Zong Hang hadn’t eaten yet, so Li Zhenxiang quickly made him a bowl of rice noodles.
After he finished eating, there was another round of washing pots and dishes. Ding Xi came over to help her – after all, he had nothing else to do. Both Yi Sa and Chen Tu weren’t people who easily got close to others, while Li Zhenxiang had the most easygoing personality.
Li Zhenxiang was concerned about his neck: “If you feel any pain or itching, you must tell Boss Chen. If something goes wrong, it could be life-threatening…”
Ding Xi casually brushed it off: “I know. This place is quite dangerous too. Only been here two days and so many things have happened.”
Li Zhenxiang felt a surge of superiority as an early arrival and long-term resident, thinking she might as well give him some inside information.
She lowered her voice, with a hint of pride: “What’s there to be afraid of? Our boss is powerful. You know what? He has this.”
She made a “gun” gesture with her hand.
Like an unsophisticated country woman, she thought her employer having a gun was something worth bragging about.
Ding Xi remained expressionless: “Does he carry it with him?”
Li Zhenxiang said: “It’s kept in the clinic. Oh my, it’s not that chaotic here.”
Understood – the gun was rarely used, just a treasure kept for security and peace of mind. Having one meant there was nothing to worry about.
Coming out of the kitchen, Ding Xi instinctively looked up at the second floor of the boat house.
The second floor had three rooms. The middle one stored medicines and was used for consultations and receiving guests, connecting to Chen Tu’s bedroom on the right.
The room on the left had just been cleaned by Li Zhenxiang. Tonight, Yi Sa would move in there.
Zong Hang was arranged to share the storage room with Ding Xi.
There weren’t enough beds in the room, so a floor mattress was added. When the floor mattress was laid out, Zong Hang quietly moved to it – he felt he was already a burden and couldn’t take up more of their resources.
Before bedtime, Chen Tu brought down a padlock and gave it to Ding Xi, instructing him to lock the door from the inside at night: these two people – one who had just been attacked underwater, and one who Suocai wanted dead – couldn’t be too careful.
While giving instructions, Yi Sa also came in. She handed the tool bag to Ding Xi. This bag was called the “Water Ghost Bag,” containing various tools that were their trade’s survival toolkit for offense and defense.
She suggested Ding Xi stay alert throughout the night, preferably not sleep because if something happened again, she might not be able to come in time – she had been in the water today and had just taken medicine with alcohol soup, so she would sleep deeply tonight.
Ding Xi said that wouldn’t be a problem.
Zong Hang sat on the floor mattress, looking at everyone with reverence. He also realized that whether it was Yi Sa, Chen Tu, or Ding Xi, they were all different from him. They stood so close to him, yet their worlds were worlds apart.
Even their conversations he didn’t fully understand. For instance, “been in the water” – how could someone be in water? Wouldn’t you sink if you sat down in it?
They arranged, planned, discussed, and strategized, but not a single word was directed at him as if he didn’t exist.
Zong Hang felt dejected but knew he truly couldn’t help. His intelligence, abilities, and experience couldn’t compare with theirs. Forcing opinions would be showing off ignorance and would only annoy people. The silence was golden.
He buried his head between his torso and legs like an ostrich.
Their conversation broke into individual words floating around his ears.
Then suddenly, one sentence pierced his ear canal.
It was what Yi Sa said to Chen Tu.
She said: “Give me a few old residents, ones with good ears and eyes. I still want to inquire about that Ma You…”
Ma You?
Zong Hang suddenly raised his head and blurted out: “I know Ma You!”
The room fell silent for a moment as everyone looked at him.
Zong Hang was so excited he started to stutter: “I really know. Ma You’s father is called Ma Yuefei. He was also captured by Suocai, locked up… locked up in the same room with me.”
Yi Sa looked at him with surprise.
The feeling was quite interesting – like a sudden turn of events, like finding flowers blooming by the willow bank. After searching everywhere, the thread appeared on such an unremarkable person.
What’s more interesting was that this person was someone she had just rescued.
She said: “Then tell us about it.”
The story was told to Zong Hang by Old Ma.
That night, he was emotionally excited, mixed with guilt towards Zong Hang, and talked endlessly.
Old Ma was just an ordinary old man, without any special skills. In his earlier years, he broke locks to enter houses, spent a few years in prison, and after release, reformed himself and lived off odd jobs.
His wife died early, leaving him a daughter called Ma You. He carelessly raised Ma You, and their father-daughter relationship was neither good nor bad.
Ma You started hanging out with bad company in high school, didn’t get into university, and also took odd jobs, but she had bigger ambitions than Old Ma, always feeling she had a great future ahead, and staying in this small county town was beneath her talents.
She decided to venture out.
Going out to work was normal, as many people from the county town did it. Old Ma thought it was fine, and he wasn’t worried about Ma You going bad – after all, she already hung out with questionable friends, how much worse could it get?
He underestimated the complexity of the outside world, which could transform people completely at any time.
Ma You got mixed up with some people, illegally entered Thailand, and got a boyfriend who worked as a burglar for a drug lord, nicknamed Little Shandong. From this point on, Old Ma rarely received news from Ma You.
Over the years, Ma You followed Little Shandong, constantly switching between drug lords, almost traversing all of Southeast Asia, and finally ending up with Suocai.
At that time, Suocai’s den was still in the old market.
That’s when the change occurred.
Little Shandong wanted to make one big score and quit, so he orchestrated a play: he first pretended to break up with Ma You and drove her away, then stole a suitcase of goods from Suocai, gave it to her to hide in the floating village, while he acted normally, continuing to work for Suocai, hoping to get away with it – getting both the money and avoiding trouble.
Little Shandong underestimated his abilities. After a few rounds of Suocai’s questioning and intimidation, he confessed everything and even gave up Ma You. After burying Little Shandong alive, Suocai sent his trusted right-hand man Scarface with others to the floating village to retrieve the goods and deal with Ma You.
That evening, after Ma You finished dinner, through the window of the boat house, she suddenly saw small fishing boats approaching from afar, with Scarface standing on the bow, straight as a flagpole.
People about to die have intuition. She knew it was over, things had been exposed, and Suocai was going to be ruthless.
She used those last few dozen seconds to make a phone call.
To Old Ma.
At the time, Old Ma was watching people play chess by the flower bed in the residential area. Seeing the international incoming call display, guessing it was from Ma You, he answered the phone angrily, wanting to scold her for changing her number again.
Who knew the other end of the phone would be Ma You’s near-hysterical crying and screaming?
She was incoherent, and unclear in speech, saying “Dad, I’m going to die,” and “Brother Cai won’t let me live.” By the time Old Ma barely understood what had happened, the door was smashed open with a bang.
Ma You’s screams were like sharp thin iron wires drilling into his brain.
Then there was no sound, nothing at all.
…
The phone cut off. On this end, the chess game had just moved “Bishop to the field,” someone nearby was teasing flowers and birds, and Old Ma suspected he was dreaming.
He tried calling back but never got through.
A daughter working away from home with no news, and a daughter dying in a foreign land, were two completely different matters.
Old Ma fell seriously ill, bedridden for several months, experiencing the desolation and helplessness of a lonely old man. He often dreamed of that phone call from Ma You. After so many years as father and daughter, it was the first time he tasted what blood being thicker than water meant: when his daughter was about to die, at her most helpless moment, she called him, seeking his protection.
After another bout of uncontrollable tears, he suddenly understood: what was there to fear at this old age?
Old Ma made the bravest decision of his life: he would go abroad to avenge his daughter.
Ma You’s phone call had revealed some fragments of information. He only roughly knew that person was called “Brother Cai,” had a den in the old market using an internet café as a front, and the floating village where Ma You stayed sounded like “Bagei.”
That was all.
Chen Tu listened in amazement, and couldn’t help giving a thumbs up: “Didn’t expect this Old Ma to be such a character. Amazing. The idea might be a bit unrealistic, but this determination… truly only a father would do this for his daughter.”
Zong Hang was also a bit dazed. When he met Old Ma at the airport, he could never have imagined that such a skinny, poor-looking, even somewhat disagreeable shell could harbor such a determination of no return.
Old Ma knew Suocai would be difficult to deal with.
He was clever and printed missing person posters, firstly to attract Suocai’s attention, and secondly to protect himself.
He pretended he didn’t know Ma You’s whereabouts at all, didn’t know she was dead, pretended he was just a pitiful, lonely old man going abroad to find his daughter. This way, the other side would be less vigilant and not take him seriously.
As soon as he arrived in Siem Reap, he went to the old market, searching street by street.
There were two internet cafés there in total, one operating normally, one half-dilapidated.
Old Ma didn’t know that through the Ma You incident, Suocai had discovered this good location of the Bagei floating village and built a new nest there. The old market area had been downgraded to a small contact point, with only newcomers left to guard it.
He first went to the normally operating café but found nothing.
The next evening, he sneaked into the second one, rummaged through boxes and drawers, and found some documents and account books. Although he couldn’t understand them, he stuffed them all into his shoulder bag: these might all be evidence, and he would hand them over to the police in the future.
He may just be an unremarkable little old man from China, but he wanted to bring Suocai down. Who told you to be so blind as to hurt my daughter?
When leaving, his luck ran out and he alerted someone. Old Ma bowed and nodded, saying he had taken the wrong path, but those two Cambodians half-understood and didn’t believe him, kicked him down fiercely, and wanted to search his bag.
Old Ma knew once they searched the bag it would be serious – what thief would steal documents and account books?
With no other options, he suddenly saw Zong Hang.
Anyway, he had already disregarded his own life, so he cared even less about others. Old Ma steeled himself and dragged Zong Hang into it. After escaping, fearing this incident would bring trouble and affect his plans, he left Siem Reap that night to temporarily avoid attention.
He began searching along the Tonle Sap Lake for the floating village where Ma You had last stayed.
Everything was still going according to his plan.
But Old Ma miscalculated one thing.
That was, Suocai was also still looking for Ma You.
Yi Sa’s thoughts stirred: “Ma You isn’t dead?”
Zong Hang shook his head: “I don’t know if Ma You is dead or not either. To be precise, what exactly happened the day Ma You had her incident, nobody can say clearly.”
Old Ma had always thought Ma You was killed by Suocai’s men.
But on Suocai’s side, the story was another version: Scarface and the men he brought, along with Ma You and that box of goods, all disappeared.
Scarface was Suocai’s trusted man, had a wife and children, and had no reason to risk running away for that little bit of goods. The only possibility was: this bitch was full of tricks, somehow had backing from someone, harmed Scarface and his men, then took the goods and ran.
Suocai was furious, feeling he had lost face. Not only had he lost the goods, but also lost a capable right-hand man. He put out the word through various channels, offering a reward for Ma You’s head.
Who knew Ma You would vanish like smoke, with no news thereafter, until Old Ma made inquiries to Bagei floating village.
He showed the missing person posters to everyone he met, making quite a commotion, which also reached Suocai’s ears. However, Suocai was cautious by nature and worried it might be a trap, so he observed patiently for two days before making his move to kidnap people.
Suocai’s thinking was simple.
He planned to release this news, using Old Ma to force Ma You to show up with the goods. If this woman was heartless enough to disregard father-daughter bonds… if he couldn’t catch the young one, he’d deal with the old one. He wouldn’t lose out either way.
Those days, Scarface’s apprentice Egg was collecting debts in Siem Reap when he received the news: things finally had progressed. Although Ma You hadn’t shown her face, her father had delivered himself to their doorstep. Brother Cai had given orders to deal with the old one.
The news was accompanied by a photo of Old Ma.
This news wasn’t only sent to Egg, several trusted men received it. This was also Suocai’s way of winning people’s hearts: letting the brothers see how righteous he was, how capable and relentless.
The egg was in high spirits, discussing this matter with the guarding brothers at the drinking table, passing around Old Ma’s photo, intending to warn these people that betraying Suocai would not end well.
At the table, someone called Ah Ji looked at the photo back and forth for a while, then suddenly said: “This person… should have a son too.”
…
That’s how it was.
Zong Hang said: “After Old Ma met Suocai, he also felt Ma You might still be alive, and was more willing to stay there waiting for news… I heard you say you wanted to inquire about Ma You, I thought, probably no one knows more completely than I do.”
Yi Sa smiled slightly, thinking, that was not necessarily true.
At least, neither Old Ma nor Suocai knew Ma You’s current whereabouts, but she knew.
Moreover, based on what Zong Hang said, combined with what happened the night Ding Xi was attacked, she had a rough idea in her mind about what exactly happened between Ma You and Scarface’s group.
Yi Sa turned to look at Ding Xi, and jerked her head toward the door, indicating to go outside to talk.