Chapter 99: Drawing the Path

By the time it had come to this, if Chai Jin still refused, he would be the one acting like a fool.

After a pause on the line, the voice said, “Fine. Give me the time and place.”

Liu Yiqian sounded excited on the phone, gave an address, and hung up.

After thinking for a moment, Chai Jin called Cai Weiqiang again. On the other end, Cai slapped his chest with a loud thud and declared, “Old Liu knows very well how to deal with people.” He spoke of nothing he wasn’t supposed to. Then he brought up Yang Baiban again; that fellow, back at his rural family fishpond in Guang Province, could not stop spitting whenever Yang Baiban was mentioned, and his anger rose to a maddening, nameable-no-more fury.

Chai Jin understood him. Nothing is more unbearable than that kind of nouveau riche arrogance.
When you are above others, he looks down on you.
When you are down, he stands in front of you and points: “See, kid, this is all you can do,” then kicks you in the head without a second thought.
Wildness without limits always invites disaster.

Chai Jin did not care. He asked when Cai Weiqiang was coming.

Cai answered that fish were spawning in the family pond and, as the only son, he had to finish helping at home first. Chai Jin understood and said nothing. There was no rush about the aircraft matter.

…

Zhang Yinglong had already arranged everything.

It was at a restaurant near Harbor City. Guang Province is a place steeped in ancestral-hall culture; nearly every restaurant keeps an image of a god. In that humid climate, with the locals’ taste for sleeveless singlets, giant baggy trousers, and shorts, along with rattling ceiling fans and rough local shouting of gutter curses, many eateries carry a thick flavor of the streets.

Such places are often booked by both sides for negotiations.

Chai Jin and the two men with him arrived in a Changhe van. As soon as they entered, they saw both groups spread across the room, the air already sharp with tension.

Behind Zhang Yinglong were three tables full of his men. On the other side sat a middle-aged man in a huge floral jacket, dark as thick ink, a heavy necklace at his throat, a leather bag tucked under his arm, with more of his men behind him.

When Chai Jin entered, that man suddenly turned and fixed his eyes on Fang Yi behind them. His face twitched with venom, then he sneered, “Mr. Fang, long time no see. Back from your travels?”

Fang Yi did not answer.

Chai Jin glanced at him and immediately recognized him: Mo, the boss who had once gone after Fang Yi and had even splashed blood in front of his company gate.

Without changing expression, he watched Zhang in front and said respectfully, “Greetings, Dragon Elder.”

Zhang Yinglong nodded with a smile. “Little Chai, sit.”

The yellow-haired man who had been following them rose and brought a stool behind Chai Jin.

“Thanks,” Chai Jin said.

He was just about to sit when the man across the table snapped, “Did I ask you to sit?”

The tension flared all at once. Chai Jin looked at him calmly, waiting.

Dragon Elder lifted his teacup and said, “Little Mo, do you really think old Zhang is too old now?”

The men behind the yellow-haired one tightened their fists. The room tightened too. The fan overhead throbbed, and even the sound of a stray dog chewing bones beneath the table sounded unnervingly clear.

Mo quickly moved his hand to the edge of the table, radiating swagger and malice like an old gangster film villain. He laughed.

“Dragon Elder, you are a senior of my generation. Who in Deep City’s streets does not know your blade is still sharp?”

“Just a joke,” he said.

Chai Jin sat down quietly; a coldness seemed to spread from him.

Dragon Elder snorted once. “You at least know I, Zhang Yinglong, am not so old I cannot still do something.”

“We are here to settle this matter, not to start drawing blades.”

“Of course. If you didn’t come to settle it, I, Zhang Yinglong, would not mind matching knives with you so you can see how the old generation got here.”

“Let’s settle it directly. You ruined Little Chai’s company. How are we to clear this?”

Mo’s underling behind him could not stop himself. “We are owed this much by them. So what if they smashed our interests?”
Before he could finish, a cup from the opposite side struck his face with a sharp crack.

Immediately his tables rose to their feet. So did Zhang Yinglong’s men.
No real negotiation had begun, and one lower-level man’s loose tongue had already lit the fuse.

Zhang Yinglong spoke, voice cool and controlled. “Ah Hu, how many times have I told you to control your temper outside? He has a foul mouth; why are you all hot-blooded too?”

The cup had just been thrown by the fiercely protective yellow-haired man. Anyone could see he was the sort who acts before he speaks.

A flash of ferocity passed behind Mo’s glasses. But he stood up quickly, turned, and slapped the same loose-tongued subordinate hard across the face.

“Dragon Elder is our senior, and there is no room for you to open your mouth here.”

The wretched fool had taken a cup to the face and then one from his own boss. He dared not say another word, only lowered his head.
“Boss Mo… I’m sorry.”

“Get out.”

He retreated into the crowd, touched his nose, and came away with blood on his hand. The force of that cup had clearly not been light.

Chai Jin held his teacup and drank in silence, expression unchanged. After a short exchange, both sides sat again.

Mo lit a cigar, leaned back in a show of arrogance, and said to Chai Jin with open contempt, “I hear you are Fang Yi’s new boss, is that right?”

“If you have managed to move Dragon Elder, then for Dragon Elder’s sake I’ll be generous—bring two million and place it on this table. This matter is settled.”

Fang Yi suddenly blinked in disbelief. “Boss Mo, I owe you only five hundred thousand. You’re trying to extort me!”

Mo threw back a loud laugh; the men behind him laughed with him in the same rude tone.

Zhang Yinglong was about to flare up, ready to go forward, but Chai Jin gave him a light pull. He smiled, outwardly polite, yet his words were knife-sharp.

“So much laughter—does disrespect now have to wear this face, too?”

A wet gasp went through both sides as tea was swallowed mid-sip and then spat out. Several mouths hung open in astonishment.
Had this young man just insulted Boss Mo?

Mo was stunned for a moment, too; who would have expected this ordinary-looking youth to hurl such an insult to him in person?

Rage surged through him. Pointing at Chai Jin, he growled, “Boy, repeat exactly what you just said.”