An hour later, Tòumíng excused himself from the common room, stepping out into the hallway where the sounds of Love Island's dramatic recoupling ceremony faded behind the closed door. He leaned against the wall, pulled out his ridiculously overpowered phone, and called Měi Nán.
The phone rang twice before Měi Nán picked up. "Finally! What happened?! You said you'd be back in like twenty minutes and it's been HOURS!"
Tòumíng winced, running his hand through his hair. "Okay, so, funny story. I might have gotten a little bit too angry and tried to beat some guys up."
Silence on the other end. Then: "YOU WHAT?! YOU TRIED TO BEAT SOME GUYS UP?! WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?! DID YOU ACTUALLY BEAT THEM UP OR DID YOU JUST TRY?! ARE YOU HURT?! ARE YOU BLEEDING?! HOW MANY WERE THERE?! WERE THEY ARMED?! DID YOU USE YOUR WEIRD SUPERPOWERS AGAIN?! I SWEAR TO GOD, TÒUMÍNG, IF YOU GOT SHOT AGAIN—"
"I didn't get shot that much," Tòumíng tried to interject.
"DON'T YOU 'THAT MUCH' ME! ANY SHOTS IS TOO MANY SHOTS! ZERO SHOTS IS THE ONLYYYYY ACCEPTABLE NUMBER! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?! YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH! THAT'S THE ONLY EXPLANATION! YOU'RE NINETEEN YEARS OLD AND YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH!"
Tòumíng held the phone away from his ear, but Měi Nán's voice was so loud it didn't matter. The words came through in a torrent of all-caps fury, each sentence more indignant than the last.
"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW STRESSFUL IT IS TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH YOU?! I WAKE UP EVERY MORNING WONDERING IF TODAY'S THE DAY I GET A CALL FROM THE MORGUE! AND YOU JUST CASUALLY SAY 'I MIGHT HAVE GOTTEN A LITTLE TOO ANGRY' LIKE THAT'S A NORMAL THING TO SAY! IT'S NOT NORMAL! NORMAL PEOPLE DON'T GET ANGRY AND THEN BEAT PEOPLE UP! NORMAL PEOPLE GET ANGRY AND COMPLAIN ON SOCIAL MEDIA! OR EAT ICE CREAM! OR WATCH SAD MOVIES! THEY DON'T GET INTO PHYSICAL ALTERCATIONS WITH WHAT I ASSUME ARE ARMED INDIVIDUALS!"
"I mean, they had guns—"
"THEY HAD GUNS?! YOU GOT INTO A FIGHT WITH PEOPLE WHO HAD GUNS?! TÒUMÍNG, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU MYSELF IF YOU DON'T STOP THIS! I WILL FLY BACK TO THE VILLA RIGHT NOW AND STRANGLE YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS! AT LEAST THEN I'D KNOW YOU DIED BY SOMEONE WHO ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT YOU INSTEAD OF SOME RANDOM GANGSTER WITH A GRUDGE!"
Tòumíng waited for the tirade to slow down, but it didn't. Měi Nán kept going, his voice rising and falling with each new imagined scenario of Tòumíng's demise.
"YOU'RE SO LUCKY," Měi Nán finally said, his voice cracking with the strain of yelling, "THAT I'M VISITING MY FAMILY IN TAIWAN TOMORROW. BECAUSE IF I WAS IN THE SAME CITY AS YOU RIGHT NOW, I WOULD DRIVE TO WHEREVER YOU ARE AND DESTROY YOU. NOT WITH VIOLENCE. WITH WORDS. WITH SO MANY WORDS. I'D LECTURE YOU FOR HOURS. DAYS, EVEN. YOU'D WISH YOU WERE DEAD. WHICH, APPARENTLY, IS SOMETHING YOU'RE COMFORTABLE WITH, BUT STILL."
"I'm sorry," Tòumíng said quietly.
"You SHOULD be sorry! You should be SO sorry! You should—" Měi Nán stopped, took a breath, and when he spoke again his voice was slightly lower but no less intense. "I have to go pack. And I have to calm down before I break something. But Tòumíng? Next time you feel like 'getting a little too angry'? Call me first. Call me and I'll talk you down. That's what... that's what people who care about each other do. They call. They talk. They don't go pick fights with armed gangsters."
"Okay."
"OKAY?! THAT'S ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY?!"
"Okay, I'll call you next time."
Měi Nán made a frustrated sound, something between a growl and a sigh. Then the line went dead.
Tòumíng stared at his phone for a moment, then shoved it back in his pocket. He groaned, rolling his head back against the wall, the ceiling tiles blurring above him. Now he had to go back to the common room and torture himself with more Love Island. He pushed off the wall and started walking.
"Tòumíng."
He stopped. Ghost Claw stood in the doorway to her office, her gas mask tilted slightly, one hand on the frame.
"We need to talk."
Tòumíng shrugged and followed her inside. The office was the same as always—pink accents, the canary Flin chirping in his cage, tactical gear hanging on hooks by the door. Ghost Claw closed the door behind them and sat on the edge of her desk, arms crossed.
"There's been news," she said. "The Proud Rat is dead."
Tòumíng blinked. "Ào Shǔ? The short fat guy with the weird name?"
"The same. Killed by his own associate, Jin Chan. Shot. Body was found this morning."
Tòumíng felt something dangerous bloom in his chest. Hope. Desperation. The kind of desperate hope that came from years of grinding debt and impossible math. "So... does that mean I don't have to pay his portion of the debt anymore? Like, if he's dead, the debt dies with him, right?"
Ghost Claw's expression, whatever was behind the gas mask, didn't change. "Unfortunately, no. Jin Chan has taken over Ào Shǔ's operations. All debts previously owed to the Proud Rat are now owed to Jin Chan. And he's increased the amounts."
"Increased? How much?"
"Eighty percent across the board."
Tòumíng felt his stomach drop. Eighty percent. His monthly payment to Ào Shǔ had been ten thousand yuan. Now it would be eighteen thousand. Combined with the payments to the other two loan sharks, he'd be looking at nearly forty thousand yuan per month. More than he'd ever made in a month, even with his gem smuggling and the mining wages combined.
"And it gets worse," Ghost Claw continued. "Jin Chan has been enforcing the new rates immediately. No grace period. No warnings. People who couldn't pay the increased amounts were executed on the spot. Seventeen people dead at the boat rental shop this morning. Bodies left on the street as a warning."
Tòumíng's blood ran cold. Seventeen people. He'd walked past that area earlier, seen the blood stains on the pavement, assumed they were from his own fight with the guards. But there had been more. So many more.
"The bodies are drawing attention," Ghost Claw said, her voice tight. "Police are investigating. More patrols in the area. More scrutiny on any suspicious activity. Which means my team hasn't received a single job offer in the past week. Nobody wants to hire vigilantes when the police are watching every move."
She pushed off the desk and started pacing, her boots clicking against the floor. "It's bad for revenue, obviously. But it's worse for the power vacuum. When a major crime boss dies violently and is replaced by someone even more brutal, everyone starts scrambling for position. The smaller operations either get absorbed or destroyed. Upstarts try to claim territory. And they die—quickly, messily, publicly. Which brings more police. Which makes the vacuum worse. It's a cycle. It feeds itself. And it won't stop until someone stops Jin Chan."
Tòumíng raised an eyebrow, his stomach already sinking with the implication. "Are you asking me to kill Jin Chan or something?"
"No." Ghost Claw stopped pacing and turned to face him. "But you have something we don't. The Ice Queen. Xuě Bào. She's the most connected criminal figure in this city. If anyone knows how to get to Jin Chan, it's her. And right now, you're the only person she's interested in."
Tòumíng groaned. "So you want me to use my... whatever this is... with the Ice Queen to get intel?"
"Intel, yes. And maybe more. If we can find a weakness, if we can identify a way to take Jin Chan down without causing more chaos, we can end this. But we need information first. And you're the only one with access to that kind of information."
He sighed, running both hands through his hair, tugging at the roots. "You want me to go back to the woman who tried to make me her sugar baby and ask her for favors?"
"I want you to talk to her. See what she knows. See what she's willing to share." Ghost Claw's voice softened slightly, just enough to be noticeable. "I'm not asking you to do anything you're not comfortable with. But you're the best chance we have right now."
Tòumíng stared at the floor, at the pink carpet, at Flin hopping between perches in his cage. The canary chirped, oblivious to the weight of the conversation happening around it.
"Fine," Tòumíng said quietly. "I'll see what I can do."