the Public Security Bureau and the Municipal Party Committee to file a complaint, but it was all in vain. Later, a kind lawyer helped us file a lawsuit, but for some reason, he was arrested, and we went to Beijing to file a complaint, but there’s still no news. Alas, my poor grandson, he follows me to collect garbage on the river every day.”
“What about your daughter-in-law? Mao Zhengyi didn’t kill her too, did he?” Long’s lungs were about to explode with anger.

“No, she saw that there was no hope for my family to pay off the debt, so she ran away with a businessman. To be honest, I don’t blame her. She had just married into my family when my old man got sick. She never had a good day in my family, only suffered with my son. She’s not a bad woman, it’s just that my family is too poor, it’s just that Mao Zhengyi is a bastard.” Aunt Qi was already in tears.

“Then this boat…? How can you manage it alone…?”
“Oh, several of my old neighbors do this. We all have such boats. The garbage boats are all parked in the tributaries of the Huangpu River. There are two gathering docks in total, so the old neighbors who had houses when they had houses are still old neighbors when they don’t have houses. They pity my family’s situation, but they are also in the same boat. They will take turns drawing manpower from their families to help me. The one driving the boat today is the second son of the Qu family.”

Hou Longtao glared at Long again. This kid was really too reckless, but in front of Aunt Qi, he couldn’t say anything. “Auntie, don’t worry, as long as we leave Shanghai, Mao Zhengyi won’t have many good days left. We will definitely bring him to justice.”
“Alas, that would be best.” The old woman didn’t show any excitement, probably because she had been disappointed too many times. “Let’s go out, do you want to go outside for some fresh air?”

This was a dock on a tributary of the Huangpu River. It seemed that all the boats parked here were garbage boats, about a dozen of them. The air was filled with the smell of garbage. It was dinner time, and people were cooking on every boat. Wisps of smoke rose into the sky. Although the rain had stopped, it was still quite cold without a shirt.

Hou Longtao rubbed his arms and lit a cigarette. “Let’s go back to the cabin, cough cough cough, this cigarette…”
“Aunt Qi’s son stopped smoking after he was injured. This is probably a year-old stock.” The two went back down to the first cabin. The two bowls of rice porridge were still on the table. They were really a little hungry, and they finished them in two or three bites, although the taste wasn’t good. “Can the phone still be used?”
“Don’t forget ours aren’t waterproof, and even if they were, they’ve been soaked for so long, and in several meters of water…” Long shook his head.

Aunt Qi came in again and put their wallets on the table. “Your clothes aren’t dry yet.”
“Thank you.” Hou Longtao opened his wallet. The cash had been thrown away in front of the Hualian store, and the credit cards had been soaked in the water for too long, so they were probably useless. “Auntie, is there a phone nearby?”
“Yes, there’s one in the dock management office.”
“Can I make a call?”

“Well… not now. After nine o’clock, one of my old neighbors will be on duty. If I talk to him nicely, it shouldn’t be a problem for me to make a call, but you probably still can’t. Do you want me to make a call for you?”
“Yes.” Hou Longtao picked up the paper and pen on the table and wrote down a cell phone number. “Tell him the address here, and if he suspects you, tell him ‘the burning knife cuts the hand and it hurts so much’.”
“Okay.” Aunt Qi took the note…

That night, Mao Zhengyi

was like an ant on a hot pot [idiom: in a state of extreme anxiety], pacing back and forth around his desk. Although he had obtained the records from the Maritime Administration, they couldn’t pinpoint the exact location of every ship at every minute and every second, let alone determine that Hou Longtao had been rescued. Just like Hou Longtao had initially estimated, finding two people in a city with a population of tens of millions was like finding a needle in a haystack.

Mao Zhengyi mobilized a thousand thugs, stationed them at airports, trains, docks, and highways leading out of Shanghai. He also had them check major hospitals, hotels, and car rental companies. Even a thousand people weren’t enough. The police could turn a blind eye to his actions, and even provide him with convenience, but they couldn’t really send people to help him. From Mao Zhengyi’s perspective, he didn’t want the police to get involved. If Hou Longtao fell into the hands of the authorities, the fact that he had secretly taken photos of the big boss would likely be exposed, and he would be in even more trouble. So in the end, only less than seventy people were used to track down the ships. Two ships that had occupied the channel during that time period were heading upstream on the Huangpu River. Judging from the time, they probably hadn’t left the province yet. Sixty people went to chase them, because if they couldn’t successfully intercept them in Shanghai, it would be like taking action in someone else’s territory. To be safe, they naturally had to bring more people. In this way, only ten people were really left in Shanghai, but that was more than enough to deal with two injured people.

These underworld figures and Mao Zhengyi were purely in an employer-employee relationship. There was no sense of loyalty or friendship. On the records they received, the first one was a cleaning ship named “Jiang Hu Huang 107.” They knew that the so-called “cleaning ship” was a garbage ship, and its location was in the most underdeveloped area of Pudong. That kind of place was naturally the last place to go. If they could find the target before then, they wouldn’t even have to go there.

The ten people were busy all night, running from one dock to another, and they really weren’t careless at all. Unfortunately, “life is full of disappointments.” At around 8:30 in the morning, they had no choice but to come to the place they least wanted to come to…(How could a golden dragon be confined to a pond?)