Madman!

Chapter 51: Animal

After finishing his meal, Chen Wujun strolled leisurely back, planning to grab another bite at Ah Yue's place.

When he reached the ground floor, he spotted Shu Fen doing her homework by the doorway.

It was already January. Daytime temperatures barely crept above twenty degrees Celsius, and now it was only twelve or thirteen. Yet Shu Fen wore nothing but a thin, threadbare shirt that looked like it had seen far better days.

"Why are you doing homework outside when it's this cold?" Chen Wujun asked offhandedly.

Shu Fen glanced back toward the room inside, then lowered her head and continued writing.

Chen Wujun assumed there might be a client inside, but then a shrill voice erupted from the room: "Are you even human anymore? You can't bring home a single cent, and every day you take the money men pay to screw me and gamble it away. Now you want to sell your own daughter too?"

"You animal!"

"I was just trying to make big money... I'm doing this for her own good..." A man's voice responded, weak and unconvincing. Then came the sounds of a scuffle.

Something heavy toppled over.

"You crazy bitch! I'm trying to give you all a better life!" The man's voice kept rising.Chen Wujun was debating whether to go in and check on things. After all, he did know Shu Fen's family.

Before he could step inside, a man came storming out, face twisted with rage.

He spotted Shu Fen and opened his mouth to say something, but before a single word left his lips, Chen Wujun stepped forward and backhanded him across the face.

Crack!

The man spun from the blow, tumbling to the ground in a daze. He clutched his cheek and looked up, only then recognizing Chen Wujun.

He remembered Chen Wujun well enough, and held a certain fear of him.

"This is family business. It's got nothing to do with you."

He scrambled to his feet and bolted.

Chen Wujun's eyes followed him with an unkind glint, weighing whether to chase him down and give him another beating.

"Don't hit Daddy..." Shu Fen whispered.

"If he gets angry, he'll come home and hit Mommy and me!"

Chen Wujun shoved his hands in his pockets and swayed off down the street.

He figured Shu Fen would probably be better off without that degenerate gambler of a father.

Then his thoughts drifted to his own older brother.

'Degenerate gamblers all deserve to die.'

Ironic as it was that Chen Wujun operated two gambling dens himself, the people he despised most were degenerate gamblers.

Those degenerate gamblers had long since stopped being human.

At least he'd had someone break his brother's legs, keeping him from going out to gamble again.

Before long, Chen Wujun tossed the matter aside entirely.

The following evening, when Chen Wujun came home for dinner, he found several burly young men smoking outside Shu Fen's door. Shu Fen herself was huddled to one side clutching her schoolbag, her eyes hollow and vacant, her face streaked with grime—black smudges and pale patches.

She looked like an abandoned kitten. Pitiful at a single glance.

A few gossipy women from the upper floors lingered nearby, whispering among themselves.

"Where are you from?" Chen Wujun spread his hand open, then closed it into a fist.

The hand sign of Hetu.

"Our boss is Elephant. This is our turf. Who do you run with?" One of the footsoldiers walked over.

"I live here! What are you all doing?" Chen Wujun demanded. His first thought was that what he'd overheard yesterday had come true—Shu Fen's degenerate gambler father had sold her off.

"There's a degenerate gambler in this unit. Beat his wife to death. We're here to handle it!" the young man explained.

"Woman died last night. Nobody found out until a john showed up this afternoon. That's when they tracked down the gambler."

Chen Wujun froze for a moment, his gaze drifting to Shu Fen huddled in the corner.

"What's the plan for handling it?"

"If anyone from the wife's family steps up, it's a life for a life—string him up on the rooftop. Nobody steps up, then he just gets a beating." The young man offered Chen Wujun a cigarette.

Chen Wujun was silent for a beat.

He understood exactly what the man meant.

When things like this happened in the Walled City, the police were never called. The two major gangs maintained order.

If the wife's family had any clout and made a fuss, the gangs would hang the killer—a life for a life, debts repaid in kind.

But what kind of clout would a prostitute's family have?

So the end result would just be a beating for Shu Fen's degenerate gambler father.

"My name's Chen. Chen Wujun. My boss is Shark Jiu." Chen Wujun lit the cigarette, took a drag, and exhaled a plume of smoke.

"That name sounds familiar." The young man frowned in confusion at first, then it hit him—the person everyone had been talking about lately. Realization dawned on his face:

"So it's you."

"You know this family?"

"Yeah, I know them. Hand the man over to me. I'll have my people beat him to death. What's the plan for the kid?" Chen Wujun decided the degenerate gambler's fate as casually as if ordering lunch.

The Walled City was only so big, packed dense with people, and ordinary residents maintained close neighborly bonds—except when it came to lending money.

He hadn't wanted to meddle in someone else's family affairs, but the situation now was clear: leaving that degenerate gambler alive meant Shu Fen could be sold off any day.

Better to beat the gambler to death and send Shu Fen to a welfare home.

"We'll check if any relatives are willing to take her in, or if the neighbors will chip in a little each month to raise her. If neither works out, the gang covers the cost."

Chen Wujun nodded, pulled out his phone, and called Ah Fei. "Bring a few guys to Building 42 East Ming, on Guangming Street."

He exchanged a few more words with the young man, then walked to the mouth of a nearby alley to wait.

A little over ten minutes later, Ah Fei arrived with several men, weapons in hand.

"Jun-gor, what's going on? Who pissed you off?"

"Some degenerate gambler beat his wife to death. I know the family. Drag him up to the rooftop and hang him." Chen Wujun leaned against the wall as he spoke.

"Oh, that's all? I thought we were going to chop someone up!" Ah Fei's tension melted away.

This sort of thing happened every month in the Walled City. It was far from the first time Ah Fei and his boys had dealt with it.

The only difference was that this time it wasn't on Shark Jiu's territory.

"But Jun-gor, this is Elephant's turf. It's not ours to manage."

"I already cleared it with Elephant's people. Nobody's stepping up for that degenerate gambler anyway. They'll give us that much face."

"This guy's an animal. His wife sold her body to earn money and that still wasn't enough—he wanted to sell his own daughter to fund his gambling." Chen Wujun said flatly.

"That bad? Yeah, that's not even human! I've seen plenty of scum in my day, but this level of scum is rare! Don't worry, Jun-gor, leave this to me!" Ah Fei thumped his chest immediately.

"Nothing disgusts me more than scum like that."

"Handle it then. I'm going home to eat." Chen Wujun gave his instructions, pointed out the location, and sauntered home.

When he stepped through the door, the table was already set and waiting for him.

Huang Meizhen sighed between bites at the dinner table:

"Shu Fen's had a hard life. Things were already bad for her, but at least she had a mother looking after her. Now even her mother's gone!"

"That degenerate gambler father of hers never gave a damn whether she lived or died."

"If you feel so sorry for her, just adopt her then," Chen Wujun cut in from the side.

"Adopt her with what? We can barely feed the three of you as it is!" Chen Hanliang glared at Chen Wujun, then muttered:

"If she had no father, each family could chip in a few dozen dollars a month and that'd keep her fed. But she's still got a father. It's not anyone else's place to step in."

'She's about to not have a father,' Chen Wujun thought.

The thought had barely finished forming when a commotion erupted outside. Faint voices seeped through the walls:

"Let me go! I didn't mean to! I have a daughter—I'm the only father she's got!"

"That sounds like Shu Fen's gambler father. Let me go see." Huang Meizhen immediately set down her chopsticks and cracked the door open to peek outside.

She saw Shu Fen's gambler father, face stricken with terror, being dragged upstairs by several men. He begged and pleaded the entire way up.

A moment later she eased the door shut and whispered with the gossip-hungry expression of someone with breaking news: "They're dragging Shu Fen's gambler father upstairs."

"Good! Break his hands while they're at it!" Chen Hanliang declared, voice raised deliberately—clearly intended for Chen Wuhong to hear in his room.

"Breaking his hands won't help anything. Shu Fen would still have to take care of that gambler father of hers." Huang Meizhen sat back down at the table and resumed sighing and lamenting Shu Fen's fate.

Such a tiny child, saddled with a father like that, who hadn't enjoyed a single day of happiness in her life.

Shu Fen's mother had lived a bitter life too.

...

After dinner, Chen Wujun headed downstairs to find several gossipy women craning their necks at the base of the building, buzzing about what would happen to Shu Fen's father.

Shu Fen was still huddled in the same spot, her eyes empty and dead.

Elephant's footsoldiers had already left. Since someone else had taken over, they were happy to have one less thing on their plate.

Chen Wujun thought for a moment, then turned and headed to Longjin Street, ducking into a convenience shop.

Two boxes sat on the counter, each bristling with lollipops.

Chen Wujun scanned them. There were only two varieties: one was an off-brand type made in some backroom workshop in the Walled City, half a dollar each.

The other was Chupa Chups, one dollar apiece.

He'd swiped them from other kids at school before. They tasted pretty good.

"Five Chupa Chups."

He stuffed the lollipops into his pocket and headed back, stopping in front of Shu Fen.

Shu Fen was only a second-grader, after all. Right now she looked like she'd lost her mind entirely—frozen in a blank stupor, completely unaware that someone was standing before her.

Chen Wujun patted her on the head. "From now on, you can only rely on yourself. If you don't want people pushing you around, you need to be tougher."

He pressed the lollipops into her hands.

Only then did Shu Fen lift her gaze to look at him with those vacant eyes. Then the tears came, streaming silently down her face.

Chen Wujun moved off to one side. Before long, Ah Fei and his crew dragged Shu Fen's father back down. The gossipy women got one look at the state of him and recoiled in shock.

"Is he dead?"

"A life for a life. That's the Walled City's law!" Ah Fei announced loudly.

"Besides, this man was an animal—he was going to sell his own daughter to feed his gambling habit!"

"Death's too good for him!"

Chen Wujun watched from the sideline for a moment, then turned and left. He headed back to Ah Yue's place for dinner, though his belly was already full of fire now, and what he really wanted to devour was Ah Yue herself.