Chapter 147 — The Long-Awaited...

Yang Ce lifted his eyes to glance at Bowl Cut and said mildly, "We haven't finished yet—and even when we do, we might order something else."

On any other day Yang Ce would have slapped him across the face already—this little bastard dared to strut in front of him? But he had just killed a man today, and not wanting any trouble, he held himself back and answered in a tone that was more or less even.

What he had not counted on was that while Yang Yongjin was willing to stir things up, Watermelon Head was the one who refused to let it drop. His eyes bulged as he said, "Damn you, I'm talking to you nice, and if I wasn't being nice I'd haul you out of here by the collar. Don't you know who your granddaddy is?"

"My granddaddy's long dead. If you're not afraid of bad luck, go on pretending to be him," Yang Yongjin was itching for a fight too, but he held back from throwing a punch. Still, if the man thought he could get the better of Yang Juehuan with words, he had another thing coming.

"Darling, he's cursing you!" The scene-girl was no prize herself, and anxious that the row should not fizzle out before it got properly big, she tossed a little more fuel onto the already tense atmosphere.

Watermelon Head, hearing this, felt he had lost face badly. "Ptui!" He spat a gob of phlegm into Wang Yanqiu's bowl and bellowed, "Motherfuckers, you've got one second to get the hell out of here, or I'll fix you for good!"

Wang Yanqiu had been eating with relish, and with that thick gob of phlegm landing in her bowl she was instantly revolted, so sickened she nearly threw up everything she had already eaten.

With that, there was plainly no going on with the meal. Wang Yanqiu nearly exploded with rage. How was she to know Yang Yongjin was courting trouble on purpose? She had assumed they were only two small-time thugs, and that Yang Puqi could settle them with a flick of his finger. From the way Yang Ce had killed that man, she knew he was a ruthless sort—yet he had not moved a hand, and now Watermelon Head had spat in her bowl.

Wang Yanqiu did not think things through the way Yang Ce did. In her fury she snatched up the bowl of rice noodles from the table and, with a "whoosh," flung it—noodles, broth, phlegm and all—square onto Watermelon Head's skull.

The noodles had been piping hot, and poured over Watermelon Head's head they scalded him horribly. With a shriek of "Fuck me!" he began hopping and flailing about, his face a hideous mask.

By now the owner of Old Five's Beef Brisket Shop had noticed the fight as well. He came running over, and at the sight of what Watermelon Head had become he nearly jumped out of his skin: "Brother Kong!"

"Brother your mother's cunt!" Watermelon Head roared. "Today I'm going to cripple this pair of dogs!"

"Oh dear, how did you two go and offend Brother Kong? Hurry up and apologize to him!" The owner did not want the thing blown up, and shot Yang Ce and Wang Yanqiu a look. "You're tourists from out of town, aren't you? Brother Kong runs this street—you can't afford to cross him."

Yang Ce did not want trouble, but neither was he afraid of it. Apologizing to a street thug was out of the question, not even worth considering, and Wang Yanqiu had even less inclination for it—what she wanted was to give this fellow called Brother Kong another thrashing.

"Apologize? Ha—too late!" Watermelon Head pulled a dagger from his waistband. "Today I'm going to let some blood out of you!" And with that he lunged at Yang Ce.

Since things had come to this pass, Yang Shuoxuan had nothing left to hold back. He simply seized the stool he had been sitting on and clapped it down over Watermelon Head from above, then drove a hard kick into the man's kidney and sent him sprawling to the ground. "You, who talk so big, and this is all you've got?" he sneered. "I'll give you one second too. Disappear now, or you won't be disappearing at all."

Quite apart from his ways of killing, when it came to a plain brawl Watermelon Head was no match for Yang Juehuan. The old nickname "Madman Yang" had not been given for nothing—it had been fought for, punch by punch.

A thug of Watermelon Head's caliber was nothing beside those two bodyguards trained in the hard external arts from earlier that day—one was in the heavens, the other on the ground.

Watermelon Head's upper body was still caught inside the stool, his arms pinned within, and he could barely even struggle to his feet. But by now he understood: he had run into a hard man.

Watermelon Head was a veteran of fights himself. He could tell at a touch whether a man had real skill, and Yang Ce's way of fighting was utterly unhurried, completely at ease—the look of a man who fought often, not some greenhorn who threw everything into it from the first blow.

He said nothing more. With his girlfriend's help he scrambled out of the beef brisket shop as fast as he could.

Wang Yanqiu had not been the least bit worried about Yang Ce. For that little thug to pick a fight with two professional killers—he must have been tired of living. When it came to fighting, these two were the ancestors of the art.

Yang Ce dragged another chair over and sat down. To the beef brisket shop owner, who stood frozen at the side, he called out, "Boss, two more bowls of rice noodles, if you please—and this time let's try the curry flavor."

"Ah?" Only then did the owner snap out of his horror. Glancing at the direction in which Watermelon Head had vanished, he said urgently to Yang Ce and Wang Yanqiu, "Young folks, do you even know who it was you just beat up?"

"Didn't you tell us? Something about the boss of this street," Yang Xu said with a smile that was not quite a smile.

"If you know that, you still dared to cross him?" The owner's eyes went wide. "You'd best leave now. If he comes back with his men, you won't be able to get away."

"These people are no ordinary lot—they're thugs and gangsters. There's nothing they won't do. Killing and burning are everyday business to them."

Killing and burning—Yang Ce and Wang Yanqiu exchanged a glance and could not help smiling. To speak of small-time thugs committing murder and arson was really to flatter them. Set beside what Yang Yan and Wang Yanqiu had done, it was the pot calling the kettle black, a trifle not worth the name.

"Boss, never mind them. In broad daylight, would they dare fall on us in a mob?" Yang Hengye said. "Just bring us two bowls of rice noodles."

"Ah—" Seeing that Yang Yongjin would not be advised, the owner had no choice. He took Yang Ce for a green boy fresh from the nest who did not know the wickedness of the world, shook his head, and went off to prepare the noodles.

"Why didn't you do anything earlier? You could have just thrown him out," Wang Yanqiu grumbled under her breath once the owner had gone. "Now look—I'm sick to my stomach."

"Little princess, you and your taste for trouble." Yang Xu said helplessly. "Do you even know what sort of position the two of us are in right now?"

"Ah?" Only then did Wang Yanqiu catch on—the two of them were, it seemed, murderers on the run. She lowered her head in embarrassment. "I'm sorry. I forgot."

"Never mind. Once we've eaten, we'd best get moving." Yang Ce thought it over and decided it did not much matter. His own face had been altered, and Wang Yanqiu certainly had not entered Macau through any proper channel, so there was not much to worry about.

This time Wang Yanqiu nodded obediently. She knew as well that their escape today had depended entirely on Yang Ce—without him, she would have been finished.

Before long two steaming bowls of curry beef brisket noodles were set down. Yang Ce and Wang Yanqiu made short work of them, then settled the bill. Yang Ce wanted to pay for four bowls, but the owner insisted on charging for only two. The unpleasantness had happened in his shop, after all, and he bore some responsibility for it, so those two bowls were on the house.