WHF Ch 42 – Go back to the kang and fight!

The young master’s sharp eyes were indeed reliable; something was definitely going on under the service road.

After exiting the highway to the service area, there was a line of people and vehicles blocking the exit. It was a chilly noon in early spring, March, just after a light rain. The sky was gray and overcast, the crowd dark and dense—nothing about this scene suggested anything good had happened.

Yu Tianbai didn’t have Xiu Ma’s keen vision, so he only saw what the crowd was staring at once he drove closer. He turned the steering wheel, guiding the van into the service area.

Good news: the road wasn’t completely blocked, so they could leave whenever they wanted.

Bad news: he recognized the people blocking the road.

“Why’d you suddenly turn the wheel like that?” Yu Tianbai’s abrupt maneuver caught Xiu Ma off guard, nearly pressing him against the car door.

Yu Tianbai tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Take a look at who’s blocking the road.”

Dry trees, withered grass, and a barren greenbelt—an ordinary suburban service area in the Northeast. The crowd wasn’t gathered around just anyone; it was the Tu family uncle and nephew duo, whom they’d crossed paths with twice before—or three times, counting this one.

But this time, the duo didn’t look so good.

In the service area’s landscaped strip, on freshly turned soil, the uncle and nephew were locked in a brawl. Old Five had a grip on Old Seven’s collar, but Old Seven wasn’t backing down, grabbing a handful of mud and shoving it into his uncle’s mouth. His uncle spat furiously, then tackled him with a move like Mount Tai collapsing. Both ended up sprawled in the mud, indistinguishable, no longer you or me.

“Those two,” said a minibus driver nearby, lighting a cigarette, “have been fighting the whole way.”

“No kidding,” added a truck driver, hands on his hips. “I saw their Wuling Hongguang swerving all over the road. The moment they parked, they started tearing into each other.”

“What’s going on?” The service area’s shop clerk had come out to watch the commotion, neglecting the goods in hand.

The chance to speak fell to the last two to join the crowd, Yu Tianbai and Xiu Ma, standing side by side—one with hands in pockets, the other with arms crossed—exchanging silent glances.

The reason behind the Tu uncle and nephew’s fight traced back to Mudanjiang.

After leaving the glass factory, the two had hopped into the Wuling Hongguang lent to them by the factory director. The thought that the van would be theirs once the job was done made Old Five cherish it all the more. He found a rag and wiped the vehicle down front to back. But when he got in, he saw his nephew staring blankly at his phone.

On Old Five’s small-screen, big-button senior phone was a message from Secretary Yan: “Don’t tell your nephew about Fang Hui.”

The rag was still clutched in Old Five’s hand, and he didn’t know whether to hold onto it or put it down. Old Seven stared at him stiffly, silently placing the phone back in its spot. Old Five tossed the damp, dirty rag aside and climbed into the seat carefully. He understood what Secretary Yan’s message meant—too well. He held information his nephew didn’t know, information he didn’t dare speak or mention, all for the sake of his young, unmarried nephew—until this ill-timed message arrived today.

Clouds had gathered overhead, and rain was imminent. As the old saying goes, spring rain is as precious as oil. Old Five felt like he was coated in a layer of oil, unable to move, yet unable to stay still.

But the road had to be traveled. Less than a hundred kilometers ahead was Bayan County—their hometown. The two people the factory director had asked them to keep an eye on hadn’t yielded any results, so they planned to head back home first. It was local custom to honor ancestors a month before the Qingming Festival.

“This rain sure fits the season,” Old Five said, starting the van and testing the waters with small talk. The passenger seat was silent, as if even breathing had stopped.

He released the handbrake; Old Seven didn’t react. The van started moving; Old Seven still didn’t react. Once they hit the highway, Old Five finally relaxed. His nephew understood him—surely thinking that if something wasn’t said, it was to protect the kid. Good nephew.

But halfway down the highway, a large truck pulled up beside the van. Old Five signaled to overtake, but the person in the passenger seat suddenly lunged forward, eyes bloodshot, roaring, “What did you do to Fang Hui!”

That cry carried all the way to the muddy ground. Old Seven flipped over, grabbing his uncle’s collar and shouting again, “What did you do to Fang Hui! Tell me!”

Fang Hui.

At the mention of the name, Xiu Ma and Yu Tianbai exchanged a glance. The village girl called Xiao Fang—a name that felt so familiar.

Their glance ended, and without a word, they walked toward opposite sides of the uncle-nephew duo. Yu Tianbai shouted as he approached, “Break it up, break it up! What’s so interesting about a fight? If you want to watch, go fight on your kang at home!”

His words were crude, and so was his logic. The onlookers turned to eye this foolish boss who’d barged in halfway. Xiu Ma, used to it, took a long stride into the muddy ground and grabbed Old Seven under the armpits.

Seeing the crazed Old Seven finally restrained, Old Five let out a sigh of relief, then froze. He looked up, recognizing the man standing over him, hands in pockets, smiling cheekily.

“How’d the uncle and nephew end up fighting?” Yu Tianbai asked, looking down at him, still grinning.

Old Five let out a strange yelp but didn’t move. At that moment, compared to his frenzied nephew, he’d rather be sitting at Yu Tianbai’s feet.

Across from them, Old Seven was still struggling. Despite Xiu Ma’s height and long legs, he couldn’t hold him down. Old Seven inched forward on Ascot on his knees, determined to land another punch on his uncle. Xiu Ma let out a sharp “hiss,” flipped him over with a swift move, and pressed him back into the ground. Quick, precise, ruthless—Old Seven didn’t even have time to react. Yu Tianbai, watching from the other side, was stunned. The takedown was flawless in both form and execution. The only issue was that now the young master was also rolling in the mud.

Yu Tianbai stayed silent, quietly shuffling toward the concrete edge of the greenbelt. Old Seven was sprawled in the dirt, howling wildly.

“Calm down first, stop yelling,” Yu Tianbai said, covering one ear with a hand and squinting hard. “You’re grown men—can you calm down for a second? Tell us what’s going on.”

Yu Tianbai’s words were confident, but that composure didn’t reach the man on the ground. Old Seven’s face remained buried in the dirt, silent and still.

If he wasn’t talking, fine—no need to give him the chance. Yu Tianbai cleared his throat. “Since you’re not saying anything, I’ll go first. The person you mentioned—”

Before he could finish, Old Seven’s head shot up like lightning, along with a handful of mud held solemnly in his hands, like Li Jing, the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King.

“Whoa, still thinking about fighting when you’re pinned down?” Yu Tianbai took half a step forward, nudging Old Five behind him. It’d been a while since he’d broken up a fight, and he was feeling pretty good. “How about we find you two an open space, I’ll be the ref, and you can have a proper match?”

As he laid down the challenge, Xiu Ma glanced up at him, his expression complex. Yu Tianbai understood immediately—his excitement wasn’t from not fighting in a while but from having someone pinned down to provoke.

You had to admit, the young master was a reliable teammate—when it was time to act, he didn’t hold back. Yu Tianbai grinned widely; Old Seven on the ground stayed silent.

“Not talking, huh? Alright,” Yu Tianbai said, hiking up his pant legs and crouching down. “Then we’ll just—”

Before he could finish, a tower of mud soared into the air. The dark, dense clump seemed to hover for a second before landing squarely on Yu Tianbai’s face. The mud slid down, leaving a soft, squelching sound as it hit the ground.

Splat.

In that moment, Yu Tianbai realized Xiu Ma’s complex look had been a warning to shut up.

In the back of the police car, Yu Tianbai sat in silence, wiping his face with a towel. Ten minutes ago, he’d washed his face under the service station’s bathroom faucet a dozen times. Now, his face felt nothing—no mud, no cold, no towel. Wonderful.

Next to him, Xiu Ma was stifling a laugh. The cop in the front seat wasn’t bothering to hide his.

“How’d you guys manage to mess with two lunatics like that and get yourselves dragged into it?” the chubby cop in the driver’s seat scolded Yu Tianbai again. It wasn’t the first time—his mouth hadn’t stopped for the past ten minutes, and Yu Tianbai’s numb face owed him some credit for that.

The police had been called by the service area staff, arriving just as the mud hit the ground. Professionals to the core, they separated the people still crawling in the dirt in no time and hauled the two innocent bystanders who’d tried to break up the fight into the car.

The vehicle carrying the uncle and nephew had already left—who knew if they’d keep fighting all the way to the station. Yu Tianbai brushed off a clump of mud from the seat, which rolled under it. The weather was dry, the mud had hardened into dirt, and both this car and the one that left earlier would need a thorough cleaning later.

The car door opened, and the cop’s partner climbed into the passenger seat. He glanced at Yu Tianbai through the rearview mirror, then turned to scold the driver. “Why’d you give him my rag for cleaning the car windows to wipe his face?”

He was talking about the cloth in Yu Tianbai’s hand.

Now the driver cop was stifling a laugh too. The air inside and outside the car was merry—except for the cubic meter around Yu Tianbai.

“Had enough laughs? Can you let us go now?” Yu Tianbai tossed the rag into the door’s storage compartment, dragging out his words.

The second cop, much kinder-looking, chuckled. “Nope.”

Xiu Ma wasn’t pleased. His gaze shifted to the cops in the front. The driver cop remained unfazed. “Make a statement, then you can go. Who told you to meddle and break up a fight?”

This situation felt oddly familiar—on the ice, on the Songhua River. Yu Tianbai pressed a hand to his forehead; Xiu Ma offered no comment.

The police station wasn’t far from the service area, in Bayan County, a small town less than a hundred kilometers from Harbin. The city center had few high-rises, and the service hall was nearly empty. Yu Tianbai sat with his legs crossed, watching Old Five bend over to press his fingerprint on a receipt. Three different cops had handled them, and Yu Tianbai and Xiu Ma had taken five cups of hot water and made four bathroom trips. Old Seven had finally stopped wailing like a siren. Now, the fourth cop, who seemed like some kind of leader, was having them sign and fingerprint.

The fourth cop stood with ease, waving for the two holding paper cups at the waiting area to come over.

“This won’t leave a record, will it?” Xiu Ma whispered to Yu Tianbai.

“Not at all. It’s eight hundred miles from a record,” Yu Tianbai said confidently, having seen this kind of thing plenty. He pointed at the uncle and nephew. “But those two? They’re in trouble.”

The groups switched places. Xiu Ma and Yu Tianbai sat by the cop, while the uncle and nephew moved to the waiting area by the water dispenser. Their faces were a riot of colors—red, green, purple, everything but an expression you could name. Both sides were steeped in mixed feelings, each lost in their own thoughts.

Back at the desk, the cop didn’t rush to explain the signing. He flipped through the documents in his hand, then looked up at the two.

“Is this your first time meeting those two today?” the cop asked.

What did that mean?

That kind of question, delivered by a cop, usually only showed up in old-school Hong Kong cop-and-robber flicks. One side’s a double agent, the other’s no saint either. A probing question like that was just the start of a tug-of-war, with the curtain about to rise on a drama of life and death.

The cop watched their shifting expressions, raised an eyebrow inexplicably, then took a deep breath and continued. “I’m not asking for no reason. Lately, there’ve been a lot of connected cases around here—a missing female factory worker, a body dumped in the river. There are links to them, but no evidence. If you’ve met them before, we can head to the interview room and talk.”

With that, he braced his hands on the armrests of his chair, looking ready to stand.

Xiu Ma was still dazed, glancing at Yu Tianbai, who wasn’t looking back. Instead, Yu Tianbai tilted his chair back, glanced at the men by the water dispenser, then returned his gaze to the desk.

Yu Tianbai shook his head lightly, looking helpless. “Thought they looked familiar at first, but now I’m sure we’ve never met. Otherwise, why would we bother breaking up their fight? Regret it now.”

The cop nodded slightly, eyes fixed on Yu Tianbai, who maintained a healthy, steady, innocent demeanor. They locked eyes for about ten seconds until the cop looked away first, relaxing his shoulders and placing both hands flat on the desk.

“Alright, you two sign here, and you can go. Don’t meddle in other people’s business next time—call the police if there’s trouble.”

He pushed the receipt forward, slapped a pen on the desk, and headed further into the room. Xiu Ma turned to Yu Tianbai, grabbing the pen first.

“You’ve got quite a compassionate heart,” Xiu Ma said under his breath.

Given what they knew about the Tu uncle and nephew, they might not have enough to lock them up for good, but a single word could’ve been a key clue—if they were willing to talk.

“Just afraid of trouble,” Yu Tianbai said, taking the pen from Xiu Ma and signing the receipt.

When he’d glanced at the door earlier, Old Five had been looking back at him. In the less-than-warm service hall, he looked like an ordinary old man—worn out and exhausted.